It was a coincidence that Altura received a semi-finalist nomination for a James Beard Foundation award the day we had reservations. It made it all the more surprising that tables around us sat empty for hours as we ate, despite my needing to book two weeks out to get a reasonable time slot. After the level of service and cuisine we witnessed, I can’t help but wonder (hope!) if it was purposeful–to relax the kitchen and the waitstaff workload–so that the diner’s experience is impeccable.

If not, perhaps we were just fortunate that nobody read the nominations and tried to jump on the bandwagon. As it was, the biggest mistake we had all night was accidentally being served a second helping of the amuse bouche at a time when an intermezzo might have been more appropriate. Both times the small bit of duck liver mousse topped with cherry compote exemplified a balanced bite, with the soft spread holding together the crumbs falling from the crisped bread. The amuse was stronger than the small welcome cocktail we were served, a sip of mixture of pomegranate juice and something I can’t recall: a testament to the forgettability of the drink.

By the time the bread arrived, we were already suitably impressed with the service and the still-warm slices seemed to encourage us to talk about why. Altura takes itself seriously as a restaurant, at a moment in time where that’s not the most fashionable attitude. Another high-end Italian restaurant nearby once had us thinking that plaid shirts were actually the uniform for service staff–until we asked, and the waiter laughed, and explained it was just coincidence. Here, it was different. There were table runners. And chef’s coats. No plaid, no bandanas, no hi-jinks. That is not to say it was an overly serious place. In fact, I marveled at the enjoyment each chef, cook, and waiter seemed to be experiencing as they went about their evening’s work.

We ordered four appetizers and four pasta dishes, opting to skip the entrees. We had planned for dessert, but by the time we got there, it was out of the question. As we dug in, it occurred to me that nothing about this ostensibly Italian restaurant or the food it served was overly Italian, beyond that they served pasta. Our first few apps were barely an ingredient away from Japanese or French cuisine. The grilled octopus (bottom, left, above) avoided the beginner’s error of overcooking to shoe-leather toughness and married the brightness of mint with the heat of Calabrian peppers. For non-spice lovers, the waiter advised, you can pick around the chiles. I preferred to let the spice sear in, then cool down with the nearby butter beans. I was won over by this salad, though my tablemate favored the fish (bottom, right), for the clash of textures from toast point to raw fish. The veal sweetbreads (bottom, center) had been the first dish to arrive at the table and acted as a harbinger of the delicious to come: balanced flavors (kumquat and fennel), excellent execution (lightly cripsy, uniform texture within), and excitement inducing ingredients (spot prawns). I hesitate to call our fourth appetizer, the chopped carppacio, a miss, but it was not at the same level as the first three. First of all, I wanted to quibble that a chopped carppacio appears to be a fancy way of saying ‘tartare,’ but I held my tongue. While each of the elements (the meat, the olive puree, sardine, crouton, cheese sauce…etc.) were quite good, there was so much salt in each one that it would overwhelm them to put together. Eaten separately, we enjoyed all the parts with the exception of the somewhat overcooked quail egg.

When the pastas came out, again there was disagreement about the best dish, but in the best kind of way. My favorite was the nettle ravoli (bottom, left), whose brown butter flavor was as vibrant as the pasta was green. Luckily I didn’t have to fight for the right to mop the sauce up with that lovely bread, as B was busy exclaiming over the fluffiness of the gnocchi. I’ll agree, it was light enough that I half expected it to float to the surface, a cloud in a sea of spicy lamb and beef ragu. By the time our entree sized portions of pasta came, I was already looking in fear at their size. The papardelle with oxtail and tripe (upper right) was meaty and thick with the flavor of long-stewed tripe. If you’re a lover of that flavor, as we are, it is a wonder. I couldn’t endorse it better than by saying tripe haters will not understand. On the lighter side of the table, another vivaciously colored plate, purple and gold (go Huskies!) with cauliflower, green with broccoli, arrived. The cavatelli was amply sprinkled with tuna heart and strongly flavored with lemon. All of the pasta dishes included impeccably made pastas and very good flavors. It was just that by the end, I couldn’t take another bite. I do wish we had asked not to have them entree sized, when the waiter had explained what he was doing.

