10/7/09 Tilth

Matt took me to an early dinner at Tilth for my birthday dinner on my birthday. Chef Maria Hines won the James Beard award for Best Chef NW 2009. Food and Wine named her 2005 one of the 10 Best New Chefs and in 2008 the new york times named Tilth 1 of the Top 10 New Restaurants in the country.

So she's got a lot to live up to! Tilth is located in one of the converted houses in wallingford, so right away you know there's not a lot of floorspace.

in fact the decor is almost too sparse maybe? there were about 20 tables, but in nice weather there's an outside deck with tables, and the enclosed front porch is set up as 'bar seating'. they've purchased those hard wooden chairs for all the seating. not the most comfortable, but maybe that's the idea. you won't want to sit and talk over coffee, allowing them to turn the table.

my only real complaint about the dinner was the timing of everything. we ordered the tasting menu and while we brought a bottle of wine ourselves, a wine pairing is available. hear these words. if you can not eat 5 courses & drink 4 glasses of wine (or 1 bottle between 2 people) within a 2 hour time slot, don't even think of having the tasting menu. there was very little time between courses, no where near enough to let the 1 settle before the next. we actually had to ask them to hold the dessert and not bring it out. i think we still had 1/3 of the wine left to finish! so we inserted a cheese course to help us down the rest of the wine. but there we went and added another course of food! LOL

i was really hoping to have the sablefish she had on her online sample menu, however the menu had it listed with celery and celery. with celery 1 of the things i really don't like, i was really disappointed. we decided to try the tasting menu, however i don't like tuna, and the entree was a sirloin. if we were at a steak house i'd've been all over it. but we weren't. so i really wasn't sure what i wanted to do. turning the menu over there is the vegetarian tasting menu. the entree was a bean casserole. ugh, beans. no substitutions allowed, even if i wanted the equivalent course from the meat menu. matt said he'd swap the entree with me. he wouldn't mind the beans and as it turned out the equivalent dish on his menu was something i was considering anyway. so that's what we did. and of course matt had to help me finish off my plates so he got to try both!

so there you have it! a meat & potatos gal goes and orders a 6 course (including the cheese) vegetarian dinner! we were served an amuse bouche but i didn't get a pic of it.

wed oct 7

matt waited over 2 years just to get on their mailing list! the day he got notice he was 'on their list' he ordered a case of wine!

(meat and vege) Delicata Squash Soup: pecans, creme fraiche, thyme

post drowning :-)

(Vege) Sweet Onion Tart: nicoise olive, oven dried tomato

(Meat) St. Jude Albacore Tuna: glazed carrot, basmati, ginger chutney

(meat but given to libby) House Made Ricotta Dumpling: broccoli, smoked lardons, chili flake [lardon is bacon]

(vege but matt ate it) Fall Harvest Cassoulet: shell bean, dragon tongue bean, tomato

(meat) Grass-Fed Top Sirloin: anaheim pepper, blue bird grain faro, romaine heart

(vege) Carnoroli Truffle Risotto: truffle butter, lobster mushroom, dandelion green

(both) chevrette with apple and crackers  

(both) Theo Chocolate Ganache Cake: chocolate cookie, cocoa cream, sea salt + coffee

10/4/09 Cafe Juanita

last night was the premiere of Food Network's The Next Iron Chef. i've really been looking forward to this season. why? our hometown favorite Chef Holly Smith of Cafe Juanita is a competitor!

i noticed last spring/early summer a number of her status messages mentioned a lot of travel, or were of the 'it's good to be home' kind but didn't really put much into it because, well, many people will do a lot of traveling for a lot of reasons.

i've been following the ads on the food network website, and of course we never FF through them if it's a new one on tv. but boy was i surprised when i got an email last week wednesday.

Be Our Guest To Watch The Next Iron Chef read the subject line. ok, i'm thinking it's more reminding me to not miss watching it, or to set the dvr if i'm not home that night. boy was i wrong! instead i find the following:

Is Chef Holly Smith The Next Iron Chef?

