astrid

North Cascades and Mt. Rainier were busts due to a return to more normal "Junuary" weather, as the locals put it. June is too early anyways as the best trails tend to not open until mid July. Next time, we'll try to go immediately after Labor Day. The area feel a lot like Glacier NP but more snow and shorter season.

We had some very fine meals in Portland before catching our flight out yesterday (or today, if counting by Pacific Time). In order of favorite to least favorite, for this leg. Overall for Portland, I'd put Roe at the top, American Local in the same range as Pok Pok and Little Bird, and Olympic Provisions just above Le Pigeon. Pok Pok - +1 asked me if I'd rather have Bangkok Golden (which we love and go to regularly) or Pok Pok in my neighborhood. I admitted that I'd prefer Pok Pok based on our one experience. Good strong flavors, good ingredients and prep, good service and beverage program. Little Bird - I found Little Bird much more enjoyable than its famous sister. I liked the food we got a lot, I really liked my cocktail, and the staff here took good care of us. Beast - really good food, maybe on the same level of execution as Roe (Le Pigeon was also technically flawless), just didn't quite enjoy the menu as much as Roe. I still enjoyed it plenty, however. Bunk Sandwich - very good sandwiches and carne asada fries, seem to have a good bar and beers on tap, though I'm not the best judge.. Le Pigeon - I had the highest hopes for Le Pigeon and felt slightly let down by it. Part of it was flavor combinations that didn't work for me, as +1 liked everything we had a bit better than me. Bigger part was the somewhat awkward service and atmosphere. It's hard to put my finger on anything specific being obviously wrong, I just found it a lot less attentive than Little Bird and enjoyed it much less.

Our last meal in Seattle turned out to be at Paseo, a highly touted sandwich and rice bowl place. It got mentioned as a place to go for people disappointed by Salumi's Porchetta sandwich. The sandwiches wer got were incredibly impressive in size, each enough for two normal appetite meals. They were a bit tricky to eat but the flavor was very good (a Caribbean emphasis on seasoning) and amply stuffed of meaty goodness. I wouldn't say it's essential eating as I enjoyed other sandwiches more on this trip (Fol Epi in Victoria, Bunk in Portland), but certainly much much better than Salumi's Porchetta Sandwich.

Lummi Island (near Bellingham) Willows Inn did not disappoint at all. The meal itself was composed of a series of courses, each with one or two elements, done to a surprising depth. It's a meal that expanded my palate and how I think about food. We checked in and took a walk on the adjacent beach, which helped us to adjust to island mindset. Afterwards, we sat on the veranda and watched the sun move lower and lower on the horizon, while drinking cocktails and nibbling on their pre-meal nibbles (for us each - an Olympia oyster, a gorgeous Shigoku oyster, and a selection of veggies). We were called to the dining room around 6:30 PM and dinner lasted until around 9:30 PM. There were perhaps 15 courses during the meal. Each a small dish of something, very simply done, but every dish was fantastic and surprising. The lack of frills really concentrated the essence of the dish. We stayed in one of the cheaper rooms. It was small but quite comfortable, with a very nice size bathroom. It's probably worth about what we paid for it. It's worth staying here because it's the only way to ensure a restaurant booking more than 2 weeks in advance. The ferry does run until midnight, so staying in Bellingham or making a late drive back to Seattle is certainly possible. On Yelp, some people have had multiple dinners here during a stay, and reported that there are only a few overlaps between the dinners. So it's certainly possible to make the stay into a multi-day getaway too.

We went on a weekday morning and chose Dynasty based on convenience factors, so that's a definite possibility. The dimsun at Dynasty Seafood wasn't bad by any means and the price was quite reasonable, just not much elevated from what I've had around Montgomery County.

Our experience is above and I would go back to any of our top five in a heartbeat. The only place we couldn't get reservations for and wished we could was Joe Beef. Supposedly quite a temple to culinary excess. Old town is very pretty and quite a nice walk. The botanical garden is huge and easily worth a day by itself. The Jean Talon public market is very nice, I prefer it to Reading Terminal Market or Pike's Place. The fine arts museum is large and interesting collection, I really love how it's curated.

