our flight wasn’t until 11, so we had plenty of time for a big breakfast. and found the perfect spot, pancake chef, just a half-mile from the seattle airport.
this place opened in 1959, and i can’t imagine it’s changed much since then.
regulars
spinach, mushroom, and cheddar omelette with pancakes
it was excellent, but the most amazing innovation is that you get to choose between potatoes and toast or five silver dollar pancakes with your omelette. the restaurant is called pancake chef, so the decision was easy.
after three recording days in granger with kdna (a very cool spanish-language community radio station), we drove back through the cascades and spent our last night out west in seattle.
it was my birthday eve and since i was going to be spending much of the next day on an airplane, my lovely coworker, carolina, took me out to dinner. since we didn’t find too many vegetables in the yakima valley, we went to cafe flora, a vegetarian restaurant in madison valley.
farmhouse-chic
lentil-pecan pate platter with olives, cornichons, grapes and croccantini
oaxaca tacos: roasted corn tortillas filled with mashed potatoes, cheddar and smoky mozzarella cheeses with lime crème fraîche, feta, black beans, tomato salsa fresca, corn and pepper relish, and braised greens
vegan coconut mango cake with spiced rum caramel sauce
less than two hours after we left the cascades, we arrived at the columbia river. the landscape and the weather changed dramatically from cloudy and piney to bright and windy and scorched high plains.
carolina approaches the big river made wavy by wind
like i said, it was very windy. we tried to recreate the magic from lake pontchartrain.
more wind, etc.
after lunch, we drove west on 90. after leaving the seattle area, we quickly got into the cascades and made it to snoqualmie pass, where it was cool and rainy. a little past the pass, we pulled off the highway into lake easton state park.
nice lake. nice clouds.
tall tall pines
hugz. also, this place smelled soooo good. can’t beat campfires and pine!
some more pics here.
we arrived in seattle hungry for lunch and made our way to square lotus, a vietnamese restaurant in bellevue with a large vegetarian menu.
summer rolls
special vegetarian pho
(and again, sorry for the blog silence. look forward to good blogging this week from the yakima valley.)
in addition to a large southeast asian population in elgin, there are a also a lot of mexicans, which means a lot of taquerias. i think i picked the right one.
sope de rajas y quesadilla de huitlacoche.
the pictures really don’t do this justice. so so good. the tortillas were super fresh and the rajas and huitlacoche were wonderfully seasoned. the guy working there was impressed that i not only knew what huitlacoche was, but i also throughly enjoyed it. oh, and the horchata was pretty good too! a++++
last night for dinner, we ventured into chicago. the first obstacle was terrible traffic on 90. so we parked and took the l the rest of the way into the city. once we made it to wicker park, we went to handlebar, a veg-friendly, southernish restaurant with good, local beer on tap.
bbq seitan sandwich with collard greens
oh, and i drank a goose island summertime kolsch and a three floyds pride & joy.
after dinner we had some more drinks at big star. it’s a converted garage with a large outdoor space…the hot bird of chicago?!
