Get Out North Idaho

Broken Egg Cafe

2013-04-01T15:46:00.000-07:00

Broken Egg Cafe
3650 N Government Way
Coeur d'Alene, ID
(208) 966-4399
Broken Egg Cafe on Facebook

The jumbo yellow sun was shining on our puffy little faces more dramatically than it had so far the entire year, sweeter than the sticky yolk of a Cadbury Creme Egg. Yes, it was Easter Sunday, and despite being up the night before later than may actually be legal in the grand old state of Idaho, my house mate and I were up at 8 am with full-on borborygmi happening in our tummies.

It was early enough to beat the post-worship Easter Bonnet crowd to pretty much anywhere we wanted to eat, so I threw a hat onto my Hurricane Helen bed hair, and with bleary, hungry eyes we pointed the car north and rambled up an eerily vacated Government Way to the Broken Egg Cafe. As I had hoped, only ten or so vehicles lined the front of the building, and with an ample amount of tables and a long diner counter, we knew we wouldn't have any trouble at all getting seated pronto.

Last August, the Broken Egg blossomed like a stylish young butterfly from the dusty old cocoon of the former Rockin' Robin' restaurant, and it has become on of our go-to breakfast spots ever since. Not sure what happened to the good old RR, but according to chatter on the street, the story was a time-honored tragedy: owner decides to sell it, kitchen employee decides to take the risk and buy it, and the whole thing slowly crumbles due to a lack of experience and funds.

Last time had eaten at the Rockin' Robin, it had become the Grunge Central of the Northside and half the menu items were crossed out with a sharpie (Aw, c'mon. No waffles, really!?) . I knew they didn't have much vital spark left in them, and they didn't. I felt zero shock when I drove by the place not much longer after that to see the sign out front replaced and something new formulating. The Broken Egg Cafe seemed like a reasonable enough name, but I was still nervous. Unless they were to get a hazmat crew in to do a scrub down and fully purge the building of it's crusty-fusty faux 1950's rock-n-roll accoutrements, the Broken Egg was doomed.

Happily, the first time I stopped into the new place after it opened, I was pleased to see that it was cleaned up to the point of being nearly unrecognizable and that the decor style had been brought up to at least the late 90's/early 2000's era. Opposite walls are painted various bold earthy colors (pale green/rust orange/autumn red) and the decorative features adorning them remind me of what would happen if Target decided to open a chain of discount restaurant decor stores. That's not a complaint - the artsy, frameless black-and-white prints of enlarged eating utensils, and mirrors with retro-space age satellite frames are a thousand times better than the nicotine-stained Elvises and scratched-up vinyl 45s of the Rockin' Robin.

Then there's the food. Although the Broken Egg has kept the menu nearly identical, the quality of the meals they put out make anything that came before seem like a creepy distant memory. In my half-dozen or so drop-ins so far, I've been for the most part impressed - the food is classic and tasty American breakfast and lunch fare with no fruity hipster complications whatsoever (I love you Garnet Cafe, but yes I'm looking at you). Unfortunately, the Broken Egg's lack of adventurousness ultimately knocks a couple of points off their tally. I'd have loved to see them completely toss out the old menu out with the rest of the clean-up trash and start from scratch with some items that would serve to give the place an all-new culinary personality of its very own.

Still, it's like I said, what they do put out out in front of their many hungry customers is perfectly acceptable and frequently delicious. Breakfastwise, the menu has all the tried and true standards with a few slightly unusual items that stand out: a Taco Omelet with seasoned beef, a Breakfast Hamburger (patty, bacon, egg, swiss cheese on a bun). Lunch is served from 11 til 2, and is just as fine as their morning fare. The menu has a bundle of basic burgers; a stack of sandwiches, hot and cold; a salon of salads; and a flock of fried finger foods.

Prior visits, I've hit their pancakes hard, several times. The one GIANT pancake they serve that keeps absorbing all the butter and syrup like an especially bitchy thirsty sponge that keeps demanding you to apply more, more, more. Another very memorable Broken Egg highlight for me was their Cheddar Jalapeno burger, which I ordered at random one late morning when I was feeling way over breakfast. It surprised me by turning out to be the tastiest, juciest, fieriest, cheesiest Jalapeno Cheddar burger I ever put down my gullet. Served with an epic mound of fries, it was a fully awesome come-up for only $7.25.

This most recent Easter morning trip to the Broken Egg, it was definitely still the breakfast hour, so I went for the Kitchen Sink omelet, which like it sounds, has nearly everything but... Well, in trifling amounts at least. It's mostly ham, cut into cubelets so tiny and wee that they're nearly impossible to tackle and manipulate with a fork. Similarly, everything else scantily sprinkled through this omelet (green and red peppers, mushrooms, bacon, red onion, tomatoes) is chopped up into such bitsy pieces, that when you attempt to bring a bite of omelet to your quivering lips, various ingredients cascade down back onto the plate and onto your dirty shirt, leaving you with a bite of nothing but eggs and eggs.

Once I finally twas able to teach myself a few clever tricks on how to successfully eat the thing (scrape and scoop, fast!), it was pretty good. Sadly, my giant hash brown patty was nice and crispy on the very outer layer, but mushy and extremely bland inside. It was Easter, so I had to thank Jesus for green Tabasco and sprinkle it heavily across my great white plateau of boring potatoes. Much better, amen.

The Broken Egg's prices are easy on the debit card and the service is always super duper. The waitresses here are caffeinated and chatty and fun and shine bright like the Easter morning sunshine even on the rainiest day in April (don't let the gorgeous weather fool you, you know it's coming soon). For the first time in years, there's an aura of positivity and breakfasty joy that surrounds this utilitarian old concrete building on Government Way, and I'd definitely recommend basking in it.

Safeway Chicken Tandoori Samosas

2012-08-05T14:53:00.000-07:00

Rolling in to Safeway on my way to work today, I had a case of the frail hungries but I had no idea what I wanted to munch upon. I've never found the Safeway Deli zone, at least the one on 4th Street in downtown CdA, to be particularly thrilling. I won't get into details now (you can read my write up about the subject from a few years back here), but barring their fresh-made-on-the-spot sandwich situation (think Subway knock-off), I've found their selections to be blasé, overly corporate, and unappealing.

Still, when I'm hungry enough I have a look-see anyway, and today I found something there that threw me for a lit of a loop: "Nana's Kitchen Chicken Tandoori Samosas". I'd heard of the term Samosa before, but frankly, I had no idea exactly what I was looking at. (I later educated myself here). I asked the Deli Queen on duty if they were best eaten hot or cold and she gave me a blank stare for a moment before replying "uhh...both I guess". $4.99 was a bit of a high price point for grocery deli action, but I was feeling experimental and starvacious, so I threw it in my hand basket, filed through the check out line and headed for work.

I put the nuclear orangey-brown triangle up to my mouth and took a ginger little nip on the corner, not exactly sure what to expect. Wow, surprises are a kick, and this little odd pocket was substantially brimming with flavor right away. I'm putting it out there right now that this is the best Safeway deli item I've subjected myself to, miles beyond their dry bread/soggy tomato grab-and-go sandwiches or their bland-ass slimy-skin chicken parts.

I didn't exactly get the taste of tandoori chicken specifically, but a mish-mash of Indian cuisine flavors comes through in a way that's not overwhelming or uber spicy, but mellow, delicious, and kind of refreshing. Attempting to read the microscopic list of ingredients on the carton's sticker did me no good whatsoever. Honestly, it's never a good idea to get too deep into those things because even a plain Jane Safeway turkey-and-bread deli sandwich will list things like Pyrodoxine Hydrocloride among the ingredients, and that just ain't appetizing at all.

So I'm just guessing at ingredients a bit here, but along with a commendably tasty blend of curry and Indian spices, there are bits of chicken, potatoes, rice, peas, carrots, and some kind of vegetable protein filler (which works better here than that notion may suggest). The other lovely factor in this, my first Samosa experience, was the pleasingly oily and toothsome outer wrap itself.

I didn't know it until I bit in, but these babies got to be that weird color because they were deep fried! Hurray for for deep fried foods, right? I'm still eating my second Samosa as I type this, and I'm going to have to attack my laptop keyboard with Formula 409 when I'm done to get all the grease off the keys.

I could have popped them in the microwave I suppose, and I have a feeling they would be totally delish that way as well, but I found them to be perfectly fabulous right out of the deli cooler on a hundred degree August day such as today. My cold peach was a genius stroke if I do say so myself, such a great sweet accompaniment for the mild spice of the Safeway Samosas. It was like Peaches & Herb performing "Reunited" right there on my very willing tongue.

I hope the Powers That Be at the 4th Street Safeway Deli allow Nana's kitchen's Samosas to carry on being available forever and ever and ever. Because I'm hooked and the likelihood of another Samosa Spot popping up in this two-horse town anytime soon is pretty slim. I will not settle for Samoas or Mimosas or Samoans. Well, maybe a Mimosa or two would be okay...

Downtown CdA Food Truck Donut Burger

2012-07-22T14:36:00.002-07:00

Last night, for the first time in moons, I was visited by the Divine and Holy Burger Angels of Bliss. Well, that might have possibly been a hallucination brought on by the tequila shots that were working their mystical magic on my mind and mouth, but still. Bartenders often get hungry and clued-in bar customers know this fact. They may arrive at the bar with cartons of delicious food stuffs in hopes of getting a maximally delicious drink, and as a bartender, I can honestly say: it usually works.

Another trick that certain bar patrons know is to wait until the day bartender is off his shift and then pour shots of tasty booze down his throat until you’re his BFF forever and ever. Several folks tested this idea out on me last night and I can honestly say: it also works.

Anyway, I had already been done with my shift for an hour or so and was getting just a skosh tipsy wipsy and extremely tummy-rumbly. Suddenly, a figure emerged at me from out of the smoky darkness of the bar, carrying an armload of white Styrofoam to-go boxes. It was one of my most beloved regulars. “Hungry? You’ll never guess what I found at this food truck down on Sherman.”

I cracked open one of the boxes, not totally sure what to expect, and there it was, something I’d only ever heard of as a gluttonous internet food meme, something I was terrified of and delighted by simultaneously at the same time, something enough to make Paula Deen’s boobs bounce excitedly at the possibility of adding new calories to their bodacious bounty. It gleamed in front of me, reflecting the colored lights of the dance floor like a golden, sugary disco ball.

Behold: the Glazed Donut Burger.

If you’re afraid to experiment with new or unusual foods, just make arrangements for getting neatly intoxicated first and your anxieties will drift away like stream off the hot grill. “Where on earth did you find these little babies?” was the first question that fell from my now-salivating lips. “I don’t think it has a name. It’s just a plain white truck in that little parking lot across from Crickets by the big buffalo.” Oh, you big buffalo you, it’s all your fault.

Picking up the burger, it wasn’t as much of a heavy, sticky mess as I was expecting, and once I had my grubby mitt on it, I didn’t put it down at all, I just let it disappear deep into my mouth hole in fast fashion. Heck, I was starving and that poor little thing didn’t ever stand a chance at longevity, but I did pause briefly to make mental notes about the flavor combination and ultimate vibe of the wacky Donut Burger experience.

Basically, it was a lot like a really, really fantastic breakfast sandwich. Anyone who’s ever indulged in a McDonalds Sausage McGriddle sandwich will understand that the combo of a sweet “bun” with melty cheese and meat products is a conceptually odd but surprisingly winning flavor marriage. It's a maple love kind of feeling.

Similarities end there. The Food Truck Donut Burger is a thousand times more delicious than any kind of fast food garbage, and it would be appropriate to serve for breakfast, lunch, dinner, brunch, linner, funch, midnight snack, daylight snack, or last supper.

The glazed Krispy Kreme bun (I am pretty sure it was the real deal) was toothsome and sweet. The beef patty was grilled to a nice char on the outside but was meaty-rich and greasy-hot inside. Smoky crisp bacon strips and a slice of tangy cheddar finished out the cast of players in the Donut Burger Show, and no condiments were involved, obviously. Only a loon would ruin this perfect (and perfectly fattening) collision of sweet vs. umami flavors with ketchup.

Yes, folks it’s a good ‘un and I promise it’ll be worth the effort to seek and find this late night food truck with no name. Word on the street is that if it’s not set up in the parking lot next to Art Spirit where my pal stumbled across it last night, it can be found in it's origianl home at in the parking lot of Hogfish Bar on East Sherman. Trust me, o fearful and retiring ones, the Donut Burger is worth staying up past the end of Matlock and fighting the rowdy drunk young’uns for.

There’s a lesson here (aka a hint): bring your bartender (me) amazing late night street food and you will become his number one favorite customer – he will make your cocktails extra luscious and you’ll always get served first before the unbathed homelss nutballs and collagen-lipped, peroxided bimbettes that never tip. As a very wise man (me) once said: a well-fed bartender is a happy bartender.

Grandma Zula's Kitchen

2012-07-02T15:33:00.002-07:00

Grandma Zula's Kitchen
306 Spokane St., Post Falls.
(208) 457-0228 -- facebook

A hunkering solid iron Victorian era wood stove looms near the door. Then there's this montage of objects on a display shelf behind the counter: St. Vincent du Paul dish room cookie jars; dust encrusted straw fruit basket from probably Shopko; Country Living magazine September 1987 she-scarecrow rag doll; a framed photo of a beaming cute baby in a little chef's outfit surrounded by vegetables. A clothes iron without a power cord or vertical steam surge or even a demineralizer.

Plastic tablecloths in retro avocado, mustard, and rust colors, patterned with pleasingly tacky acid flashback coffee mugs. Real-deal sugar shakers and syrup spouts. Double-wide chic stained ceiling tiles, bright overhead fluorescent lighting, and the spirit aura of wood paneling. Faded framed-and-matted-in-mauve-and-salmon floral prints. Forlorn country and western music drifting through behind the kitchen clang and clamor (cue Willie Nelson's "Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain")

So yeah, this place is basically all grandma'd out all to heck, but don't have fits of disappointment about the fact that you ain't ever gonna run into dear Grandma Zula herself around here. She's, uh...gone to a better place. But owner Kari Turnbough is Zula's granddaughter and the decor and home cooking she's been dishing up in her cozy Post Falls strip-mall diner since late last year are rooted in her fond childhood memories of, well, Grandma Zula's Kitchen.

Turnbough was quoted in the CDA Press last November as saying "I want people to walk in feeling like they're in grandma's kitchen." Well girl, mission accomplished. You are serving us up some serious grandma realness. In fact, if some big time marketing and design team was handed only the general concept of "grandma realness" to work with, it would have been impossible for them to come up with a plan to beat what's happening at this place.

Food as comforting as Nana's big pillowy bosoms is the mainstay on Zula's menu. Oatmeal is oatmeal, but I have a hunch it becomes something a little more dynamic and authentic than Quaker Instant here, with the addition of brown sugar, raisins, and milk ($4.95). I've literally received ecstatic text messages from two different friends, mid-orgasm, after diving into Zula's Chicken Fried Steak Two-Egg Breakfast ($8.75), and they're not the types to fake it.

There are four Benedict style plates of offer, including Salmon with cream cheese, tomato and their own dreamy hollandaise sauce ($9.95). Zula's does the lunch thing as well, and items worth investigation include the Pepper Jack Burger on Sourdough ($8.49), the Tuna Melt ("did somebody say tooooonahhh?" ~ my cat) ($6.95), the Buffalo Chicken Wrap (served with an unexpectedly healthful fresh fruit plate) ($8.25), and a "lighter menu". Since when is homemade mac-n-cheese ($3.95) considered light? Give me two orders then, I guess.

Naturally, upon opening up the menu, the very first grouping of words that caused my eyeballs to pop was "Original Monte Cristo". A cult resurgence has brought the Monte Cristo (battered and deep fried ham, turkey and cheese sandwich served with berry jam) slightly back into fashion, but it's still quite a rare thing to see on the menus of local eateries.

A deeper dive into the menu and my salivary glands were suddenly all pumped up about the possibility of Johnny Apple Cakes (unrelated to the porn star of the same name). This carbo-loaded breakfast dessert is two buttermilk pancakes folded with red applesauce and topped with honey cream cheese. Amazing, right? Not according to the waitress, who recommended "Zula's Fried Apple Pancakes" as a better option if I was truly interested in the apple scene. Okay, I'm easy. I ordered them as an upgrade of the "Hot Cake Breakfast" - two of the fancy apple cakes along with œufs brouillés and bacon.

