Bellingham is an easy stop-off for I-5 travelers, and it’s not hard to find great bites to eat. On our three recent visits, we wandered downtown for lunch, where you’ll find all of the places mentioned here.

Rocket doughnuts; artwork inside Pel’Meni Russian Dumplings; a mint espresso doughnut.

Rocket Donuts was our first stop in December (well, Eric’s, as I shopped for pretty papers at Stampadoodle). We still had donuts on the brain after we’d stopped at Countryside Donut House on our way out of Seattle and sadly found them closed for the holidays. But once we’d arrived in B’ham, we realized there was still an entire half hour before lunch. Plenty of time for second breakfast!

Eric picked up my favorite, a plain cruller, along with an apple fritter and their donut of the month, mint espresso. The fritter had more apples than any I’ve eaten, and would have been a contender in our doughnut taste-off. The cruller was eggy and delicious, but the two of us fought most over the last bite of that mint espresso doughnut. The combo worked perfectly, and it may have been the moistest cake doughnut I’ve tasted. Oh, and they serve a pretty respectable espresso here, too.

Locals hanging out inside Old World Deli; pel’meni dumplings; waiting for the dumplings to boil.

Half an hour later, we were ordering Russian dumplings for lunch at Pel’meni. The colorfully painted restaurant has exactly two choices at the counter: potato or beef dumplings. We ordered one of each then watched the owner fiddle with the vintage turntable to fix a broken needle while our dumplings boiled. It wasn’t long before the vinyl was playing again and our dumplings were done. They were finished with a healthy dusting of yellow curry powder, some sour cream, cilantro, and the critical squirts of rice vinegar and hot sauce that transform the dumplings from good into the absolute perfect lunch. The beef version was by far my favorite.

Why can’t we have this in Seattle, I thought then. But wait. Not a month after our visit, they opened a location right here in Fremont. Swing by for your dumpling fix 5 pm until late in the night.

We loved the dumplings so much that we went back on our return trip the next day for an appetizer-sized reprise of the meat pel’meni. Not knowing the future, we figured this was our last opportunity to try them again for a while. It was tempting to have more, but we still wanted to try Old World Deli across the street.

The deli imports meats and cheeses, available hand-sliced or served inside one of their deli sandwiches served on Breadfarm bread.  My parma cotta (ham and mozzarella) panino was melty and delicious, particularly with the house-made mustard. It’s a comfortable hangout for the locals, with artwork pinned to the walls and casual chairs where you might kick back and read the paper one morning. I might do that sometime, since the breakfast panini menu looked worth trying.

Pretzel sticks are one of over a dozen forms of pretzels at Ralf’s Bavarian Bakery; truffles at Chocolate Necessities; farm fresh eggs at the Bellingham Farmers Market.

It was a frigid December day outside, and ice cream should have been far from our minds, but we’d heard that Mallard Ice Cream serves up some creative flavors. While they certainly have the standards, like strawberry, chocolate, or cookies and cream, you can also choose avocado, yerba mate, or White Russian.  After waffling over the extensive list, we settled on two: vanilla black pepper, and cider cheesecake. While it’s nice that they’re always experimenting and rotating through seasonal flavors, I am sad that I’ll need to wait months for another cold winter day to have that cider cheesecake ice cream again. It was heavenly.

Chocolate Necessities was our last stop on this visit. Almost an institution in Bellingham now, they have been making handcrafted truffles and chocolates for over 20 years. The location we stopped in also serves gelato, which we eyed with interest but there was no way we could fit in another bit of ice cream. Instead, we opted for a couple of truffles. The white chocolate peppermint truffle was a creamy version my favorite holiday treat (peppermint bark, of course!), and the scotch truffle was rich and boozy.

Mulunesh serving up her Ethiopian stew; 30 flavors to choose from at Mallard Ice Cream; the Bellingham Farmers Market.

In early April, we made a return trip to the Willows Inn, and found ourselves in Bellingham again on a Saturday morning, this time coinciding with the second week of their seasonal farmers market. What a lovely market! Larger than most in Seattle, the Bellingham Farmers Market sits under a series of permanent open-air structures, rather than tents. There’s a great mix of farmers of all sorts, crafters, and ready-to-eat food, with lots of open space, so while it’s lively, it doesn’t feel elbow-your-neighbor crowded. Street performers drew crowds, who were munching on soft pretzels from Ralf’s Bavarian Bakery and drinking homemade Chai from India Grill.

For lunch, we grabbed plates from one of the vendors, Ambo Ethiopian Cuisine. The owner, Mulunesh, was serving either chicken or lentil stew with beets, carrots, potatoes, and cabbage, along with the spongy slightly sour Injera bread to sop it all up. Delicious, and in itself worth a stop.

So what’s next on the list for Bellingham? I’d like to try La Fiamma Wood Fire Pizza, or maybe we’ll check out one of the breweries like Chuckanut or Boundary Bay. But what I’d really like to know is, what are your favorite bites in Bellingham?