Holly Smith of Cafe Juanita was chosen, along with nine other chefs, to compete for the title of The Next Iron Chef on the second season of this popular Food Network series that challenges the culinary skill and mettle of its talented contestants.
Please join Holly and her loyal fans at Cafe Juanita on Sunday, October 4th as the battle unfolds on the first episode of this exciting series. We’re delighted that The Next Iron Chef premiere party at Cafe Juanita will be sponsored by Verizon FiOS TV. We’ll be bringing in flat screen televisions for the occasion so you won’t miss a single slice, dice, julienne or chiffonade.

The festivities, complete with food and drink, begin at 7:30 p.m., with the episode to air at 9 p.m.

Space is limited, so RSVP promptly (425) 823-1505

i let them know both matt and myself would be there. we wouldn't miss it! luckily we hadn't planned anything else for that night so we didn't have to rearrange any plans!

i guess there were about 50 of us (?) i think if everyone, including the staff who were working had taken a seat we would've filled the main floor of the restaurant. but we did have a few chairs open in a location not 100% best for viewing. verizon/fios brought in three 52" flat screens (i think they were 52") and as it turned out, they gave 1 of them to Chef to take home! yay!

the food was fantastic. they had about 10 appys circulating throughout the night. (no, no pics of the food, you've pretty much seen the actual platings already on my blog) i hope i can remember all of them! so here they are in no particular order

1. Grilled Octopus with Fennel, Green sauce and Chickpea Puré on a toasted bread
2. Lemon Cracker with a La Tur cheese
3. Prosciutto Wrapped Crostini
4. Chilled Tomato Pompadoro in shot glasses
5. White Anchovies with a Green Puree rolled, on skewers
6. Smoked Trout with something on a Pumperknickel toast
7. Seared Foie Gras with Huckleberries, Candied Ginger and Cocoa nibs on a toasted bread
8. Carne Cruda on cracker
9. Housemade TandT Pork Fricco Sliders
10. La Tur Cheese Puff
11. Chocolate Mousse with Creme

plus thank you to Mark Ryan of Mark Ryan winery - he contributed a balthazar or his viognier to be served. on tap was also a red wine, a prosecco xxxxx, sidecars, a negroni, and a couple other options. i guess if you really wanted something different you could ask for it, but the selection was very well chosen and went spot on with the hors d'ouvres.



about 10 minutes before the show aired people took a seat and all eyes turned to the screens. 90 minutes of The Next Iron Chef ensued with a couple of added notes by Chef at the commercials. her 1st dish, a lamb kidney dish, had to sit at room temp for 5 hours before the judges got to taste it. her 2nd dish, jellyfish, apparently had be dehydrated so not only does she have a time limit to prepare a meal, she has to re-hydrate it! the jellyfish dish sat for about 6 hours before the judges got to it! i have to admit, i know there are a couple things you don't want to sit - room temp or not - like salty and really spicy dishes, because the flavors intensify with the wait. in fact, if you did see the show you heard the judges comment that it was so salty they couldn't eat it! one would think the judges (and network, producers etc) would realize not all dishes can sit out for an hour, let alone 5 or 6 and still be edible! not to mention a hot dish will obviously be cold! oh well, maybe they do, maybe they don't.

1 by 1 the chefs are sent back to the kitchen to cook another day, as Alton says. the last 3 chefs - Chef Holly, and 2 others - don't remember their names, just what they prepared. 1 had sea cucumber the other grasshoppers. at this point they talk about all three before sending someone back to the kitchen for another chance. they mention Chef Holly's 'over-saltiness' but she had done 2 preparations - 1 was a soup and they all cheered about it and decided that she was the only one who really stepped out of her comfort zone in deciding on a preparation - as an Italian chef she chose Thai for the jellyfish, and were intrigued to see what else she might do, so Chef Holly was safe! whew! talk about nail-biting! There was much cheering when she was deemed safe.

