Pho

Pho is a Vietnamese noodle soup and one of my favorite foods. Oddly, though, I never make it. I always go out for pho. Perhaps simply because it's so darn cheap, and in my previous hometown of Seattle - Pho is everywhere. Really, really good pho. And it's always served with a complementary cream puff (though I was recently informed that not all pho places in Seattle do this).

First things first, let's get in the mood for pho with some quality Seattle hip-hop:

Pho is pretty much the perfect food. It's hydrating, filling, cheap, centering, grounding, revitalizing, energizing, cleansing, comforting, invigorating, delicious. I've eaten at several pho spots in my current place of residence (Berkeley, CA), and yet none live up to Seattle pho. Thus, I have embarked on a quest to make my own pho.

Pho is all about the broth, and good broth starts with good stock. Pho is traditionally made with beef stock, but you can certainly do whatever you want. I used lamb stock for this pho, because that's what I had in my freezer. I had a lamb bone leftover from Thanksgiving that I boiled in water with onions, carrots, celery, and parsley stems overnight. Then I strained out the solid things, boiled down the liquid into a dense demi-glace that I froze into cubes in an ice cube tray. Anytime I need some stock, I just take out a few frozen cubes and add water.

Stock is the foundation of a broth, and a key ingredient in Pho broth is charred onions. This give the broth its distinctive dark brown color and earthy flavor.

Quarter two onions and char them under the broiler.

When the first side is blackened, turn them over.

The onions are done when they are good and black on both sides.

Raw meat is often added to pho just before serving. If you want your meat fully cooked, then I recommend searing the meat in a large pot, remove the meat and set it aside for later, and then use the pot to build your broth. I seared lamb sausage in a deep pot until it was good and brown. 

Then I removed the sausages, set them aside, and added lamb stock, charred onions, a cinnamon stick, a few star-anise pods, and one whole clove. Let these boil for about 30 minutes before straining.

Use a spatula to thoroughly scrape out the pot into the strainer, then put the pot back on the stove to continue making the soup. You could just pour the strained broth back into the pan, but I decided to sauté some chopped green garlic stems first. Onions, leeks, shallots, garlic cloves would all be appropriate here.

I also sliced the lamb sausage and threw that in to brown with the green garlic. Pho is all about flavor, so do everything you can to add and accentuate the flavor of the ingredients (i.e. browning, sauteeing, charring, etc.)

When the garlic and sausage was good and brown, I added the broth back in and brought it to a boil to cook the noodles.

As the noodles cook, prepare the raw garnishes. Pho is generally garnished with bean sprouts, thai basil, jalapeño, and lime. Sometimes mint, cilantro, green onion, red onion, or lemon make an appearance. 

There's at least two ways to slice green onions, if you slice on the diagonal it makes them about 10x more fancy.

Lemon is honestly kind of blasphemous in pho, but we have a lemon tree and there's a lime shortage currently in the US. So lemon it is.

In summary, here's how I made pho:

1. Make stock (beef (or lamb, chicken, etc.) bones boiled in water with onions, carrots, and celery for 4-10hours)
2. Strain stock
3. Make broth by boiling the stock with charred onions, cinnamon, star anise, and clove for about 30 minutes
4. Strain broth
5. Sauté onions or garlic, brown meat (optional)
6. Boil broth
7. Cook noodles in broth
8. Serve immediately with bean sprouts, basil, lime, jalapeño, hoisin, and Sriracha (or whatever else you want).

To be a true pho purist, it's not just about the flavor, but the clarity of the broth as well. Vietnamese cuisine was influenced by French occupation and one could think of pho as a Vietnamese consommé. Consommé is a French soup that is served as a simple broth with minimal to no garnish. It's crystal clear and full of robust flavor. To achieve the clarity of the broth, it's boiled with ground meat bound in a "raft" by egg and leeks. The meat raft acts as a filter, collecting impurities, while also imparting extra meaty flavor to the broth. The raft is discarded when the both is done, which always seems a bit wasteful to me, but it does produce a brilliantly clear and richly delicious broth. Stay tuned for a new-and-improved pho recipe with consommé-method included!