Everything is size-adjustable at Altura, making ordering easy. Just ask for what you want, the servers will sort it all out. I had actually been intimated by the ordering system before I sat and the waiter explained it at the beginning of the meal. But now we were at the end. I hadn’t looked to closely at the menu, but I knew I wasn’t going to be able to handle dessert. I knew I would miss out on the mascarpone gelato I wanted so badly. I knew I’d eaten too much, I knew I needed an amaro. So I asked Ron (our waiter). Amaro was brought. The night came to a delicious digestif finish.

Dinner at Altura is easy. There’s no stress, there’s no insecurity of ‘am I doing it right.’ Everything is taken care of, everything is sure to be at a certain level of quality. You’re not afraid of not being cool enough or ‘in the know’ enough. It’s an indulgence, for sure, in more ways than one (our tab for two was close to $200). But quite honestly, if I had to choose where in town to send someone for a splurge, Altura is at the top of my list.

Two weeks into my gall bladder being on the fritz, I decided to go all Paula Deen on it. If I simply refrained from eating fat or consuming alcohol, I prevented the attacks, which were more painful than a lifetime sentenced to eating Kwanzaa Cake. But I was hosting book club that night. And we were reading Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper, one of my favorite books. An array of home-cooked Chinese dishes peppered the table, wowing me with the skill of my friends: beef tongue, celery, and pig ear from Tiffany, egg tarts from Snacking in the Kitchen, and dan-dan noodles from me, among others delicacies. I couldn’t resist the temptations of my favorite cuisine made by my favorite people. My doctor had given me Vicodin for any pain when I got attacks, but since the pain was prevented by eliminating fat and alcohol, I had yet to actually use them.

Until that night, when I tried to emulate the woman who should be nobody’s hero, Paula Deen. Instead of using my diet to prevent the symptoms, I let them happen and tried to treat the pain with the drugs. Worst. Idea. Ever. Vicodin was no match for the multiple playing dice-sized gallstones (I later learned) that had taken up residence in my organ. There was nothing to do about the pain but suffer. From three to six AM I cried out in pain, I danced, I did yoga, I lay perfectly still. I tried to think of happy things (Chinese food! Wine! No, wrong tactic) to get the pain off my mind, but nothing alleviates the pain of a gall bladder attack but time (and the good drugs I eventually got in the ER, but that’s another story). I stopped eating fat after that, until a week later when I finally had surgery and got the damn thing removed.

I’m all better now; it seems that the gall bladder is an entirely unnecessary organ. Like the Robert Irvine of body parts: it could fall off the face of the earth and nobody would even take notice. Now that the gall bladder and the stones it harbored have been taken out, I get to go back to a totally normal diet. For the few weeks that I couldn’t eat fat, though, I did notice that much of the protein I ate came from things with fat in them. I love tofu as much as the next person, but usually pan-fried. I’ll take you up on that steak, or maybe a little bit of ground lamb. Cheese? an excellent source of protein–and also fat. Don’t even get me started on the horrors of fat-free cheese. Worse than a Rachael Ray marathon coming on when you’ve got a broken remote control.

So I looked into beefalo, which I’ll keep eating, because it turns out to be low-fat and full-flavor, a rare combination, the unicorn of the food world. I found bean dip–which I at one point (and never again) had to eat with a fat-free Pringle. I survived and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, but life goes on, life gets better, and being gall-bladder free is no hardship. In the meantime, I got really good at making nice light recipes, like the one below.

Normal is not what I do best. Thus my end-of-year top-ten list will be anything but. For starters, it’s not ten items. Instead, this is a peek inside my brain, where cooking and reading and small creatures in the night all crawl about, mingling and mixing into a delightful stew of tasty tidbits. It’s December, and while I’m more likely to look forward to the next year than backwards on the last, here’s a few things that stuck in my maw, reminding me why the life of good eating is so wonderful.

Best non-cookbook: Grant Achatz’s Life, on the Line

This is not the best written book ever, with somewhat amateurish writing further compounded by confusing narrator shifts and abrupt jumps. It’s not for those seeking the secrets to Alinea’s fabulous food. There are no recipes and only a skimming vision into the inspiration behind the culinary artistry of Achatz. Simply Achatz’s autobiography, co-told by his restaurant partner, offers the most compelling story, the most fascinating inside glimpse to the path from Midwestern school kid and average teenage dirtbag to one of the world’s top chefs. With a quick pause for quasi-terminal tongue cancer in the middle.