Rocket Doughnuts
306 W Holly St, Bellingham
(360) 671-6111

Pel’Meni Russian Dumplings
1211 N State St, Bellingham
(360) 715-8324

3516 Fremont Place, Seattle
(206) 387-1702

Old World Deli
1228 N State St, Bellingham
(360) 738-2090

Mallard Ice Cream
1323 Railroad Ave, Bellingham
(360) 734-3884

Chocolate Necessities and Gelato
1426 Cornwall Ave, Bellingham
(360) 733-6666

Ralf’s Bavarian Bakery
207 E Maple St, Bellingham
(360) 733-3066

Ambo Ethiopian Cuisine
Bellingham Farmer’s Market
(360) 756-1627

The marina and reef net salmon fishing area; rocks we collected on the beach.

Lummi Island, Washington is one of these places that brings your mind to wander.  A five minute ride on a tiny county-owned ferry takes you away from Bellingham to a rural island.  From the east side of the island are breathtaking views of Mt. Baker, and the west side has views of the sun setting behind the rest of the San Juan archipelago.  It’s the perfect stage for meditation and daydreaming.  And at only two hours from Seattle, it’s possibly the most accessible of the San Juan islands, making it an ideal location for a quick getaway.

We did just that last week, taking advantage of the weekday dinner package offered from Labor Day to Memorial Day at the Willows Inn.  A discounted rate offers a gourmet breakfast and multi-course dinner with an overnight stay. And this was a dinner we were particularly curious about.

The buzz about the dining room started this summer, just before we headed out on our trip to Copenhagen and dinner at Noma.  Noma was voted best restaurant in the world last spring, and everyone was atwitter with the news that a sous chef from such an extraordinary restaurant would come to little Lummi Island.  Blaine Wetzel arrived fresh from an 18 month stint working with Noma’s famed chef René Redzepi to head up the kitchen at the Willows Inn.  Chef Redzepi himself introduced 24-year old Blaine as an “unusual and rare talent” at a Seattle reception we attended last fall.

Blaine was drawn to Lummi by inn proprietor Wiley Starks, who has established a reputation for his commitment to the Slow Food movement and serving local, sustainable foods at his inn.  Wiley himself is a commercial reef net fisherman, providing all of the salmon served at the restaurant.  And he owns, operates, and lives on nearby Nettles Farm, which provides fresh eggs and produce to the kitchen.  Blaine has two full-time farmers at his disposal.

Slow roasted beef cheek with grilled onions.

We arrived three days before the kitchen was to close for a six-week remodel.  Blaine excitedly told us that when they reopen in February, it will be a completely new experience, with a reinvented menu, updated dining room, and a modernized kitchen behind it all.  Since his arrival in August, he has been getting to know the foods of the area, working within the existing format of the restaurant, and visualizing next steps.

So the five-course one-seating menu we enjoyed exists no longer and may be only a hint of what’s around the corner.  While this is certainly no Noma, it is inventive food more than worth the short journey.

While everyone settled in at their tables, the kitchen sent out a couple small amuses, or “snacks” as they call them at Noma.  My favorite was the toast with turkey liver pate, house made capers, and dill, but I also savored the potato chip with house made sauerkraut and smoked black cod.

A round loaf of whole wheat bread still hot from the Wood Stone oven arrived with a simple slab of butter.  The bread was cut in wedges, exactly like the loaf served at Noma, but in a country bread basket from the inn.

In our first course, deliciously sweet Totten Inlet mussels were dotted on a plate with small rounds of potatoes and thick, vibrant green circles that turned out to be cucumbers.  Fluffy horseradish granita made the flavors pop.  Dots of green dill oil floated in a shallow broth, a visually engaging presentation.  I only wish the lighting at the tables was brighter than a single candle, since much of the visual appeal was lost in the darkness.  Hopefully lighting will improve in the remodel.

Then the decidedly not local Weathervane scallops arrived.  In a row down the plate, with cooked cabbages washing over them and mussel foam sauce lapping on one side, this dish looked and tasted like the sea, and was one of my favorites of the night.

The third course looked a lot like the first (more green dots), but flavor-wise was reminiscent of a dish I loved at Noma: potatoes, lovage, and whey.  Here, it was Nettles Farm potatoes with melted Havarti and buttermilk whey.  Every table around us was talking about how much they liked the flavors.

Crème brulée with toasted walnuts and homemade marshmallows; reading by a cozy fire in the inn’s common room.

Blaine and his sous chef were in and out of the dining room throughout the evening, delivering dishes from the kitchen alongside the wait staff.  This is trademark at Noma, where chefs, including Redzepi himself, visit tables.  Blaine says it’s important for the chefs to connect with diners, and they’re the ones best able to answer questions about what’s on the plate.

He delivered our main course, which was a medallion of slow roasted Skagit River Ranch beef cheek with grilled and pickled onions.  And just when we thought we were moving on to dessert, they brought out a bonus course of the tail braised and served with julienned kohlrabi.

Dessert, as read on the menu, was a puzzle to me: “crème brulée with toasted walnuts and homemade marshmallows.”  Why would an inventive chef serve crème brulée, a dessert that’s so standard on American menus?  And marshmallow doesn’t at all seem like something that should be paired with crème brulée.  Instead of a ramekin, it arrived in a tall glass, more crème than brulée.  And as soon as I took my first bite, I understood.  This was Girl Scout camp in a glass: marshmallow, campfire, and even hints of chocolate.  Delicious.

Overlooking the Rosario Strait at sunset.

We definitely plan to return, perhaps after they’ve had a few months to get into a rhythm after the kitchen reopens.  Dinner will certainly be more magical when the earth tilts back and puts the sunset back into the dinner hour, since the dining room has a spectacular 180 degree view of the Rosario Strait.