Port Angeles We have Bellingham and North Cascades coming up. For now, a report on the Olympic Peninsula. We stuck to Next Door Gastropub in Port Angeles, not so much because of the quality of the food (it's decent bar grub but no more) but because they serve meals throughout the day and late into the night, which makes it a lot easier to have dinner after watching the sunset at Hurricane Ridge. They do seem to have a good draft beer program. Elsewhere, we self catered. Western Olympic Peninsula has few food options. Eastern Olympic Peninsula has a lot more potentially good choices, but we didn't have time to linger there. For hikes, most of the higher elevation trails don't open until sometime in July, some of their seasons are only late July-early September. So we knew we were going to be restricted from some of the best higher elevation hikes. Still, there's lots to see in the beach and rainforest hikes, and luckily Hurricane Hill was open all the way to the top. We didn't have much time so we stuck mostly to the best known shorter hikes in the Olympics. Second Beach was by far the best beach trail we encountered - sea stacks, rain forest walk, tidal pools galore. There's walk to beach camping available there as well. Rialto Beach is pretty and easy to access. I didn't like Ruby Beach as much the others, the seastacks are pretty but no tidal pools or much else to see. Shi Shi Beach is supposedly the best of all, a more remote and beautiful version of Second Beach - it's a couple extra hours of driving and requires 8 miles of hiking round trip (often done as an overnight hike) to see the sea arches. That will have to be a different trip. We lucked out and had almost no rain at all in the Olympic Peninsula, so the rainforest hikes were superb, albeit not representative. My favorite might be the Hall of Mosses trail in Hoh, though the hike to the Big Cedar (biggest tree in the world outside of California) in Quinault Lake was really cool too. For a plant nerd like me, every old growth forest is different and they're all quite magical. Marymere Falls also had a wonderful section of rainforest. Hurricane Hill is definitely a great hike. Paved and easy to walk. Some snow early in the season so best navigated with a trekking pole. We went too early for much flowers but I bet the trail will be gorgeous in July. The views are not too different from Hurricane Ridge, but the perspectives do change a bit and at the end, there were views to the Gulf Islands and Vancouver Island. The last 1/3 of the trail is the best, lots of marmots there who were happy to pose for pictures. There are just endless numbers of hikes available in the Cascades and Olympic NP. http://www.wta.org/ would be a good place to explore the options. Mt. Rainier and Mt. Baker area offer some gorgeous hiking and the more shapely mountains than the Olympics. I'd probably go with trails in those areas if coming July-September.

Can there be too much of a good thing when it comes to food? The answer is obviously yes in the absolute sense, but for the first time since I've gone down the road of fancy eating, I'm also pondering about it in a relative sense. We've eaten at so many great restaurants on the trip already and I'm wondering if my plate is getting jaded or my mind is getting exhausted at exclaiming the wonderfulness. I feel just a little numb emotionally, as though I'm getting a little too distant from my food now. In any case, we've already splurge enough on this trip that the rest of our summer will likely be very quiet, so there is time to recover the hunger and wonder. In Vancouver, we ate at Araxi, Blue Water Cafe, Hawksworth, l'abattoir, and Dynasty Seafood. A subjective best to worst. Araxi in Whistler - Wins out because they had a fantastic $39 4-course prix fixe on Sun-Thur nights. The food was great all around (fresh, creative, Pacific Rim) and the service was quite good. This is really a great deal and a great way to cap a daytrip to Whistler. Hawksworth - Very creative and tasty, Pacific Rim/Asian Fusion done right. We liked it much better than Spago in Maui. I'abattoir - Everything we tried was tasty and well conceived, but eating/enjoyment fatigue had started to set in for me, so it's hard to gauge how good it really is. I suspect that I would prefer Spur Gastropub over l'abattoir though. Blue Water Cafe - Rather disappointing for me. Maybe my expectations were too high. The seafood was indeed fresh and mostly quite tasty, but not as well prepared or well selected as places like Roe, Shiro's, or Walrus and Carpenter. The preps were pretty boring. Dynasty Seafood - A much cheaper disappointment (free parking and 15% discount for pre-11 AM customers). Our dim sum snacks is only a bit better than what's available in DC. Maybe there's much better dim sun on offer in Richmond (which we missed due to time and convenience factors). What we tried here pales to what I'm used to getting in Shanghai or LA. We did notice that other tables (all Chinese people on a weekday lunch) ordered congee and noodles and not much dim sun, so it's also possible that we simply didn't order to their strength.

