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muckefuckMy meals during the trip ran a considerable gamut. Quite a few were fairly simple preparations where I happened to be staying--a vegan patty at my in-laws', a simple stirfry at Chez LeRouge in Seattle. Probably the most interesting of these was the pasta dinner my first full day in Seattle because it was my virgin foray into making ravioli. (I had the easy work, rolling out the dough; Gaffer did everything else.) My Eastside hosts served me dungeoness crab, but it was simply boiled with butter for dipping.
On the other end, the fanciest restaurant I went to was a recently-opened izakaya in Capitol Hill called Junkichi Robata Izakaya and the best dish I had there was--believe it or not--the ochazuke. I was surprised this was even on the menu since it's basically Japanese comfort food; in its simplest form, it's hot green tea poured over cold rice. I learned about it from Liza Dalby's book where it's the preferred snack for geisha returning from a night out.
Naturally this was a fancier version with dashi, puréed umeboshi, and other tidbits. The staff were charmed that I ordered it and chuffed that I didn't go for the version with salmon (which the hostess admitted was basically a concession to those who wanted perceived value for money). I couldn't imagine that being as good, because the combination of salty, sour, and savoury in this version was perfect.
Everything else there was up to par. Even though I wasn't particularly hungry, having eaten a ridiculously late lunch, I felt I had to order some bluefin since it was the special of the day and something cooked on the robata, since it was in the name, so I got a bland slice of naga-imo which I didn't finish. And since it was Washington, where I first learned I liked grilled oyster, I ordered one of those, too, which surprised me by taking longer than all the rest of my order.
In general, the expediting seemed a bit chaotic. I had a ringside seat, being seated at the bar separating the dining room from the almost equally large open kitchen, and witnessed more than one mix-up. I'm not sure how much was due to language issues, since most of the kitchen staff were native Japanese-speakers and most of the service team wasn't. My server, however, had lived on Shikoku for seven years and even worked in an izakaya there. He and the hostess seemed to take a special interest in me since I was dining alone and making unusual choices.
The other fancy place I went to was an upscale Greek eatery downtown called Lola. When I mentioned it to a local friend, he asked me, "Is that a Tom Douglas restaurant?" Douglas is apparently a local celebrity chef on a par with Rick Bayless or Wolfgang Puck even though I don't recall him at all from my Foodtv-watching days. The highlight of our meal there was the spreads, particularly the kopanisti-pistachio. It was my first time having kopanisti cheese, which tasted surprisingly like a bleu. The fava-skordalia was the only other one the three of us came close to finishing. The skewers I got were tasty but fairly ungenerous, so it was good that the "griddled pita" was so plentiful and satisfying.
But the best of my meals in the city was the sendoff dinner for my Seattle hosts, who had to be back in Vancouver by sunset on Sunday. We went to Zouave, a modest neighbourhood Italian place with a really personable chef and an outstanding patio. We were the last table to leave, so he came out and chatted with us and even brought out an extra dessert for us to share. Most of the entrées had meat or red sauce or both, so I wagered everything on the capellini with shrimp and scallops and it paid off handsomely.
A close runner-up, once you likewise factor in setting and company, was lunch withclintswan in Port Townsend, a charming resort village across the Sound. He was sceptical of the sandwich place I suggested after quickly perusing Yelp reviews, but the French bistro he recommended had just closed when we arrived. We found a shady seat on a corner of the wraparound porch of The Courtyard Café and I had the best cup of chowder in recent memory. The proprietor was similarly outgoing, gladly coming out to check up on us and chat.
My worst meal was in Crescent City, another little resort town, this time on the California coast. It caters to a considerably less bourgeois stratum of vacationers, confounding my expectations of a tourist town. My nephew-in-law's wife insisted we go to Harbor View Grotto Restaurant and it was perfectly awful. For starters, the menu online was completely unlike the menu they gave us, meaning that were effectively nothing the three strict vegans in the party could eat. (They were perfectly nice about it and got sandwich-makings from Safeway afterwards.)
I got the strangest-tasting Arnold Palmer of my life. As I was paying, one of the servers revealed that someone had put coffee into the iced tea pitcher. I mentioned this to our server and she just replied, "Oh really?" without even suggesting she remove it from the bill. I was already in her bad graces for covering all four tabs myself (because separate cheques is so-hard when you're only covering four tables at the height of dinnertime). The fish was frozen and mushy; I can't even remember the sides. The "harbor view" is really a view of the parking lot and no one could figure out what the "grotto" was doing there, since we were on the upper storey.
The next day, we breakfasted at the restaurant we should have dined at, The Good Harvest Café. I'd never seen "snapper and eggs" on a menu before and the fish was everything my filet the night before should have been but wasn't. Sides of bacon were ridiculously generous and tea was not your crap-ass Lipton. We ended up spending so much time in town that we stopped at Perlita's--"the other Mexican restaurant"--on the way out and it was way better than I had any right to expect. It could easily have held its own in Pilsen or North Clark.
Other treats included: Seattle-style teriyaki chicken, which I had at a modest shack in Westlake run by an elderly Korean couple; teriyaki jerky from Taylor Meat in Cave Junction, which was essentially meat candy made from the tenderest preserved beef imaginable; "fish katsu" at a student joint called Just Burgers near UW, which is such a brilliant twist on a crispy fish filet sandwich I don't know why more people don't do it; and a comfort-food lunch of black rice congee from the food court at Uwajimaya, where I also tasted my first musubi (albeit with tofu rather than spam).