My roommate likes an extra gassy breakfast mess, so he ordered all up on the chili-cheese omelet with a side of sour cream, hash browns, and biscuits and gravy. Mercifully for me, he was headed for work after our meal, so I didn't have to suffer the flatulatory consequences of this decision myself.

Our waitress and her co-workers fit right into the blood-relative homespun vibe of the place. In fact, I mentioned to my roommate that it was sort of like actually visiting your grandmother's kitchen and running into a handful of jolly favorite cousins all running about and being a little goofy while getting dinner out on the table while grandma naps. (Going to be a looong nap for Miss Zula - apologies, couldn't resit it). In other words, the service was well friendly and warm as a hot, fluffy biscuit.

Speaking of which, the only mild complaint was related to my roomate's biscuits and gravy, which arrived quite a few minutes after the main part of his breakfast, and when they did, he took several bites and poo-poo'd them as "just not all that". Of course, my roommate is also a picky bitch, and instead of taking his word for it, I dug in and tried them and thought they were tasty in a old-timey kind of way, but yes, they could have used a little extra pizzazz. He did say his Chili Cheese omelet was "so extra cheesy good" and that his hash browns had a "crispety crunch", so two out of three isn't bad.

My Fried Apple cakes were each as big as a three wolf moon and stuffed with humongous fried-in-butter red apple chunks. There was no way I could finish all of this hypnotically delicious pile of dough, pats of real butter, syrup, and thunder glory apple goodness, and I didn't. The bacon was perfectly bacony and the scrambled eggs were scrambled eggy, and I did manage to kill both of those, even though my Pyloric valve was about ready to call in sick and take an early leave for the July 4th holiday.

Stuffed and awestruck, we bid Kari and crew adieu and flopped our way back to the car like two overstuffed pink animatronic beanbag chairs waving happy little roly-poly marsupial arms.

The Hunt for the Elusive Egg Salad Sandwich

2012-06-14T15:11:00.001-07:00

The above video clip is from Woody Allen's film debut, 1966's "What's Up Tiger Lily?", in which entirely unrelated, seriously silly dialog is dubbed over the top of some random campy Japanese spy film. The plot of the Allen-scripted version revolves around the search for the "world's best recipe" for egg salad, and it is so coveted that hearts are broken and secret agent men are shot up like Swiss cheese in the process of finding this elusive recipe.

It may seem a bit over the top, but even 46 years later, there is a kernel of truth to the concept. A good egg salad sandwich is as hard to find these days as a hardcore LaToya Jackson fan.

The situation kind of came into focus for me a few weeks ago when a slightly grizzled, new-to-town random guy bellied up to my bar, ordered a jack and Coke and at one point in our conversation he blurted out "there's only one thing wrong with this town. You can't find a god damned decent egg salad sandwich!".

I thought about it for a few minutes. "Yeah. This guy is on to something." I was drawing a complete blank on how to solve this guy's egg salad dilemma. You can most likely find some kind of pre-packaged, sad sack egg salad blandness between two slices of ghetto bread in every gas station deli cooler and call center vending machine in town, but that doesn't even count.

But where would a cat head for an honest-to-goodness, fresh made, fluffy and flavorful egg salad sandwich? Naturally, I had to figure it out. My research was entirely online, so there are probably several more eateries that serve them, but here are a few to at least get us started in the right direction. If you are aware of additions, please feel free to email me and let me know and I will tack them on here.

Herbie's Deli Stop
(4055 N Government Way, Coeur d'Alene) Facebook

"I had the egg salad sandwich, and it was excellent. Served on thick nine-grain bread, everything about it was fresh, Probably the best egg salad sandwich I've ever had." ~ Kurt S., Yelp!
I do love Herbie's deli, it's kind of a local foodie insider secret, located in a semi-obscure strip mall across from the fairgrounds. Every time I've dined at Herbie's it's just fantastic, down-to-earth and understated but impactful and affordable. however, I've never gotten around to sampling their magic egg salad. I'm going to take Kurt S.'s advice above and assume it's yum yummy and put a note on my mental refrigerator door to get in there and give the idea some mouth time. (half egg sandwich $5.25)

Starbucks(Various Locations)

You always say you simply loathe the place. Their corporate ubiquitous, their tendency toward eco-cutesiness and blah blah blah. But you will inevitably end up at Starbucks anyway and you will secretly enjoy the experience. Next time you're sneaking in to grab your Britney Spears sized latte, maybe you will experience a hunger pang. And when that happens, you should be comforted to know that Starbucks offers a "classic" egg salad sandwich with dill, mustard, celery and lettuce on whole-wheat bread. I haven't tried one myself since I avoid Starbucks completely because it's terribly pedestrian and oh so passé. Of course, I lie - I'll meet you there tomorrow at noon.

High Nooner
3510 North Government Way Coeur d'Alene

The "High Nooner" is apparently the one that started it all for the High Nooner. Or was it the other way around? Ironically, this is kind of a chicken or egg which came first kind of story. Described on the menu as Egg Salad, Cream Cheese, Bacon, Lettuce, Mayo, Tomato, 12 Grain Bread ($6.55), I ordered mine with no tomato (oh, hell no), and didn't notice until I got it home that I should have asked them to put mustard up in there mustard. I mean, what? No mustard (just a little) in your egg salad is like no whiskey in your water. It just ain't right.

So this sandwich was a bit on the bland side, but the addition of the bacon helped since bacon is clearly something that helps everything it touches. The cream cheese was barely detectable, but the egg salad itself was at least fluffy and fresh. Their baked-on-site bread is always a hit, the free cookie is a sweet bonus, and the High Nooner's friendly service always results in a warm fuzzy or two. Approved!

Pilgrims Market
1316 North 4th Street Coeur d'Alene

I'm not entirely sure how exactly Pilgrims puts together the egg salad sandwiches that live on the top shelf in the cooler case across from the deli counter, but they are definitely a bit different than the classic and familiar model.

The main noticeable difference is that they seem like they might actually treat your body right and not clog your arterial passageways with globs of mayonnaise-y cholesterol. There must be some version of mayo here holding things together, but it's probably some other suggestively named pseudo-mayo product such as Organic Vegenaise®. There is only the vaguest hint of mustard flavor, Perhaps some onion, celery maybe, definitely some fresh dill.

It's a pretty simple recipe and the time I had one of these sandwiches it was rather bland and the excessively dry wheat bread was spongy and crumbly the way hippies like it. If nothing else, you could pick up one of these, scrape off the egg salad into a bowl, add plentiful amounts of fatty Best Foods mayo and a squeeze of tangy French's mustard, as well as a good shake of Lawry's seasoned salt, slap that action between two slices of fresh Wonder bread and you are totally good to go.

Actually, these aren't bad at all and the addition of plentiful veggies (cukes, sprouts, tomato, red onion, lettuce leaves) might actually do something positive for you and push an actual vitamin or two into your fat and booze soaked body system. So, in other words, I'll give it a maybe.

Fu-Ki Japanese Steak House & Sushi Bar

2012-05-10T15:01:00.001-07:00

Fu-Ki Japanese Steak House & Sushi Bar
1500 E. Seltice Way, Post Falls
(208) 457-7077

Ha! Just noticed that Get Out North Idaho received this comment on the last (not so) recent post: "Anonymous said... Is this blog dead? Did the writer kick the bucket or what??" Well, anonymous, the answer is, for better or for worse, no. As I mentioned on the forever-ago review of Lakers Inn, I have been sold into a life of educational slavery, having made the decision last years to return to the University of Idaho for another round of good times. Now suddenly, summer is upon us, and like April fog lifting away into May blue skies, spring semester is officially over and I'm again able to spend more time on blathering out some new reviews and what not.

So, no. I haven't shuffled off this mortal coil quite yet, but earlier today I had an experience that had me nearly convinced that I had croaked and had, surprisingly, made it to the good place everyone is trying to go after they follow the white light through that soft-focus tunnel that leads toward the afterlife. A place where all of the heavy earthly weight lifts and decay and despair are nothing more than distant memories. A place where time and space mean nothing and existence is experienced on highly transcendent levels. Naturally, that spectral, ecstatic place I'm referring to is Post Falls.

Wait, that last bit doesn't sound quite right, does it. Specifically, my brief tryst with paradise occurred at the brand new Fu-Ki Japanese Streak House & Sushi Bar on Seltice Way in the bustling River City. Local foodies have been excited about this one for a stretch now, and details have been rather mysterious and slow coming, especially since Fu-Ki seems to have spilled no ink or pixels on advertising or web presence at all thus far (my darlings, do you need me to help you set up a we page or at least a Facebook account? E-mail me!) As my dear friend Kami Jo would say, I'm not. gonna. lie. It was damn well worth the wait. Today's lunch time visit to Fu-Ki has me so thrilled about the place that I'm not even going make light of the dirty word potential of mispronouncing their name.

I'd read that the restaurant was finally flinging open their doors this week, but never got the confirmation memo so I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to check the place out when I decided to make the jaunt over to Post Falls. When I pulled into the lot there weren't a lot of cars, but there were a couple of people hovering out front so I yelled at them, "are they open?" "Eleven thirty!" they yelled back. I used the ten minute wait to categorize the different grumbles and squeaks my tummy makes when it's starving and angry.

Walking in , I wasn't sure what to expect since I knew the building was converted from a former Arby's/Taco Time, but rest assured, any and all evidence of fast food frivolities has been gutted out and replaced with an entirely new layout and decor. I'm thinking at this point, with Fu-Ki still in soft-opening mode, not all the decor and furnishings are complete and finalized. The place seemed a little bare, but the warm reds and browns and Japanese tapestries were exactly what one would expect to see in such a place. Yes, it's a little generic at this point, but that's likely to change with time.

I chose a seat right up at the bar, and was greeted immediately by the sushi chef, whose name I would later learn was Jackie. Jackie's English leaned toward the broken side, but he seemed like someone who had been making sushi since Mothra was just a pupa. There was an enthusiastic and charming glint in his eye as he walked me through the menu, excitedly pointing out highlights and specialties.

I wanted to catch a sample of this and that, so I told him I was looking at getting a bento box. I love bento boxes anyway because I have a bizarre fetish for eating out of a self-contained unit with neat little compartments. I'm not one of those weirdos who freaks out if their foods touch, but if you are, a bento just the thing for you. Their bentos come with soup and a garden salad and three selections from a list of entrees, sushi rolls, appetizers and sides ($13.95). I chose the Sesame Chicken, the Sushi Assortment, and the Spicy Tuna Roll.

I placed my order and asked to hang onto the menu so I could give it a deep investigation while a waited for my bento box to appear. Unique appetizers in the fully illustrated tome include Calamari Tempura ($6), Mango Ceviche ($11), and something called Dynamite (an assortment of seafood baked in a creamy sauce) ($9). I crave edamame like crack (no mom, I don't really crave crack), so I made a mental note to order up a plate of the salty steamed soybeans.

Sushi boats are like little wooden ships filled with multicolored edible happiness, and Fu-Ki has four to choose from, with the top-tier choice being their namesake boat at $88.95. That may sound steep to some, but there are enough nigiri, sashimi and specialty rolls included to feed several dozen Shibuya district fashion models (or an American party of four or five folks). For a party of two, or a party of one who doesn't mind the occasional feeling of a severely distended colon, they offer the "Love Boat", which is still enough sushi to make even Captain Stubing throw in the anchor ($50.95)

The number of specialty rolls Fu-Ki offers is multitudinous, and on the menu, they all are actually like little gorgeous Japanese supermodels, shimmering, airbrushed posing in the perfect lighting and with slightly tropical feeling garnishes. Some familiar faces appear in this layout: Las Vegas Roll ($10). Spicy Rainbow Roll ($12). A massive, fire breathing Dragon Roll ($14). However, it's some of Fu-Ki's unique one-offs that win the modelling contract: the Snowcom is lightly baked with crabmeat, baked salmon, and avocado inside and albacore, lobster, and a special sauce on top ($14). The insane Popcorn Lobster pairs deep fried lobster with jalapenos atop a California roll and is drizzled with a spicy sauce ($13). And since I'm a little fruity sometimes, I like the idea of the Paradise Roll, which is mango and avocado layered daintily atop a spicy tuna roll with special sauce ($10.50).

I was eating edamame, sipping on the basic-but-tasty, beef-brothy soup, and watching the live telecast of President Obama getting off the plane in Seattle on his way to a Dave Matthews concert (such a historic moment to witness), when my lunch arrived. The wait was only about ten minutes, not bad at all considering that the place was really starting to fill up fast with people and that it was only their third day open. Visually, my bento situation didn't really have as much flare as some of the other sushi places I've been to over the years (I still miss you, Takara), but once I broke out the chopsticks and started digging in, by eyes quit caring about anything and handed the whole show over to my hungry mouth.

These poor fishies must have still been doing the flip-flop inside an ice chest when they showed up at Fu-Ki or something. All four pieces of my nigiri assortment were mouth-meltingly tender, with a smooth buttery texture and richly fresh flavor that would be enough to convert even the folks who live in fear of the idea of consuming raw fish. Dip those babies in a soy sauce and wasabi bath and let heaven commence. Similarly, the spicy tuna roll was stellar, even the nori holding the bright pink fish and vegetables inside was tender and tasty (there's nothing worse than sushi rolls with stale, chewy nori - ugh).

The green salad was fresh as the morning sun and the orange dressing that topped it off was tangy and bright. Although everything in my bento was truly fab, I really fell head over heels for Yu-Ki's sesame chicken. It's simple really, just smaller sized bites of chicken breast covered in a glaze and sprinkled with sesame seeds. But there was something about the glaze that lifted it above and beyond addiction and substance abuse territory. It was delicate in its sweetness but there was an after bang of spiciness that took awhile for my tastebuds to catch onto, but once they did, this was their conversation: Sesame Chicken - "party on Wayne!". My tastebuds - "party on, Garth!" They became best bros and they cannot wait to get together and kick it again sometime soon.

I focused my attention solely on the sushi bar scene of Fu-Ki for my lunch visit today, but obviously a huge part of the eatery's appeal is the Teppanyaki aspect. Teppanyaki is is a style of Japanese cuisine that uses an iron griddle to cook the meat, and was popularized back in the beehive hairdo era by Benihana. Fu-Ki has six seating areas with stainless steel grill hoods in the center that include plenty of space for chefs to act like showmen with the percussive twirling of spatulas and the dramatic sizzling flame-up tricks. If you've been to Spokane's Shogun restaurant, you know the deal.

There was one table full of lunching ladies being dazzled by one of Fu-Ki's Teppanyaki masters, but I didn't catch much of the show, so I do plan on returning for a second round some evening to experience it first hand (Teppanyaki just seems like a night time thing to me). I did mosey briefly through the separate grill menu and items range from teriyaki beef ($9.50) and chicken ($8.00), to swankier prospects like filet mignon ($15) and everything comes with soup, hibachi vegetables, and fried rice). The spatula show is free.

I was treated so warmly by Mr. Jackie and the rest of the ever-smiling staff that it was hard for me to uproot my bloated and sushi-ed up self from my bar stool and move out into the afternoon. The Fu-Ki employees were abundant and diverse, but what they all had in common was an attitude that they were there to have fun, but the fun wasn't phony or forced onto patrons like some of the gaudier restaurant chains. The staff weren't like training-brainwashed zombies serving insincere joy, but were allowed to be down to earth and let their own genuineness come through. It lends the place an aura of comfort which combines with the top-notch cuisine, ought to put Fu-Ki neck and neck with the White House Grill as the number one reason for foodies to pull of I-90 in Post Falls.