Reference: The Food Lab - How to make traditional Vietnamese Pho

Beer-Battered Lobster Mushroom Confessional

Lobster mushrooms are hands-down my favorite mushroom. Not only do they have a unique biology, but they're incredibly delicious! A lobster mushroom starts out as the mildly uninteresting, pure white Russula brevipes.

Shortly after Russula brevipes emerges on the forest floor, it becomes victim to a delicious pathogen; Hypomyces lactifluorum, which usually completely covers the mushroom in a firm red-orange crust, very reminiscent of a cooked lobster shell.

photo from here

Sometimes the gills from Russula brevipes are still intact inside the lobster mushroom!

It's lobster mushroom season right now in the Pacific Northwest, and Alex and I were in Seattle a few weeks ago for two reasons. First, we originally bought plane tickets to attend our good friend's wedding (at Tree House Point, OMG it was gorgeous!). And the second reason we were in Seattle was completely on the other end of the emotional spectrum. 

My good friend, previous neighbor/land-lady, bridesmaid in my wedding, and reader-of-this-blog passed away all too young after her arch nemesis, metastatic breast cancer, took a turn for the worse. For years Candice and her husband, Joe were outstanding hosts of our weekly potluck/game-night gathering of friends. Even when Candice wasn't feeling well or even when she was in the hospital, she insisted that the potluck will go on! Because that's exactly who she was. She did everything in her power to live a totally kick-ass life (and inspire others to do the same!), and she loathed the thought of anyone canceling their fun plans on account of her. And so, after she left us, it seemed necessary that the potluck should go on. Even though some of us had scattered out of state, we all made the trip back to This Old House for a bittersweet potluck/game-night reunion.

I've never lost someone so close to me before, and this roller-coaster of grief is really bizarre. Food is certainly an extension of my emotions and I've been swinging between complete lack of appetite and manic elation over seemingly random foods. For example, lobster mushrooms. The morning after our potluck/game-night reunion, a few of us went to the University District Farmers Market. When I saw that Foraged & Found Edibles was selling lobster mushrooms, I was ecstatic. I bought way too many because I was certain, in that moment, that lobster mushrooms were the key to happiness and I desperately wanted to share this happiness with all my friends.

When choosing lobster mushrooms, I look for the cleanest ones, with the fewest nooks and crannies for dirt to hide in. Even the cleanest lobster mushrooms will still be dirty though. Running water and sometimes a brush are the easiest ways to clean these mushrooms.

We decided it was best to beer-batter and fry these mushrooms. 

Beer Batter

 1 bottle of beer (we used Sierra Nevada Pale Ale)

1 cup flour

1 egg

Salt & Pepper

Mix together the batter. Slice up the mushrooms into roughly 1/2inch thick slices. And prepare a plate of flour seasoned with salt and pepper.

Coat each mushroom slice in flour, shake off the excess, and then coat them in batter. Meanwhile, have a pot of vegetable oil heating up on the stove.

When the oil is hot (test it by throwing a pinch of flour in, if it bubbles wildly, it's ready), throw in some battered mushroom slices and fry them till they're golden brown.

Remove the slices from the frying pan and place them on a plate lined with paper towels. These can be kept warm in an oven while you fry the rest.

It can help to divide the work - Alex fried while I battered.

Elwood helped too.

A feast of beer-battered lobster mushrooms!

Previous posts about Lobster Mushrooms:
Fish & Chips
Tempura Lobster Mushroom
Creamy Cheesy Mushroom Medley with Rice
Lobster Mushroom Etouffe
Lobster Mushroom Fried with Brioche Crumbs

A "recipe" from Candice:
Baked Eggs

Wandering Goose

My buddy Trevor and I were determined to eat breakfast, brunch, lunch, and 2nd-lunch today. However we ended up having breakfast at Wandering Goose, followed by a long walk around Capitol Hill in which we discovered most restaurants were closed, so we ended up back at Wandering Goose for lunch. This is definitely my new favorite restaurant in Seattle! Utterly perfect buttermilk biscuits filled with anything from jam to cheese and an over easy egg to kale, andouille, and a duck egg. Or my new favorite biscuit: the sawmill contains fried chicken, sage gravy, and aged cheddar. Delicious!