And if we can’t make it in the spring, perhaps in the the summer, when they will continue the inn’s Sunday tradition of cooking up live spot prawns on the deck, served with margaritas and a sunset like none other.

The Willows Inn
Lummi Island, Washington
(888) 294-2620

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

Salted butter caramel macarons and orbs of Early Grey tea at Le Bistrol, Paris.

Click here to read it all.  Food highlights include:

• The best crêpes in Brittany
• Amazing salted butter caramels from a Michelin 3-star chef in Brittany
• In Lower Normandy, foie gras and the best duck confit we’ve tasted
• Ostrich eggs sold at the farmer’s market in the tiny town of Bellême
• A dinner party at Jim Haynes’ in Paris
• Falafel that beats any in Seattle
• The best croissant in, dare we say, the world?
• 3-star eating at Restaurant Le Bristol
• The oldest wine store in Paris
• The most revered candy shop in Paris
• Amazing Italian gelato in, yes, Paris
• The best two butters we’ve eaten
• Our favorite traditional bistro of the trip
• An underground dinner party at Hidden Kitchen
• Our favorite “neo bistro” of the trip

Comments aren’t yet enabled on the photo and travelogue section of our web site, so if you have feedback about anything, drop us a note below.  Enjoy!

Making vacuum pot coffee at Barista; macaroni and cheese at Laurelhurst Market; drinks at Beaker & Flask.

Laurelhurst Market – This is a new restaurant and butcher shop owned by the same folks as Simpatica Dining Hall, where we had an awesome brunch a few years back.  We checked into the hotel and headed straight here for dinner.  Some of the highlights were the pork chop sandwich with tomato sauce and arugula, the cod fritters, their super-tasty fries with herbs and the perfect amount of salt (though not crispy enough), and sweetbreads with gnocchi.  We heard the boudin blanc sandwiches were great, but the menu changes weekly and these were weeks-gone by our visit.  But you can buy the boudin blanc and other amazing-looking charcuterie from their cold case in the front of the store.

Beaker & Flask – We stopped at this month-old bar for cocktails after dinner.  They offer a tasty-sounding dinner and happy hour menu, but we were pretty stuffed already from dinner and so we stuck with drinks.  The vibe here is great, while we found the cocktails hit and miss.  Eric liked his Philo Bione, while the Coltrane! Coltrane! Coltrane! was too medicinal for everyone’s taste.

Barista – First stop on Friday morning was this vacuum pot coffee brewer in the Pearl District.  Not only is the brewing fun to watch as the heat pushes the water into the upper vessel, but the bitterness of the coffee is completely removed, making it smooth to drink.  Even one of the non-coffee drinkers in our group was impressed with the coffee and loved how smooth it was.

Broder – For a taste of Sweden in Portland, we headed to Broder to try their aebleskiver pancakes and Swedish meatballs.  The aebleskiver are round eggy pancakes served with lemon curd (my favorite), lingonberry jam, and maple syrup.  The meatballs come in a lovely sherry cream sauce.

Slathering lemon curd on aebleskiver at Broder Cafe; Nong, of Nong’s Khao Man Gai street food cart; sour cherry tartlette with vanilla bean whipped cream and aged balsamic caramel at Beast.

Next, we moved straight on to lunch, a tour around Portland’s street carts.  Seattle has been all abuzz with the new street carts opening recently in our fair city, but we’ve got nothing on Portland.  Really, I had no idea there could be such a variety of carts scattered all over a single city.  On their own, or more commonly, in clusters together taking up an entire parking lot (Skillet is working on starting Seattle’s first such street food market later this year), there is every possible variety of food to be found on the streets of Portland.  There are so many carts that there’s an entire site devoted to reviewing them:  Food Carts Portland.  Get yourself down to Portland.  Now.  There is nothing to match the experience of a sunny summer day sitting on a curb eating street cart food.

Koi Fusion – Only a few months old, this is Portland’s Korean taco truck.  Kogi is the famous Korean taco truck in L.A., and Seattle has our own Hawaiian-Korean truck, Marination Mobile.  At Koi, Eric and I tried a kimchee quesadilla and beef bulgogi taco.  The kimchee here definitely beats Marination’s.  Bo is the owner and face of the truck, while his mom is the cook behind the cart, making the marinated meat, kimchee, and tortillas by hand.  Many of the carts in Portland have fixed locations, but Koi is a cart on the move.  You can keep up with their location by following them on twitter @koifusionpdx.

Nong’s Khao Man Gai – Following suit with the style of the traditional street carts in Thailand, this cart only offers one dish, unlike most of the other Portland carts.  At first, the steamed chicken (gai) and rice (khao) dish looks simple and perhaps bland, but the secret to its addictive goodness is in Nong’s garlicky sauce, with flavors of ginger, chili, and galangal in perfect balance.  Served with a clear broth to slurp between bites, you have yourself some seriously good Thai street food.  You can add an option of chicken liver, but she ran out by the time we got here at 1:30.  In fact, as soon as we placed our order, a sign went up telling people they were completely out of food for the day.

Spella Caffe – On our walk to our next stop, we grabbed chai teas from the Spella Caffe cart at SW 9th and Alder.  Normally served hot, we got ours over ice, since there’s no other way to drink it with the 90 degree heat.  Milky with a nice blend of spices, this was a good thirst-quencher.

