Slumgullion by the sea

Mo's Restaurant
Florence, OR

I'd planned to have a big bowl of clam chowder for lunch. But why just have chowder when you can dine upon slumgullion?

It sounds like something from "Jabberwocky," but results from a little Web-surfing indicate that slumgullion is any sort of thin, hodgepodge stew, usually with beef.

Mo's menu helpfully adds that their version of slumgullion is "chowder with shrimp." I tasted clams and some smokiness (bacon?), and the bowl was topped with a small mountain of plump shrimp. Little slicks of melted butter converged around the edge of the bowl. All it needed was some crumbled saltine crackers. Filling and satisfying.

Sandboarding

Heceta Head Beach, on the southern Oregon coast

Leisurely lunch

35th Street Bistro
Seattle, WA

After wandering the Fremont neighborhood, I turned in at the 35th Street Bistro for a late lunch. The room is high-ceilinged and airy, with abundant light from skylights and a wall of windows at the front. I sat in the bar and checked out the interesting variety of people at the other tables. Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves.


If there's a salad with beets and goat cheese on the menu, I'm ordering it, and this one was both pretty and tasty. There was orange vinaigrette and a surprisingly small amount of butter lettuce, but it all worked out well.

I wanted to try a wine from the Willamette Valley, and the agreeable bartender offered me a sample, but it was too sweet. On his recommendation, I drank a soave that was well-matched to my pasta entree.



I chose the penne because I couldn't quite imagine a roasted-tomato sauce with English peas and grilled onions. It was an unusual flavor combination. It was also more than I could eat, and as I put up my fork in defeat, I was still trying to decide if it was a dish I would order again.

I wished I had a dining companion to badger into ordering some of the other entrees that excited my curiosity. Maybe I should have tried pan-seared halibut with pea vines. Or Wooly Pigs pork loin with wilted chard and eggplant caponata. And how long has it been since I've had a real croque monsieur?

I like a restaurant that leaves you wanting more.

Refueling

"Coffee in Motion" served as breakfast one day when we wanted to get a quick start on the road outside of Portland, Oregon.

The red double-decker bus with "The London Eatery" painted in faded letters on the side used to serve corn dogs and fish 'n' chips.

The side of the bus says "seating on the upper level," but alas, this is no longer the case. It's strictly a drive-through.

We pulled up to the window for a "shot in the dark" -- a shot of espresso in a cup of brewed coffee - and a latte.

The menu also listed a six-shot, 44-ounce espresso drink. I can't even imagine that.

Why are there so few drive-up espresso stands on the East Coast, with its plethora of Starbucks outlets? The pace seems much slower here in the Northwest, both on the road and in the way people talk. Drive-throughs would seem to belong on the other coast, where everyone is much more frantic.

Looking at Fremont

I spent my last morning in Seattle exploring Fremont, an interesting neighborhood near downtown. Fremont was once a center of the counterculture -- street signs say things like "Set your watch back five minutes," or "Throw away your watch" -- and now it's somewhat gentrified. But there's still some things you wouldn't expect.

Two Lolas

Lola Bistro
2058 E. 4th St.
Cleveland

Lola
2000 4th Ave
Seattle

I'm going to cheat a little here because I've been meaning to write about both of these restaurants for quite a while. The only thing they have in common is their name: Lola. Well, that and a commitment to using the best local ingredients to re-create classic food traditions.

Lola Bistro, in Cleveland, is headed by Michael Symon, the newest Iron Chef on the Food Network. Symon describes his cooking style as "farm-driven American." Every dish we tried had an interesting quirk, something that I expect you wouldn't find anywhere else.

B and I shared one of Lola's signature dishes, beef cheek pierogie with wild mushrooms and horseradish creme fraiche. Pierogies are Slavic comfort food, dumplings commonly stuffed with cheese, potato or meat. It was funny to see one served in a white-tablecloth restaurant with all the trappings of an haute hors d'oeuvre. But this pierogi -- larger than most; they're not usually served in the singular -- was luscious and rich, not at all out of place.

I 'd never tasted roasted fennel soup, and it wasn't especially appealing when it arrived at the table, rather muddy brown. But the flavor was earthy and comforting, and before I knew it the bowl was empty.

I love hanger steak -- at least in part because it's usually served with fries -- so it was no stretch to try Lola's. But "hanger steak with pickle sauce"? Again, my expectations were confounded. There was no green on the plate at all, but with every bite of meat came a trace of dill and sweet relish. Maybe "pickle juice" would be more appropriate, but no one reading the menu wants to think of a steak suspended in pickle brine.

The "Lola fries" were flagrantly addictive. B seemed alarmed at the way I was devouring them and kept moving the metal cup full of frites out of my reach -- as if he could stop me, ha ha!

B also enjoyed his duck entree, which included roasted breast, confit and pickled cherries. But I kept going back to that hanger steak.

Our dessert was obviously created by someone with a good sense of humor - not surprising, if you've ever heard chef Symon's manic laugh.

This is the "6 AM Special:" French toast served with maple-bacon ice cream and caramelized apples. Yes, bacon ice cream. Believe it or not, it was delicious. Don't you pour syrup on your bacon when you're having it with pancakes? Sure you do.



