We just dined at Spring Hill in West Seattle last night and I have to say it was well worth the drive. First off, we had a charming waitress who happily chatted away with us about the virtues of using local ingredients, including using a very good water filtration system so that they could offer a filtered still water carafe and a sparkling one. Lovely! No need to have the stuff shipped in from France, Italy, The Alps or even farther. Sorry Panna, I will endeavor only to drink you when there are multitudes of italians jumping on their Vespas and hailing each other "Ciao Bella! Ciao Ragazzi!"
After the water congratulation-fest, we met our regular waitress who answered our every question, even the recipe ones, brought us our food at the perfect rate (of course the place was not packed, but even in some restaurants where you can hear the crickets, the servers seem to be incapable of doing this... no I'm not picky.) and she even had some friends in common with us out in delightful Waitsburg*
We had a delicious fresh Diver Scallop appetizer which had perfectly cooked apple, the skinniest cut leeks ever and a very nicely sharp apple cider gastrique. Perfect. Then we moved on to the Razor Clam Sausage with lightly pickled oysters. Who knew such deliciousness could be wrought from my grinder?
I had a delightful cocktail of Dry Fly Gin and Douglas Fir Eau de Vie.
We ate so many other things that delighted us: Braised Short Rib with a nice Celery Leaf Salad on top, a Duck Egg Yolk Raviolo (think consistency of brie, but flavor of warm egg yolk) with green herb oils, and finally, but among the most inspired, the ice creams we gobbled just before closing the place down- Salted Popcorn, Ovaltine and Cinnamon Toast.
We have some good friends who dined here before us, one of whom is a vegetarian, and they had the same delightful experience as we did. Seems consistent enough for me to be excited about our next outing to West Seattle for inspired locavore cooking.
*more on Waitsburg after Thanksgiving when we feast and wine our way through the Walla Walla Valley.
No comments:
Post a Comment