** Sent from my hand-held super-computer!

Pilgrimage to Pinky's

I've gone mobile! This is my first post from my new fangled smartphone! I'm back in Seattle for a few days and had to stop by Pinky's Kitchen (aka Pig 'n Chips). I purposefully had a tiny breakfast before lunch at Pinky's, so by the time I got to the order window I was starving and ready for a hefty delicious BBQ extravaganza!

I got two sliders: brisket with sassy molassy sauce and pulled pork with sweet Caroline mustard sauce. I also got a small mac 'n cheese and a side of cole slaw.

Right now I'm feeling like a beached whale, happily blissed out on BBQ. ... Perhaps one slider would have been sufficient.

** Sent from my hand-held super-computer!

Delicious Seattle

Aahh it's good to be home for the holidays! Since Alex and I moved away a mere five months ago it seems like there's been a gastronomical explosion of new deliciously creative (and relatively cheap) restaurants, particularly in Ballard.

Urban Family Public House is a brand new itty bitty little brewery on Ballard Ave. across the street from our favorite backpacking-planning bar, The Noble Fir (they have an alcove of nearly every guidebook and map ever printed!). But I digress, the Urban Family Pub has an adorable little commercial brewing set up snuggled into the back of their hole-in-the-wall brewpub. They currently make two beers: Le Vagabond (a mild, light, hoppy, saison) and Rain Walker Porter (a nice, solid porter!). Their modest food menu follows a creative trend that seems to have started with Skillet and is now sweeping the city; bacon-jam burger, poutine, and frites. While the Urban Family Pub's bacon-jam is great on a burger, I felt it was way too sweet on poutine.

Bitterroot's "Cowboy Killer" (ribs, brikets, chicken, pulled pork, coleslaw, grits, cornbread, and a roll)  ...photo from the stranger

For brunch on New Year's Day we met up with some friends at Bitterroot, also on Ballard Ave. Named after Montana's Bitterrroot river, this darling little restaurant promises Northwest BBQ and All-American foods and beverages.

hushpuppies!

photo from here

I got the best hushpuppies I've ever had outside of Arkansas and Mac 'n Cheese with roasted red peppers and bacon lardons (mac 'n cheese comes with your choice of any two additions; braised greens, pulled pork, hotlink, english peas, smoked jalepenos, caramelized onions, roasted red peppers, or bacon lardons). This was definitely one of the best Mac 'n Cheeses I have ever had! And it was so filling I ended up taking my left overs home and splitting them with Alex for dinner that night!

Alex got a plate of pulled pork, cornbread with honey-butter, and cheddar grits. The grits! Oh the grits were incredible! Fluffy, light-yellow, cornmeal clouds of joy! The pork and cornbread were absolutely stellar as well.

Then there was American Coffee. I ordered Irish Coffee, and our server said they only carry American Whiskey, thus rendering "Irish" Coffee impossible... so I asked if "American" Coffee was possible, to which he said, "absolutely" and went back to the bar to make my drink. I was expecting a simple shot of bourbon in a cup of coffee, but what I received instead is my new favorite cocktail! I asked what was in it, and here's what I remember: Coffee, Bourbon, Creme de Cacao, Simple Syrup, Cinnamon, and Nutmed shavings on top.


...And here is where my friend, Sienna, interrupted me writing this blog post with text messages saying we should go to The Wandering Goose for lunch, so now I have a third restaurant to add! The Wandering Goose on Capitol Hill's 15th Ave. is the creation of few recent transplants from New Orleans. The menu is thick with southern flavor including biscuit sandwiches, grits, fried chicken, brisket with veggies and a poached egg, and fried oysters with bacon, tomato, lettuce, and pepper jam. Both Sienna and I got the Biscuit of the Day, which was a wild boar sloppy joe adorned with a sunny-side-up duck egg and fried jalepenos. It was incredible! And even better, it filled me up without making me feel overly full, and I staid full straight through dinner!

The Saw Mill Biscuit: Fried Chicken, Sage Gravy, Aged Cheddar

Photo from here

Catching up on my neglected blog!

