Whidbey Island Rosé
A selection of Hama Hama summerstones, a bottle of Don Julio hot sauce that I travel around with because you can’t fake the funk.
Smoked oyster road snacks. Lemon pepper on this particular occasion.
A beautiful lunch at the Queen Anne Taylor Shellfish location, we nearly had the place to ourselves.
Virginicas & Olympias
Geoguck freshly shaved from the clam. 
Spot Prawns, raw, animated tentacles.
Prawns poached in vermouth. 
lovely counter snacks
To celebrate the Feast Day of Saint Joan of Arc I dined and drank the tasting menu at Canlis in Seattle. A place where old things are made new.
There is a pianist in the lounge who plays lovely and contemporary standards like Coolio’s “Gangsta’s Paradise” and Sia’s “Chandelier”.
I started with a pre-dinner cocktail called Lusca – Plantation 3 Star rum, Yellow Chartreuse, lemon, orange, maple syrup. It’s like a Spanish Monk on ‘roids.
An amuse trio featuring potato, parsnip, foie, radish, and pea shoots in no particular order. The pairing was a 10-degree tin-brewed sake.
Tartare on some kind of crisp, the flavors of melon and wild flowers.
Canlis uses trucker seating, a party of two is seated side-by-side instead of across from one another. It is the best seating, and I gladly contorted myself to snap a pic of my date’s iced tea service. 
This is the infamous Canlis salad, which is romaine and mint and tomatoes covered by a Parmesan crisp.
You crack the crisp and mix it all up in the salad. It’s super fun for a salad.
The salads were paired with a Provence rosé. I meant to keep track of all these vintages but my notes are mostly filled with thoughts on the meaning of “varnish” and what songs the pianist was playing. I think this is the 2013 German Riesling they paired with the Sockeye, we may never know.
Sockeye salmon with yogurt and sea beans.
A monster serving of foie.
And this strange nugget is the Canlis Shrimp, heated with dry vermouth and garlic.
Squab with puffed rice, charred cornichons, and squashes. The squash was pureed with umeboshi which gave the dish a wonderful fermented flavor.
I sadly fell behind on my wine but the squab was paired with a HUGE Australian Cabernet, my favorite pairing of the night. Below is the wagyu entree, with parsnips, basil and asparagus. 
The sweet silence of an emptying establishment.
Pineapple sorbet, white chocolate handkerchief, sugared corn, Douglas Fir foam, malted macadamia crunch. This was my dessert appetizer, paired with an exclusive Austrian bernalseace blend which tasted beautifully of dried stone fruits. My notes include an odd mention of “Lily Pulitzer??” I think I was trying to make a joke about exclusivity and corn.
The aforementioned Austrian wonder. 
Coffee.
Messages written in chocolate, a deconstructed crème brûlée.
A house-made negroni macaroon and a lime macaroon which I rediscovered at the bottom of my purse the next morning.
My last post took us to Port Angeles, Washington, a town I return to in both mind and body. There’s an undeniable pull that has caused me to visit (and fish) on three different occasions in 2015 alone. It’s a town where you can hear church bells and fog horns, rain drops and ocean freight steamers. The area hosts so many genus species between water and woodland creatures that it feels a bit like Noah’s Ark.
I enthusiastically recommend the root beer milkshake from Frugal’s, the Moscow Mule at Michael’s Steakhouse, and the homemade salsa from El Puerto #3 does not disappoint. But if you are serious about finding the local bread and butter you’ll have to spend time down at the docks.
Donna’s Fisherman’s Wharf Cafe is owned by a husband and wife team who fled Seattle due to traffic and they serve the local catch day-in and day-out. Service is extremely quick and terse, plates are hot and seasoned. It’s all perfection.
The clam chowder contains about 20 sweet and briny clams in every serving. Chowder is always something you should have to chew.
Halibut, oysters, fries. Tartar, cocktail sauce, slaw. Don’t forget the lemon.
The oysters are flash fried in a hot cast iron pan and they don’t lose any of their character in the process. The halibut is beyond fresh, it’s simply NEW; untainted by the world, direct from boat to belly.
Donna’s Fisherman’s Wharf Cafe
826 W Boathaven Dr, Port Angeles, WA 98363
Monday – Friday 7:00am – 3:00pm
Note: I’ve recently received a few emails regarding the pictures I post on this food diary. They are all taken by me with an iPhone, in January 2015 I began using a Leica V-Lux (a gift from the fisherman) which I struggle to operate but my skills should improve over time. If you wish to use any of the photographs on this food diary please feel free to do so. Crediting the “photographer”, in this case, is not necessary.
bunny bread surprise 