Thanks for the update Thistle! I'm glad to hear that some of the roses are doing well for you.

A first swing through Portland took us to Olympic Provisions, Roe, and American Local. Best to...quite good Roe - we're not cooked fin fish people, so this place might be even better for people who like cooked fish. Still, it's mindblowingly good even for "not cooked fin fish people". Great techniques and flavors and ingredients. American Local - Very close to Roe, so we wouldn't resist an encore here. Despite it's name, the menu is actually a lot like what an Izakaya would offer. Lots of crudos, things grilled on skewers, small dishes prepped with local produce. The grilled skewers might be the best, but the crudos were also really good. Great place. Olympic Provision - pretty solid brunch, the charcuterie sausages were a bit young and underseasoned for my taste. Definitely get the pork rillettes handpies, that was amazing. This place might be proving the case that there is such a thing as too much butter in your food - we had a sausage biscuit that sort of fell apart because the biscuit was so moist with butter.

In Seattle, we ate at Walrus and Carpenter, Cascina Spinasse, Lark, Il Corvo, Salumi, Shiro's, and Spur Gastropub. We ate...really well. (My subjective best to pretty darn good) Il Corvo - amazing pastas and everything else, there's a line nearly to the door by 11:45 AM (they open at 11 AM) and it's well deserved. Definitely get every pasta on offer for the day, even if you're just one person. All three we tried were perfect. The cacio e pepe is at least equal to the version at Rose's Luxury and $9 will get you a hearty portion. Cascina Spinasse - imagine Fiola at half the price and a warmer atmosphere. If available, definitely get the lamb and mint ravioli, but everything we got here was wonderful. Spur Gastropub - The kitchen here is quite enamored with modern gastronomy, so foams/gels/sous vide/microwave sponge cakes. And they all worked great. The closest DC equivalent I can think of is again Ashby Inn under Tarver King. Walrus and Carpenter - gorgeous room unlike any other dining room I've been in. They run happy hour (half price oysters 4-6 PM, marked down from $3-4 each) and it's good to go early as the room fills up quick. The West Coast oysters were predictably delicious. The other dishes we tried were great too - scallop tartare, foie gras torchon, really wonderful steamed clams, cured salmon. The only downsides to this place is the wait if you don't go early and the relatively high prices. In my opinion, the quality of the seafood and prep here knock the pants off of Blue Water Cafe in Vancouver. Shiro's - only in a lowish position on the list because everything else in Seattle was so great. We waited in line for 45 minutes to be amongst the 11 admitted to first seating at the sushi bar. The fish was all impeccable, with the octopus and live sweet shrimp and tuna cuts being particularly good. The other fish might be about par to Sushi Taro (so, pretty darn good), though there were a lot less varieties on offer. I may be suffering some jadedness from a fairly recent magnificent meal at Mitsui in Taipei and not judging fairly. Lark - +1 liked what we got pretty well, but I wasn't as enamored even though I admit the preparations and ingredients were good. Just a bit boring for me compared to the other exciting meals that we had been eating. The octopus on bamba rice risotto was a definite highlight. Salumi - the salami platter was great, the porchetta sandwich wasn't. The texture of bread and juicy meat was right, but there wasn't much flavor in their famed sandwich. We'll be swinging back to Seattle for one more meal on the trip, will report back on that.