March Cavalcade of Food Porn

2012-03-13T08:00:00.000-07:00

Syringa Japanese Cafe, Coeur d'Alene
Sashimi Assortment
via CdA Night Out

1313 Club, Wallace
Bacon Cheese Burger and Beer Battered Fries
by "hoppygirl_nw" via TripAdvisor

Cafe Carambola, Coeur d'Alene
El Argentino Torta
by BellinghamLass via TripAdvisor

Country Boy Cafe, Athol

Sausage Skillet, Chicken Fried Steak, and Sidesby gcleff11 via TripAdvisor

Beverly's, Coeur d'Alene
Godiva Chocolate Souffle
by Nancy D. Brown via Uptake

The Moon Time, Coeur d'Alene
Anasazi Bean Burger
via Food & Ink

Scratch, Coeur d'Alene
Picatta Steak
via Free to Feast

Jalapenos Mexican Restaurant, Sandpoint
Grilled Shrimp Tacos with Spanish Rice and Black Beansvia Jalapenos on Facebook

The Lakers Inn

2012-03-10T13:17:00.002-08:00

The Lakers Inn
407 North 2nd Street
Coeur d'Alene, ID
(208) 667-9806

Golly, folks! Somehow a whole damn month slipped into the miasma since my last post. The truth is, I'm bring all student-y and stuff lately. I'm back at the University of Idaho (Cd'A campus, natch) finishing up my BA in Psychology, and when you're caught up that kind of brain-zapping adventure, time can just slip out from underneath you like a cheap Big Lots bathmat. Plus, being student-y and all, I haven't had a lot of extra fun ticket$ and the typical dining out experience for me lately has been Chinese Gardens takeout delivered swiftly and hot while I'm working the opening bartending shift at my job one block north. I've been kind of a busy beaver.

Despite the chaos, there is one place I've managed to sleaze into a few times recently, a happy rediscovery of sorts. Maybe it's my reentry into the realm of the loose-living collegiate world, but sometimes nothing sounds better than a cold, juicy pitcher of that quintessential American classic: Pabst Blur Ribbon beer. Alas, my main class is on Monday nights and Monday night is our restful sabbath at our bar (we're closed), so for lack of better options (not true), we've been darkening the doorway of one of Coeur d'Alene's oldest and most beloved dives, the Lakers Inn.

This user review I Googled up from the MojoPages website by "Gareth", an obvious regular Lakers regular, sums up the story rather well:

So many things I have seen at this bar, drinks are cheap, the smell is horrendous, but if you want to see everybody in cda you will find them here eventually....avoid Sunday nights with Baird for he truly only has a job because they keep him around out of pity or something; cant mix a drink for shit. Doug and his hotty girl, Judy, are the best presence @ the bar for the nights of popularity. Jody works the days for them old folks, and does a damn fine job. And then there's Jody's sister Terry, the loose cannon. Quite a girl, just do not ask for more than one perfectly mixed bloody Mary or she will get pissy. Last is the owner, Dwight, ex-drill sergeant or something, only there during the days...this guy is so retired he doesn't remember what it is to "go after it", and that is why Lakers is an almost destination. Good drinking, no fighting, and best of all...you can actually be part of the Lakers family so that you don't have to be part of yours. WE ALL LOVE LAKERS‎

He's right about Judy, for she is a fabulous creature and has been slinging drinks over that crusty old counter since 1978 or something incredible like that. As a bartender, she's effortless and her candid, engaging personality is mixed with just enough raw sass to make the night entertaining, even without the benefit of the only-sometimes music of the jukebox.

I can't really speak on Gareth's blunt (rude?) thoughts about the other bartenders, each time I've visited recently, it's been either Miss Judy behind the bar or it's been the "rookie", Miss Jai, who is also a most excellent hostess. Don't I know it, but it takes a certain type of mental constitution to remain cool, gathered and projecting a positive vibe in a job where one has to tend to a parade of drunk chainsmokers, babblers, loudmouths, pukers, liars, and freaks. I've never witnessed Jai have a code-orange meltdown or anything even close to it, and meanwhile, she's serving up some of the stiffest, cheapest booze bevs in the panhandle with not a drop of sweat.

You probably wouldn't expect the Lakers Inn to be such a trendy name in the world of fashion, but it seems nearly every regular face here is sporting some kind of Lakers logo gear, sweat shits and t-shirts galore, including the specimen you see below.

Funny, yes. But let's break this down a bit shall we? No food? Technically, yes, but the Lakers Inn does have one of the more impressive arrays of bar snacks I've ever seen. Packets of peanuts, Beer Nuts and regular or BBQ Corn Nuts. Bags of chips in a vast variety of flavors. Snickers bars and Reece's Peanut Butter Cups. All kinds of stuff. You don't really want to eat a salad or whatever in a place that's so intensely smokey anyway, eh?

Which brings us to our next point. The newly installed Smoke-eeter above the main room doesn't stand a fighting chance against the hardest of hardcore cig puffers that occupy these bar stools from nine o'clock in the morning until two o'clock at night, seven days a week. Warm beer? I've never had it there. In fact the draft PBR is always refreshing and crisp. Strong Drinks? Yes indeed, no-one's going to dispute that. I witnessed one certain twenty-something girl realize this the hard way the other night when I was hanging out.

All I saw was a disgruntled boyfriend basically carrying this poor girl out of the ladies room and dashing out of the place with the words no bartender ever wants to hear, "Uh, you kinda got a mess to deal with in there." Judy was suddenly gone for 15 minutes and she returned looking like she'd seen the holocaust, and for a seasoned vomit mopper like her to have been fazed, you now it had to be traumatically ugly. Lousy service and grouchy bartenders? Like I said, not as far as I can tell, but there is a certain snarliness and snarkiness to the vibe of the place that runs deep in the place's DNA.

The Lakers was converted from an old Health and Welfare office (irony?) into the Lakers Inn in around 1968 by Alice and Floyd Roselund, who were actually my paternal Great Aunt and Uncle. Was it somehow a normal thing for parents to bring their toddlers into a smoky beer bar in the 1970's or was it just a quirk my family ran with? Regardless, I recall spending more than a few hours there during my early childhood, playing in the corner while my parents, uh, socialized. The memories are pretty vague, save for the unbleachable image of lurid red-orange floor-to-mid-wall shag carpeting (in a bar? what were they thinking?). Still, I am quite sure that everything but that godawful carpet (it has since been covered over with equally-as-taste-questionable wood panels) has remained at least 90% unchanged.

That's not at all a complaint, either. In a town with increasingly fancy-pants drinking spots (Seasons, Splash et al), it's comforting that the only things resembling mod-cons at the Lakers are the televisions and the ATM. They don't have the equipment to accept credit cards and the CD jukebox is comprised of almost entirely tunes one might have expected to hear on the old Wolfman Jack radio show on KVNI back when the bar originally opened. The liquor selection is extremely limited and you won't find anything remotely resembling a microbrew anywhere on premise.

The random and bizarre collection of bric-a-brac behind the bar is worth the trip alone: a can of "bullshit repellent", a pink velour flocked plastic statue of Jesus Christ, a rubber great white shark, dozens of rather rude but tongue in cheek plastic signs. The bar stools are a bit rickety but have been made very comfortable from decades worth of asses working on them until they're just so. I can't describe the ladies room, but the men's loo is like a weird trip back in time to it's Health and Welfare days decades ago - they still have one of those old roll-up cloth towel rigs to dry your hands on. Uh, no. I'll wipe them on my jeans, thanks.

One thing I remember about the Lakers when my relatives owned it was the preeminence of the "Bud Bunch". I'm not sure exactly what the modus operandi of this group was, but from what I can gather, it was simply a group of bar regulars getting together as often as possible and drinking Budweiser beer until they were as sloppily blotto as possible. Yes, this is my family heritage, and how could I not be proud of such a sparkling legacy? In fact, I'm told the Bud bunch still exists in some form, but I have a feeling that these days, the gatherings are small, early in the day, and involve shots of Ensure and Metamucil in between beers.

The day crowd at the Lakers does primarily consist of very, uh, seasoned barflys and regulars that have been haunting the place for 40 years or more. However, once the senior citizens clear out in the afternoon, the place transforms into Hipster Central. (Some people seem to have no idea what I mean when I use the word 'hipster' so let's turn to Urban Dictionary so I know we are on the same page: "Hipsters are a subculture of men and women typically in their 20's and 30's that value independent thinking, counter-culture, progressive politics, an appreciation of art and indie-rock, creativity, intelligence, and witty banter.")

Okay, maybe that's making the Lakers night crowd sound a little more urbane than they really are, but basically they're young folks who like chunky glasses, beards, and flannel who are looking for an unpretentious place to drink booze, shoot pool, and exchange ideas without having to deal with the rich-bitch trendy twenty somethings that haunt places like Splash or the hip-hop rowdies at Baja or the cover-band cheesers at the Iron Horse. In other words, this vintage hole in the wall is my kinda place.

Unpretentious is really the key word when it comes to describing the Lakers Inn - it is what it is, take it or leave it, up yours if you don't like the smoke or the attitude or the lack of entertainment or whatever else. It's one of the last of its kind in our fair berg, and we should treasure its contribution to the fabric of our local culture and cling to the hope of its longevity.

Wendy's

2012-02-02T12:14:00.000-08:00

Wendy's
202 East Appleway Avenue
Coeur d'Alene, ID
(208) 676-8699
(and many other locations)

In the beginning there was nothing and God said 'Let there be light', and there was still nothing but everybody could see it. ~ Dave Thomas

You know I have a general rule forbidding myself from doing write ups on national fast-food chains, but little rules are for little minds and today I was a) in the mood to write a blog entry and b) just too damn lazy to get out of the car and check out a real, actual restaurant. So. This combination of circumstances caused me to trek through the drive up window of a place I consider to at least be one of the more tolerable burger chains on Junk Food Way, Wendy's.

As a young girl, Melinda Lou "Wendy" Thomas rocked kind of a broke down Pippi Longstocking look. She had nearly an identical hair and fashion sense as Miss Pip, but with a blank smile instead of a mean scowl. To be honest, I prefer Pippi's cruel spunk over Wendy's innocuous grin, but the latter's caricature has become inescapable, appearing on every Wendy's sign, cup, napkin, and advertisement nearly everywhere, from Toledo to Trinidad and Tobago.

Wendy's father, the late fast food folk-hero Dave Thomas, christened his first restaurant in 1969 in Columbus, Ohio, after his daughter's nickname and fashioned their infamous logo after an especially creepy photo of the poor girl in bright red pigtails and a fugly church rummage sale blouse. Here in Coeur d'Alene, her freckled face has loomed over Appleway since some point in the late 70's early 80's (I can't recall exactly when it appeared), and was one of the very first fast food joints to appear on that stretch not long after Ronald McDonald rode into town on Grimace's big purple ass.

When I was growing up, the Coeur d'Alene Wendy's was a pretty hot place to go eat. My parents liked it because it was one of the only, if not the only fast-foot joint that had a lush, well-stocked salad bar (now long gone) and also a groovy baked potato situation. I remember thinking it was so totally oddball that their burger patties were square and the bun was round, it nearly blew my mind. Like trying to push a square peg into a round hole, only upside down and reversed and much more delicious.

The novelty value of the square patty clearly worked well, and I remember always having to spend a lot of time hanging out in the winding labyrinth of pole barriers set up on front of the order counter behind a large crowd of hungry strangers. It was always worth the wait, because even as a young one, I could recognize that there was something different about Wendy's food, something that set it apart from other shady burger chains. Plus, Wendy's has always been home to the inimitable Frosty, sort of a cross between a thick milkshake and a dish of soft-serve ice cream that was a favorite of mine in my pre-lactose-intolerance era (oh age, how you disappoint me).

It would take a huge husky dude or a very hungry butch lesbian to finish of one of Wendy's mondo-sized "Dave's Hot-n-Juicy" 3/4 lb. triple patty cheeseburgers (nearly 1100 calories!). Wendy's patties are already significantly more significant than the other chains, and three of them piled high on a bun with layers of cheese, tomato, lettuce, pickle, onion, whatever, is a huge undertaking that I've never had the tummy to tackle.

When dear old Clara Peller repeatedly commanded the question "where's the beef?" way back when, it was always Wendy's where she found the answer, and to this day Wendy's will serve you a sandwich with enough "100% real North American, fresh, never frozen beef, hot off the grill" to keep you running to Rite Aid for Dulcolax for days.

Wendy's was one of the first fast food operations to cash in on the "I love bacon" trend that's been happening in our culture for several years now (get your bacon toothpaste here), and even though it sounds remotely like a win, there's something intangibly evil about their Baconator® Triple (nearly 1600 calories!), which goes something like this: bun, ketchup, mayo, bacon, cheese, beef, bacon, cheese, beef, bacon, cheese, beef, ketchup, mayo, bun. Can you even imagine?! It's another product I've never had the nerve to try. Although I'm not exactly innocent when it comes to crimes of cholesterol, this one is enough to make even my arteries shudder in fright.

I probably hit Wendy's about once every three months or so, and I usually stick with the basics - a classic double burger, hold the lettuce and pickles and a medium fries. Nothing to make jazz hands about, and certainly not as good as a local place like Roger's or even Zip's, but still a major improvement over a meal from Burger Queen or Jack in the Crotch.

A while back, I ventured out of my comfort zone and ordered a "Cheesy Cheddarburger", and it was cheesy as fark, but not in such a good way. It was a basic cheeseburger, noticeably smaller than what they normally serve, and in addition to their normal faux American (note: not cheddar) cheese, they also pumped on a glop of bland canned cheese sauce (note: also not cheddar) to a messy, quite unappetizing effect - I couldn't even eat more than half the thing. Fortunately, I'd made a healthful decision to choose a side salad over fries, and I was able to feel satisfied with that, even though my intestines momentarily thought my leafy greens digestive enzymes had given up and gone home long ago due to neglect.

Today I tried out their 5 Piece Spicy Chicken Nuggets and they were so spicy that every time I took a bite of one I had to sneeze. No joke. There was a peppery burn to them that did something reactive to my delicate sinus tissues, they were rebelling against the pepperiness of the day-glo orange nugget breading. That's okay. It was a rather sneezy meal, but my tongue was telling me they were actually quite tasty, and I had plenty of napkins handy to catch my many aaaaah-choos.

Wendy's nuggets aren't bad and actually seem to resemble actual chicken (I know it isn't real chicken), and also passable was the accompaniment, a Sour Cream and Chive baked potato, which although it came mysteriously without chives, was still fine and filling and less guilt-inducing than a pile of fatty French fries.

Melinda Lou "Wendy" Thomas grew up to become a successful franchise owner of dozens of Wendy's restaurants in the Cleveland area and has appeared in Wendy's ads for the last several years. She looks nothing like the scary pigtail girl of her youth, whereas Pippi Longstocking will have eternal youth. Still, Wendy wins - Pippilotta Delicatessa Windowshade Mackrelmint Ephraim's Daughter Longstocking has faded into the great mists of time, and Wendy is raking in the dough selling burgers that aren't quite amazing, but that are fast and edible enough to handle when the forbidden craving strikes.

Scrud's Gourmet Grub

2012-01-24T16:27:00.000-08:00

Scrud's Gourmet Grub
206 N. 4th St., Coeur d'Alene, ID
(208) 667-6000
Facebook

As the rushing ravages of times and age wear on, memories of my childhood seem to be getting harder to drudge up from the grey matter. Certain things, however, have managed to not fade away into the mental miasma forever. Pulling the kitchen drawers out so I could climb up onto the counter and mix my own baby bottle of chocolate Qwik milk (age 2). My complete and utterly bizarre obsession with vacuum cleaners (age 5). My mother finally agreeing to buy me my first 45 single (Blondie's "Rapture") at Pay-n-Save drug store (age 7). My very first job as an exotic go-go dancer in a Tokyo-themed leather disco in Munich (age 9).

Okay, maybe that last one is just a case of false memory syndrome, but one thing that did happen for sure was that when I'd walk the two blocks to my grandmothers house from Harding Elementary during lunch recess, she would make the most unbelievably amazing hamburgers for me to eat. In fact, although I've had countless hundreds of burgers over the years since then, from cruddy burgers to bloody burgers to Huddy burgers to fuddy duddy burgers, and while many were fantastic in their own way, I've never been able to find anything that matched her magic recipe.

That is until now, pretty much. The patties served up at Coeur d'Alene's Scrud's Gourmet Burgers would give my grandma a moment of pause and a mildly jaundiced eye. Just like hers, these babies are hand-formed and thick, but not thick enough to have that sense of meatloaf-esque overkill that some places like to do (hi, Nosworthys). Just like hers, they're moist and juicy without being total grease bombs, and there's a certain deep auburn richness to the flavor of a well cooked beef patty that they both have in common.

Naturally, there's somewhat of an unavoidable giggle factor to the name Scrud's. In times of confusion during the internet age, we sometimes turn to the Urban Dictionary for guidance when we encounter a strange or vaguely rude sounding idiom, and that's what I did after first hearing the name.

"Unkept, greasy looking, 20-30 something individuals that take pride loitering in parking lots of convenience stores, coffee shops, 7-Elevens etc. Scruds are most often in groups, congregated around pick-up trucks wearing some sort of Nascar / Ski-Doo paraphernalia. There is really no purpose to their actions."