On the other end, the fanciest restaurant I went to was a recently-opened izakaya in Capitol Hill called Junkichi Robata Izakaya and the best dish I had there was--believe it or not--the ochazuke. I was surprised this was even on the menu since it's basically Japanese comfort food; in its simplest form, it's hot green tea poured over cold rice. I learned about it from Liza Dalby's book where it's the preferred snack for geisha returning from a night out.
Naturally this was a fancier version with dashi, puréed umeboshi, and other tidbits. The staff were charmed that I ordered it and chuffed that I didn't go for the version with salmon (which the hostess admitted was basically a concession to those who wanted perceived value for money). I couldn't imagine that being as good, because the combination of salty, sour, and savoury in this version was perfect.
Everything else there was up to par. Even though I wasn't particularly hungry, having eaten a ridiculously late lunch, I felt I had to order some bluefin since it was the special of the day and something cooked on the robata, since it was in the name, so I got a bland slice of naga-imo which I didn't finish. And since it was Washington, where I first learned I liked grilled oyster, I ordered one of those, too, which surprised me by taking longer than all the rest of my order.
In general, the expediting seemed a bit chaotic. I had a ringside seat, being seated at the bar separating the dining room from the almost equally large open kitchen, and witnessed more than one mix-up. I'm not sure how much was due to language issues, since most of the kitchen staff were native Japanese-speakers and most of the service team wasn't. My server, however, had lived on Shikoku for seven years and even worked in an izakaya there. He and the hostess seemed to take a special interest in me since I was dining alone and making unusual choices.
The other fancy place I went to was an upscale Greek eatery downtown called Lola. When I mentioned it to a local friend, he asked me, "Is that a Tom Douglas restaurant?" Douglas is apparently a local celebrity chef on a par with Rick Bayless or Wolfgang Puck even though I don't recall him at all from my Foodtv-watching days. The highlight of our meal there was the spreads, particularly the kopanisti-pistachio. It was my first time having kopanisti cheese, which tasted surprisingly like a bleu. The fava-skordalia was the only other one the three of us came close to finishing. The skewers I got were tasty but fairly ungenerous, so it was good that the "griddled pita" was so plentiful and satisfying.
But the best of my meals in the city was the sendoff dinner for my Seattle hosts, who had to be back in Vancouver by sunset on Sunday. We went to Zouave, a modest neighbourhood Italian place with a really personable chef and an outstanding patio. We were the last table to leave, so he came out and chatted with us and even brought out an extra dessert for us to share. Most of the entrées had meat or red sauce or both, so I wagered everything on the capellini with shrimp and scallops and it paid off handsomely.
A close runner-up, once you likewise factor in setting and company, was lunch with
clintswan in Port Townsend, a charming resort village across the Sound. He was sceptical of the sandwich place I suggested after quickly perusing Yelp reviews, but the French bistro he recommended had just closed when we arrived. We found a shady seat on a corner of the wraparound porch of The Courtyard Café and I had the best cup of chowder in recent memory. The proprietor was similarly outgoing, gladly coming out to check up on us and chat.My worst meal was in Crescent City, another little resort town, this time on the California coast. It caters to a considerably less bourgeois stratum of vacationers, confounding my expectations of a tourist town. My nephew-in-law's wife insisted we go to Harbor View Grotto Restaurant and it was perfectly awful. For starters, the menu online was completely unlike the menu they gave us, meaning that were effectively nothing the three strict vegans in the party could eat. (They were perfectly nice about it and got sandwich-makings from Safeway afterwards.)
I got the strangest-tasting Arnold Palmer of my life. As I was paying, one of the servers revealed that someone had put coffee into the iced tea pitcher. I mentioned this to our server and she just replied, "Oh really?" without even suggesting she remove it from the bill. I was already in her bad graces for covering all four tabs myself (because separate cheques is so-hard when you're only covering four tables at the height of dinnertime). The fish was frozen and mushy; I can't even remember the sides. The "harbor view" is really a view of the parking lot and no one could figure out what the "grotto" was doing there, since we were on the upper storey.
The next day, we breakfasted at the restaurant we should have dined at, The Good Harvest Café. I'd never seen "snapper and eggs" on a menu before and the fish was everything my filet the night before should have been but wasn't. Sides of bacon were ridiculously generous and tea was not your crap-ass Lipton. We ended up spending so much time in town that we stopped at Perlita's--"the other Mexican restaurant"--on the way out and it was way better than I had any right to expect. It could easily have held its own in Pilsen or North Clark.
Other treats included: Seattle-style teriyaki chicken, which I had at a modest shack in Westlake run by an elderly Korean couple; teriyaki jerky from Taylor Meat in Cave Junction, which was essentially meat candy made from the tenderest preserved beef imaginable; "fish katsu" at a student joint called Just Burgers near UW, which is such a brilliant twist on a crispy fish filet sandwich I don't know why more people don't do it; and a comfort-food lunch of black rice congee from the food court at Uwajimaya, where I also tasted my first musubi (albeit with tofu rather than spam).