I've been neglecting this blog and there's two reasons:

1) Between the end of winter and the slow start of spring, it's pretty easy to get jaded about cooking.  The farmers market still only has potatoes, kale, turnips, and if your lucky - some onions and carrots.  And even the freezer stash of peppers, broccoli, ginger, peas, and corn is starting to become monotonous.  It feels a bit like I'm in hibernation, patiently waiting for summer vegetables.

2) Alex and I are getting married this summer!! So I've been totally preoccupied by wedding planning.

Alex and I have also been eating out more than usual - partially because our cooking inspiration is in a lull, and partially because we've had some sun here in Seattle and we chase it any chance we get!  Here's some quick restaurant reviews of where we've been hanging out lately:

Skillet - If Alex and I ever created our own restaurant, this would probably be it. Creative breakfast and breakfast-inspired foods all day long.  The bacon jam on their burgers is amazing, and we swear there's a secret ingredient in the french fries (coconut oil?!). Also, Skillet is conveniently located on the South-West corner of Union & 14th Ave. and they have floor-to-ceiling windows, which makes this an excellent spot to be on a sunny day!

Captain Blacks - It looks like an itty bitty little ramshackle pirate-themed bar, until you walk out on their gigantic West-facing deck... this is the spot to be on a sunny day!! Oh and also, they have a pretty decent beer selection and you can often find a Skillet truck right next door.

Kimchi Bistro - We went here for our friend, Kris's birthday and OMG this is some of the best Korean food I've ever had! We need to go here more often!

Pinky's Pig & Chips - It's a food truck located in the parking lot of the gas station next to the liquor store in Wallingford.  This place is run by two guys from Detroit who seem to have found they're calling in life and they're stoked about it. They will blow your mind with their sassy molassy sauces and their meats will undoubtedly induce a multidimensional flavorgasm.  Oh and their sandwiches are huge, especially for the cheap price!  I definitely recommend starting with a slider and working your way up to a full size sandwich.

Wedding planing has largely consisted of foody things so far, of course. I'm totally stoked to be working with Madres Catering, they're a smaller company run by three mothers who simply love to cook and live by the motto, "Find a job you love and you'll never work another day in your life".  They focus on local/in-season ingredients, they have strong influences from Latin American cuisine, and they're excited to accommodate all my ridiculous requests like using only Skagit River Valley Ranch meats and severing homebrew made by us and our friends!

For dessert, it's not official yet, but Trophy Cupcakes is the plan.

What else is edible at a wedding? Flowers, of course! I'm growing all the flowers for our wedding, so I know they're edible and organic. And since there's a lot of text in this post, I think it's high time I posted some pictures.  Here's what my edible flowers look like so far - from top to bottom: Marigolds, Red Calendula seedling, Yellow Calendula that came back from last year, Pink Daisy's and Sweet Cicily that also came back from last year.  In addition to these, I've also planted Dahlias, Day Lillies, Nasturtiums, Dianthus, Bachelor Buttons, Chives, and all sorts of Brassicas. ...this should be a delicious wedding indeed!

 

Poppy

I worked under Chef Jerry Traunfeld when he was at the Herbfarm, so I've been wanting to check out Poppy ever since it opened a couple years ago. When I was at the Herbfarm, it was during Jerry's final years there and I could tell he was suffering burn out. He used to talk about how much he hated the excessive decor of the Herbfarm and he dreamed of the day when he would have is own restaurant with simple minimalist decor. I strolled by Poppy right after it had opened. As soon as I saw the bold 4-color scheme (red, yellow, black, and white), bare walls, and simple tables - I knew this restaurant was everything Jerry had been wanting to do, but wasn't able to as long as he worked for someone else. This revelation is quite exciting, knowing what a phenomenal chef Jerry is. I could only imagine what culinary magic he would create when given complete and total freedom.

The way I understand it, the story goes like this: Jerry Traunfeld worked at the Herbfarm for 17 years and then left to go travel around India for a year or so. When he returned from India, he created Poppy following the inspiration he had gained from India. Naturally, at the Herbfarm, Jerry was all about herbs, herbs, herbs. The food at poppy is a meditation on spices with a foundation of herbs and simple, delicious food.