"Scrud is a slang term for Cannabis/Marijuana used in the town of Rotherham, UK"

As much as marijuana and delicious burgers will always go together forever like Daryl Hall and John Oates, and as much as greasy 20-something Nascar parking lot loiterers will always love food of any kind period, I thought "uh, that just can't be right, sister". And, of course it isn't - the eatery was named after the owner's teenage nickname. The Scrud's menu tells the whole story and then some:

"When I was about 16, I got up early one morning with my brother to cut firewood. I jumped out of bed, pulled a beanie over my 12 inch mullet, slipped into some insulated coveralls and put on my boots without tyine the laces. I didn't shower, brush my teeth or even brush my hair. I jumped into our pickup and fired it up, looked over at my brother who was staring at me and he said "you're a SCRUD!" and it stuck. We opened our first retaurant in Mountain View, Wyoming in 2009. We decided we wanted a little more city life and moved to the Inland Northwest and reopened our restaurant in the Fall of 2011."

Moving to Coeur d'Alene because you're longing for "a little more city life"? I don't know anything about Mountain View, Wyoming, but it must be a quaint hamlet of the first degree. Anyway, we love any story involving a mullet here at Get Out North Idaho, and both times we've visited Scrud's we were delighted and impressed, no matter what the name might have happened to be (and it's much, much better than these restaurant names).

The building's interior hasn't changed dramatically since it's former occupant, the Kootenai Cafe (or whatever it was last called), gave up on its sadly brief life and passed on. No need, the place had been remodeled within the last year or so anyway. The main noticeable changes include the addition of some baseball-themed stuff and other forms of classic Americana.

They've hung "Wall of Fame" and "Wall of Flame" photo boards for pictures of those few proud souls with duodenums of steel who managed to successfully finish either the 5 pound "Bodalicious Burger Challenge" ($24.49) or the hotter-than-holy-f*@k hot wing "Dig Your Own Grave Challenge" ($14.99). Another fun touch is the graffiti wall around the front door where visitors can take sharpies and sign their names or draw obscene pictures (I didn't, promise).

Before I popped into Scrud's for lunch today, I hopped onto their facebook page and came across this post:

"New burger this week; the Athol. Bacon cheeseburger with provolone, and topped with onion rings and spicy barbecue sauce. Also have the same burger topped with pepper jack and bottlecaps (battered jalapenos) and spicy barbecue sauce. We call that one "My Athol's On Fire"!"

Hm. Sounds pretty tasty but A) I was quite leery about publicly announcing that particular statement and B) I generally prefer my no-no to stay free of too much raging heat. So, when my delightfully friendly server, Miss Sicka, arrived to tell me about the daily special and that they carried bottles of vintage Moxie cola, I avoided the issue completely and asked for a Ghetto Burger ($8.49), which is basically a traditional cheeseburger with all the toppings - crisp romaine lettuce leaf, a thick and cool tomato slice, red onions, hand cut pickle rounds, with an onion, cheese, and garlic infused patty.

Grandma never infused her burger patties with anything but tender lovin' care, so in a way Scruds is one-upping her a bit on the creative side. And what sends it all over the edge of true culinary euphoria are the incredible, crispy brown had cut fries that make a huge dramatic ruckus that's audible from the open kitchen when they're thrown into the fryer and taste like the reason for the very existence of the Divine and Sacred Gift of Potato. These little lovers are unique to Scrud's and must be enjoyed with copious amounts pink, yummy fry sauce.

A few weeks prior, I'd ordered a "Bo Sox" burger for take out on my way to work and so far, it's my favorite Scrud's burger on offer. As regular readers may know, I'm a sucker for a bleu cheese burger, and this one actually had the pungent fromage stuffed into the burger patty itself along with chopped bacon (bacon!), and came topped with provolone on one of their toasty, buttery buns. I had to mow it down quickly, but it was so great I knew I was in love, and I knew that if the place could survive the terrible curse that seems to cause every business that moves into the place to crumble (and they've all been actually quite fab), they'd become one of my permanent haunts. And I firmly predict they will.

So if you happen to catch me in Rotherdam, UK, and I ask for some Scrud, it means I'm most likely longing for a Bo Sox burger. But if you happen to hand me something else instead, at least I'll be able to smoke my homesick blues away.

Best Sandwich Shack

2012-01-16T07:00:00.000-08:00

Best Sandwich Shack
512 Best Ave., Coeur d'Alene
(208) 625-0629
Facebook

Naturally, people I run into are always telling me about the various places they've dined, talking about how I simply must check out this or that new or semi-obscure eatery. Most of the time, my response is "Eh - been there, done that - you must not follow my blog very well since I reviewed them ages ago, kiddo." But once in a while they tell me about somewhere I've never actually heard of or that I'd never thought was worth locking into my brain. There's limited space up in there, you know.

One such place was the Best Sandwich Shack - I've had more people mention it to me in the last few months than anywhere else I can think of, but perhaps the lack of memory commitment on my part is somewhat of a classic "who's on first" scenario.

Them: "Oh, have you tried that one sandwich place over by the one taco stand over by that one fabric shop, it's the best!"
Me: "No, I don't think so. What is it?"
Them: "It's the Best Sandwich Shack."
Me: "Okay, you already told me that it's the best, what's it called, where is it?"
Them: "It's the Best...on Best."
Me: "Uh, yeah, I kinda figured out it was on Best Avenue, and I can tell you think it's awesome, does it have a name?"
Them: "Uh, yeah, I already told you it's the Best Sandwich Shack."
Me: "Never mind, I'll just have to figure it own on my own I guess. Go kick rocks, chump."

Okay, so that never actually happened, but I can imagine the possibly of it happening at least. Thing is, after having finally visited the Best Sandwich Shack, it wouldn't matter what the name of the street is that it sits on, it is indeed THE best, no doubt.

I drove into the little parking lot adjacent to Lyle's Fabrics where the shack sits, next to the aforementioned taco truck, an espresso stand and who knows what else, and pulled my car right up to the little window. Hint: I sorta learned this the hard way, but in retrospect I'm thinking it's meant to be a walk-up window, not a drive up window. I realized this when another hungry customer pulled into the lot, got out of his rig and knocked on my window: "Hey buddy, you mind if I squeeze in here to get my order?"

Come to think of it, the kind sirs running the shack had given me kind of an odd look when I shimmied my Mercury Mystique directly up next to his building, but how was I to know it was supposed to be a walk-up scenario with no cement parking barriers or anything to pitch a clue at me? Mea culpa, I guess, and fortunately I was handed my food right away after I realized my faux pas and Mr. Window Knocker was able to pick up his order without any trouble.

I drove home with the aroma my foil-wrapped silver torpedo of joy creating such an alarmingly magnificent pong in my car that I was compelled to drive down 7th street 5 miles over the speed limit so I could get home right now and dig in! (I know, I'm such a rebel). I'd ordered the daily special, which was a Pizza Cheese Steak sub, and when I unwrapped my package, my eyes bulged out of my head and my large intestine bulged out of my tummy at the beautiful monstrosity that laid before me on my desk.

And immediately after my first bite of thin-sliced steak, mushrooms, pepperoni, mozzerella and fresh-baked bread, I knew the hype was valid - it was a rich, gooey, and deliciously unique Philly for real. I powered through my sandwich lost in a pleasure zone and although I was as stuffed as a pimento in a cocktail olive, I simply had to treat my mouth right away to the free brownie Best Sandwich Shack hands out with every order. It was homemade, dense and as killer as the main course. Oh golly, I'm not worthy! Needless to say, after plowing through so many love-drenched calories, the napping couch was my afternoon fate.

Shack culinary team "Kip and Dad" (this is how they list it on their Facebook page) aren't kidding when they say they make the best Phillys in Idaho. The "Meat Your Maker" is a bit higher on the cost scale than most sandwiches, but it includes pretty much every form of meat you could possibly dream of, including bacon, and is even listed on the menu with a heart attack warning. They serve a Chicken Philly, a BBQ Beef Philly, a Sweet and Spicy Turkey Philly, as well as links of handmade New York style sausage.

After such a monumental first experience, I had to return to the scene of the pleasure crime a week later for another go. This time I called ahead and WALKED up to the window to pick up my Whiz Cheese Steak and I was treated to some entertaining father and son humor along with my sandwich. When I got home and opened it up, it was a wonderfully sticky mess of melted Cheez Whiz and hot beefy goodness - so scrumptious, and the final evidence needed to declare that yes, yes, yes - Best Sandwich Shack really is the best of its kind in the town, and probably the state, and possibly the entire Northwest.

I'm not the only one with that opinion either. The Shack is listed as the #1 rated restaurant in Coeur d'Alene out of 110 listings on TripAdvisor and the comments there are as gushy as the Trevi Fountain. Highlights among all the customer reviews include:

"Its like a party in my mouth. You are all invited! The people and food are absolutely amazing, and its the best philly-isk experience in town! Cheese-steaks just like Philly! This place is beyond delicious! Hands-down the best sandwich shop I've ever been to! & super great prices for the amazing food! I will definitely be back! & great for grabbing a quick bite for lunch. This is definitely my friends' & I new favorite place! I'm already craving another one! :)"

"The Best Sandwich Shack is on Best Avenue, so I thought maybe they were trying to fool you with the street name. I was happy to be wrong. These are literally the best sandwiches. In fact, I've lived in different areas of the U.S. and this is actually the best place for sandwiches I've ever been."

"I am hooked on the Philly with Cheese Whiz....absolutely wonderful. The father/son team who run the restaurant are always fun to talk to and I enjoy their upbeat attitudes. They also have punch cards!! I like free stuff :)"

"We love The Shack!! They have the best sandwiches in town, they personable and funny too... everything on the menu is awesome, you gotta try them."

"I no longer live in Coeur d'Alene, but whenever I come through, I have to stop in. It's a little shack, run by a nice family that knows what they're doing. Be sure to try the Philly, it's the best one this side of the Mississippi."

What are you waiting for kids? If you know what's "best" for you, you will point your hunger radar at the best Sandwich Shack and make your way in like now, momentarily, nowadays, on the double, promptly, pronto, right away, right now, soon, straightaway, these days, this day, today.

Readers Write: Remembering the Rathskeller and the Rock

2012-01-15T13:05:00.000-08:00

Old OLD timers might enjoy the below comment that came through recently from Get Out North Idaho reader Gerry on a post I did in 2008, "60's in Cd'A Provided Some Eye Popping Events".

It's interesting to read a little of the history of the Rathskeller. When I was in college, I thought it was a really cool place. It had some Seattle Bands as I remember, and was generally packed when I was there. I never was aware it was family run.

The Rathskeller and the Rock were the only two reasons I ever came to Idaho. I was 20, so Idaho was heaven. The Rock was an old 2-story schoolhouse with a round rock facade exterior just west of Post Falls that had been converted into a night club appealing to the younger crowd. It was huge, and it routinely had big bands from Seattle like Merilee Rush and the Turnabouts playing there on weekends.
It was where I had drunk my first beer ever. Had to add some tomato juice to it to cut the sharpness of the flavor of the beer. After several times there, I didn't need the tomato juice.

After drinking in Idaho, my sidekick and I would navigate back in the direction of Spokane hoping not to get stopped by the police. We usually ended up at the Zips on Division at 3 in the morning where my friend worked and his connections got us very well priced hobo steak sandwiches.

I've tried over the past few years to find locations of both the Rock and the Rathskeller, but couldn't remember exactly where they were. Now I know to look at 14th and Sherman for the Rathskeller. But the Rock? Don't know if the building is still standing, wouldn't know where to look.

Also, this comment by Candace Conradi from many moons ago on the same article had somehow managed to escape my notice but provides some fascinating and personal information about the Rathskeller. A belated thanks to you, candace, for this neat insight:

Funny how things come back to the surface. I just read this post from January 2008. I am one of the co-owners daughters and I am very proud of what the Rathskeller did for the community. It gave a place for young people to gather. It was, yes, a tavern. There was beer that flowed and yes, sometimes people abused that right. Things have not changed as far as I can tell. Beer is still consumed and abused today. To call our business anything other than a business is like saying that grocery stores cause obesity.

The Rathskeller hosted live entertainment for 20 years, offering top acts that drew literally thousands (if not tens of thousands) into its welcoming space over its life. It pulled visitors from Canada, Washington, Montana, Oregon and brought tourism to our humble little town; it provided and paid taxes for the citizens. It was one of the best "fast food" places and probably the most popular pizza place in town. There were many naysayers at the time, but I can honestly say that many of them were closet fans, enjoying a beer, pizza or hamburger in the shadows. Our business was run by my Grandmother Anne, affectionately known as "Annie," my mother Jackie and my Aunt Lolly who were beloved by many. They were all single mothers who created a powerfully influential business that served the community. Far ahead of their time, by their example their children all went into the world, strong and confident that they could do anything.

This past Tuesday evening we watched Glee, our favorite program on television. Its theme happened to be "Rumors." While all thing in life are imperfect, the other side of that coin is that they are also good in many ways. Often what is seen with our eyes (or through the eyes of our parents) is perceived only in part and not in whole and thus inaccurately. We choose to place our judgment and opinions rather casually, with little thought of how they land. The Rathskeller was a place that colored the history of our little town. That cannot be changed.

Coeur d'Alene has grown up into a very sophisticated luxury vacation destination. The Rathskeller only a distant memory. But it still holds the imprint of those earlier days, when life was more simple. We had more fun then, and in some ways, and I miss some of those simpler times. I am proud to be the offshoot of such amazing women, a part of the history that colored our fare city. I cannot change anyone's point of view or perspective but I can offer the possibility of change. Every decade has its own imperfections and Coeur d'Alene was touched by the massive movement of the 60's like every other place on earth.

But the Rathskeller, well it was just a place to go, dance, socialize and have some fun. I loved the imprint it and my family made. I am forever grateful for their courage, their strength and their example. Years have softened me to their hardships, their struggles, and their own challenges. What has remained unchanged for me is their example, an amazing gift I passed onto my children. To be strong, a leader, and striving for my best self was and remains today my greatest gift.

2011 in Review Part Two: Great Cupcake Wars and Other Tales.

2012-01-02T12:49:00.000-08:00

Battle: Frosted vs. Sweet B.
Like sweaty ultimate fighters standing in opposite corners of the ring ready to kick some serious fluffy baked booty, Frosted and Sweet B. cupcake shops both opened in mid 2011 pretty much kiddy corner from each other at 5th and Sherman in downtown Cd'A. Immediately, the competition was deliciously bitchy. I'm acquainted with people who know both shops' owners (they come into my bar and blab), and they were constantly updating me on drama queen vibes from both contingencies.

On the internet side, the Yelp! flame wars started right away. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that "Ashley J." is an associate of the Sweet B. girls - she logged in and wrote this about Frosted...

"The store claims they bake them themselves but they are really shipped in from an outside bakery and jacked up in price. You would have a better experience at one of the MANY other cupcake bakeries in town. The store is small and cramped and down in a basement no where to sit and enjoy your over priced cupcake."

...then she hopped over to the Sweet B. Yelp! page to write this:

"They have a darling store to sit in and enjoy a cupcake and bottle of milk. Just perfect for an afternoon snack with a friend or the kids. I actually found myself surprised that I enjoyed their store so much seeing as how I, honestly, am not a big fan of cupcakes...You can't chew on the undissolved sugar like you can at Frosted.. but hey, maybe you like that sort of thing. Sweet B bakes everything from scratch daily, as opposed to their competition who brings it all in from a local bakery and then calls it their own."

You go, Ashley J. And from what I've gathered, it's that last point of contention that was the coup de gras for Sweet B. Theirs were baked on site, whereas Frosted had them shipped in naked at the crack of dawn from some undisclosed location and then just broke out the frosting vats and sprinkles. And it is true, but this is actually okay with me, because they taste el yummo regardless. I've matched cupcakes from both shops against each other several times (too many!) and I'm willing to declare it a draw.

Both are creative with flavor varieties, both shops are welcoming and cordial, and I mean really, how could anyone complain about the one-two punch of a fresh, innocent Red Velvet cupcake with cream cheese frosting arriving rapidly at your lips, no matter what the source? Can't we all just get along, fat, happy, and full of cake?

