Wright Eats

It turns out that, yes, it is entirely possible to spend just 24 hours in the San Juan Islands and feel like you’ve had a grand getaway.  At least it felt like this to us, parents with some unexpected vacation time and a babysitter for one night.  We considered a whirlwind food trip to Portland, or maybe a nearby overnight to Whidbey.  But we realized that a journey to Orcas Island takes as much time as a trip to Portland, and spending an hour on one of the most beautiful ferry rides in Washington state is infinitely better than time spent in I-5 traffic.

A fire hydrant in the town of Eastsound, on Orcas Island.

Complete the picture with an evening at Lisa Nakamura’s new restaurant Allium.  Add sunshine blue skies, while Seattleites are complaining about rain ruining their Independence Day weekend (the San Juan Islands are in the rain shadow, after all), and you have the perfect start to a summer holiday weekend.

Islanders were saddened when their beloved Christina’s Restaurant closed in March after 30 years in business.  Lisa, then chef de cuisine at The Herbfarm, heard that the space was available.  She had already been dreaming of opening her own place, so two months later, Allium was born.

Daisies; the stairs leading up to the restaurant; Allium’s entrance next to Fishing Bay, in the center of Eastsound.

Bubbly, in celebration of this mom and dad’s first night away since baby was born!; the bar at Allium; the daily gnocchi, with Lopez Island beef tongue.

We walked in and settled ourselves into our reserved table overlooking Fishing Bay.  While we hadn’t had a bite of food yet, it took us about ten seconds looking at the menu to decide that there was no way we were leaving the island without a return visit to Allium the next day.  With just a day on the island, this would mean lunch before heading out on the ferry home.  Luckily, since the gnocchi is a mainstay on the menu (with an ever-changing daily preparation), I could set aside my gnocchi craving for the moment and focus on the rest of the menu.

We instead shared a refreshing fresh pea soup livened with flecks of dill, along with Oregon blue cheese brioche “pizza” with bacon and mango relish.  I wanted about five plates more of that brioche, but really, it was just the right size (as states Keller’s law of diminishing returns).

Did I mention the bread basket?  The flaky, warm buttery biscuits and herbed focaccia alone are worth the trip to the island.  Since the bread stands nicely on its own, the accompanying caramelized onion marmalade almost seems superfluous.  Until you taste it.  I was tempted to eat this marmalade straight out my spoon.  Ok, I might have done just that.

Coq au vin leg and roasted breast with smashed potato cakes; blue cheese brioche “pizza” with bacon and mango relish; inside the entrance to Allium.

Our entrees arrived next.  Let me preface this by saying I don’t typically order chicken at restaurants.  First, chicken is one of the easiest things to prepare at home, so why order in a restaurant?  Isn’t it a bit boring?  And second, I’m simply not a fan of chicken.  But I found myself cajoling Eric (who ironically loves chicken) into ordering it since our trusted friends Michael and Robin told us it’s amazing.

Indeed.  The coq au vin leg is served with a roasted breast, alongside smashed potato cakes and spring onions.  Remember what I said about not liking chicken much?  Can I just say this is hands down the best chicken I have ever eaten?

Our waitress had swayed us toward the Alaskan halibut in red curry cream when we couldn’t decide between that and the salmon (with morel cream!).  Her advice was well taken.  Not only was the fish perfectly moist and delicious with the curry, but the accompanying ginger risotto cakes were stellar.  I loved the crispy bits of rice on the edges, and the ginger complemented the curry nicely.

Beef goulash with sage spaetzel; the cheery dining room; a peek into the kitchen, with Lisa hard at work.

Flowers along the road; twice-cooked pork shoulder sandwich with pickled onions; a white picket fence in Eastsound.

I hesitated when I heard the dessert special was shortcake.  Still remembering the amazing shortcake I’d eaten the week before, I was craving shortcake.  But I knew it couldn’t match up to Rowley’s version.  It was a close second in my book, however, with first-of-season local strawberries and a thick strawberry sauce underneath, intensifying their flavor.

Chocolate puddin’ cake with Bourbon sauce was gooey and rich, like a brownie with pudding inside, a perfect dessert for chocolate lovers.

Angel food cake with a Nootka rose-strawberry Bavarian cream; Chocolate puddin’ cake with Bourbon sauce; outside on the deck.

Did you think we were done?  For that night, yes, but we were already thinking about lunch as we left.

The deck is a lovely place to sit for lunch.  Overlooking the water, with a cool breeze, there are sunny seats for those who want to soak it in, and plenty of umbrella shade for the others.  Bartender Paula suggested we start with her daily special cocktail, a Mojito made with Malibu rum and well-paired with the sunshine.

We first split the gnocchi with Lopez Island beef tongue and truffle oil.  Soft pillows of potato and a rich sauce?  This was exactly as my taste-craving imagined.  The plate went back to the kitchen without a speck of sauce after we’d sopped it up with the house made focaccia.

The twice-cooked pork shoulder sandwich came with pickled onions.  While I loved the tenderness of the meat, I wished that the onions weren’t together on one side of the sandwich, since they were not well-integrated with each bite of pork.  A small quibble, though.

A field of foxglove; Mango cheesecake semifreddo with orange Lilikoi; sunshine on Allium’s deck.

Ok, yes, it would be frowned on in Italy if you ordered gnocchi for your first course and pasta for your second course, but if I had it my way, I would order pasta for every course.  The spaetzel was done just the way it should be, with crunchy bits here and there and a toothsome chew to the noodle.  Lisa’s time at The Herbfarm was evident in this and a number of other dishes, with sage in the spaetzel and hints of dill in the beef goulash.