The method by which food is served is unlike any other fine-dining experience I've had. There are appetizers and then there are thali's. The waiter warned us the thali's take a while, so we ordered some appetizers to start.

Fried Eggplant with Honey (and cardamom?!) and Goat Cheese Stuffed Squash Blossoms with Borage and Nasturtium flowers. The fried eggplant blew Alex and I away. The eggplant flesh melted into silky smooth mush within it's crispy fried outer shell. Despite the fact that everything was fried, that fresh-picked from the garden flavor and texture still came through. Almost as if the frying was merely to add a crunchy outer shell and nothing more.

Next we dove into the thali's. A thali is a selection of several dishes served at once on a large round platter - each dish is only a few bites and contained in it's own little bowl. The long time trend in fine dining has been to serve small plates, one at a time, and in a particular order. Essentially, the fine dining restaurant dictates what you will eat when. However, with a thali, you receive everything all at once and you get to decide how to go about eating it. I feel like the original purpose of Poppy was for Jerry to have a place where he could publicly play with spices. But by serving the main attraction as a thali, he welcomes the public to play and explore spice and flavor as well. Alex and I had a lot of fun eating each dish on the thali in different orders and experiencing the way flavors influence each other. Here are our thali's, apologies for the awful pictures, my camera was not happy about the lighting situation and I'm not one to use flash in public.

Each platter contains 10 small dishes. In the foreground is my platter which had the following:

morel mushroom, english pea, and sage risotto
gothberg goat cheese agnolotti with fresh porcini and favas
carrot and black cardamom soup
cucumber raita with caraway and almond
radish, and grilled spring onion salad
beets with spice bread and mint
zucchini and basil gratin
local roots broccoli with oregano
bing cherry pickle
nigella-poppy naan

Alex's platter is on the opposite side of the table:

quillayute king salmon with pinot noir sauce, sea beans and bacon
tails and trotters pork loin with green sauce and corona beans
chilled fennel yogurt soup
cucumber raita with caraway and almond
radish, and grilled spring onion salad
snap peas with lemon thyme
beets with spice bread and mint
zucchini and basil gratin
mango, strawberry and peppermint pickle
nigella-poppy naan

Each dish was only a few bites, but it was still a LOT of food! Without realizing it, we spent nearly 3 hours trying to finish eating everything and we were on the verge of being painfully full by the end of it. As we were eating, we tried to put the experience into words, and final ended up drawing a graph. Complexity is on the x-axis, and Number of Dimensions is on the y-axis. If you plot each dish on this graph, I believe you would come up with a distribution that has it's mean at a very low level of complexity, but high number of dimensions. Like this:

This is the magic of Jerry Traunfeld. He takes the simplest things, like broccoli, and creates a multi-dimensional masterpiece. Broccoli might be my favorite vegetable, and Jerry coaxed out the very essence of broccoli, while partnering it, and not over powering it, with salty, smokey, spicy flavors that dance around your mouth in concert with freshest most beautiful broccoli flavor and then finishes with a peppery warmth in the back of your mouth. The simplicity of Jerry's food gives it a distinctly not snobby feel. It seems like he just found the best broccoli (or any ingredient), barely cooked it to perfection and sprinkled some spices on it. It's all about the details though, and that is where Jerry's talent is. It's not just Jerry though, it's all the chef's in his kitchen at Poppy that create this incredible food night after night. Mmmmm, Poppy!

P.S. I almost forgot the icing on the cake: at the end of the meal, the check was delivered in a POCKET PROTECTOR!! So hilariously random, I'm speechless.

An Evening with Elysian and New Belgium Breweries

Alex and I did something pretty ridiculous last night: we went to Crystal Mountain for dinner. The two and a half hour drive and sleeping in my Honda Accord in the snow was totally worth it. It started at the base of the Mt. Rainier Gondola where we were served New Belgium Fat Tire in a can with a paper cup-full of warm hazelnuts.