Closing: The Dive
Early in 2011, I found myself in Sandpoint for one reason or another (must have either been glass bong shopping or finding that perfect pair of used Birkenstocks), and came across The Dive. It was rather hard to miss. The exterior was a nice shade of traffic cone orange and the whoops and hollers from the mechanical bull riders inside the barn-like interior were echoing out into the afternoon streets. We decided to brave it and venture on in and we were pleasantly surprised by a fantastic, huge bacon cheeseburger and cheap, ever flowing pitchers of Laughing Dog Ale, as well as an incredibly convivial treatment from the guy working the bar where we decided to sit. Lots of people were in there, it seemed to be popular, thriving, and fun - especially on the weekends when a progressive dance type DJ took control.

Later that day, I "liked" The Dive on Facebook, like I always do with pretty much everything these days, and the online breakdown and drama that ensued on their page which fell in line with the place's sudden demise was both amusing and embarrassing. On September 19th, the owner posted simply "no more dive", but the before and aftermath included such peppery gems as this (hide your eyes when you read this, grandma):

Thank you to all the people in Sandpoint that said "fuck you" to the bigot racist, self-centered, assholes and biggest idiots I have ever met. This place went down hill because you can't do business, any business, in any town by serving shitty food, watered down drinks, and horrible service. You can't find quality employees buy fucking them over and paying shit wages. Fuck you, Lex Sparks and fuck you Jake Hatfield. You are the reason this business went to hell, and your better then everyone attitude is the reason everyone hates you.

Well, then. No idea what the reality of that high octane situation really is, but at least I'll always have the photo I took of a certain friend (you know who you are) drunkenly straddling the mechanical bull - possibly a lucrative future blackmail opportunity.

Opening: Fire Artisan Pizza
This year chain-store cardboard delivery service Domino's Pizza introduced a line of non-appetizing "Artisan" pizzas (sorry, but the idea of a "Tuscan Salami & Roasted Veggie" pizza pie makes my gag reflex go all giddy). Naturally, these were no different than a regular Domino's specimen, except for the fact that the dough was rolled in a rectangle and the toppings were *ahem* gourmet. Like any major American food chain, Domino's was acting response to a national trend. Wood oven fired old-old-school pizzerias have been torching up the nation like an Italian cigarette for a few years now, and the hotness finally hit Coeur d'Alene this year with the opening of Fire Artisan Pizza, next to the Christmas by the Lake shop on Sherman Ave. downtown.

The pizza pies that Fire puts out make the Domino's version seem truly patheti-sad indeed (and I did actually try the Domino's version when a customer at my bar ordered one and FORCED me to try it - it was pretty meh). Fire is a real deal hit - in fact out of all the restaurants that have opened this year, I get the impression that people are more jazzed about Fire than any of them. Because who doesn't love a delicious, oven-fresh pizza made with heart using exclusively local ingredients (when possible). Personally, I'm a cheese lover so for me, the Parma (prosciutto, gorgonzola, pecorino, mozzarella and provolone cheeses, finished with truffle oil) is like heaven on a crust.

Closing: Ciao Mambo "Glacier Restaurant Group spokeswoman Erica Coffman, based in Whitefish, Mont., said the company regretted closing the North Idaho location." This blip from a short SR article that ran earlier this month was basically the only tidbit I could find on the closure of Hayden's Ciao Mambo Italian restaurant. In other words, no nitty gritty gossip or real explanation on the situation.

I posted something about it on the Get Out North Idaho Facebook page and someone commented that they'd heard the owner of the plaza it was located in decided to double the rent on them, and they basically told him to go eat a crunchy biscotti and got the heck out of there. Apparently, the owners are taking the money to their Spokane location, where they plan on installing a full bar of booze, something we here at Get Out north Idaho can always stand behind. Hayden -1, Spokane +2.

2011 in Review Part One: Another Year, Another Case of Extra Strength Rolaids

2012-01-02T10:36:00.001-08:00

2011 wasn't necessarily a year to shoot off a bunch of expensive fireworks into the midnight sky about (whoops, don't tell Duane Hagadone that!), but as per usual there was a lot of action happening on the local restaurant and nightclub scene. Openings, transformations, and transgressions kept our forks full and our martinis loaded in a year filled with tsunamis, Occupiers, evaporating dollar bills, McEuen Park drama queens, and too much brain-meltingly bad pop music (Ke$ha, LMFAO, etc.) to even remember.

Truly, we needed every excuse possible to get out on the town and let our minds drift away into the bottom of an empty pitcher of Pabst or get into food coma mode after a particularly dank plate of double cheese burger, pizza margherita, or volcano roll. Each day for the next week or so, Get Out North Idaho will be looking back on the year that was, wasn't, and might have been in the world of local eatery and drinkery closing, openings, and whateverings.

Opening: Seasons of Coeur d'Alene
A lot of people were pissed all to pieces when it was announced in 2010 that building owner Pepper Smock was giving a month-or-so notice to the Coeur d'Alene Brewing Company that they needed to pack their glass growlers and heavy-duty ale filled pipes and tanks and skedaddle so he could open up some kind of très chic and pretentious hot spot for yuppie tourists. But really, isn't that recurring naysayer meme about any kind of downtown improvements starting to get awfully tiresome? Anyway, I'd heard complaining tongues wag about the Brewpub having various quality issues ever since they'd transitioned from T.W. Fishers quite a few years back. Personally, I never hung out there a lot, but the times I'd visited were just fine.

So, after stripping the building down to its ancient brick skeleton and rebuilding it into a modern lady with neon eye shadow and spray-tan cheeks, its doors opened in Summer 2011 as Seasons of Coeur d'Alene Fresh Grill and Bar. How did the fair people of the Lake City react to its shimmering interiors and the fancy-priced comfort foods that make up the (allegedly) seasonally changing menu? They came in droves, and it became immediately the kind of place where you'd want to take Aunt Madge and Uncle Merle from Kalamazoo to impress them when they come to town to visit.

Most tellingly, our own Jesi B., who tended bar at the old brewpub for a lot of years and was both devastated and enraged when it was forced to close, and who vowed never, EVER to even step foot in Seasons once it opened, has fallen on the dark side and absolutely loves the place after all. Best of all: Seasons has a piano bar and serves a martini named Lady Gaga.

Transforming: The Torch Lounge Becomes Rendezvous
The beginning of 2012 saw the gradual transition of The Torch Lounge into Rendezvous. No tremendously Earth-shattering (or should I say boob-quaking?) changes have transpired within the hallowed walls of Coeur d'Alene's only "gentleman's club", which existed for nearly 8 years under the Boise-based Torch banner. It still can be nearly impossible to get a drink at times, the wall-size TV screens are phenomo-mammoth, the music doesn't know whether it wants to be stripper-ish or Jersey club-ish (or both), and the men's room still wins the award for most foul place in the greater Cd'A area, period.

Still, where else are you going to go to watch buxom young thong-bikini clad mademoiselles dance fast and slow at the same time to a dubstep remix of Nickleback while drunk people bounce around in a blacklit room full of party foam on a bungee-strung robot bull? Rendezvous is all about the events, and they can be creative indeed with their concepts - "Glowstep" Party, anyone?.

Opening: The Copa
As we all know from reading the holy verses of the Book of Manilow, the Copacabana was a place where thirty years ago, they used to have a show but nowadays it's disco for Lola, the showgirl with yellow feathers in her hair and her dress cut down to there, sitting there so refined and drinking herself half-blind. Hayden's The Copa was named after the older-than-old New York drinking establishment that inspired Barry in the first place, but is it as boozy and woozy as the place where Rico and Tony once rumbled?

I haven't checked it our yet, so I can't be sure, but from what I can gather between their zero-info "the Coppa.com" website ("Under Construction" - what is this, 1998?), and their lazily updated facebook page, it doesn't seem particularly wild. A Nils Rosdahl article from July reveals that the Copa is owned by former Idaho State Senator Mike Jorgenson, who I have a hard time picturing in a polyester disco suit. Rosdahl mentions that they do have a full booze bar, and that they serve "seafoods, steaks, sandwiches, soups, several sides" and have a Tuscan vibe. Yawn.

Closing: Casa de Oro
The official name was "Casa de Oro Restaurante", and like that extra 'e' at the end, thrown in for the sense of authenticity, I always felt like this place was really kind of an unnecessary addition to the Coeur d'Alene Mexican eatery scene. We've never had a Mexican restaurant shortage around here, and Casa de Oro just never really offered me anything unique to scream "olé!" about, I guess. I've been there a handful of times over the years, but never actually got around to doing a full-on review.

I don't even remember specifics about their cuisine or service, all I can remember is a friend and I shooting dirty looks over dinner at some woman with a Joan-Crawford-of-the-trailer-park parenting style who became the main focus of every patron in the joint as she berated her mortified children publicly over some minor trip or another. I'm sure Casa de Oro had it's fans, and for them I offer my condolences, as well as to the restaurant's staff who lost their jobs in an economy that smells like three week old mole enchiladas.

Greek Street Revisited

2011-11-30T12:27:00.001-08:00

Greek Street Pizza & More
225 W. Ironwood Dr., Coeur d'Alene
(208) 664-0604

Last time I crashed the Greek Street lunch party in September 2010, I ordered a "pizzaloni" - sort of an illegitimate love baby between a calzone and a hunk of deep fried scone bread. I thought it was fully brilliant, and I wrote:

"...when I returned home and opened the Styrofoam to-go box, my taste buds immediately started weeping tears of joy, realizing they were in for a treat like they hadn’t experienced in ages. Indeed, with an oozy meld of Asiago, Romano, Mozzerlla, and real Parmesan inside a lightly crispy golden shell of homemade dough, it caused a pleasant rush of food euphoria. The red sauce was a bouquet of garden-fresh Italian herbs and sweet tomatoes and the pepperoni was positively packed with flavor. Simply incredible."

That's pretty gushy-mushy, even for me, and although I was craving to re-experience the bliss today when I visited Greek Street for the second time ever, but the wall poster of a iconic looking basket full of a gyro and fries prompted my eyeballs to tell my appetite to reconsider.

The lone employee on duty was visibly annoyed with me at first, and I don't really blame him. I asked for the lamb gyro lunch special basket with extra feta, and he came back at me a bit abruptly with the news that Greek Street was out of feta cheese. A Greek restaurant out of feta cheese? That's like a Subway out of bread (this actually happened to me once), or a strip club out of dollar bills. It just ain't right. Especially when there's an Albertson's deli case ripe with cartons of feta cheese around the corner in the same shopping center.

So I was thinking, "uh...I dunno what I want now, maybe a pizzaloni after all. Maybe, but uh...what kind of pizzaloni do I want?" Or do I want a...uh?" There were other customers waiting on their food and I was holding up the show, and my man rightfully snapped at me that he would be back in a bit and would return was I was through with my fits of indecision.

He returned about six minutes later. "OK, I guess I'll take the lamb gyro lunch special basket after all but with a sprinkle of mozzarella instead." He rolled his eyes a bit at me and slapped my order ticket up on the line. In the ten minutes it took for my order to appear his irritation with me must have faded some - he issued me a warm "thanks for coming in", a wave and a smile as I turned and left with my take-out order.

My lunch, despite its to-go Styrofoam and foil wrap, actually looked pretty close to what had appeared on the pop-art-ish wall poster in the restaurant. My fries had turned a bit chilly, but were still very tasty - a sprinkle of Parmesan and herbs always serves to enhance the mood of any potato situation like culinary cymbalta.

The gryo was a delicious but messy beast. I had to stop eating at one point to go get a wet towel to clean up my desk, my creamy hands, and the front of my shirt. The tzatziki sauce was poured on that thing so thick and rich that every time I went to pick the thing up and take a bite, I practically ended up with the tangy white sauce in my hair and up in the crevasses of my...well...never mind.

Anyway, the lamb was cooked to an almost crunchy texture and it was terrific, the tomatoes, lettuce, and onions were mighty fresh, and the pita was warm and chewy-soft, not a hint of chewy staleness. Do they make the babies on site? If so, I want a half-dozen to go some time so I can make peanut butter and banana pitas for breakfast (Is that weird?).

Yes, despite the trace amounts of snarly and slow customer service (forgiven, it was sort of busy and he was the running the place solo), Greek Street is a clean, convenient and classic place for a variety of Greek lunch treats and power-packed pizza products. /alliteration button off.
.

Side Street Place

2011-11-15T11:24:00.001-08:00

Side Street Place
1780 E Schneidmiller Ave., Post Falls
(208) 777-8444

I guess they could have decided to name it "Some Random Space" or "Building on a Road" or something even more inconclusive. In a way, the name "Side Street Place" is refreshingly unpretentious, but at least for me it's a little on the hard-to-remember side. In fact, when I sat down to rattle off this review a couple of days after stopping in for lunch, I had to dig in my wallet to find the receipt so I could look up the name before I started typing out my thoughts.

To the credit of the sociable waitstaff and the mighty kitchen wizards at Side Street Place, the name is fortunately the only thing unremarkable about this new entry into the Post Falls diner scene. Housed in the shell of a former Wingers fail, new owner Betty Romps has kept the menu nearly identical as that of as the restaurant's most recent former incarnation, The Breakfast Nook. Nothing wrong with that, really - why get artsy fartsy and mess around with a line up of breakfast and lunch items that's perfectly classic and complete already? And there was no reason to take out the original Wingers interior decor situation of dark green and off-white checkered tile, a fifties style open kitchen and bar-stool lunch counter, and an eye-dazzling ceiling of faux-retro shiny silver hammered pattern squares. It still works.

If you've been to the Breakfast Nook, you already get it - variety of omelets, pancakes, waffles, biscuits and gravy, minced ham scram, Cobb salad, a smattering of burgers, chicken fried steak, tuna melt, French dip, and so forth, and so on. Side Street Place even keeps the Nook's oddball attractions, like the calamari burger and the breaded razor clams with eggs, potatoes and toast. (Clams for breakfast? Really? Why not, I guess.)

I'll admit, although my last few visits there haven't necessarily been anything to cackle and caw about, I do love me some Breakfast Nook action, at least in its Coeur d'Alene Fourth Street incarnation (I never did have a chance to check them out in Post Falls), but I'm going to just be blunt and throw this right on out there - the meal I was served at Side Street Place kicked the Breakfast Nook's roostery little bum.

A friend and I were talking just the other day about how dining out solo can sometimes seem a little awkward. You always wonder in the back of your mind if the hostess is thinking, "oh, this poor lonely chump must have some kind of hot, fresh B.O. or perhaps an anti-social personality disorder and can't even find another soul willing to share the same table space".

We decided it was worth it. Once you get over the initial party-of-one weirdness, it can be a quite enjoyable thing to sit down, relax, maybe read the newspaper, and just take in a dining experience without the distraction of friends and family yammering directly at your face while you're trying to eat.

I'm quite used to chowing solo anyways, and actually, the hostess at the Side Street Place didn't make me feel like it was such a big deal - the place was quite busy with a Sunday lunch rush with an after-church vibe (large groups), but she still sat me at a huge window booth with a gorgeous view of Interstate 90 and the freshly snow coated mounted behind it. All to myself, where I could just sit and eavesdrop in peace.

My waitress offered me a cup of coffee and naturally I said yes! I was fueling up for a day of Post Falls thrift shopping and I needed my caffeine to get the job done. And a damn good cup of coffee it was. After a few moments of vague indecision, my girl returned a few minutes later and I ordered the Breaded Pork Cutlet with eggs, hash brown and toast. I think it was the power of suggestion about the inclusion of applesauce that made me choose it over the Denver Omelet (what I usually order off ye olde Breakfast Nook menu.) The phrase just kept echoing in my brain in a a funny Bogart-ish accent: "porkchopsh and appleshaush, porkchopsh and appleshaush". Blame it on the Brady Bunch, I guess.

I did have a Sunday newspaper handy while I awaited for my meal to arrive, but I didn't actually get into it at all. I was too interested in letting my mind go adrift into the conversations of the other folks around me. A father was patiently doing basic math problems with his elementary school aged daughter. The glitzy looking older couple next to me were wearily planning yet another trip cross country in their RV, how blah, like they'd seen it all before.

A group of ladies working a Menonite Chic sort of look were excitedly discussing their impending Big Lots shopping trip. Some old graying hippie held up my waitresses for what seemed like an eternity between coffee refills, going on about how he used to play in the Jimi Hendrix Band way back before Jimi Hendrix was Jimi Hendrix.