BrunchBox Food Cart – Our street food guide joining us for lunch today, Patrick Coleman (writer for the Portland Mercury), steered us to BrunchBox to satisfy our grilled cheese sandwich burger cravings.  Initially, we were planning to head to The Grilled Cheese Grill to try this monstrosity of a burger, but he said the version at BrunchBox was less greasy, plus it was a convenient short walk away from Nong’s.  The Youcanhascheeseburger! is a burger served between two Texas-toast grilled cheese sandwich buns.  The burger was initially a joke written on the menu, but it has become a regular menu item since people actually ordered it!  The latest joke at BrunchBox is the Redonkadonk: a burger with egg, ham, spam, bacon, and American cheese between two Texas-toast grilled cheese sandwich buns for $9.  People are ordering that, too, so they’re now offering a double Redonkadonk.

Discussing the merits of the Pine State Biscuit breakfast plates; talking with Bo at Koi Fusion PDX; soppressata pizza at Ken’s Artisan Pizza.

Rogue Distillery – The heat was getting to us by this point, so we looked for a place to hang out indoors and rest our feet.  Rogue was a great place to try a sampling of beers, along with the Rogue root beer.  As we were sitting there, we saw a stout ice cream float delivered to the neighboring table – that would’ve been ideal for a day like this!

Beast – Dinner this evening was six courses at Beast with wine pairings.  We’d all tried Beast for brunch previously, but this was our first dinner there.  The chilled cauliflower velouté was a tasty start to the meal.  The was followed by a charcuterie plate, where the highlight was the foie gras bon-bon: a melt-in-your-mouth dome of foie on a tiny shortbread cookie, and topped with Sauternes geleé.  The duck leg for the main course was very nicely balanced with a green tomato confiture, and this was followed by a lovely shaved fennel salad with Parmesan crisps, then a cheese plate, and a tiny cherry tartlette.

Ken’s Artisan Pizza – We were stuffed after Beast, but with so little time in Portland, we couldn’t pause on food.  Several of us have previously been to Apizza Scholls and consider it the best pizza Portland has to offer.  But none of us had been to Ken’s, another highly acclaimed Portland pizza.  The two aren’t exactly comparable apples for apples – Apizza is aiming more for NY-style, while Ken’s is inspired by Italy.  We ordered one Margherita pizza for the six of us, figuring we’d each get a taste.  The waitress gave us a funny look and started to tell us that one pizza may not be enough, until we explained how this was dessert after our six-course meal, and we had to try it before we went back to Seattle.  After realizing we were serious, she steered us toward the soppressata instead, since we were only going to have one.  This was a great recommendation: crunchy around the edges of the thin-sliced soppresata, and the right ratio of toppings.  However, everyone agreed the crust at Apizza is better.  The best part was when the waitress comped our meal after we provided her a list of our favorite restaurants in Seattle for her upcoming trip north.

Whiffies Fried Pie Cart – We had one last stop to make before heading to bed.  Opened two months ago, Whiffies’ street cart specialty is fried pies.  I had trouble picturing what a fried pie would be like until they described it to us as shaped like an empanada.  It’s really a gourmet version of the Hostess fruit pies from your childhood.  We hear the savory pies are great, such as the BBQ brisket, but just thinking about one of those or a Beans & Franks fried pie after our food rampage made us all groan in pain.  Instead we split two sweet pies among the six of us: a guava and a strawberry pie.  Everyone besides me preferred the guava, but I loved the strawberry.  The pies have a super-flaky crust that I could tell would be perfect with a savory flavor.  On the corner of SE 12th and Hawthorne, the cart is open evenings until 3am.  The lot draws a crowd of people until the wee hours of the night.

Radishes at Portland Farmers Market; a fried Whiffie pie; eating a Ruby Jewel ice cream sandwich.

Portland Farmer’s Market – The next morning, we took the street car down to the Saturday market.  First stop was waiting in the long line for Pine State Biscuits.  We tried the Reggie deluxe (fried chicken, bacon, cheese, and a fried egg topped with sausage or mushroom gravy – we ordered two to taste both gravies), the McIsley (fried chicken with pickles, mustard, and honey), and a biscuit with Marionberry jam.  All were great.  Many were fans of the McIsley, while I preferred the Reggie with sausage gravy.  Then we wandered around the stalls, purchasing Marionberries to eat out of (purple) hand, pimientos de padrón which we broiled with oil and salt Sunday night, and fresh squeezed mint lemonade.  We also split a baker’s dozen of Two Tarts’ tiny little bakery treats.

Navarre – This was our stop for lunch, a small restaurant serving food inspired by Spain, France, and Italy.  You order by filling out a sheet with your choices of small or large items from the ever-changing menu.  Our favorites here were the boudin blanc, the kohl rabi with sheep’s cheese and blueberries, and the pile of artisan bread, toasted and served with fresh butter and cherry preserves.

Portland International Beerfest – After a stop at Powell’s, the guys walked over to the Beerfest, where they tried a number of draft and bottled beers of all styles.  Eric enjoyed the wheat beers he sampled but was disappointed that the cask-aged beers he was looking forward to were already gone.

Our lunch order at Navarre; upside-down peach cake at Navarre; a couple enjoying dinner at Tanuki.