Best New Restaurant in Seattle: Mike Easton’s Il Corvo

As I have written before, Il Corvo is a diamond in the rough. That diamond, the treasure, being beautiful handmade pastas served in simple, reasonably priced portions from the stairs of the Pike Place Hillclimb. The rough is the tourist jungle of Pike Place. In a part of town where the fastest path to big business is a flashy sign and a big view, Il Corvo’s got neither. Barely visible from inside a gelato stand, the best view in the shop is not outward, onto the concrete stairs, but inward, over the marble pasta-making surface-cum-communal table, chatting with Mike Easton over the counter. It’s with this view you’ll catch a glimpse into the mind of a passionate pasta-man, charcuterie aficionado, and occasional amaro-maker.

Food of the Year: The Crawfish

Whether I was eating them alone in a gas station near the New Orleans airport or chowing down with family and friends here in Seattle, this was the year of the crawfish for me. Yes, they’re old hat for southerners, but for this Northwest girl, these are the things dreams are made of. Crawfish dreams had me driving across town for meals at the Crawfish King. Crawfish dreams had me buying crawfishing gear to dredge my own up off the bottom of Lake Washington. Most of all crawfish dreams keep me booking flights back to New Orleans, where the mudbugs are the most succulent and celebrated. I’m already counting down the days until March–the beginning of crawfish season and my next jaunt to the big easy.

Best Meal: Izote, in Mexico City

It’s hard to believe that a meal that costs $125 for two people is worth it in a town where your could just as easily pay $1.25 for a ten-sigh taco. Yet, something told me I should believe Cristina, of the blog Mexico Cooks, as she implored me to try it. When we finished the meal, I couldn’t believe how cheap it was.

When the waiter set down the amuse bouche, I translated for Brett without thinking too hard, ‘little corn cakes filled with shellfish mousse and sprinkled with shrimp dust.’ I giggled at the end. Shrimp dust? A bit over the top, no? And then I bit in. I did not doubt another  move throughout the meal, downing roasted baby goat fried tacos on sticks and tamales so light and fluffy they had air bubbles for which a Parisian baguette would kill. Mexico City is a killer dining city on any budget, but if you can only squeeze in one high-end meal, this one makes it worth saving your pennies.

Best Event: Author talk with Cheryl Tan of A Tiger in the Kitchen at Dahlia Lounge

I had not heard of the book when I set off down the hill from my house to this event, organized by Myra, aka Seattle Bon Vivant. I would stop in, I thought, chat with friends, and head off to start my day. Little did I know that those friends would include the author herself, Cheryl Tan, and that I would want to sit and chat for hours. Her personality and enthusiasm for her book and the food contained within it are positively infectious and I could barely stop to breathe before starting the book. The event was simple, yet exactly what was needed. Pastries, coffee, and a table set up for a morning of gals gabbing about food.

I’ve already told you about the book itself, but since meeting her, I’ve chatted with Ms. Tan on Twitter, where she is as helpful and interesting as she was at the event. When I introduced her to a friend heading to Singapore, seeking dining suggestions, she flooded us with ten-plus tweets with insight, directions, and tips on eating in her hometown. She embodies the modern way to sell books–through personality and social media.

Best Stand-by Restaurant: Chiang’s Gourmet

The place you keep coming back. The place where eating is easy: you know where to go, how to park, what the crowd will be like, and most of all, what to order. For me, Chiang’s reclaimed that title this year. Yes, we moved to be closer, but now that we’ve been there more, I’m regretting letting it slip down the rankings. As I’ve told before, I was born to love the place, but what really keeps me coming back is the fish (pictured) and the noodles.

With the sad demise of Jack’s, there is no handmade noodle so humbly wonderful as that of Chiang’s. I’ll hit Sichuanese Cuisine if I must, or go for the doughy strands at Seven Star Pepper, but Chiang’s has what I need in a noodle. My favorite preparation is the pan-fried Shanghai style. If you drive by on a quiet afternoon, you can see the chef shaking flour from making them off his apron, into the alley. And on a rainy night, after a bad day, or even just as a reason to celebrate, the savory sauce complements the springy noodle and all is right with the world again.

Best Grocery Product: Sliced Noodles

I searched the package today to locate the ‘real’ name of this product, but the only thing it says in English is ‘Sliced Noodle’. While no dried noodle can approach the fresh made ones I described above, from Chiang’s, this one lives in my cabinet and can be ready in about 3 minutes. That ease makes it a great breakfast option (sometimes in broth or with an egg), make shift dinner, and it goes perfectly into my Dan Dan Noodle recipe. I’d searched long and hard for the top dried noodle–chewy, thick, without dryness or doughiness– and this version, imported from Taiwan, is the best. I buy it locally from Ping’s Food Mart in the ID or HT Market on Aurora.