I was fully enjoying getting caught up in the business of total strangers, but the spell was completely broken when my waitress dropped a plate of food in front of me that made me declare "good gravy!" My pork cutlet platter was amazing to the eyes, soothing to the brain, tasty on the tongue, and totally tubular in the tummy.

A tender pork slice delivered in a golden crust of breading and with a ladle of country gravy plopped on top., a delicately folded, bright yellow rectangle of scrambled eggs, a giant hill of superbly crispy hash brown action - the most amazingly perfect specimen of crispy shredded hash browns I've come across since the grunge era, in fact. A side plate of buttery sourdough toast (with a jelly bonus), and that all-important ramekin of applesauce.

It was delish, and I was so hungry and enamored with my meal that I can't believe I ate the whole mothertrucking thing! Except for the applesauce. I was saving it for last, and honestly, I got way too full after my last forkful of hash browns that I just couldn't fit any more in me. So sorry, Peter Brady, I couldn't do it. Anyway, the purpose of the applesauce seemed more decorative more than anything else, two tablespoons of the stuff just doesn't balance with the mondo pork-egg-potato-toast quotient.

Side Street Place, even with its mentally slippery name and its lingering Breakfast Nookiness, was quite a few notches above what I was actually expecting, offering an inviting, neighborly place to eavesdrop solo or dine en masse and make plates of golden grub disappear forever in bliss.

With a green and white tile and panel contemporary decor, the place (originally a Wingers restaurant) seats about 100 guests in booths and at tables and a bar. New owner Betty Romps renamed the eatery to separate it from the Breakfast Nook in Coeur d'Alene. She has previous restaurant experience in Newbury, Calif., where she moved from with husband Howard who discovered North Idaho while stationed at the former Farragut Naval Base on Lake Pend Oreille.

Pizza Factory

2011-11-01T14:42:00.000-07:00

Pizza Factory
503 W.Appleway, Coeur d'Alene
208-765-3434

My chubby little typing fingers haven't been bloated in this sort of special way in quite a while. They've so missed the satisfied but uncomfortably full feeling that comes after an hour or so spent at an all-you-can-eat pizza lunch buffet.

Back in the day, the endless pizza slices and salad bar at Godfather's Pizza on 4th and Appleway in Coeur d'Alene was the backdrop for many face-stuffing events. We'd arrive just in time to watch the Sally Jesse Raphael Show on the overhead TVs, and get caught up in all the out-of-control-teens or drag queen antics. Sally and her goofy red glasses haven't graced our screens since around 2002, and the Coeur d'Alene Godfather's disappeared for good not much longer after that, so that serves to describe how long it's been since I've experienced some pizza buffet love.

And really, it was there the whole time. I knew somewhere in the dark corners of my brain that the Pizza Factory (formerly known many moons ago as the Pizza Shoppe), tucked away back on the north end of the strip mall/shopping center at Appleway and 95, served up an all-you-can-eat lunch spread, but it didn't actually occur to me until earlier today to pop in and check it out.

I must not be the only one who for whatever reason forgot all about their buffet situation. When a friend and I arrived at what should have been the height of lunch rush, the place was completely deserted, save for one lone office-y type lady, casually grazing away her lunch break and staring out the window at the wig store across the way. I thought "Ah, well - more pizza for us, I guess!"

But after paying the dementedly bored looking cashier girl and getting our drinks, we noticed that there was only one trusty little tray of pizza occupying the hot table, lazily warming itself under the heat lamp. But it appeared fresh, and the one pizza was made up of three different varieties - Hawaiian, classic pepperoni, and some kind of intense looking meat combo. I piled a slice of each on my beige plastic plate and delivered it to a large table next to the video game area.

I wasn't quite ready to settle in yet - a visit to a pizza lunch buffet wouldn't be complete without a trip through the salad bar. Kudos to Pizza Factory for stocking such a complete, fresh, and lovey salad bar despite the apparent lack of public interest. When I go for a salad bar, this is what ends up on my plate - lettuce (of course), slices of purple pickled beets, black olives, a ton of sliced boiled eggs, sunflower seeds, a pile of croutons and several large scoops of thousand island dressing. That's pretty much it - carrots, broccoli, tomatoes, and cucumbers can bite me. I always try my best to turn something potentially healthy into a carb and fat laden mess, and I definitely accomplished that mission.

The video arcade area of Pizza Factory isn't particularly enormous or impressive, but I was drawn to sit in that particular section of the place perhaps because I spent a large portion of my youth in the 1980's hanging out in environments where there was a solid wall of boopy bleepy noise coming from rows of electronic video games machines. It's a sound that's still comforting to me to me to this day, and eating hot pizza slices in that environment always transports part of me back to my teenage years.

I dug into my soupy salad first, and it was exactly as good as expected, and I mean that in the best way possible. Thousand island dressing is so viscous and sweet, it turns pretty much everything it touches into a sort of dessert. The sweetness of the pickled beets sealed the deal, and the boiled eggs lent a breakfasty feeling to the affair. Heck, it was like having all six daily meals at once (there are six meals, right?). For whatever reason, salad bars are rather rare these days and they are missed, at least by me.

The pizza at Pizza Factory is great! In my opinion, they are one of the most underrated franchise/chain pizza places in the country (120 locations in five states). I can't stand the sweet crust of Dominos Pizza, and their chintziness with toppings. I like Pizza Hut, but the sauce and general greasiness inevitably gives me death heartburn that lasts into the wee hours of the middle of the night. Little Caesars pizza is weak in too many ways for me to get into. But Pizza Factory does it just right. The crust is just the right thickness and baked to a crisp delicious golden brown. The sauce is bright and tasty and doesn't overwhelm the flavor of the plentiful cheese and toppings.

I think Pizza Factory survives on being a gathering place for larger groups of people, like kids softball teams and family reunions (we had one there a few years back and they gave us our own room and treated us royally). I've heard from a few in-the-know folks over the years that their sub sandwiches are gigantic and exceptional, and that their spaghetti and pasta dishes are excellent as well. Clearly, the place must get people-y at times - including the Pizza Shoppe era, they're one of the longest surviving pizza joints in town.

Chowing down on my truly fantastic mega-loaded slice of all meat pizza (pepperoni, Italian sausage, ham, ground beef, crispy bacon), I looked around the empty restaurant and wondered why the heck more people weren't taking advantage of such a great deal - $7.99 for all-you-can-eat salad bar, excellent pizza, and a bottomless soda. Maybe it was just a way off day, but the demeanor of the counter girl and the owner/manager guy that eventually emerged from the back indicated that they were used to the place being not-exactly-hopping during lunchtime.

I guess until the secret gets out (here it is, folks!), we will have the place to ourselves and as much thousand island dressing and mega-meat pizza as our hungry hearts desire.

Get Out Goes West - Taste of India

2011-10-26T19:00:00.000-07:00

Taste of India
3110 N. Division, Spokane, WA
(509) 327-7313

North Division Street in Spokane is one of the most visually cluttered stretches of road in the great Northwest, if not the entire nation. Little ticky tacky mom and pop pawn shops mingle with mega malls, bong stores, eleventy million Chinese restaurants and legally questionable happy ending massage parlors. Wordy signs of every color, size, height and width imaginable hover over the landscape from all directions, up down and sideways.

It ain't necessarily pretty, but gazing down from my perch at the the window seat at the south end of Taste of India, the long grey stretch of Division that runs between the restaurant and the grey, blocky edifices of downtown Spokane seemed kind of charming in a doomy, post-industrial kind of way.

Maybe it was just the hazy, hallucinatory bliss brought on by three and a half trips to Taste of India's alarmingly magnificent buffet situation that had me looking down at dirty old Spokompton in such a wisty-eyed way. Indian cuisine is something you really can't find much of in North Idaho, unless you count a trip to the frozen food section for an Amy's Organic Palak Paneer, which actually isn't that bad when the craving strikes, but doesn't come anywhere close to the real deal. And Taste of India is the real deal, no doubt about that.

Proper preparation of authentic Indian cusine requires a clay oven known as a Tandoor, and Taste of India's Tandoor is evident smell-wise as well as visually, proudly displayed via the semi-open kitchen in the family-run establishment. As their menu explains, great Indian food also requires a lot of spice knowledge - a good Indian chef understands that "the art of Indian cookery lies not in high spicing but in the delicacy of spicing".

Owners Ajit and Hardish Singh and their crew get it, for the most part. Not that Taste of India isn't utterly addictive, affordable, and quite copacetic overall, but as a person who likes his curries and such to go bang bang in his mouth with spice and flavor, the entrees offered up on their $9.99 all-you-can-eat lunch buffet are a bit on the flaccid side. I'm thinking that they're wanting to keep the buffet table safe and neutral for the sake of spice weaklings who might faint at the sight of a decent ultra-spicy, red and saucy, tongue singeing plate of Chicken Vindaloo.

I reckon that's understandable, and perhaps next time I'll order a dish from the real menu and see if I can have them kick it up a few notches, but my roommate and I were left with a touch of bland-itis on our recent pilgrimage to the Taste of India buffet line. I'm not really complaining, I love the place anyway for various other reasons - the service is friendly and the atmosphere is relaxing and un-rushed with Bollywood music playing softly in the background, walls in muted mustard and eggplant, crystal-esque chandeliers, and a colorful Hindu-flavored mural.

We arrived a little early for the lunch rush that would soon encroach, so we had the advantage of not having to wait in line and we had pretty much the first stab of the day at the just-prepared bins of fabulousness, before the cootie people had a chance to spread their little filthy germs all over the buffet table. Actually, I'm not terribly freaked out by the ill potential of a public buffet scenario, but my roommate most certainly is and he was happy to have beat the crowd.

I always like to try a bit of everything on offer, and on the day we arrived there were some familiar favorites as well as a surprise or two. Naan (a leavened flatbread) is the backbone of any Indian buffet and Taste of India does it very well, with both plain and garlic Naan cooked to a heavenly textural perfection in the Tandoor - a little chewy on the outside crust and soft and tender inside. The cracker-like Papadum bread adds some necessary crunch to the plate, and I like to use it to sample the various chutneys and sauces available on the cold table. Basmati rice always rocks, providing a fluffy, delicately flavored bed for the various entrees to splay themselves upon.

Butter Chicken - just the name alone is enough to make Paula Deen don a sari and dance the Bihu to a little Bhangra music, although it's not as buttery as it is tomatoey. The sauce did seem just a touch on the thin and watery side, it was sweetly tangy and the chicken itself was tender and moist. Similarly, the perfectly-done Tandoor-cooked chicken meat itself was the highlight of the yellow Chicken Curry on offer, rather than the sauce it was cooked in. It was pleasant enough, but that's all it was, and like I said earlier, I prefer my curries significantly kickier in the turmeric and red chili departments.

I'm a big fan of Saag Paneer (cubes of a mellow, homemade cheese and pureed spinach in a flavorful sauce), and I was more than happy with taste of India's version, but my less-experimental roommate wasn't so keen, calling it "hippie baby food" and leaving it untouched on his plate. The Tandoori chicken was a bigger hit with him - he must have eaten three birds worth of red, garlicky thighs. I prefer to chow on the drumsticks, cooked so magnificently to falling-off-the-bone sublimity. Also, both of us were totally enamored with the crunchy bits of deep fried spinach dipped in creamy yogurt sauce. Deep fried spinach!

I realized I might have a serious Naan problem, a potentially life-destroying addiction that I'm guessing they don't really have rehab clinics for. Even after I was full up to my armpits, I kept going back for more of this amazing breadstuff. For dessert they had weird little fried dough balls soaked in a cold, sugary syrup - a dish called Gulab Jamun. Honestly, neither my roommate nor myself were particularly impressed - they were unenjoyably soggy and mushy and just plain odd. So, to make up for the slight disappointment of the dough balls, naturally I went back for just one more piece of Naan.

Overall, the dishes served at Taste of India may not the best ever but they're quite good and in my opinion they're by far the most authentic Punjabi in Spokane. Fully stuffed, I struggled up the short flight of stairs to the top section of the restaurant where the register was and had a complete doh! moment. I'd been to the place a handful of times and never realized that an extensively gorgeous bar of booze took up a significant portion of the upper level of the place. I guess I'd always left the money on the table and exited through the south door. My roommate and I smacked our foreheads V8-style and looked at each other thinking "Damn, we could have been having cocktails the entire time!" Ah well, there's always next time and there most certainly will be a next time.

Hn’ya’(pqi’n’n

2011-10-16T23:22:00.000-07:00

Hn’ya’(pqi’n’n - A Gathering Place
Coeur d'Alene Casino Resort
37914 South Nukwalqw Road Worley, ID
(800) 523-2464
www.cdacasino.com

Bewitched. Funky disco chickens. Wizard of Oz. Cherries, bananas, peaches, and parrots. Mega deluxe super four-leaf clover diamond golden leprechaun queens. I do love the geniuses who think up all the totally deranged themes and names for slot machine screens. Truly, a visit to a rural casino is one of the most insanely surreal, detached-from-reality situations that exists within the realm of modern human existence. It's a drug-free psychedelic experience (no, I wouldn't know anything about that sort of thing), equally as enrapturing as it is bewildering.

Never any clocks in view because they want you to forget about sort of thing. What is time? It could be 3 p.m. or 3 a.m or 13 a.m. Who gives a puff what time it is? Not the bonanza of chain-smoking zombied-out old ladies, chained to their favorite slot machines by the curly plastic straps of their Coyote Rewards cards for hours, days and weeks. Why bother with such trivialities when you're up another $13.79?

The vibrating blur of the eternal human soup. The acid flashback color patterns of the carpeting. The pong of cigarette smoke and the ambient slot machine bling blong bling noises that continue uninterrupted day, night, dusk, dawn, and dream. And the Coeur d'Alene Casino on any given Saturday night can be an intense awake dream indeed, especially when there's a hardcore party girl involved.

I hadn't actually managed to trip my way down to the Cd'A Casino since their mega-expansion earlier this year, but I was invited to a surprise birthday party for an old friend last week at Hn’ya’(pqi’n’n, the casino's new restaurant/bar hot spot. Coincidentally, my old drag name is "Hn’ya’(pqi’n’n", and the birthday bitch has been my homegirl since 6th grade, so it was an invite I just couldn't turn down.

Huge, massive or even ginormous aren't words that do the expanded casino any justice so I had to consult my trusty old friend, Thesaurus.com. I do rather like "behemothic" and "empyrean", but "super-colossal" probably describes the feeling best. The structure is ultra-modern, all steel, glass, and colored light strips and it seems to stretch on for blocks and blocks. The super-tall, retro-futuristic, color-changing totem pole structure out front is in itself enough to warrant spending an entire night tripping on psychedelic mushrooms and doing circular dancing rituals around it to summons the aliens. (I wouldn't know anything about that either, ahem.)

We weren't thrilled about having to park in the outer Bongolian region of the parking lot when we pulled in off the curvy, slightly confusing new entrance ramp, but as soon as we'd slammed the car doors behind us, a man on a 4-passenger go-cart appeared from nowhere and said "wanna ride? Hop on!"

So we did, and landed at the entrance door closest to our destination, Hn’ya’(pqi’n’n, just in the nick of time to join a table full of the birthday girl's friends and family waiting in anticipation for her to come around the corner with her boyfriend, totally unaware of the shouts of "surprise!" that were about to greet her. And surprised she was, for somehow her man had managed to keep the whole thing under wraps for two weeks, and she thought they were just coming down from their room in the casino hotel for a quiet, relaxing birthday dinner together. Oh, girl - uh-uh, no way, not quite.

The birthday party was consuming booze beverages at an alarming pace before the band, Eclectic Approach (photo left), even did their first "check one two, check one two", so when they finally did start, the crowd went mildly berserk, especially Brandy, the birthday princess herself. I have to say, Eclectic Approach are one of the best lounge/party bands I've ever witnessed - those boys were young, good looking, energetic, talented, and good looking (yes, i said good looking twice). They started with a dance-funk song in which the singer seemed to make up lyrics off the top of his head about Brandy and her birthday, and somehow it didn't come off as corny at all. This guy's rhymes were smooth and cleverly hilarious.

A few more songs in he asked the crowd to pick a random word and they would make up another song about it. "Pickle!" I hear Brandy shriek from behind me, and the band was off, the singer freestyling a silly and slightly dirty song about the many joys of our green vinegary vegetable friends. Later, he asked the crowd for another song title and on my suggestion Brandy yelled the words "moist towelette!" and we were just tipsy enough that we were convinced we'd contributed to the creation of a brilliant (maybe not so radio-friendly) pop masterpiece. "She needs a wet towelette/To clean up all the sweat/from places where she'll never let you get".