My only experience was more on the budget side. We did a guided hike of the Laugavegur trail in Iceland three years ago with Ferdafelag Island (http://fi.is/en/home/) and really loved it. At the time, cost for awesome guides, luggage towing, transport, and hut accommodations was about $50/day per person. It's not luxurious, but was a steal at that price. The huts are basic hostel type accommodations, but well maintained. Laugavegur is definitely more on the moderate-strenuous side of things (glacial river fordings, walking on loose rocks), but they also offer some tours that are less strenuous and focus on day hikes. Their website is a bit sketchy and we didn't have much luck with email, it seems to be better to call them to figure things out (Skype or Google Voice makes the international call charges a non-concern). I think generally, it's better to research a specific region on tripadvisor and see it there are good companies for the area. They can often offer more information and offer more appealing itineraries than the nationals that outsource to them.

Just finished the Vancouver Island leg of our trip. Highlights were Ulla, Fol Epi, and The Pointe at Wickaninnish Inn. All the other meals were also quite good, but do not measure up to those three places. The very good Ulla - Thanks to Porcupine for the recommendation. This place is fantastic, the cooking style reminds me a bit of Ashby Inn under Tarver King - the food might be slightly better than I recall from Ashby Inn. Fol Epi - Great bakery. They make wonderful fresh sandwiches on crusty bread. They also have some of the flakiest and tastiest pastries I've ever tasted. This place is everything that PAUL wish it was but is not. The Pointe - Very nice modern cooking. It's pricy but we felt the food was more than good enough to justify the price. The view was very pretty though not as pretty as Point no Point restaurant near Sooke. The service good, but strangely, largely staffed by Russians, so there was a slight language barrier from time to time. The very very tolerable Point no Point - The food here is from good to very food, with the housemade charcuterie being the highlights. The view and service are reasons to come here. It's a gorgeous view out the window. It was good enough that I picked up a brochure about their hotel accommodations (surprisingly, not too pricy even for high season) so I can dream about coming back here. Sooke Harbor House - It was good but not exceptional. The view is lovely, but the food is what we'd expect from a pretty country inn with some pedigree. It's nice enough but if choosing between Point no Point and here, we'd go with Point no Point, no question Wildside Grill - Solid soup options, good fried seafood and fish tacos, the fries are kinda mediocre. Spotted Bear Cafe - Good kitchen and friendly service. They do try to be quite creative with their foods, the results are some hits and some misses, but everything is at least good to eat. Sobo in Tofino - Good if you want a wider variety of options, we found the tofu pockets and soups to be the best. The other things we tried were fine but missable.

Red Apron would probably be my top choice. A meatball sub and an order of Nate's fries will supply a satisfying amount of delicious animal fats. Heck, make that two orders of Nate's fries. Five Guys fries and burger used to fill this niche, but Red Apron is just so much better.

Went there recently to celebrate a special occasion and I agree with Al. It's definitely expensive, but the portions are reasonably large and makes it easier to keep to a budget. For relatively light eaters, the crab salad or a half order of pasta might be sufficient as entree. The oyster and caviar dish is wonderful.

If you want to be sure of a first seating to Rose's Luxury or Little Serow, just have someone in your party line up 30 minutes before the door opens. We've done this on Saturdays and were always able to get in (even as larger parties of 4 or 6). They're popular restaurants, but hardly comparable to NYC cronut lines. We were at Rose's last Saturday and I think everyone who got in line before the door opened got a table or got seats upstairs.

I think the rules that Rose's Luxury put into place makes a lot of sense for them and is quite reasonable for enough of the people who actually patronizes them. The only place where I feel like the restaurant has been unreasonably restrictive to their diners is Little Serow - how hard is it to reduce the heat level on some of their dishes, to make it a more comfortable experience for their diners? But they're the ones with lines so I guess enough people are okay with submitting to what I consider a really capricious and unkind restriction.