So, that’s it 2011. I’ll miss you. But not too much, because here’s 3 things I’m looking forward to in 2012:

1. Ping’s (mentioned above) is opening an attached dumpling house in the ID
2. The up and coming trend of spirit flights (such as whiskey or tequila)–great for learning more about the spirit
3. This being the year I eat the new best meal of my life, wherever it might be…

Among the oddities of my childhood were an avocado green washer and dryer in the kitchen of our house, a mild prodigy brother, and a constant parade of exchange students from as far away as New Caledonia. 25 years later and I still have no idea where New Caledonia is.

I do know where San Juan del Rio, Mexico, a small town two hours north of Mexico City, from where hailed many of our exchange students. One of them has become a life long family friend, and on our recent trip to Mexico, his mother taught us how to make a Mexican sandwich called a Pambazo.

This is the third time I’ve visited Juan’s family, and the first time I’ve seen Juan’s mom (who I’m sure has a name, but in the twenty year’s I’ve known her, I’m afraid I’ve never learned it) step outside of her small kitchen. She was returning from church on Sunday evening when it happened, a tiny woman with the bark of a bulldog. Piece of life advice? Don’t mess with a woman who had eleven children, she’s seen it all. Crossing the courtyard of the grand colonial home that the family has lived in for over a century, she saw us, and asked us if we weren’t hungry. We weren’t. We’d spent the time they were all at church wandering the main square. She convinced us (as you might guess, it was not difficult) to come in for some hot chocolate.

“What did you eat?” She asked us. “Pozole, tamales, platanos, and a pambazo” I listed off, trying to remember the various delicacies we’d randomly ordered. “Que típico!” she exclaimed, proud that we’d eaten the specialities of her region. The pambazo had been new to me, and other than saying it was some type of sandwich, at this point I’m not sure I knew exactly what it was. Upon ascertaining that we had fully appreciated the pambazo, a chili-dipped and oil-fried specimen of the sandwich world, she began telling us how easy it was to make.

“A few of these chilies, that’s all you need.” While I smiled in relief that they were a commonly found chile in the U.S.–the guajillo–I looked at them dubiously. They did not look like a sandwich. I needn’t have worried, as she wasn’t done yet.

“You just soak them, deseed and destem them, then blend them with onion, garlic, and chicken powder.” At this point, I’m not sure if she saw that I no longer thought this was simple or if she simply thought I didn’t understand the Spanish anymore, but she started gathering props, slicing off how much onion I would need, tearing the garlic cloves from the head, grabbing the bread, pulling out a heaping soup spoon of chicken bouillon. Soon she had given step by step instructions on how to soak the bread in chili sauce before frying and stuffing it, creating the intriguing and ‘típico’ pambazo sandwich.

By this point, it was late into the night and we had to leave early the next morning to head home. I thought the pambazo lesson was complete–I jotted down notes from the lesson to remember: it’s okay to use jarred beans, make sure you let it cool a minute before eating it, use shredded beef or sliced ham. I was confident that my lessons had paid off.

I couldn’t have been more wrong. The next morning, we sat down to a final feast before departing. Tamales, chonchas (Mexican sweet baked goods), etole (a sweet corn beverage that accompanies tamales), fruit salad, and a huevos rancheros that has forever ruined any other version of the dish for me.

We weren’t done though. All ears turned to the kitchen as the whir of the blender began. Juan asked what she was doing, and she replied “una muestra.” A demonstration. I got up to check it out. Sure enough, pambazo makings were strewn about, my lesson was made hands-on, and soon two sandwiches were wrapped and tucked into our bags for a safe journey.

Pambazo Ingredients:

• 2 dried Guajillo chilies, deseeded, de-stemmed, and soaked
• 1/2 a medium white onion
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 heaping soup spoon with chicken bouillon powder
• 2 Bolillo breads or crusty baguette type rolls, preferably a day old
• Small amount of refried beans, cooled (from can is fine)
• Oil

• 1 handful queso fresco (Mexican fresh cheese)
• Smattering of home fries or similar cubed potatoes
• Sliced ham
• Shredded beef
• Lettuce
• Avocados
• Hot sauce

To make the pambazo: Blend the chilies, onion, garlic, and bouillon with a small amount of water, until you have enough bright red liquid to soak the breads. This is the same sauce, it should be noted, that you would use to make chilaquiles or enchiladas. A useful one to know.