I'd been enjoying (ahem) several tall 23 oz. cups of Kokanee beer for a mere $4.25 each, but I'd soon get a chance to dabble with the hard licks! Brandy literally grabbed me off my chair and said "C'mon! Just follow me!" I was actually following a group of about 10 members of our party on a wild adventure chase through the machine dazzle and throngs of gamblers on the main floor of the casino, through the other lounge where we had to stop briefly for a few shots of Fireball each, through the empty non-smoking game room (who ever goes there?), past the old cafe and the gift shop, through the lobby area of the old hotel, down the hall and into an awaiting elevator. Running the entire time, I was huffing and puffing out of breath and Brandy was waving hello to strangers, giving them no chance at all to be unaware of her birthday, and threatening to expose her tatas to various oogling old men. That's my girl.

Unfortunately, the elevator decided it wasn't about to heft ten rowdy drunk asses up three levels and started making an exasperated honking sound which drew the attention of two Casino security guards. Fortunately, they just laughed at our antics and rolled their eyes as we ran out of the elevator and started stumbling up the stairway instead.

We poured into one of our people's rooms (no idea whose), and crashed momentarily on the beds and comfy chairs for a couple shots each of delicious Pinnacle Whipped Cream Vodka and a random tipsy group conversation about who was the sexiest Muppet (the consensus: female=Miss Piggy, male=Elmo). Probably very sick and wrong, I know, but a good way to pass the time when you're passing the bottle around in a garishly decorated Casino hotel room.

A few folks decided to hit the machines for a bit on the way back to good ol' Hn’ya’(pqi’n’n, but I headed first for the gorgeous, new green-granite-countertopped restroom and then to the party to find some sustenance to stuff into my rapidly drunkier and drunkier system. The bar was hosting some kind of all-you-can-eat BBQ situation, but that sounded like a bit much, so I took the cue of a new friend sitting next to me at the party table and ordered the "Burger Flight", which was a sampling of three of their different signature burgers, a Mini Puburger, a Mini Kobeurger and a Mini Umami Lamburger.

With all the birthday chaos going on around me, and the constant alcohol-fueled chit-chat with various other table-sitters to distract my growling tum-tum, it seemed like my meal arrived confusingly fast. And what a site it was to see - each of the three mini-burgers had copious amounts of lettuce, tomatoes, onions, and pickles actually piled directly on top of the upper bun, all attached with a long wooden pick. This was ideal, since I don't love tomatoes and pickles on my burger, I could just toss them aside before getting down to business. Or more specifically, I gave them to a strange drunk girl who was begging me for them: "yer not gonna eat that stuff? Hot!"

The Mini Pub Burger features "beer-butter basted ground short rib" and was rather plain (maybe I'd already had too much beer at that point to notice the nuance of the marinade) but went down well in two and a half bites. The Kobeurger's novelty situation is this: "Snake River Farms Wagyu beef topped with truffle cheese and served with butter leaf lettuce, tomato, oxtail marmalade and foie gras aioli." This item fared much better, like a creamy lightning flash of "say what?" in my mouth. A great blend of flavors and textures and I'm pretty sure I'll be ordering the maxi version of this one next time I hit the Casino.

Lamburgers are one of my favorites, and Hn’ya’(pqi’n’n's version features "domestic ground lamb grilled over rosemary and topped with sautéed shitake mushrooms, umami mayonnaise, roasted tomato ketchup and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese." I'd also been devouring the giant pile of ranch cut fries that came with my burgers, so one bite into this amazingly rich burst of umami-ness and I was suddenly almost full enough to hit the Edge of Glory (that's an eating-too-much-food-whilst-drinking-heavily term that Lady Gaga stole from me), so I handed the rest of it over to my pickle-and-tomato girl to finish the job.

I waddled over to the game floor with a few friends and watched them play a few slots, but I'd spent all the cash I brought along for gambling on drinks and dinner, and ultimately I'm glad I did. I'm not much of a gambler anyway, and I was happy to have spent my cash on an amazing meal and an fantastically surreal experience overall. It was a birthday Brandy (or anyone else there) is unlikely to forget any time soon, and it inspired me to start making copycat plans to have my big 40th (shocking, isn't it!) birthday celebration there next spring.

The food began to make my eyelids droopy and time was making my generous buzz wear off, so I told my much more sober roommate it was time to exit the tribal Taj Mahaj of the Cd'A Casino and make our weary way back north to town. Brandy decided to walk us out, and the crazy birthday girl was significantly more blotto than either one of us. The last image we saw as we hopped on the four-seat cart back to the car was her flashing her generous bare breasts full-on at us, and the priceless look on the faces of the older couple we were riding with made the whole evening worth it times a million.

Fire Artisan Pizza

2011-10-04T15:10:00.000-07:00

Fire Artisan Pizza

517 Sherman Ave., Coeur d'Alene
(208) 676-1PIE

Since opening earlier last month near the tail end of an unusually not-so-sizzling summer, Fire Artisan Pizza has been setting the downtown Coeur d'Alene restaurant scene ablaze. Basically, the buzz has been all Heavy Debbie up in local culinary circles that, to put it in the most irritatingly obvious way possible, Fire is hot. Wait - I think we can do better than that. How about: Fire is hotter than a two dollar pistol on the 4th of July. Even better: Fire is hotter than a nanny goat in a pepper patch. Or, my favorite: Fire is hotter than two rats screwing in a wool sock in the desert. (Thanks to the Cliche Finder site for these gems).

Ironically, the first time I was able to try their product, it was a couple of slices of cold pizza brought to me at my bartending job by a friend who had visited Fire earlier in the day and had a bit of leftovers to share. It was a simple cheese pizza, and although Ellen Degeneres might tell you otherwise, a plain old cheese pizza isn't necessarily the most exciting thing in the world, especially when it comes to you at a temperature only slightly warmer than Lake Cocolala on a moonlit October night.

But I'd been dealing with a crowd of tipsy drama queens all afternoon, and I was starving, so even a cold cheese pizza seemed like a luscious treat at the time. And guess what: it actually was! Looking at the menu later on, I realized my friend had ordered a "Parma" (prosciutto, gorgonzola, pecorino, mozzarella and
provolone cheeses, finished with truffle oil - $14) but he had them hold the meaty part. I don't blame him really, because every time I think of the word "prosciutto" I once again think of Food Network hostess Giada Di Laurentis savaging the word in a hardcore over-pronunciation style and I immediately lose my appetite. Granted, she does have a nice eyebrow situation.

Anyway, the crust had gone from crispy to chewy on its long adventure toward my face, but that actually somehow added to its charms and it still tasted like a real deal delicious concoction. I ravenously finished everything in my friend's take home box, leaving him with nothing to actually take home. To make up for my uncontrollable piggishness and basic lack of social grace, I bought him a tall double whiskey and coke and both of us were quite content.

I figured that if a few slices of rather-less-than-fresh pizza could impress me that much, then it would be worth it for me to actually leave my recent constant work/Bewitched rerun cocoon to go downtown and make an attempt to put my tongue parts on a hot out of the oven slice or six of what Fire had to offer.

Hungry I was and hungry was I when we walked into the recently renovated Sherman Avenue spot that Fire occupies next door to the year-round "Christmas By the Lake" store I've never, ever visited (I lean toward Neo-Confucianism and am allergic to mistletoe). The hostess fluttered her hand around the room as she told my lunch pal and I to sit wherever, so we grabbed the table closest to the waitstaff station so we could hopefully hear them gossip and bitch under their breath about how horrible all the customers were and how they should all die in a "Fire"-y car crash in their 2012 Volvos on their way back to Woodnville, WA or Carmel, CA.

That never happened. The staff, especially our server Sean, were as prompt and polite and as Xanex librarians - no snatchy tongues flared. \There was no one for them to kvetch about - the place was basically empty save for a couple of random Craigslist dates happening in one corner and a young photographer guy with a Seattle problem running around very intently taking pictures of the place for a possible future "CDA Magazine" feature spread or something. Granted, it was around 2 pm on a Tuesday, so it was after the main lunch rush buzz most likely would have already come and gone.

Noticeable immediately was Fire's decor, which, also like the photographer boy floating about the room, seemed very Seattle damaged, but in a good way. Your basic nouveau retro circumstance. Bare concrete floors, half-walls made of raw, splintery wood blocks, open ceilings with exposed venting doo-dads, and giant black-and-white blown-up photos of (I think) random Seattle people and places doing the things that random Seattle people and places do best: looking cool in a naturally hip, slightly insouciant kind of way.

The plastic white chairs were retro like the chairs I might have sat on during first grade in 1978, but I was afraid they weren't quite sturdy enough for my frankly fat ass, so I chose a "booth" seat (aka an orange linoleum covered block of wood bolted hard to the wall). Adding to the artsy, gourmet vibe are the little round dishes of grey sea salt that adorn the center of each table, each filled up only a slight amount as if to say "we're too urbane to give you a full dish and you need to watch your salt intake anyway, Dumbo." Also, a nice touch was the fresh cucumber slices placed inside our water glasses - much more interesting than a boring old lemon to add interest to plain agua.

Don't get me wrong, Fire looks very cool (these lame ironic puns have got to stop!), but the main draw here is the simplistic fabulosity of the wood-fired pizza, made right behind the counter in a brick lined cubbyhole and brought immediately to your table all melty and sizzling. There are ten combo options available, and highlights include the "Banion" (bacon, onions, mozzarella cheese, tomato sauce - $12), the "Crimini" (crimini mushrooms, thyme, garlic olive oil, mozzarella cheese - $12), and the evocatively titled "Meat" (fennel sausage, pepperoni, salami, bacon, mozzarella cheese, tomato sauce - $15).

I love the whole musky chèvre thing, so I ordered the "Billy" (goat cheese, roasted red pepper, Kalamata olives, tomato sauce, fresh arugula ($13). This grand-to-behold pizza was even better than the cold one that my friend had delivered to me the week before - the peppery arugula was fresh and piled high atop sweet roasted peppers and large, par-melted chunks of crumbly goat cheese. The taste of the sauce was planets away from Domino's or Pizza Slut, with the distinctive flavors of the ingredients all popping in to say hello and dance a little jig with my taste receptors.

The crust was crisp, perhaps a bit too crisp for my taste, the only possible flaw I could find with the whole affair. I'm told that an extra-browned, borderline burnt crust is normal for wood fired pizzas, so I guess I'll let that one go. I had a slice of my friend's "Crimini", and it was magnificent as well, dense with rich mushroom taste. the pizzas at Fire aren't enormous, in fact they're just the right size for one person, which makes it fun to trade off and sample slices of what your co-conspirators have ordered.

The denouement to the climax of our glorious Fire Artisian Pizza tale was the literally mountainous, oven-fresh chocolate chip cookie Sean brought us out after we were already stuffed to the gills. There's always room for dessert! Especially when it's a literally mountainous, heavenly, doughy sort as this. Oh God, yum! By the time I paid the tab and got home, I'd lost complete focus on the rest of the busy day ahead and opted to tell the world to burn in a pit of heck in favor of a nice naptime.

Local Noise: Not Quite Punk

2011-08-31T14:38:00.000-07:00

Name: Not Quite Punk

Hometown: Sandpoint, ID

Genre: Rockabilly/Ska/Swing/Punk

Band Members:
Brian Grise: Vocals & Guitar
Paz Rainbow: Trumpet & Vocals
Myles Larson: Drums & Vocals
Reese Warren: Lead Guitar & Vocals
Troy Falciani: Bass & Vocals

Influences:
Rancid, Bad Religion, Mad Sin, Django Reinhardt, Voodoo Glow Skulls, Mad Caddies, Scott Joplin, Fats Waller

Releases:
"Hometown Heroes & Degenerates" (LP, Forthcoming)

Bio:
"Formed in late 2009, Rockin' is this band's #1 goal, and their Guitar, Trumpet and Bass driven sound will make your foot want to tap right out of your shoe! Swingin' with Not Quite Punk is a style all it's own, influenced by greats such as: Django Reinhardt, Sublime, Stray Cats, Mad Sin, Rancid, Mad Caddies and more. The reminiscent yet unique and new sound of N.Q.P. is a mixture of Brian's swing & rockabilly influence, Paz's ska and jazz trumpet, Reese's shredding guitar solos and jazzy progressions, Troy's smooth bass lines, and Myles' booming swingin' drums. It is a sound that appeals to audiences of all ages.

After a little more than one year, Not Quite Punk slayed 70+ gigs in the Northwestern U.S. during 2010 expanding their fan-base through Washington, Idaho and Montana, and is now expecting release of their first studio album titled: “Hometown Heroes & Degenerates” due May 1st 2011. A very busy year has had them playing months of back-to-back shows, sold-out shows, and playing for big audiences including: Missoula Hempfest, 3 live on-air hour long sets on one of the nation's top AAA FM radio stations, Schweitzer Mountain Resort, Relay For Life, and Sandpoint City Beach Music Festival and many more. N.Q.P. has recently launched a new website, is currently working on a new music video and preparing for a Cd Release Tour in summer 2011."

Upcoming Shows:
September 3 at the Grail Venue, Coeur d'Alene, 7 pm
with Jesi B. & the All Rites, Icabod and RFB

Links:
Home Page
Facebook
Reverbnation

Music Widget:

Videos:

Red Bowl Fresh Grilled

2011-08-29T14:52:00.000-07:00

Red Bowl Fresh Grilled
1650 W Appleway, Coeur d'Alene
(208) 676-9340

It's perhaps a smidge on the perplexing side that an eatery advertising itself under the moniker Red Bowl serves all their items in plastic black bowls. The situation conjures up several ponderous questions. Does the plastic bowl wholesaler charge an extra .02 per for the red ones? Was the name "Black Bowl" somehow too morbid and un-cheery or was it already trademarked by a bowling alley with a African-American History theme? Did they at one point consider the name "Green Bowl" but thought better after realizing they might be mistaken for a medical marijuana dispensary?

We may never know the reason, but after a couple of trips to Coeur d'Alene's Red Bowl Fresh Grilled, located deep inside Goodie's Conoco gas station/c-store, I've concluded that it wouldn't really matter if their food was served in Pistachio Puke or Burnt Hair Ochre colored bowls, it would still be pretty darn okay.

Speaking of ungodly color happenings, Red Bowl lives in the former shell of a Taco Time outlet, and while they've applied some red linoleum atop the main counter, and splashed some red paint on the walls surrounding the order area, the cupboards in the kitchen are still neon Taco Time lime green. This vibratingly optical color combo was giving me a mild case of vertigo as I stood at the order counter the first time trying to decide what was what for lunch. Another noted decor tragedy is the appropriate-of-nothing rack of small silk flowerpots for sale near the soda machines. No thanks, I'll buy grandma's birthday present down the street at Tuesday Morning instead.

Yakisoba, rice bowls, and stir-fry combo plates make up the bulk of the Red Bowl menu board. I've described it to friends as sort of a poor man's Noodle Express, but in actuality that makes the place sound significantly more ghetto than it really is, at least food wise. All the staples of this sort of fast-Asian grill are here, a few dozen options overall with no major surprises, none at all, really.

I do appreciate that they cater to people who don't make up their minds so easily (pointing to myself) by offering three combo plates that include a couple of different entrees - Chicken & Short Ribs, Chicken & Spicy Pork, Short Ribs & Spicy Pork ($7.99 per plate). Okay, not an amazing variety of options there, but as an entry point into the world of Red Bowl, it seemed like the right thing to do, so I ordered a #6 (Chicken & Spicy Pork) to go.

When the counter girl disappeared into the the back somewhere and I heard some sizzling and clacking spatula action, I realized that everything was being whipped up from scratch, rather than served out of a metal heat-lamp-fueled bin of some kind. In fact, all the old Taco Time gear in the front part of the kitchen is just sitting there totally out of commission. Everything goes on behind the scenes now, so I suppose all the cooking cacophony could be just an elaborate fake-out and in reality, everything they serve up comes from the frozen foods section of Grocery Outlet. You know, those little microwaveable black plastic bowls.