Tanuki – Finally, the meal that we had planned the entire trip around: an omakase dinner at Eric and Kye’s favorite place, Tanuki.  The two of them travel down to Portland about once a month for Chef Janis’ izakaya food, and have been spreading the word ever since their first visit at the New Year.  Matthew Amster-Burton tried it on their recommendation and was impressed enough to do a write-up for Gourmet.  He made a special trip down to Portland to meet us for the dinner, since Janis promised to source some special items not offered on the menu.  Janis kept the food coming for hours, and even after we were stuffed enough to roll home, we wanted to keep tasting all of the amazing plates she set before us: 20 courses in all!  Her food is very traditional in the flavors of Japan and Korea, and her repertoire is vast.  Highlights included oysters with kimchee granita, albacore hand rolls assembled by us at the table, skate in cinnamon-tea sauce, and spicy tantan udon.  We couldn’t believe that she only charged us $50 a person, including all the incredible sakes!  This hole-in-the-wall is a must for your next visit to Portland.  But get there this summer, because Janis is planning some changes very soon.

Dishes at Tanuki: oysters with shaved kimchi granita; albacore tuna, cucumber, and nori; cabbage and vegetables with wasabi.

Clyde Common – Since it was only a couple blocks from our hotel, we stopped off here on the way back.  Everyone enjoyed their cocktails, and felt that the drinks here are well-balanced, making this one of the top places in the city for cocktails.

Bakery Bar – Matthew persuaded us to meet here in the morning, to try Bakery Bar’s house-made English muffin breakfast sandwiches.  We wanted to see how they compared to Dahlia Bakery’s egg sandwiches.  They definitely have some creative flavors here – I enjoyed my fried egg sandwich with cheddar and bacon-apple-caramelized onion jam, although I think Dahlia still has the edge on the muffins.  Our group was pretty divided on this, though.  The scones were the perfect combination of crusty edges and fluffy insides, and I gobbled up mine made with blue cheese, caramelized onions, and apples.  We all split a banana chocolate mousse cake to take home.  The cakes are beautifully decorated, reasonably priced, and tasty, too.

Kenny & Zuke’s SandwichWorks – Last stop before hitting the road was to the new branch of Kenny & Zuke’s, SandwichWorks.  We grabbed sandwiches to-go and said our good-byes before heading back to Seattle.

For more photos from our Portland trip, check out our flickr stream.  And here are some of our other Portland recommendations from last year.

Eric and I are just off the plane last night from our vacation in France and now recovering from jetlag.  Our typical routine when we return is to awake by 4 or 5:00 a.m. (since it’s impossible for us to sleep any longer) and head out to breakfast somewhere.  Last time, we discovered that Seattle breakfast places don’t open until the oh-so-late hour of 8 or 9, which is no good for hungry people wandering Seattle at 6:30 a.m.  So this time we headed to The Original Pancake House, which we were certain was open.  Nothing like a good American breakfast to welcome us back!  This afternoon, we’ll finish up the last of our bag of Parisian pastries we delicately hand-carried on our return flight – canalé, financiers from Maison Kayser, macarons from Pierre Hermé, and my favorite bite of the trip, an Ispahan croissant from Pierre Hermé, which is filled with their signature rose-flavored almond creme, raspberry gelée, and studded with red flecks of raspberry on top.  The croissant is only one delicacy from the famous Ispahan flavor family from Pierre Hermé, which includes Ispahan macarons, Ispahan bûche de Noel, and more.

Standard parallel parking distance in Paris; breads at Maison Kayser; cheeses at Fromagerie Laurent Dubois.

Now it’s back to reality, work, unpacking, and getting our photos downloaded to our computer.  We’ve found that putting together our photo album and writing our travelog usually takes a few weeks, and even more so this time around since we’ll be busy attending the first International Food Bloggers Conference next weekend.  So hang tight for a little while, or if you can’t wait, go back and read about one of our past trips here (note that we typically only write travelogs for the trips of two or more weeks – try clicking on one of the European links).

In the meantime, I encourage you to pick up a copy of David Lebovitz’s new book, The Sweet Life in Paris.  We headed over to WH Smith just to get a copy while we were in Paris, where their window display was plastered with copies of his book.  The lady at the checkout reminded me that he would be there to sign books only a week later, which would be after we’re back in the U.S. – what I would give to get my book signed!

Les Papilles bistro; our Paris kitchen; Pierre Hermé pastries.

I read it cover to cover, sitting on the Metro, and while giving our feet a break in our Latin Quarter apartment.  We dropped everything to try out his mouth-watering recommendations, which for a lucky week were just a Metro ride away, and we were laughing on every page at his accurate descriptions of Parisians.

Case in point was this excerpt:

“Oh, you were waiting in line?” more than one person has said to me when I’ve busted them for trying to cut in.  “No, not really,” I want to come back with, “I was just standing here in the supermarket with a basketful of items at the register, since I had nothing else to do today.”

One dame who stepped right in front of me at the busy Ladurée on the Champs-Elysées actually turned to me when I spoke up, and said, “Is there really a line?”

To clarify it for her, I pointed out the ten people in single file in front of me and the twenty people waiting behind.  I don’t know how her definition of “a line” differs from mine, but I gave her plenty of time to ponder that as she skulked back to the end of it.