I forgot to grab my camera, so here are some pictures I stole from the internet:

The view was stunning, it seemed like we could just reach out and touch Mt. Rainier. We got off the gondola and were escorted into the high-class Summit House with our cans of beer. There's nothing quite like walking into a fancy restaurant with a can of beer! The self-proclaimed Beer Guru's of Elysian and New Belgium introduced the meal and the chef saying that the meal was based on an "Old World Winter" theme and most of the dishes were the product of late night snacks. This was easily one of the best dinners I've ever had - it was everything I love about food: locally sourced with plenty of fat and pork products and paired with beer! Though they did warn us at the beginning that we were sitting at about 7,000 feet and none of the beers they brought were below 8% ABV. It was a trip to say the least! Here's what we had:

Dark and Rich Demi-Glace Broth with Roasted Chestnuts and Bourbon Scented Cippolini Onions.

Paired with New Belgium La Terroir.

-This was one of those dishes so simple and so exquisitely incredible that both Alex and I were speechless for a minute. The La Terroir was a sour ale unlike any sour ale I've had before - it reminded me of my dad's oranges from his tree that doesn't get much sun, so they're incredibly sour. The sour of the beer juxtaposed the richness of the demi-glace perfectly (something I never would have imagined!). Also, demi-glace served essentially as a soup?!? Amazing!

Spicy Berkshire Pork Belly with Buckwheat Blini and Mt. Townsend Seastack Cheese.

Paired with Elysian Bete Blanche Tripel.

-It's impossible for me to choose a single favorite food, but as far as cheese goes, I think this Seastack cheese is the perfect cheese. The Pork Belly and the cheese both seemed to melt right at body temperature, but then the adorable little buckwheat pancake was there for a bit of texture and the Tripel just rounded out the whole course.

It was at this point that someone noticed the full moon had risen. As word spread throughout the dinning room - everyone got up and ran outside to watch the moon rise over Mt. Rainier. So magical!

Grilled Winter Root Vegetable Salad with Arugula, Bacon Pastry Tart, and Petite Basque Cheese.

Paired with Elysian Bete Noel.

-More melted cheese on pork, brilliant. The arugula was particularly flavorful also. The Bete Noel is a dark beer which provided a real contrast between this course and the previous one.

Hubbard Squash Fried Grits with Poached Farm Egg, Benton Country Ham, and Oregon White Truffles.

Paired with Elysian The Wise ESB.

-Breakfast for dinner! The ESB was a surprising complement to the food - just hoppy enough to add a little spice, but not too hoppy.

Cattail Creek Lamb Tenderloin with Potato & Goat Cheese Souffle, Squash Ribbons, and a Sugo & Cherry Reduction.

Paired with New Belgium Transatlantique Kriek.

-Another course that left us speechless, in particular, the beer. This beer is a true lambic blended with lager. It started our in oak barrels in Lembeek, Belgium, fermenting naturally with Polish cherries. New Belgium Brewery bought the lambic after it had been aged for over 2 years and blended it with a full-bodied golden lager. Incredible. Oh and it sang in concert with the food it was served with.

Gingerbread Pudding with Ice Wine Poached Pears and Toffee Sauce.

Paired with Elysian Bifrost Winter Ale.

-I've never heard of anyone cooking with ice wine before this, but I totally support it. Those pears were amazing. A perfect ending to an incredible meal!

The kitchen received a standing ovation from the entire dining room. Absolutely phenomenal.

The Devine Gastronomique!

