Restaurant Review #14

We hit a few restaurants on our recent trip to Washington and here are some that were good enough to share with you:

Tidbits: In the Capitol Hill district, Seattle. Oh this was gooood. It turns out that my niece's new studio is right next door to this place and when she stopped in one day she realized that the owner is an old co-worker of hers who always wanted to open his own place. Well he did, and we were very happy to enjoy an incredible brunch one Saturday morning. I had this really decadent cheese/pasta dish with a warmed marinara - it was rich and oh so good. I don't see it on their menu so I can't give any more details. Sweet potatoes fries and mashed potato cakes were served with the other's entres along with some homemade plum jam that tasted a lot like apple butter. Gluten-free menu options are available!

Dim Sum - at House of Hong in Seattle
Yummy dim sum dishes that you could eat all day if you had the time. The only down side was having to weave through the traffic going to Qwest Field before a football game. The coconut bao was awesome. I used to really enjoy going into San Fransisco to China Town with my chinese college buds and having them introduce me to the wonders of dim sum. I loved the variety of the little dishes and the sampling of food that came by on the carts wheeled around by little chinese ladies. The atmosphere for dim sum is also very festive and its a place where you gather with friends or family to enjoy conversation and potstickers, shao mao, pork buns, dumplings, ribs, char sui, phoenix talons (if you dare), and the sweets like egg custard and steamed black bean balls.

Elysian Brewing Company - Capitol Hill Seattle
I don't remember eating, but I do remember the great beers: Night Owl Pumpkin Ale and Perseus Porter. This was the same day we went for dim sum and I had a caesar salad for dinner to go with my beers. They had other beers on their list that we tried but I've forgotten what they all were.

After dinner we went to my niece's dance performance at the Century Ballroom. The compnay, D9, put on quite a show. There were only two pieces but they were both very detailed and lasted about 25 minutes. I can't believe that the dancers were able to keep it up for that long. I'm pretty sure that this performance was better then anything I saw her do while she was in college. It was really good to see her dancing again. I even won a silent auction for a really nice assortment of massage therapy gifts from Waking Life: sea salts, hot/cold bag (for those ailing muscles and joints) a really cool body wrap blanket, and a dvd called, "Understanding Qigong: The Human Qi Circulatory System." Friday is usually movie night so I'll have to let you know how it is!

Auga Verde - University District, Seattle
This place is always busy so it was good that we got there for a late lunch. You order at the front and then the food is delivered. It doesn't take very long and its worth the wait. I had the Boniato, yams sautéed with mild chiles and onions with cotija cheese and creamy avocado sauce. The steak tacos were also very good. You may want to order some beans and rice on the side. This cafe is on the waterway and is a fun place to go to watch the boats go by. You can also rent kayaks here.

Olive Garden - Bellingham
Ok - I admit that we may have planned destinations on road trips based on going to Olive Garden. We have often found an Olive Garden and then googled for a nearby hotel so that we could walk. This may often also align to go with bull riding events, but not always. Not that the food is that great, but it isn't that bad: its always predictable and we have our favorite dishes. We almost always get the artichoke-spinach dip while we're waiting in the bar for a table. We love the bottom-less salad and the breadsticks. Tim almost always gets the Tour of Italy (lasagna, chicken parmigiana and creamy fettuccine alfredo) and I usually get some type of pasta with seafood (clams or shrimp) or sometimes I get the cheese ravioli.

Pickles Deli on Whidbey Island near Clinton (and near Kate's Cottage!)
These sandwiches were so delicious, a deli that featured Boar's Head Meats. We got three different sandwiches and split them between 5 of us. I don't even know what kind they were but all of them were full of flavor. I especially liked the one with horseradish, black olives, and maybe pastrami (?). Maybe it was just being at the beach, walking in the sand with my graying hair blowing in the gentle ocean breeze, but YUM!

Palmer's Restaurant - LaConner
LaConner is an interesting little town. We stayed at the Channel Lodge and enjoyed the in-room fireplace. We stayed here last Christmas break and had a nice quiet stay. You can walk to everything in LaConner so its a nice place to park the car and explore the galleries, yarn store, restaurants, shopping, and harbor. I haven't been yet, but there's a Quilt Museum. This might be a good spot for a "Sister's Retreat!"

We had dinner at a nice waterfront restaurant, called Palmer's, which featured a seafood-theme menu. Tim had the f-n-c and I had Coquilles St Jacques, I mean, how can you go wrong with a mornay sauce and guyere cheese. Luckily we always do lots of walking when we're traveling or otherwise we have to buy new pants! We were starved at 5:30 so we thought we'd take our changes for an early dinner. We didn't see anyone else in the restaurant so we were a little hesitant to enter but went in anyway, remember, we were starved! Our waiter was from south america and he was hard to understand but he was very responsive. As the hour grew later, more people came in for dinner and I'm sure they too enjoyed a good meal.