Eric witnessed this in action at the airport on our way home.  He went to purchase a bottle of water for our flight and was standing in line directly behind the tallest person he’d ever seen (Eric didn’t even come up to this guy’s shoulders), with a clear line of people behind him.  This guy was wearing NBA gear and didn’t look like someone you’d want to mess with.  So a Parisian steps in front of him and starts to get out his change to pay for his Perrier.  The basketball player says in a low, deep booming voice, “Hey, this is a line.”  The Parisian looks at him, pauses, and says, “Sorry.  I did not see you.”  What!?  There is no way you could walk into this store and not see this tall guy dressed in bright white.

Page after page in David’s book are hilarious real-life stories like this.  When I’m feeling nostalgic for Paris in a month, I definitely plan to re-read this book.  In the meantime, I’m going to pretend I’m still in Paris as I eat my Ispahan.

When our friends Michael and Susan proposed that we make a trip up to Vancouver to celebrate the Chinese New Year, it took us about two seconds to say yes.  It had been a year since our last trip, and we’d been wanting to go back to some of our classic favorite restaurants.  The parade in Chinatown sounded like it’d be fun, too.

So we packed our bags and an empty cooler, and off we went on a Friday afternoon.  We arrived in time for a late dinner reservation at Tojo’s.  It’s been long enough since we’ve dined there that we hadn’t yet seen the new digs.  They’ve moved from a tiny second floor location, to a huge, bright ground floor restaurant.

Our meal was outstanding.  Highlights included: sablefish and sea urchin in a smoky-yummy sauce inside a sea urchin shell; a sesame albacore that reminded me of our favorite starter at Kisaku (but even better), and two kinds of amazing toro nigiri.  The food is special, but the bill at Tojo’s is steep.  Four of us spent as much that night as ten of us would the next evening.  Definitely not an everyday kind of meal.

Oyama Sausage Company; Japadog; fish at the Granville Market.

Saturday morning, we headed straight to Granville Island for coffee and doughnuts.  We’d had great coffee at JJ Bean on a previous trip, rivaling some of our favorite coffees in Seattle.  John and Eric waited in line, while Jacki and I walked around the corner for Lee’s Donuts.  Unfortunately, the filled doughnuts I wanted weren’t ready yet, so I decided to wait.  They said it would be only 15 minutes.  So we grabbed our coffees (which were indeed as good as I remember), and wandered off around the market.

When we arrived back at Lee’s, there they were.  The puffy, sugar-coated doughnuts were ready, with more coming out as we stood there deciding which one.  I finally settled on the lemon-filled, and Eric the chocolate Bavarian.  Oh, man, these were even better than last time.  This was the warmest, freshest doughnut I’ve ever eaten.  The lemon was oozy and sweet, but not overly, with the crunchy sugar on the exterior coating my lips as I tried not to squirt lemon everywhere (I’m sometimes a messier eater than I like to admit).  Eric made some comment about how my lips looked like a margarita glass.

Bread at the Granville Market; JJ Bean coffee; the kitchen at Vij’s.

After picking up some pork lomo and speck from Oyama Sausage Company for our trip home, along with candied fennel seeds, a few pocky sticks for snacks, and matcha tea from one of our favorite Granville stands, South China Seas Trading Company, we headed back downtown.

Eric and I were torn between Japadog or Kintaro Ramen for lunch.  With limited time in Vancouver, we could only do one, so we let our friends decide.  With a six-year-old in party, hotdogs won out.  The little stand on a street corner looked like a normal hotdog stand until you took a closer look at the menu: Terimayo, Misomayo, Okonomi, and Oroshi dogs.  The Terimayo was an all-beef hotdog with Japanese mayo, nori seaweed strips, teriyaki sauce, and fried onions.  With juice dribbling off my fingers, I managed to switch with Eric so I could try the Okonomi next.  It was a juicy Kurobuta pork sausage with okonomiyaki sauce, bonito flakes tacked down from the breeze by Japanese mayo, on top of fried cabbage.  We realized we should have ordered a third, but by this time the line was loooong, with a crowd waiting for their dogs.

Japadogs! Okonomi (top) and Terimayo (bottom).

We spent the afternoon doing a brief bit of shopping followed by a long walk from downtown to the waterfront and halfway along Stanley Park’s exterior edge, before cutting back through the duck pond and up to Denman.  It was a gloriously sunny day, and all of Vancouver seemed to be out.  We didn’t realize how lucky we were with that weather.

It was 4:30 when we headed off to dinner.  Why so early?  We had to get in line for Vij’s.  We were the first in line at quarter to five, and the queue started forming moments later behind us.  By the time the doors opened at 5:30, the line stretched two storefronts down!  It was a good thing we arrived when we did, because our party of ten would have otherwise had hours to wait.

I’ve written about Vij’s here before, and it is still my favorite Indian restaurant anywhere.  While we were deciding what to order, the wait staff served us nibbles of hot pakoras and pooris, along with complimentary chai.  We ended up ordering about a dozen dishes, all good, some outstanding.  I’d forgotten why the lamb popsicles are so popular, but quickly remembered – they were juicy and perfectly cooked, with that amazing cream curry.  I was also a big fan of one of their simplest dishes: saag paneer.  I wonder why that isn’t in their cookbook?  I will make any dish in that cookbook that has paneer – the recipe is simple and turns out great.  My favorite dessert this evening was the gulab jamun, which was the best version of this sticky fried dough I’ve had.