Chef Tom Douglas' Lola, in Seattle, is a re-imagining of Mediterranean cuisine, highlighting the foods of the Northwest US. So there are kebabs served with rice and pita, but the skewers hold grilled squid or sockeye salmon or Pacific prawns, in addition to lamb or beef.

When the server told me that the day's soup was puree of roasted fennel with fig, I had to try it. I had a hard time imagining those flavors together, but it was a revelation.

The puree looked like a latte in the cup, with a wonderful spicy licorice aroma and a swirl of pureed figs thoughout. A few roasted chopped hazelnuts on top added crunch, and the surprise at the bottom was a whole fig, soft and chewy. With most dishes, you stop really tasting them about halfway through, but this soup had me pondering the mix of flavors through the last spoonful.

The generous portion of squid kebab was tender and very spicy, seasoned with crushed chilis and chermoula. I needed the cooling yogurt sauce that was served on the side. Cucumber-tomato salad often seems like an afterthought on the plate, but this one was nicely minty, with just enough mild dry feta cheese in the mix.


I thought I wasn't hungry enough for another course, but I couldn't resist an apricot crostada with ginger- marigold ice cream. The crostada tasted like the world's best PopTart -- perhaps the pastry chef would be insulted by the comparison, but I mean it as praise! -- tender pastry, crisp on top, lightly sugared, and filled with perfectly tart fruit.

The ice cream stumped me. It wasn't gingery at all. It tasted like... some kind of seed? I questioned my server, and she confirmed that I had been given the wrong flavor. It was sunflower-seed ice cream; tasty, but it didn't do a thing for the dessert. She promptly brought another scoop of ice cream, and that was amazing with the crostada. The sharpness of fresh ginger was mellowed by the herbal notes from the marigold.

It's probably good that I was dining alone for this meal. I was so fascinated by the food that I doubt I could have made much conversation.

Inside Pike Place Market

Pike Place Market is a Seattle landmark and a very large place filled with strange and yummy things, so B and I signed on with a Savor Seattle walking tour, to learn and munch.













Stephanie, our charming guide, wore a microphone that broadcast directly to tour members' earphones. This allowed her to speak to all of us in a normal tone of voice, and we could hear her clearly over the market bustle, without disrupting the scene.

We tasted smoked salmon at Pike Place Fish, ducking the famous flying fish as they hurtled by. The folks here claim that the fish-throwing started simply as a way of getting business done faster, but I think they just wanna throw fish.

We also visited the 90-year-old Market Spice. We sampled their famous orange spice tea and a seasoning mix dubbed Healthy Heart (it's salt-free), which worked quite well as a savory appetizer or a sweet when mixed into cream cheese and served on a cracker.

We could smell the deliciousness emanating from the Russian bakery Piroshky, Piroshky long before it came in sight. The cute fish-shaped piroshky stuffed with smoked salmon was good, but the more traditional potato-onion-cheese piroshky was my favorite. I wished I could try one of the dessert varieties, but all those little bites were already adding up.





At Beecher's Handmade Cheese, workers were mixing and salting the curds in this huge vat as we peered from the sidewalk through the large window. "Twenty-four hours ago, this was grass," Stephanie announced as she passed around tastes of Beecher's Flagship cheddar.

The award- winning New England clam chowder at Pike Place Chowder was tasty, but to my surprise, I preferred the vegan "Lime in 'd Coconut" chowder. I licked the last of it from the inside of the shot-glass-sized plastic cup and made plans to come back for lunch. There are at least half a dozen chowder varieties on the menu each day -- smoked-salmon chowder, hmm -- and the indecisive can get a sampler of four.

Our last bite was this perfectly sized triple coconut cream pie from Etta's Seafood, the original restaurant opened by Tom Douglas, one of Seattle's top chefs. It would have been a good place to have lunch, after our tour broke up, but who could eat at this point?

Advice for the day

A bit more descriptive than your average traffic sign.

NE 45th St near Roosevelt Way NE
University District, Seattle

Serious pizza

Serious Pie
316 Virginia
Seattle, WA

This restaurant is one of five headed by Seattle chef Tom Douglas, who is known for using local ingredients in creative ways. He's published three cookbooks and won the James Beard Award for Best Northwest chef in 1994.

Serious Pie is Douglas' newest restaurant, and it's all about the 'za. The first thing you see when you walk in is a large wood-burning oven, sheathed in stone. The dining room itself is rather cave-like, all brown and black. The seats are high leather stools, comfortable enough once you get up into them, but a little disconcerting for children, drunks and height-challenged folk.

While we waited for our pies, we shared plates of duck salumi and bruschetta. There were two bruschetta toppings; the combination of cherries and crescenza (a soft cow's-milk cheese) was good, but I preferred the pairing of figs and lardo (pig fat cured with rosemary and other spices).
The pizzas had an excellent crust, like a very good bread. The special of the day involved beet greens and copacola (a cured meat made from pork), with a translucent crust of cheese.