I think not. My maiden meal from Red Bowl was pretty darn good - both the chicken and and pork were fresh and tender, served Teriyaki-style with a nice, tight ball of white rice and a pile of salad-y veggies. It was good enough to warrant a return visit, this time with Jesi B., and with the intention of actually sitting down at a table to dine and bathe in the luminescent ambiance of a busy quickie mart at noontime. Red Bowl is certainly not the kind of place you'd want to suggest for a meeting with your high society friends, but we were quite entertained by the crowd nonetheless - a dozen-or-so buff and burly Avista utility men who had arrived for lunch at the same time as us. Bonus!

This time around, I decided on the Shrimp Yakisoba ($7.99) and it was quite scrumptious with large florets of non-soggy broccoli, carrots, and lots of big, tasty shrimp. Eight bucks seems to me like it's just a tad pricier than some of the other places that serve this sort of thing, but we got a heaping ton of food, and it was well worth every Roosevelt dime spent. In addition to the main course, I split an order of potstickers ($3.99) with Jesi, and these did actually give the impression they were imported from the freezer section. They weren't terrible though, and I suppose there's only so much one can do with a potsticker. Still, we devoured everything, and left feeling satiated and blissfully a-bloat.

Last week, I returned for another dose of Red Bowl - I needed to give it another whirl before I could form a final opinion, desperately (okay, maybe I'm a little hooked). The Crispy Chicken Plate ($6.99) and a perfectly adequate egg roll ($2.99) tilted the decision all the way over into yes! territory. They could and should refer to it as Chicken Katsu on the menu, because that's really what it is, and Chicken Katsu is one of my most beloved Hawaiian plate lunch items. I love the pounded-down thinness of the chicken meat, coated in that crunchy deep-fried coating and served with that tangy, ketchup-and-Worcestershire based sauce that's so yummy when it gets all mixed into the white rice. Heaven!

On the whole, Red Bowl won't win any Idaho Cuisine magazine Fork-in-Cork awards for its posh atmosphere, but it is a great place to pop in and grab a convenient, appetizing and very filling meal. And where else in town can one pick up a case of Natural Ice beer, a copy of the National Enquirer, and a jumbo-size box of Junior Mints on the way out the door after chowing down on a black plastic bowl full of Tofu Yakisoba?

Local Noise: Ghoul's Crypt

2011-08-14T16:53:00.000-07:00

Name: Ghoul's Crypt

Hometown: Post Falls, ID

Genre: Horror/Punk/Metal

Members:
Ghoul: Vocals/guitar
Jasin Gorgoth: Bass/backing vocals
Scott Hankins: Lead uitar/backing vocals
T-Bone: Drums

Reverbnation Bio:
"Ghoul is the founder of the DIY label Haunted House Productions and has become respected in the music community as a business-minded legend of the horror/punk/rock scene. A guru whose musical fame mostly stemmed from success as the singer/songwriter of the underground 90's horror/punk group "HUMAN MONSTER". A leader with a focused and structured musical direction, who is versatile vocal style and range has over the years been compared to by many as: "if DANZIG had a prodigal son, Ghoul be thy name"... having the mind-set of combining catchy rock/metal hooks w/ breathtaking vocal howls.

With an array of song writing ability that covers such genres as rock, metal, punk, horror, death, and rock-a-billy (to name a few), the group's focus will consistently and strictly produce music with a "do it yourself" mentality, sustaining thus another notch in this front mans belt, unveiling the heavier stoner/doom/garage sound that has become the focus and direction of this new super-group. With an all star line-up that was carefully hand selected by Ghoul himself, evil has a face and name and it's "Ghoul's Crypt".

Gorgoth was born, raised, bred and fed in the dark ages of the 1970's... Hailing from the dulcet desert lands of Arizona. Influenced and instilled at an early age by classic 70's rock groups such as Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin. Joining as Ghoul’s full-time bassist in April of 2010, Jasin (Ghoul’s #1 comrade) has played a key role in helping write and form many diverse playing styles using thumb, finger and pick applications as needed during recording sessions within the walls of Ghoul’s garage. Gorgoth has undeniably enhanced Ghoul’s writing ability and has nourished the evil/melodic/gloomy style and tone that is rich in playability, which has brought the “heavier” edge that has become “the sound” of Ghoul’s Crypt."

Upcoming Show:
Saturday, Sept. 24 - Umatilla County Fairgrounds, Hermiston, OR

Links:
MySpace
ReverbNation

Music Widget:

El Paisa Mexican Food

2011-08-08T14:42:00.000-07:00

El Paisa Mexican Food
1801 N Lincoln Way, Coeur d'Alene
(208) 704-8775

Driving absentmindedly north on Lincoln Way one afternoon last month, my wandering eye was caught by a bunch of balloons bobbling in the afternoon breeze, tied to a sandwich board bearing the image of a hungry, pissed-off looking Bramha Bull. Once I realized what it all meant, I had to roll my eyes so hard I nearly swerved off the road. Lordy lord. It was yet another Mexican restaurant in a town with eleventy thousand Mexican Restaurants. Sometimes it seems like another new one pops up somewhere every few weeks, and I haven't been terribly impressed with the majority of them lately (Taco Loco, you do rock).

Still, I was curious to investigate, since somehow the newsflash regarding El Paisa's sudden appearance on the Coeur d'Alene food scene never crossed the Get Out North Idaho radar. Problem was, I'd actually just eaten lunch and wasn't I remotely grumbly in the tummy for some taqueria nuevo action. I decided to just run in and give it a quick the re-furbed former Donut House a looky-loo and grab a copy of their take-out menu for future reference.

It was around 11 a.m. when I popped in, and the eatery was fully devoid of customers. I sorta got the eerie feeling that they'd only had their door open for business for a couple of hours max, and I was probably one of the first faces they'd seen come through, ever. I was greeted by three desperate, anticipatory smiles and a booming, warm "hola, bienvenida a mi amigo!" from owner/chef Francisco Padilla, who along with (I'm assuming) his wife and the cash register girl, gave up their counter lean immediately and snapped into action for me.

Oh, I'm just grabbing a take out menu real quick", I stammered, but they seemed so deflated that I gave a quick glance up at the menu board and said "um, actually, on second thought I think I'll get a glass of Horchata." Mmm, horchata. I can never pass up an opportunity to order a glass of the refreshing, candy-like Mexican beverage.

From where I was standing on the other side of the counter, I watched the Senorita do something I haven't seen very often, if ever. I watched her make horchata by hand, pouring the rice milk into a little pitcher and then blending in the vanilla, cinnamon and sugar right there on the spot. No dispenser-type machinery involved. Plus, she did it with a giant smile, as if she were putting on a little happy show for an audience of one in an attempt to impress me and ensure that I would return someday soon to actually dine on food.

It was a magnificent beverage, and the experience put El Paisa at the forefront of my brain until two days later, when I was able the first of many comebacks. On my earlier breeze-in, I hadn't really had the chance to absorb the random nature of the ornamentation cluttered around the walls. In the most charming way possible, it looks as if someone's dear abuelita spent an afternoon scouring the downtrodden art bins of every Salvation Army and Goodwill in the suburban barrios of San Diego.

There's a couple of framed tourist posters that, upon close inspection, reveal themselves to be images of the Greek Isles instead of Mexico. There's a kitschy black velvet painting of a psychedelic toreador that will certainly frighten children and the elderly. A photograph of a boring tiger, some unidentifiable brass hangy-thing, several Country Living 80's ceramic and/or toll-painted pictures of country cottages. It's a bit like a compendiary history of tragic and forgotten mortgage office decorating trends, late-20th-century edition.

Who cares, I suppose? One has to start somewhere and what they had going on was way better than the visual impression left by my first visit to another new Cd'A Mexican Restaurant, Atilano's, who had electrical wires coming out of open socket boxes and swashes of red paint all willy nilly on the walls to cover up any evidence of the dead KFC it took over from (note: Atilano's has since "decorated" a bit more). Anyway, El Paisa is utterly spotless otherwise, if not a touch utilitarian and cold with it's slate grey tables, chairs and nubby carpet..

There's nothing chilly about the service at El Paisa, each of the half-dozen times I've come in, they've been nothing less than engaging. It's always the husband and wife, and sometimes the counter girl, who is frankly the only one who'd likely be able to muster up much of a score on the ACT Combined English/Writing test. It happens like this: you order with her, and she shouts your order back to the other two in Español and they snap rapidly into action.

The times I have visited when she wasn't around, I did pretty much figure out that the other two do know un poco de Inglés, but as I've mentioned in past reviews, I like to use these opportunities to be able to fully geek-out with my ghetto Spanish skills. To their credit, he El Paisa folks didn't cluck or chuckle at me for doing so, in fact they responded in kind (slowly, as not to confuse the tragic gringo).

Here's the thing about El Paisa: OH MY GOD! THEIR FOOD IS LIKE, TOTALLY TUBULAR! Yes, that statement does belong in all caps and it's also an homage to how I was the only male Valley Girl in the 6th grade at Lakes Junior High, an age at which I had my first unforgettable experience with authentic, non-Idaho Mexican Cuisine at some long-forgotten dark, sketchy joint near my Aunt's house in San Jose, California. I've been trying to find a chile relleno platter that comapres with that fond, fuzzy memory from so many years ago, but with no real luck. El Paisa finally took me back to that happy place.

Okay, maybe I'd just starved myself to the point of delirium before I dug in, but regardless the dish was bright in flavor and light in texture, unlike some other chewy, burnt-egg tasting chile rellanos I've had the misfortune of suffering through. The cheese was bubbling up from underneath like a molten golden tar pit, and the thick red sauce was a rich puree of fresh-plucked tomatoes, herbs and Mexican spice. Rice is rice and pinto beans sprinkled with cheese are pinto beans sprinkled with cheese, but El Paisa does them really quite nicely, especially with a few generous splashes of their homemade green and red hot sauces (yes, both - why not?).

It escapes me now what exactly Jesi ordered on that maiden voyage to El Paisa, but I do remember she was equally smitten. In fact, separately between the two of us, we've returned nearly a dozen times since and the only minor complaint to arise has been that one day Jesi said the rice tasted "a bit off". Not unlike the hungry, pissed-off Bramha bull on their logo, I've plowed through sweet pork enchiladas (good heck, these were tender, succulent and just the right kind of sweet), taquitos rancheros (I never knew what a taquito could really be until I tried these, served with some sort of amazing ranch-dill sauce), and chicken tacos (made my bland experience with the ones at Atilan's fade into the mist). Fortunately for the Padillas and Co., it seems that I'm not the only one who finds El Paisa so addictively toothsome - on each visit the place seems increasingly more full of fanatic and famished folks.

Each time I've dropped into El Paisa for lunch, including the requisite glass of Horchata, I've ended up pulling less than $7 out of my wallet and have always come away feeling sweetly spent, like the joy synapses located inside both my brain and tummy were recovering from some kind of sublime and intense Mexican-food-gasm. And like various other other kinds of of "gasms", I always feel exactly like rolling over and having a little siesta afterwards.

The Awakening of Coeur d'Alene - 1981 Vs. 2011

2011-07-25T15:27:00.000-07:00

The Facebook group "Old School Coeur d'Alene" can be massively entertaining for folks like me who are fond of yammering on about a time long ago when our town was less prone to artsy-fartsy foofaraw, touristy rattleclap, and those pesky trees and flowers making everyone's allergies flare up. Call me old, and I'll smack you with a Hall & Oates record.

The "THEN" images posted below were swiped from that group's page and landed there Saturday courtesy of Dave Bellamy, who writes, "My dad was on the plannng commission and this still and these pictures were gathered as part of a proposal looking at putting up a cover over the downtown area of CDA. It never panned out but the planning did lead to the downtown we have now." The image on the left is the cover of the proposal pamphlet - love that totally hideous graphic design.

I was nine years old in 1981, and I spent a lot of time riding my bike downtown to waste time looking at records and comic books or hanging the arcade that was next to the Donut Shop on 2nd between Sherman and Lakeside. These pictures sent me into a fiercely aging but highly enjoyable time warp, as they will for anyone who is old enough to have been around at the time. The nostalgia is a ton of fun, but I still rather think that overall our downtown is better than ever here in 2011. What do you think?

THEN

NOW

Looking east on Sherman Ave from 2nd Street. The JC Penny's block is now the CDA Resort shopping plaza and the new Splash nightclub seems to be located exactly in the same spot where I watched my mother pick out bras and shoes before I'd run of to ride the city's only elevator up and down all three stories just for kicks.

The much-beloved, long-kaput Wilma Theater is front and left, now a patch of grass which sits emptier than empty and occasionally showcases expensive boats for one of Hagadone's marine outfits. Notice in all these old pics the complete lack of trees and greenery in 1981 - it's so much more lush now compared to the barren storefronts of back then.

THEN

NOW

The Iron Horse is still the Iron Horse, but they've significantly improved their facade - the fake train motif was seeming retro and way fugly even in 1981, if I recall. At this point, presciption dolls were the hot thing on 4th and Sherman, since two buildings which sat on that corner held pharmacies, but tastes have apparently changed and now booze served by the Moose Lounge (formerly Wilson's Pharmacy) and coffee served by Java (formerly Hart's Drug) are the mood-altering substances of choice.

Additionally, Mariposa was a woman's fashion store now occupied by Icon night club, which leads me to wonder if any of the fashion styles peddled there thirty years ago, possibly modeled by the lovely gals trying to cross the street on the left of the photo, have managed to cycle back into vogue for the place's modern clientele (mot likely, yes).

THEN

NOW

In 1989, the Duane purchased this entire block and turned it into "the Shops", a distinctly not-for-bargain-hunters shopping plaza, that is literally attached to his ever-expanding Resort situation. In 1981, the land held, among many other things, JC Penney, Fischer's Western Wear, Marie O'Briens Clothing Store, and the legendary Fore-n-Aft cocktail lounge, which everyone remembers for their faaaabulous ice cream drinks and alluringly dank and smoky, cave-like atmosphere.

I do vaguely remember that odd little covered bench on the corner that was just kind of plopped there for no apparent reason (looks kind of like a bus stop, but there was nothing even slightly resembling CityLink back then). I guess it was just a nice little place to plop down, relax and enjoy a gorgeous view of Lake Coeur d'Alene, a view which is no longer visible now that the concrete grey north wall of the Resort parking garage is the only thing one can get an eye full of from that particular vista.

THEN

NOW

The place on the lower left is exactly the same, except for a paint job or five. In fact, I think it was a real estate office or something then and it's a real estate office or something now. Long gone is the crumbly little yellow building that held (I think) a print shop, replaced by a wildly imposing bloc of windowless, brick condos. The quaint Chevron gas station at 7th and Sherman has been gone since around the time the gas "inflation" crisis meant that you paid slightly over $1.25 a gallon. Somehow, they managed to fit the Red Rose Hotel on that tiny corner after the gas station was razed, which still exists as the comfortable and severely under-rated Resort City Inn.

THEN

NOW

Looking west from 6th/5th on Sherman, many of the buildings now are structurally the same as then (although any changes we could see are blocked by trees in the "now" shot), but of course all of the names have changed, the sole exception being the trusty old Camera Corral, which will likely outlive us all.

A few names are visible by zooming into the 1981 image that bring back some warm fuzzy fond memories: Total Eclipse record shop (located in the "5th Avenue Mall"), the Craft and Hobby Store, the Bookseller (corner of 5th and Sherman), the Diamond Shop, Commercial Printing, and Burts Music (the latter two have survived to the present in new locations).

THEN

NOW

Click and enlarge this one to see what Hudson Hamburgers looked like back when it was a mere 70 years young. "Middle Age Crazy", the lead attraction at the Wilma Theater, was an impossibly obscure romantic comedy starring a late-career Ann Margaret and Bruce Dern with the tagline "There'll be a hot time in the hot tub tonight!" and a not-quite-classic Jerry Lee Lewis theme song. Murder mystery "Eyewitness", with Sigourney Weaver and John Hurt, rates a bit better, but not by much. Still, I'm sure there were worse ways to waste a Saturday afternoon than spending a whole dollar for a double feature, and another dollar on a large, buttery bucket of popcorn.

THEN

NOW

Corner of Front Street and 4th Street, Facing North. Okay, Bank of America - you look exactly like you did 30 years ago, which for many people is a rare and wonderful blessing, but it really is time for an exterior face lift. I seem to recall that Ace Hardware was maybe a more fun place to shop back then, carrying not just hammers and nails but also toys, gadgets, rubber flip-flops, and hot electronics such as portable 8-track tape players for you to take with you to your favorite hidden Tubbs Hill beach.