Charlie's - Anacortes
This was probably the 2nd best find of the trip (tidbits being first :)) Located right across the street from the Ship Harbor Inn, we enjoyed a really nice dinner complete with complimentary shrimp cocktail. I had the Clam Fettuchini which was busting with clams. Normally you may get 12-14 but this was loaded with over 2 dozen nice-sized clams. Tim decided on prime rib. Now being from Fairbanks and being used to the Turtle Club for your prime rib fix, we're always hesitant to order prime outside of the boundaries of Fox. But being gone from Fairbanks for awhile, Tim thought he'd take a chance. His tastebuds might be in a deprived state but he actually thought the prime rib was pretty close to the turtle, unbelievable, I know. He even shared with me and I have to say that it was pretty good.

We had driven around quite a bit this day and finally settled in at the Ship Harbor Inn which is one of the last stops on the road before you get to the Anacortes Ferry. The compound was made up of small cottages. We splurged and got the deluxe queen for a special rate of $79. What a deal. We had a nice cottage with a separate bedroom, kitchen, and a nice little front porch that looked out over a meadow and a filtered view of the water and ferry terminal. If we ever find ourselves in the area before we'll stop here again.

On Rice Thai Bistro - Fairhaven, Bellingham
Maybe it was the bristo part or maybe it was the live baby grand piano playing of pop songs that made the food unappetizing. Won't be going back here.

Roasted Pumpkin Tostada

We sent a friend a birthday card last month that had this recipe for Roasted Pumpkin Tostadas and I've been waiting to try it out. I've never cooked with a pumpkin before and I wasn't sure if the pumpkins you would normally use for carving would be any good. I've read where you need to use a pie or sweet pumpkin but wasn't sure I'd find one here in town.

So I went ahead and got a small pumpkin and thought we should try it anyway. I carved a small portion of the pumpkin into the short strips like the recipe called for.



The pumpkin didn't get golden brown in the oven, like it suggested, but I was afraid to let it go any longer – I didn't want the pumpkin to be all mushy. Next time I will sprinkle the pumpkin with some chili powder before roasting.

I also didn't roast the red onion with the pumpkin because it didn't make sense that the onion and pumpkin would take the same amount of time in the oven to roast. I thought the onions would end up as burned threads. I decided to grill them in a frying pan.

We also decided not to fry the tortillas. We're trying to be a little healthier so Tim grilled the tortillas in a dry cast iron skillet until browned and then we put them on a pan, added the pumpkin and the onions and popped them in a 350° oven for maybe 15 minutes. We couldn't wait any longer and w/o the extra oil I doubted that they were get more crisp so we ate them as they were.

They ended up folding them over like you would a taco. The pumpkin isn't as sweet as yams or sweet potato and had a really nice flavor. They were really good with a dollop of sour cream on them! And there's leftovers!

I'd like to try pumpkin with a chipolte flavor. I think I'll have to try this out with the rest of the pumpkin. Happy Halloween!

Whidbey Island Getaway

We recently returned from a quick trip to Washington state where we sent time in Seattle, Whidbey Island, Skagit Valley, and Bellingham. We had a great time visiting with family and friends. The weather was pretty decent - maybe 10 degrees warmer then Juneau and the autumn season was just starting to change. Lots of beautiful fall foliage covered the hills and trees along the streets. Lots of fall migrants, of the bird kind, were sighted along the farm fields and along the coast. We saw a lot of red tailed hawks, harriers, eagles, and smaller raptures.

We enjoyed a couple night's stay at Kate's Cottage at Maxwelton Beach on Whidbey Island. This vacation cottage is located at the lower end of the island, closer to the Clinton end. We picked up the ferry at Mukileo. What's cool about this route is that you get to drive through the huge Boeing plant at Paine field. There are several huge hangars and sometimes you see the planes outside. Right now one of the unions in on strike so all we saw where a bunch of people walking around with signs.

The ferry is only about a 20-minute trip and we didn't even get out of the car, especially since we had just a nice spot. It runs just about every 1/2 hour so getting on it isn't too much of a problem. I image in the summer and holidays it does get backed up.


The cottage was very cute - and just the right size for our group. There is an extra building that has two more bedrooms that we could have rented if we needed it. What more could you ask for: hot tub set at 101, fireplace with well-stocked wood pile, gas grill, nice kitchen with everything that we needed for the meals we planned.


and the view from the tub! The beach is just over the rise. You could walk in either direction for quite a ways (longer than we wanted to walk) and there was interesting shells, driftwood, and other beach stuff that was fun to look at.