SWAG - signed posters and t-shirts was available for everyone if they wanted one.

i think a grand time was had by all!

the location...	front door
nathan the bartender	jim pouring viognier from mark ryan winery
tweeting or updating FB status to reflect party happenings	yum, sidecars
SWAG	SWAG and guests
Chef Holly thanking everyone for being there and promising a fun night	guests
guests	Libby and Matt
Chef Holly talking to Matt	taking our seats
taking our seats	Libby, Chef Holly, and Matt
taking our seats	the gang who help make Chef Holly and Cafe Juanita such a great place!

8/29/09 The Herbfarm

at the last minute we got a table for the "100 Mile Dinner".

a few pages from the menu:

"Everything on your plate tonight originates no more than 100 miles from the center of this dining room. We have made the sale from sea water taken from various locations around Puget Sound. Your butter is hand-churned from local cream. The breads are made with wild yeast gathered from the air and baked with applewood in our wood-fired oven. The vegetables are from our farm. Meat from local growers. The wine from grapes from nearby vineyards."

"The Essence of Our Region "Tonight's 100-mile dinner features foods and beverages sourced as close to this restaurant as possible. The outer limit is 100 miles; the ideal are the cutting gardens around the restaurant and our own farm a mile to the south."

"Why do this? The average bite of food eaten in North America has traveled 1500 miles before it gets to your table. To dine locally is to celebrate all that is good from our own land and sea. To dine locally fosters the diverse web of farmers, foragers, ranchers, fishers, cheesemakers, and grape growers and wine makers who are the fabric of our community."
"Tonight you are experiencing - in pure form - the taste of the region bounded by the Salish Sea."

100 Mile Dinner Three Soups: Garden to Sea

Puget Sound Mussel with Sweet Basil, Aioli, and Croutons,

Summer Vegetable Gaspacho with Fennel-Chardonney Seed Oil,

Oxbow Farm Sweet Corn Soup with Marjoram (and butter),

2006 Venturi-Schulze Brut Naturel, etsate vineyard, Cowichan Valley, Vancouver Island, British Columbia



Dilly Cotta

Savory Dill-and-Yogurt Panna Cotta with Dill-Scented Summer Vegetables and Puget Sound Sea Salt,
2008 Whidbey Island Winery Siegerrebe, Whidbey Island, Puget Sound, Washington



Clam & Eggs

This morning's Egg with Grilled Quilcene Bay Clams,

Garlic-Kissed Just Dug Herbfarm Potatoes and Our Summer Sausage,

2008 Naches Heights Vineyards Riesling, Yakima Valley



Lummi Island Reef Netted Salmon

Our Own Prosciutto Crisp with Beans and English Thyme,

2006 Challenger Ridge Pinot Noir, Concrete, Washington



Seashored Beef

Wood-Grilled Lummi Island Seashore New York Cut and Pastured Beef Cheek Pave with Housemade Horseradish Root Butter,

Jeremy Faber Foraged Wild Mushrooms (Lobster and Chanterelles) Farm Vegetables, Heritage Tomato-Rosemary Gastrique,

2007 Benson Estate Vineyards Sangiovese, Lake Chelan, Washington



Goat's Milk "Truffles"

Chive-Frosted House-made Goat Cheese Truffles with Honey from our Hives,

Sage-Scented Zucchini Bread Toasts

1999 Royal Tokaji Essencia



Bowl of Cherries

From our Trees: Cherry Tarragon Sorbet with Pickled Cherry and Bacon Chip



A 36-Mile Dessert

Chocolate Mint and Stevia Semifreddo,

Holmquist Hazelnut Souffle with Smoked Hazelnut Creme Anglaise,

Anise-Hyssop-Poached nectarine with Honeyed Cremem Fraiche



Native Beverages and Infusions [no coffee! teas and a few other root/herb drinks]


A Selection of Small Treats

Dessert King Fig Shortbread,

Shiro Plum Meringue,

Lemon-Verbena Currant Gum Drop,

Milk Jam Bavarian Madrona,

Tree Bark Eclair,

2007 Venturi-Schulze Brandenburg No3, Vancouver Island, British Columbia