Dining at Vij’s; saag paneer.

We couldn’t leave without a stop next door at Rangoli to pick up some of Vij’s food to fill our cooler for the trip home.  Rangoli is a more casual cafe along with a marketplace selling Vij’s meals, spices, and their excellent cookbook.

The next morning, we all met in Chinatown for the Chinese New Year festivities.  It was a rainy, cold morning, not much different than a winter Seattle day, except for the intermittent wet snow.  After staking out a prime position on the parade route, we eventually gave it up when we all started freezing, and headed over to the Classical Chinese Garden instead, where the gardens were open and booths outside were set up with face painting and crafts for the kids.  While groups with their costumes assembled for the parade, dancers and drummers performed under a tent where everyone crowded in to stay dry.

Rain was constant during the parade, and umbrellas lined the curbs while the colorful groups paraded under the Millennium Gate.  Firecrackers, dragons, and ox helmets were everywhere.  After about 45 minutes, we left to find some dim sum to warm up with.  We headed downtown to Kirin for a change from our usual visit to Sun Sui Wah.

Chinese New Year parade; dim sum at Kirin.

Instead of carts wheeling past, at Kirin you order from a menu and everything comes out made-to-order.  Everything we ordered was good – definitely better than anything we can get in Seattle.  My favorite was the savory radish pudding, a Chinese New Year specialty.  After finishing up with some red bean and sesame desserts, we were on our way home.  Short weekends like that always leave me wanting more, but fortunately Vancouver’s just a short drive away.  Any tips about where we should go next time?

To see more photos from our weekend, go to our photo gallery.

Tojo’s, 1133 W Broadway, Vancouver, BC

JJ Bean, 1689 Johnston Street, Vancouver, BC

Lee’s Donuts, 1689 Johnston Street, Vancouver, BC

Japadog, 899 Burrard Street, Vancouver, BC

Vij’s, 1480 W 11th Avenue, Vancouver, BC

Rangoli, 1488 W 11th Avenue, Vancouver, BC

Kirin, 1166 Alberni St, Vancouver, BC

I had no idea this beer was right there under my nose at my parents’ small-town grocery store.  Although, it’s not really that surprising, because the Wisconsinites I know love sweet wine, and many wines made in Wisconsin are not just made with grapes.  They’ve got raspberry wine, cherry wine, apple wine, and my grandfather even used to make his own dandelion wine.

Door County (the “thumb” of the hand-shaped state) is known for its cherries, and that’s what New Glarus Brewing Company puts into their Wisconsin Belgian Red.  In fact, there’s a whole pound of the Montmorency cherries in every bottle.  It’s not very hoppy, but more like a cherry sparkling wine that tastes like beer.  We managed to carry back a few bubble-wrapped bottles in our luggage.  They don’t make it easy nowadays with the luggage, weight, and liquid restrictions!

Ferran Adrià talking with guests at the chef’s table in the kitchen.

But the number one thing you need to do to get a reservation is to request it by email during the proper timeframe.  This year, it is October 14, 15, and 16 – that’s right now!  It doesn’t matter if you’re the first person to email them.  The way it works is that they queue up all of the requests together, and then Luis Garcia spends a month sorting through the reservations and filling in all of the dates for 2009.  Usually, the nos start going out first, to those who requested dates on which they’re closed (so check the calendar carefully), or for whatever other reasons.  In 2004, when we made our reservation, the yeses started coming in mid-November and we received ours on November 19.  So you must wait patiently for the reply.  I had actually forgotten about it and was shocked when the affirmative reply arrived in my inbox.  I think I read it at least five times before frantically calling Eric.

What should you write in your email request?  Again, I have no idea, but I can tell you that our message was polite and succinct.  I wrote about two sentences giving our requested timeframe, and that was it.  I wrote it in English, and also copied a translation in very poor Spanish, which I’m sure was awful given that I know only a few Spanish words.  I also believe it was useless, since we discovered when we visited that they speak most common European languages quite fluently.

The only other tip I have is to be flexible with your availability.  I requested any time during the last half of August, or all of September or October.  This was before I knew that they were closed in October, so I effectively gave them a month and a half window of time.  And then we planned our vacation after hearing back from Mr. Garcia.

While they have historically been open April through September, this year the schedule is shifting to mid-June through mid-December.  My guess is that you may have better luck with those off-season fall months.  Good luck!  Let us know if you send in a request and whether you get in.

Eric’s f/1 photography group met for a weekend in San Francisco at the end of September.  The two of us flew down a few days early to do some eating, and then my friend Jacki and I toured around and shopped while the guys were doing their photography thing.  Here’s where we went:

• Jardiniere – This is a classy, upscale, expensive place near the symphony.  The food was good, but not out of this world.  We had an excellent pinot recommendation – George Vintage IV, which we really loved.  And when we reached the end of the meal, we regretted having had (awesome) cocktails and drinking most of that bottle of pinot, since we had to miss out on the dessert tasting flights of name-your-drink.  They had a good two dozen different flights: armagnacs, tawnies, scotches, everything.
• Boulette’s Larder – Eric and I went here for weekday brunch in the Ferry Building.  We sat outside on a brilliant beautiful day (as it was for our entire visit), overlooking the Bay Bridge.  They had a limited menu of impeccable simple ingredients.  We enjoyed poached eggs with beans and a beautiful slice of tomato, with a dusting of Parmigiano, along with a huge plate of toast from Acme Bread Company, a great bakery also in the building.