Rachelle, Zac, Bella, Tisha, Marty, and Heidi enjoying the sunshine!


Zac and Bella enjoying the beachscape.


and Tim added to the mix (and apparently blocking the sun for me!)


So the funny thing about this cottage is that while reading the log book we realized that one of our friends, Genevieve had spend time here to celebrate her birthday last year!

bootie model

Here's Bella, modeling the marty booties. You may ask, where's marty? We had to keep him away because he kept trying to steal the little booties right off the little girl's feet.

Felted Booties

When I first saw this pattern for the cute little doggie booties I immediately knew I had to get some 100% wool yarn and make them up for little bella.



The inspiration came from my little great-nephew Sanman, affectionately know as Marty.

More fall Thoughts

This was taken in some alpine area on the trail to Mount Jumbo. We didn't make it very far up the trail–we ran out of time and it wasn't our goal. But it we enjoyed the fresh brisk air.



and unlike some of the larger burls we've seen down at sea level along the rivers - here's a mini burl. What do you think Dennis? Tea cups?


And talk about tiny - Shari sent this link http://www.bugknits.com/ I just can't get over how tiny the stitches are!

Where's underwear man?

I recently had a conversation with a niece about our past introduction to Underwear Man and wondered if he had graduated from UAF yet? I'm thinking maybe he has and has moved down here to take on new adventures.

Auke Lake Trail

There's an organization called Trail Mix down here that looks for grants and private monies to fund trail building. They do a lot of planning in the winter and a lot of trail building in the summer using a mixture of volunteers and paid labor. They just held a series of townhall meetings to talk about the future of the Treadwell Ditch and what type of improvements they should think about making to the trail system. As expected there is a lot of controversy about multi-use and allowing motor vehicles or even bikes on trails.

One of their current projects it updating a trail around part of Auke Lake by the UAS campus. I just learned that Auke in Tlingit means little body of water so by saying Lake and Auke together is a little redundant, but I digress.

Here's one of the two new floating bridges that Trail Mix installed to go across some of the swampy areas of the lake. These are really nice - I hope when the lake freezes over they aren't damaged. I'm sure that Trail Mix did their research and have anticipated the climate.



After our trip to Gustavus, Tim was pretty jealous that Susan had her own Mule. He was thinking about hijacking this little backhoe.


And this shows some of the work that goes into setting the trail. There were loads and loads of rock on top of fabric on semi-level ground. As we walked along the trail to the end we saw mini dump trucks and rollers on small tracks to help with the project.

Weekend Hiking - Dan Moller Trail

We went on several longish hikes this weekend. The weather was pretty decent and the temps were in the 50s. We did have rain almost everyday but we just put extra layers on and went out anyway. We've been wanting to do the Dan Moller Trail on Douglas (GoogleMap - look for Dan Moller ) for quite awhile now–its one in the book that we haven't attempted. In the mid 30s-50s people used to drag their skis up here and go downhill skiing. Here's a pretty good history of this area. I'm sure that the meadows were great for that. At one time there was even a tow rope set up and maybe a snow cat that took people up there. This is all before Eaglecrest was built.

So this trailhead is up Cordova Street in the Blueberry Hills area on Douglas Island. It climbs about 1600 feet. Most of the trail is on boardwalk. If the boardwalk is wet, going uphill on boardwalk isn't so bad but coming back down is kinda scary because its so slick. I made a note in my trail book to take the yak traks even in the summer! I fell a couple of times - right on my butt! Luckily it was on the way back down and I wasn't carrying the chips - they would have been crushed.

Some boardwalk:



and more boardwalk:


and more steps and boardwalk. If you want a stairmaster workout don't spend money on a gym pass - do this trail. Both Tim and I had to switch leading feet several times going up these stairs or one leg's calf would have been in agony!


The trail is about 3 miles to the cabin. The cabin had a monitor stove and a woodstove but you would have to bring your own wood. Sorry I didn't get any of the pictures of the cabin or the view from the deck – we were pretty tired from the stairclimbing and then when we started back down it started to pour and I didn't want to get my camera out.

The alpine foliage is starting to turn fall colors. One thing about fall down here is that at sea level, besides the majority of trees being coniferous and without leaves, the change in season is not very dramatic. Lots of people, as well as the City and Borough of Juneau, have planted japanese maples and other trees that have lovely fall colored leaves, but most of the natural landscape is pretty green and dark brown. Any alders or cottonwood around will start to show their yellow leaves but then it rains so it all turns brown and washed out. So the alpine areas is where the real color change happens.