Heat the oil in a pan large enough to hold the bread, make sure you have about a quarter inch of oil in the pan.

Cut the bread open and spread the inside with a thick layer of the beans. Shut it back up and soak it in the chili liquid for a few seconds, just until it’s flavored throughout.

Fry the bread, making sure that you get a good crisping on both sides. In the demo this resulted in four foot flames, I’m not sure why. I’m happy to report in my house, this did not happen.

Drain the fried breads on a paper towel until cool enough to handle, then stuff with the fillings of your choice.

Want to win a trip to explore the ingredients of rustic Tuscan cooking?

I’m back from Mexico with fresh cooking tips from an Abuela (grandma), a passion for pambazos (think tortas, but soaked in chile, then fried) and a few imbibe-able souvenirs. Before I start in on my posts about those, I wanted to give you the opportunity to win a little travel adventure of your own.

As self-indulgent as this lovely blog is, I couldn’t help but jump at the opportunity to help out by participating in Passports with a Purpose, to help raise money to build libraries in Zambia. “Zambia? Books? That doesn’t sound like food?” You might be saying.

And you’d be right, but only because I hadn’t gotten to the part where you win a $500 gift certificate to Willing Foot, a travel tour provider–with a a whole slate of culinary travel offerings.

Fabulous food from my time in Beijing

For every $10 that you donate to Passports with a Purpose, you enter to win a prize of your choosing. If, say, you’d like to explore Mendoza, Argentina’s wine country, or get cooking classes in Beijing, then you’ll want to put your $10 towards my prize, the $500 gift certificate donated by Willing Foot.

I do very dearly, hope that you win this amazing prize. And that you choose to take your favorite food blogger with you. But even if not, your ten dollar donations will still be working hard to help Room to Read reach their goal of teaching every child to read–and on a smaller scale, to help a scrappy group of travel bloggers known as Passports with a Purpose raise $80,000 to build two new libraries in Zambia.

So, darling readers, I leave you with the directive in the title of this post: Donate, Win, Eat, Travel. And don’t forget to tell me all about it.

A quick round up of all things delicious, in my kitchen, in my city and around the world…

The Chaffle

Remember when I told you all about Chicken and Waffles in Seattle? Well, a restaurateur responded to my challenge. Blue Moon Burgers invited me in to try their ‘Chaffle,’ a chicken and waffle sandwiched. And I’ll be damned if it wasn’t pretty darn good.

Act quickly though–it’s only their burger of the month, so you only have until the end of November (that’s next week, for those of you in December denial) to give it a taste test.

Squash on Tortillas

In my own kitchen, I’ve been brewing up a healthier fall treat: Squash on Tortillas. Homemade tortillas (from Maseca, corn flour available at most large grocery stores) are easy to pat out with your hands while thinly sliced delicata squash roasts in the oven (450 for 25 minutes) and onions caramelize on the stove (brown them lightly then add a teaspoon of honey for well rounded and expedient sweetness). Sprinkle the squash with salt and Mexican style spices (chili powder, cumin, oregano). Once all of the ingredients are ready, pile up in this order: tortilla, squash, onion, and a cilantro garnish. The sweet of the squash and the onions plays off the spice of the chili powder. A quick appetizer that looks like adorable canapés and tastes like fall in Mexico.

My little brother claimed he could eat 20 of these and I regret holding him to that challenge, because it resulted in my getting to eat fewer than I otherwise would have.

Did I mention I write for the Seattle Weekly?

Since I last updated you, I’ve test driven an Ethiopian joint in my new hood, spent time in a bar that was backed into by a taco truck, and had my heart broken by happy hour at a favorite lunch spot.

Stay tuned at the Weekly, next week I talk about my favorite dish to cure the wintertime blues.

A flat bread made out of Romesco cauliflower struck me as really cool. It struck my mother as something a starving peasant would do during the Thirty Years’ War. That’s the difference between us, I suppose.

Inspired by something I found on Pinterest, which, by the way, I’m obsessed with, I set out to create my own version of Cauliflower Bread. It turns out to be is a lovely snack or side dish. The first thing that struck me was that it would make an excellent gluten-free Thanksgiving side dish–I can imagine it only gets better when dipped in gravy or cranberry sauce. If you happen to be someone who needs to eat more vegetables (or who has a child who needs to) this is also great for covert vegetable serving operations.