The Ferry Building; a farmer selling grapes; rotisserie chicken at the farmer’s market.

• Slanted Door – This is a modern Vietnamese place in the Ferry Building.  We went here for a light lunch.  It was good, but I doubt I’d go back, since nothing we ordered impressed me hugely.  The size of the place and type of food vaguely reminded me of Wild Ginger in Seattle.
• Chez Panisse – We hadn’t been here before, and were really impressed by the execution of a simple menu.  We went for a weeknight dinner and were offered one small tasting menu.  Just four courses seemed tiny compared to most restaurants’ lengthy tasting menus nowadays, but it was perfect – I hate the overstuffed feeling at the end of a huge meal, and this just made us feel satisfied and happy.  The food initially seemed like fairly standard local fare when reading the menu (tomato salad, lamb three ways), but the seasoning was spot on and little touches of simple things made the standard become inspired (such as tangy-salted handmade ricotta and warmed Nicoise with the tomato salad).
• La Taqueria – Great tacos in the Mission District.  They charge for extras like cheese and sour cream, which make it a little pricey, but worth it.  I couldn’t get over the fact that they would charge $1.20 to remove the beans from the tacos.

Bi-Rite ice cream cone; choosing flavors at Bi-Rite; a Ritual Coffee Roasters cappuccino.

• Ritual Coffee Roasters – We stopped here for our caffeine fix in the Mission.  You can watch them roast the beans right there in the store.
• Tartine Bakery – The line was out the door and inching slowly at this popular bakery.  I rested my feet at an outdoor table while Eric stood in line to get a slice of lemon meringue cake.  It was moist, yummy, and super-rich (I could barely eat more than a few bites).
• Bi-Rite Creamery – Awesome ice cream.  Beats our Molly Moon, particularly the salted caramel ice cream, which is very close to my all-time favorite homemade ice cream (Bi-Rite’s is missing the yummy caramel praline bits).  I was really bummed when I found out that David Lebovitz would be visiting from Paris and signing cookbooks here only a week later.

Lemon meringue cake from Tartine; pop rocks dark chocolate bar enjoyed with peanut butter hot chocolate at Christopher Elbow; sole with corn chowder at Range.

• Range – A one-Michelin-star restaurant tucked into a corner of the Mission District.  We had a reservation but chose to sit at a table in the bar, which had a better vibe than the rooms in the back.  We were all guessing what Eric’s “sole with corn and potato chowder” would be – chowder with sole in it, or sole with some chowder on the side?  Turned out it was neither.  The sole was served in a bowl with a shallow pool of chowder at the bottom and lots of chunky vegetables.  Don’t miss the homemade butterscotch pudding for dessert!
• Ferry Building Farmer’s Market – The ferry building has lots of interesting food shops open every day of the week, but the place comes alive on Tuesdays and Saturdays when the farmers set up tables all around the building, and everyone in San Francisco comes out shopping.
• Yank Sing – I didn’t go here, but Eric did with the guys for dim sum and said it was great.

Peppers at the Ferry Building Farmer’s Market; a mural in the Mission; the f/1 guys enjoying dim sum.

• Rye – On the recommendation of Michelle and Kelly at Licorous, Jacki and I stopped here for pre-dinner cocktails.  The space is really cool.  Dark, brick walls, high ceilings except a lowered wood ceiling over the bar, a pool table near the bar, and a lounge on the other side of the room.  It looks like it would be a fun place to go late at night.
• Zuni Café – This was my second time here and it was just as amazing as I remembered.  Last time, we could tell there were a number of nooks and crannies behind the main dining loft, but I had no idea just how many there are.  The second floor dining rooms are tucked away everywhere, each with railings overlooking the first floor.  Loved the Caesar salad, and had a nibble of Jacki’s starved tomato salad – those were the best, sweetest tomatoes I’ve ever eaten.  The roast guinea hen was super-flavorful and juicy.  Yum.

The wood stove at Zuni Café; a tea shop in Chinatown; the starved tomato salad at Zuni Café.

• Citizen Cake – We stopped here for brunch while shopping on Hayes Street.  I’m always a sucker for Dutch baby pancakes, and theirs was great.
• Christopher Elbow Chocolates – Lots of yummy gourmet truffles here (you can get some of them at Chocolopolis in Seattle), and interesting inclusion bars, too.  Jacki bought a dark chocolate bar with pop rocks, which fizzled on your tongue as you let it melt in your mouth.  They had a dozen different drinking chocolates – I liked drinking my peanut butter chocolate in the chocolate lounge.
• Blue Bottle Coffee Company – We stopped to pick up espresso beans from the Hayes Valley location.  It was mid-afternoon and there was still a long line crossing the alleyway in front.  We didn’t get any drinks since we had had Blue Bottle mochas (made with Recchiuti chocolate!) just that morning from one of the two Blue Bottle stands at the market.
• Canteen – We all went here for Sunday brunch.  It’s a tiny, tiny place, like a small diner, so we had to split into two tables.  Breakfast was satisfying and tasty – I’d go back, and would like to try dinner here.