Being undecided on dessert, we ordered two.  You know, in the name of research and all.  Um.  Anyway…  The angel food cake featured the same local strawberries that graced the shortcake and came with a molded Bavarian cream made of Nootka rose petals picked down the street.  That and the mango cheesecake semifreddo disappeared all too quickly as we traded bites, scheming already about our next trip to Orcas.

A sweet ending in celebration of July 4th arrived with the check.

Allium
310 Main St, Eastsound, WA
(360) 376-4904

The shops and restaurants at the new triangular shaped Melrose Market in Capitol Hill have been slowly opening their doors.  It started with two retail neighbors in Ballard opening new locations inside this Melrose Avenue marketplace in the Pike-Pine corridor.  Sonic Boom Records and Velouria clothing boutique (which happens to be one of my favorite clothing stores) both set up shop in December.

Then a flower shop, Marigold & Mint, opened amid the construction at the beginning of April.  And by the end of the same month, two new neighbors appeared: the independent butcher Rain Shadow Meats along with cheesemongress Sheri Lavigne’s new shop Calf & Kid.

Rain Shadow Meats is owned by Russ Flint, recently sous chef of the Boat Street Cafe.  His counter has already become a popular destination for cooks looking to buy high quality local meats from a small neighborhood butcher.  In addition to cuts of meat, Flint sells cured and other prepared meats.  We picked up some lamb crépinette, bratwurst, and country-style pork terrine on our visit this weekend.  Flint has other products still curing, including pancetta and salami.

Across the way inside is Calf & Kid, where Lavigne is selling artisan cheeses that are near impossible to find elsewhere in Seattle.  Hers is only the second place where I’ve spotted the elusive Kurtwood Farms Dinah, a cheese named after one cow on Vashon Island.  And burrata, a luxuriously creamy mozzarella popular now on restaurant menus, is hard to come by retail.  We were torn between this and burricotta, a similar cheese made with ricotta instead of cream inside.  Fortunately, Lavigne plans to have both available regularly.

Marigold & Mint adds a spot of color to the construction still going on inside Melrose Market.  Katherine Anderson offers unusual organic flowers and edibles.  She has been selling her flowers wholesale from her Snoqualmie Valley farm for a couple years now, and this is her first retail location.

Local meat, artisan cheese, organic edible plants, music, and clothing – these alone should be enough to entice anyone serious about food and shopping to hightail their way over to Capitol Hill.  But then there are the restaurants, the first of which opened last week.  Matthew Dillon closed his tiny Eastlake strip-mall restaurant, Sitka & Spruce, at the end of last year, and finally reopened it in a stunning new space inside the Melrose Market.

Huge windows topped by gauzy curtains look onto a quiet (for Capitol Hill) dogwood-flowering street, and flood natural light inside during the evening service.  High stools look out and tables sit behind, but the focus of the restaurant is on the huge communal table in the center of it all.  The table merges seamlessly into the kitchen prep and plating station and ends at a beautiful wood oven, where Matt and his staff are focused on getting plates out, which they did with speed on Saturday.

We were prepared for a leisurely pace more akin to the Eastlake location, but our meal went quickly.  We ordered from the paper menus in front of us – sadly, the handwritten chalkboard menu is gone.  The highlight for us was the beautiful Juan de Fuca spot prawns with couscous, slow cooked greens, and crispy nan e lavash.  Hearth-cooked chicken was an alternate option that we simply wouldn’t have had room for after the other dishes we ordered: potted King salmon, preserved smelt, hand-sliced Serrano with pickled porcini, and garlicky poached chorizo.

Although the new location accommodates 15 more than the original 24 seat restaurant, the wait for a table is still long, at least during these initial days.  Fortunately, they now take reservations, something I always lamented wasn’t possible at the previous location.

While the restaurant is only open for dinner at the moment, this will change on June 15, when they switch to a breakfast, lunch, and dinner schedule seven days a week.  Brunch will be offered on weekends, and if it’s anything like The Corson Building’s brunch or the brunch I miss dearly from Eastlake, I suspect I will be driving over to Capitol Hill a little more often on weekend mornings.

More is planned for the Melrose Market.  Homegrown Sandwiches is opening their second location there this month; the Homegrown sign is already anchored outside.  And rumor has it that the owners of Ballard’s Bastille will eventually open a Mexican restaurant there.

Is Melrose Market our city’s answer to San Francisco’s Ferry Building?  Although the shops are fewer, the merchants here have equal emphasis on quality product at the small scale.  This little corner of Seattle is certain to become a destination for both locals and tourists alike.

Sitka & Spruce
1531 Melrose Avenue E #6, Seattle
(206) 324-0662

Twice this week, publications came out featuring copies of our photos.  On Wednesday, the Seattle P-I printed a photo of our friend Lauren Adler, owner of the new Chocolopolis shop on Queen Anne hill.  And then tonight, we picked up a copy of the August Travel + Leisure magazine, which has our photos of Licorous on page 30.  Last year, we did a photo shoot at Licorous for their new web site that I was designing, and this month T+L chose two of them for their Q&A about which restaurants a reader should try when they visit Seattle (Licorous and Txori was their answer).  Pretty exciting!

Hey everyone.  I just redirected WrightEats.com to our blog in case it’s easier to remember.  Then again, I’m sure you’re already subscribed to our RSS feed, so you don’t need no stinkin’ shortcut, right?

So, Eric and I were having brunch with Sam and his wife a few weeks ago at Smith, and they wanted to know how do we know so much about what’s happening around Seattle with food and restaurants?  And how come we don’t have a way to send this info out to our friends around Seattle?  After mulling over it and some more encouragement from Anne and DoRon, we’ve created this blog.

Eric and I will post here with info about our favorite restaurants, food gossip, and any upcoming events that sound interesting to us.  Let us know if there’s something in particular you’d like to see, or if you have a tip that you think we should post, send it our way.