Since I am neither gluten-free, nor serving anyone who is (nor having a Thanksgiving dinner this year), and I get plenty of vegetables, I had another reason for making these. Because it is awesome that by taking a dying cauliflower from my fridge I can transform it in a matter of an hour into a flatbread-like snack. And I love awesome.

A quick round up of all things delicious, in my kitchen, in my city and around the world…

Cafe Nordo Returns

Savor Tomorrow is the latest dinner theater production by the folks behind Chef Nordo. They’ve abandoned the current time zone and boarded a plane in 1962, heading for Seattle for the World’s Fair. In keeping with the Mad Men/Pan-Am trend in cocktails today, we were served a variety of delightful cocktails and 1962′s ‘futuristic’ food. The show is interesting and as the plot unfolds the subtle digs at the food industry get better.

There’s nothing about theater that I don’t find greatly enhanced by the presence of cocktails and nibbles, so while I wouldn’t commend them for leaps of greatness in gastronomy, I am the first to admit that it is a fun way to spend the evening, and in a delightful surprise since my first visit, the price has come down. For $55 total, you get five courses and cocktail pairings (down from $85 at their first production).

Blogwatch

In the opposite direction of future food, I bring you the most natural and beautiful of foods–and writing. My friend Tea has written this great article about our little journey through the woods in search of chantarelle mushrooms.

Speaking of great articles (just kidding), on the heels of my article on Mexican food in the I-5 corridor, my article on Seattle Weekly’s Voracious this week is about Mexican food right here in Seattle, at a pop-up restaurant inside Sitka & Spruce.

Pie, Pie, MORE PIE

This lovely specimen landed on my doorstep Wednesday afternoon, courtesy of the brand new A la Mode Pie shop moving in just up the street from me. If you know me, I’m not big on sweets, but I’ll be damned if this key lime pie wasn’t one of the best things I’ve eaten in a while. I immediately regretted agreeing to share it with B and our dinner guest. That was clearly only enough pie for one person. I told my mom about it and she mentioned considering ordering one for Thanksgiving–oh yeah, peeps, it’s coming up! Where’s your pie coming from?

If you’re looking to make your own pie, I have one more recommendation for you–Grumpy Pie, the roving pie princess of Seattle, is now offering lessons in how to make your own pie. She comes to your house, gives you personalized instructions, then leaves you armed with a pie in the oven and the skills to make many more.

Yet more Pie!

This Saturday, November 12th is Will Bake for Food, a food blogger bake sale that raises money for people who are not as lucky as we are to have access to food whenever they are hungry. While baking is not my forte, I do the press releases for these events each year. It’s a great cause and an excuse to feel no guilt while stuffing your gullet full of great goodies! Stop by at the University Heights Center (next to the U-District Farmer’s Market) and grab while the grabbing is good. You can exchange canned goods or money for the great food blogger baked goods. See you then!

From the Canadian border straight south to Salem, Oregon, there is Mexican food to be found right off the highway. Food, which, even if not dead-on authentic, beats the ever-loving grandma jeans, diner cleanliness and canned mushroom soup off any other road food you’ll encounter. As might be expected, the food gets better the further south you go, which of course makes me want to commit to continuing this series with an episode 2: Salem to Sacramento. If only I had occasion to ever be in Sacramento. Do things happen in Sacramento? Regardless of the eventfulness of California’s capitol, there is, despite everyone’s incessant whining, pretty terrific and on occasion quite authentic Mexican food here in the Pacific Northwest. Here’s where to find it:

La Gloria Market, Bellingham, WA

For quite a spell, Bellingham’s only food stop for us was the food court at Bellis Fair mall. In recent years we’ve slowly discovered an amazing Mediterranean market (though rather inconveniently closed on Sunday) and the beer at Boundry Bay Brewery. I won’t vouch for their food, but a nice brew makes for a great stop for everyone but the driver.

Now, though, much to the delight of my Canadian friends who claim Vancouver couldn’t find a decent taco if it drizzled salsa in Stanley Park, the secret is out. The place to stop in Bellingham is just east from the Bellis Fair I-5 exit and it’s called La Gloria Market. There is an actual market here, which is worth a gander itself, stocked full with giant flat sheets of chicharrones, crispy pig skin, and little jars of amazing Mexican candy. Next door to the market is the restaurant, where you’ll find all the usual suspects–tortas, tacos, combo plates and the cream of the crop, the treasure to take home, the pre-made tamales.