We also tried a pie with roasted morels, aurgula pesto and cacio (cheese). The morels and pesto were both very strong flavors; even B thought they were overwhelming. I was glad to share; a whole pie would have been too much. C said, "It looks like a landscape."

The next day, when I asked E and C what they wanted for dinner, they said, "Serious Pie!"

Photos from the road

Somewhere off I-90, near La Crosse, WI



















Badlands National Park, SD


















Kadoka, SD



















Custer State Park, SD
(Yes, that guy is on a bike.)














Yellowstone National Park


























Going-to-the-Sun Road
Glacier National Park, MT

Summer bounty

The University District farmers' market is Seattle's oldest and largest "farmers-only" market, comprising some 50 farmers and operating year-round.

The market was busy at the opening hour, and I enjoyed walking slowly through the displays. I tried tayberries, which I'd never seen before. They look like elongated raspberries, with the soft core of a blackberry. (They're a cross between the two, I learned.) The large green globes are gooseberries.

It was just a quick visit, but I managed to sample two other foods that were new to me: albacore tuna jerky (really tasty, better than beef!) and chocolate chip sharp cheddar cheese (better than it sounds, just a hint of chocolate).

In the middle of the market, I saw a sign with a picture of the Eiffel Tower, the single word "crepes," and an arrow, so I hurried right over. Anita, the owner of the stand, was still setting up, and we had to wait while she darted into the market to purchase a few ingredients, but the result was definitely worth the wait.

I had ham, spinach, egg and cheese on a buckwheat crepe. The egg was soft-cooked from the heat of the griddle, the yolk still runny, which normally would not have pleased me, but the taste was so fresh that I didn't care.

Anita mentioned that the egg came from a pullet, a hen less than a year old. A bit of Web-surfing finds some suggestions that pullet eggs are more flavorful, and that they tend to have a greater proportion of white to yolk, but I couldn't really verify any of this.

Best antidote

Zao Noodle Bar
University Village, Seattle

It was a grey, chilly morning in Seattle, and my nose was still stuffy from a week-long cold. The chili beef ramen at Zao Noodle Bar turned out to be the perfect antidote.

I sat at the bar and watched the chefs toss noodles in flaming wok-sized skillets, a few feet away. The broth was warming, and I could feel the spicy heat in my mouth.

The grilled beef strips were a little overdone, but the broth revived them. The vegetables, on the other hand -- shredded carrots, cabbage and bean sprouts -- were just right, not too raw and not overcooked.

Later that afternoon, my sense of taste suddenly returned, as if somewhere a switch had been thrown.

Foodie farm heaven

The Herbfarm
Woodlinville, WA

If your idea of a good restaurant experience is to look at the menu, choose your food, eat it, and go home, then don't go to The Herbfarm.

But if it would interest you to know that the morels on your plate arrived unexpectedly at the kitchen door just hours ago, and you would enjoy a leisurely nine-course meal created from locally grown, seasonal foods, then The Herbfarm might be a little bit of heaven.

This is dining as theater: The staff line up for their introductions (after your first course is served, thankfully) in front of a red velvet curtain, which then opens with a flourish to display the pristine kitchen. It would be a little silly if not for the sincere enthusiasm of the players, beginning with the server who offered us a choice of aromatic herbs to scent our sparkling wine.

The restaurant exudes warmth and coziness: a realistic gas fireplace, lush Victorian decor, and homey mismatched table settings. Everything is for sale, although the pitch didn't really detract from our evening.

I was tempted to curl up in the comfortable armchair in the ladies' room and peruse the stack of interesting children's books placed there. ("Babar's Yoga for Elephants," "When Pigasso Met Mootisse.")

We opted for a communal table and met two other couples, one of whom was also driving cross-country and had visited some of the same parks and monuments as we did. One diner at our table enjoyed herbal cocktails instead of the six paired wines served to the rest of us; they looked lovely, and I wished I could ask for a taste.

Here's our menu for the evening, with pictures of most courses:

Dungeness crab chawan mushi with shiso and smoked steelhead caviar, tomato gel with marjoram creme fraiche and crispy fennel, rillette of rabbit glazed with apricot and lemon thyme gastrique




Kodiak Island weathervane scallops with salt-herring brandade, Oregon white truffles, Herbfarm bunching onions, and basil tips





Slowly roasted sockeye salmon with sea asparagus, bok choy, and foie gras emulsion







Crisped breast of guinea fowl with duckling agnolotti, caraway thyme, and Oregon blonde morels







Anderson Ranch pastured lamb, lavender-crusted loin and 24-hour-braised breast, sweet peas and turnips on gratin of roasted garlic and potato





House-smoked Berkshire pork neck with Mt. Townsend Creamery Trailhead Tomme, roasted asparagus, and sweet and sour blueberries





"Flavors from Mr. McGregor's garden:" chamomile and lemon verbena panna cotta with carrot sorbet

"Comforts for a July evening:" Wenatchee peach and strawberry layer cake with apricot-anise hyssop sauce and Bing cherry ice cream





Spearmint shortbread, lavender palmiers, bay-caramel milk chocolate truffles, angelica-chartreuse chocolate truffles, and white chocolate knackerli.