I'm not comfortable with the idea of dining out as a master-servant experience. I'm not particularly comfortable with any sort of service interaction as a master-servant experience. Seems very degrading for everyone involved when one side is overtly trying to expert power over the other side, and deriving value from that power. I would much prefer to go to a place where everyone (chefs, waiters, diners, other diners) do the best they can to provide the best experience for everyone.

I don't have a lot of positive food experiences when I was growing up. My family believed that they should feed their kids what they consider to be nutritious, no matter how much the kids hate it. So boiled liver, unsweetened hot milk, really hard boiled eggs, and goat stew all figured heavily in the childhood parade of food horrors. My grandmother was a decent cook, but the awful food definitely stood out more than any good food. A few of the more positive memories were: - watching hundreds of wantons cooling during the holidays - fishing for crayfish during one summer and eating crayfish everyday for weeks - first taste of a pineapple sorbet

If you're flying out or connecting in Narita, I strongly recommend Sushi Kyotatsu in Terminal 1. It's pricy (I got a big chirashi bowl for $30 and there were some sashimi sets for $60-70) but the fish is impeccable. I might have had fish that good at Sushi Taro and Kushi Izakaya occasionally. Every piece of fish was perfect. Maybe the art of raw fish is so elevated in Japan that this *is* airport sushi quality in Japan, in which case, I must get myself to Japan ASAP. NRT

Joe, thanks for your suggestions. We've been to many of the places you've mentioned and most have indeed impressed us. Despite being out of our usual price range (it's the cost of staying at the Inn versus a budget airbnb place nearby that really moves the overall cost up) for special occasion dining, Willows Inn is particularly attractive because it shares a similar philosophy to sourcing/cooking/plating as NOMA, Favriken, Town House, etc. That style of foraging and seeking inspiration from nature seems perfectly suited for the fecundity of the Pacific Northwest. We're pretty much committed to going and will report back eventually. The trip we've planned out will hit Portland, Seattle, Vancouver, Victoria, and Tofino, each for 36-48 hours. Also some hiking in the North Cascades and Olympic Peninsula. We'll be covering a lot of ground and a lot of restaurants. We've driven past Portland and Seattle before, but otherwise this is pretty much all virgin ground for us.

Thanks for the Chowhound recommendation. So far, everything we read for Willows Inn have been glowing, but we were recently stung by rather disappointing meals at Vetri and Bibou so I wanted to seek out as much outside opinion as possible. The dinner and room costs are not unreasonable (the room we're booking is cheaper than the Saturday surcharge at Inn at Little Washington), but we're not financially at the point where we can afford $600-700 disappointments. It's possible that things would be different during the *high* high season, but our booking there has been quite easy. They give people who book a room at the Inn priority on dinner reservations, then open the rest of the tables to reservations two weeks before the night of the dinner. We were able to make a weeknight reservation for early June without much fuss. It looks like they don't get much traffic during the off season, because they were running a weeknight half off on rooms promotion until May 1.

We had brunch at Barbuzzo and really enjoyed it. The prices are a notch lower than the other restaurants we visited on our latest Philly trip, and it shows in the youth of the diners. The service was good and I liked the dark wood decor, it was stylish and minimalist and didn't feel oppressive. The food was all quite good and relatively large portions. The generous antipasta plate paired great with the tasty charcouterie plate. The meatballs here are big and pretty darn great. The pizza crusts lacked the cracker crispness of Ghibellina or Osteria, but were otherwise on par with the best of DC for crust and toppings. The slight letdown would be the pasta - another tomato-less ragu that was a bit too thin for our liking, and the pasta itself not quite perfectly supple and silky.

I suspect the answer is no, but has Rockwellian ever had dinner or stayed at Willows Inn on Lummi Island? We're considering re-routing our June vacation itinerary somewhat to accommodate for a dinner and stay here. It would be a splurge, so we would like as much outside confirmation as possible that we're not setting ourselves up for an expensive disappointment.

Also in for Rose's along with a +1, but we can only make it after June 18.