Two weeks ago my dad sent me an email asking me to make reservations at the fanciest restaurant in Seattle. Without a seconds delay I picked up the phone and called Rover's, crossing my fingers that they would have reservations open for less than a week away. To my luck, they did! It was one of those utterly divine, life-changing experiences that has left me to re-acclimate to normal food again. We all got different menus; my dad had the Julia Child tribute, Alex had the Menu Degustation, and I had the Grand Menu Degustation. The wait-staff provided an impeccable show of gastronomical intelligence with high class French composure. The delivery of each course came with grace and a hint of theatre. The presentation on each plate was exquisite, playful, and utterly perfect. Needless to say, the food was incredible. As part of an Amuse Bouche, we all got a small cup of soup so smooth it reminded me of why Thomas Keller says to strain soups 20 times, it's worth it. I had the most amazing oysters, and I don't consider myself a person that likes shell-fish. One was warm with a buttery sauce and one was cold with a fennel-vinegar gelee and caviar. They were crisp to the tooth and silky smooth on the tongue with absolutely no "fishy" or ocean flavor to them. Amazing. A first for me at this dinner was Escargot, out of the shell and dancing around my plate amid colorful sauces. Just like the oysters, I was pleasantly surprised by crisp texture and a wonderful delicate flavor. Then there was venison, so moist and tender I didn't need the provided steak-knife. A sorbet cleansed the palate mid-meal with little beet pearls, apparently made by bubbling beet juice into almost cooled agar. Dinner was concluded with a "Symphony of Desserts" followed by macaroons and passion fruit gelees. Absolutely phenomenal, I would definitely put it on par with Daniel in New York.

Northeast meets Northwest

I met up with an old friend on Capitol Hill last night at this fantastic little place called simply, Smith. It's a cozy pub with lots of dark hardwood, dusty books, taxidermy animals, and portraits on the walls. Their happy hour is phenomenal; we got a PITCHER of Allagash white ale for $10!! Not to mention they also had Ninkasi IPA and a handful of other excellent beers on tap. Their food menu was filled with all sorts of tasty, French-inspired pub foods. Since my friend grew up in Montreal, she ordered Poutine, which is according to her, the official dish of Montreal. Poutine is french fries smothered in an au jus style gravy with melted cheese curds on top - delicious! We also got some good homemade mac n' cheese. It wasn't long before we were both in a glorious carbohydrate coma!

Foie Gras is my Anti-Drug

Wednesday night I took Alex to Lark for his birthday. I've been saving up for this occasion since a few months ago when a foie gras protest outside Quinn's caused us to stop everything we were doing, go inside Quinn's, and order a plate of foie gras (10% of profits went to NARN as a thank you for increasing their foie gras business!). At Quinn's we found out NARN (Northwest Animal Rights Network) was also protesting Lark. It's become clear to me that these NARN people have never tasted foie gras, because if they had, surely they would not be protesting it. But I'm getting ahead of myself, Lark was magnificent.

We got some cheese and sparkling wine to nibble on while we browsed the menu. Unfortunately I don't remember what the cheeses were, but one in particular changed the way I feel about blue cheese. I've never really been a huge fan of blue cheese although I can respect its culinary importance. But this blue cheese was a deep blue, almost a dark greenish blue and had a delectably complex flavor that was sweet and tangy.

Next we had Blue Bird Grain Farms Farro with Romano Beans and Lobster Mushrooms along with Chilled Tomato and Huckleberry Soup. The farro was in cream, making it a very satisfying dish and the lobster mushrooms were sauteed to perfection. The Tomato Huckleberry soup was simple, light, and wonderfully refreshing.

We discovered pretty quick that Lark's "small plates" contain relatively large portions and we were beginning to feel full. So, we decided to cut to the chase and order both preparations of foie gras at once paired with a Muscat wine. The first plate was a foie gras terrine with mini toasts and slices of vanilla poached peaches and the second plate was seared foie gras with pecans, blackberries, and a caramelized onion crepe. The experience of eating both these preparations was absolutely spiritual. Placing a bite of this foie gras in my mouth, gently chewing it, and ultimately swallowing it made my insides vibrate with sheer joy, slowly seeping euphoria into every inch of my body. I found myself rubbing my lips together as if I had just put on the most divine lip gloss. The world around me vanished and when I closed my eyes I swear I was flying blissfully through the stars. I think I might have gotten high off foie gras. If reincarnation exists, I would like to be reincarnated as a foie gras duck; what could be better than to live life in a food coma, have a quick death, and have your liver go on to give humans an experience like this!

An Hierloom Melon Salad with Frisee, Yogurt, Lime and Mint began to bring us back to reality and refresh our palates before dessert. Dessert was a Mission Fig Tarte Tatin with Caramel Goat Cheese Sorbet along with a Summer Pudding with Brioche, Raspberries, Blueberries, and Whipped Cream. A beautiful way to end a phenomenal meal.