La Gloria is solid, fairly authentic Mexican–it does everything right, but it doesn’t drop your jaw. If you’re heading north from Seattle, I recommend you save your stomach space and hold out for Chinese food in Vancouver, but if you’re taco-starved and salivating coming south, definitely make this your first stop.

Seattle Stop: La Conasupo

Not really an I-5 stop, since it’s more than 5 minutes from the highway, and really it’s in the city so it’s not even road food. But this Mexican market holds a secret in back, and that secret is the most authentic, delicious Mexican dish I’ve eaten in Seattle. On most regular days, this hole-in-the-wall (pretty literally) serves up above average tacos and quesadillas. On Sundays, though, it comes alive. Not in a mariachis and white people making ‘monos’ of themselves with muchas margaritas way, but in a post-church, families of 11 or 12, serenaded by a guy on a tiny guitar kind of way. The food that everyone is crowded in to eat instantly transports me to being 19 and getting out of the car, not knowing why we just drove an hour out of the Mexican village I lived in, and sitting down just feet away from a grandma patting out tortillas from her wrinkled hands and eating one of the best meals of my life. Barbacoa. Right, like barbecue. Only instead of dried out, pre-formed frozen from Costco burgers that your uncle cooked to hockey puck consistency, this is a whole goat, cooked overnight, wrapped in maguey leaves in a hole in the ground. Order tacos or order the meat by the pound, and slurp down some consomme, soup made from the leftover juices while you’re at it. La Conasupo is the only place in town I’ve found that makes this and day-um, do they make it well.

You’ll find La Conasupo Market on Greenwood, just north of 85th st., Seattle WA.

 Centralia, WA: La Tarasca

La Tarasca, I was told, has amazing, authentic food. So being the dutiful food blogger I am, I stopped in. Yes, the food is good. It’s better than La Gloria but not as good as Taqueria Juquilita (Next stop, I’m getting there). But what drew me in and gave my little road food loving heart a quick squeeze was the service.

I felt a little like I’d walked into a cross between a Mexican family and a tour of an ‘Authentic, real-life, honest-to-god MEXICAN restaurant!’ Road weary and ready for dinner, the service was proud, like a mother introducing her children. The server, after ascertaining it was our first time, gave us the complete run down of the menu and made sure we knew what we were ordering and how it would come.

Honestly, I truly wish that I could even remember what we had. I can’t. It was a while ago and it wasn’t that memorable. That said, La Tarasca is still worth a stop from Seattle while soaring south, because of just that hospitality. Sit down, take breath, get your eyes off the road and on to some tacos.

Taqueria Juquilita

Unlike La Tarasca, I’m not recommending Juquilita if you’re looking for a cushy guided tour to Mexican cuisine. No, Juquilita is for those who want the best food in the most authentic setting. You’ll look around nervously, first at why there aren’t people around, then for why there is no server. You may be frustrated at the lack of functioning restrooms or puzzled at the jewelry cases full of candy. But I can promise you this, everything will relax upon your first bite of quesadilla.

I’ve written about Taqueria Juquilita before. I stand by every word I wrote. On weekends, when they serve menudo, I still believe it could cure most ailments, but the rest of the time I get their quesadilla, a thing of beauty and an homage to the home-made. The chew of the tortilla, the spice of the meat, it all works together to show what enormous amounts of flavor can be brought forth from this tiny shack in Chehalis, Washington.

Google maps will give you the wrong directions, and you’ll wander for a few minutes, in search of the tiny orange building and its big sign. You’ll know you’re in the right place when the handwritten signs talking to specials and happy hour have misspellings and errors in both Spanish and English. You’ll wish you stopped at the 7-11 to pee before you came in. Then you’ll bite into your meal and forget all about your worries.

Los Temos Taqueria in Salem, OR

There is no better compliment that I can give a place than to mention how far I would drive for their Birria. Los Temos, If I could convince a partner, I’d drive the 6 hours to eat your birria de chivo again.

The other day a friend of mine mentioned she never really thinks of soups when discussing Mexican food. If you’ve been reading this post, you can imagine my surprise: Consomme at La Conasupo, menudo at Taqueria Juquilita and now birria at Los Temos. Yes, they are on the stew-y side of that line, but really, they’re soup, and to me, they are the heart of Mexican food. No, they don’t come with sides of rice and beans, but these are the foods you want when you miss your mom, the ones that warm your soul when you had too much tequila last night, the ones that will make your shoulders slump back and your arms go slack.

The birria de chivo, a spicy goat stew which glows red with chiles, that they serve at Los Temos is the epitome of those wonderful Mexican soups.  One breath over the bowl and a spicy steam will clear your sinuses. The broth is thick with the juices from the meat and bones–always, there are bones, for flavor. Peel a warm tortilla from the homemade stack, dip it in, use it to grab hold of a chunk of fall-apart tender goat. Yes, birria can be made with beef (birria de res), but there’s something special, earthy, hearty about birria de chivo (goat). Something that grabs hold of you and rolls your eyes back into your head in pleasure. This is what food is meant to do and this is why I’d drive 6 hours just to have another bowl of it.

So the next time you’ve got a trip up or down Interstate 5, make sure you leave a little time for a snack–we might not be on the Mexican border, but we’ve got a few decent restaurants that can hold their own.

Warm up a chilly fall Monday morning with the scent of bread baking, the sound of wine pouring and the taste of dim sum on your tongue. A quick round up of all things delicious, in my kitchen, in my city and around the world…

First and foremost: It’s all about ME!

I have a new column on the Seattle Weekly’s Voracious Blog: On Monday mornings, you’ll now find my recommendations for where to eat on Monday nights (when everything else is closed). Check out my first column, up today, on the Leary Traveler.

Fresh Baked Challah

The recent Jewish Holidays got me into a baking mode and summoned all of my recipe-following strength to put together this beauty. It is directly out of Beard On Bread and I highly recommend it. I found the book hidden amongst microwave cooking secrets and low-fat diet tomes, nestled on a high shelf at my local Goodwill, but you can also buy it on Amazon. The recipe made two loaves, I wove them into one round challah. And by wove I mean, sort of wove and then folded all the ends underneath so it looked great on top. Nobody flips a challah, it’s okay.

Chocolate Wine

Cacao in Various Forms

Lillian, a food blogger and recent transplant to our fine city, invited me to join her for a ‘comfort food event’ at which I sipped on something called a ‘chocolate wine’. Distracted by all the amazing food (Ethan Stowell’s Pasta Fagioli was by far the favorite–it was like sipping soup through a sieve of Parmesan), I didn’t think much more about it. Until…Three days later, I found myself at the Northwest Chocolate Festival. The festival itself (or rather, the preview event I was at) was fairly small, but full of incredibly good chocolate. I found it to be much better organized and more focused than previous, similar events. And they had the Chocolate Wine. It was as good as I remembered it being from the previous event. I’m not huge on chocolate–I’d say I like it less than 95% of women–and yet, somehow, this wine spoke to me. It fit a niche that few wines do: Light enough to drink with ice cream, yet heavy enough to be dessert in its own right. Similarly, I was surprised at how cleanly it drank. Somehow I expected a sugary residue on my tongue, a thick coating, like after drinking hot chocolate. The chocolate flavor, while definitely present, wasn’t overwhelming, and really loaned a richness to the wine. I was happy to have encountered it at both events, and if you’re eating at my house in the near future, you’re likely to encounter it yourself, once I figure out where to buy this cool new (local!) product.

New Dim Sum in North Seattle: JB Garden

Hey, guys, did you know I love dim sum? As an ardent lover of this Chinese style brunch, I firmly feel it is part of my duty to help the people of Seattle to locate any and all viable dim sum. So I took it upon myself to scope out JB Garden, a new hole-in-the-wall dim sum takeout shop at the corner of Greenwood and Holman Road. The verdict? They’ve got some good and maybe even more importantly–unique–stuff. While the curry chicken baked bao was disappointingly, overwhelmingly flavored with some sort of curry powder/bouillon cube mess, everything else was great. All of the baos had crisp, flaky crusts, and all of the other fillings were great–the purple paste inside the sweet taro bun was a favorite. I was also impressed at the big chunks of meat inside the crunchy taro balls. The Vietnamese style Banh Bao (steamed meat filled bun) was perfectly fluffy, releasing wisps of meat scented stem as you squeezed it. The selection was fairly small at 10:30am when we arrived, so I’ll have to (it’s a rough life) be back to check out more, but I will say one of the best parts? More dim sum than two big eaters could finish, (I believe it was 2 egg rolls, 3 bao, 1 sticky rice and 2 taro puffs), plus a large can of coconut water came to the whopping grand total of…$9. Um. These things were huge. I can’t explain. I wanted to give him more money. The two of us have ran up dim sum totals of over $50. Often. Could. Not. Compute.