Discover Walla Walla

You know spring has sprung when you see ramps on a menu, am I right? O.K., so it's not your every day ingredient, nor would you expect to find it on a menu of a restaurant called Public House 124 unless it was deep fried and served with ranch dressing. But there they were. Pickled ramps perched atop grilled gulf prawns, with a romesco sauce worthy if its Tarragona, Spain roots. I was trying to give up carbs, but it was absolutely necessary that I slop up the remaining sauce with a grilled baguette. You could be arrested in some countries for not. Back to the ramps. This onion, similar in appearance to a scallion, adds a sweet and sour tang to a dish, and it's the kind of accouterment that makes the food at Public House un-pub-like.

Don't get me wrong - you can still get a burger here. But it will be made with killer Blue Valley ground beef, bacon (don't get me started - did you see last month's blog?), cheddar and aioli - Public House served 824 of them in their opening month.

The truffle fries should be called yuppie crack. ...

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This was legendary fashion editor Polly Mellen's response to Angelica Houston's overdone, ostentatious jewelry at the Oscars a number of years ago. Clearly Michelle Adams and her partner Michelle Giannunzio channeled this when naming their breakfast spot simply Bacon & Eggs.

Giannunzio, longtime chef, and Adams converted a downtrodden convenience store into a Dwell Magazine-meets-Saveur worthy breakfast joint. The atmosphere is simple and urban - waxed cement floors, recycled wood counters, and retro light fixtures serve as the backdrop to food that is farm-to-table fresh and straightforward.

I had the Huevos Rancheros, which is a good example of B&E food that is simple, fresh and delicious. The dish was the opposite of tortillas floating in an ocean of canned ranchero sauce, eggs barely visible from the surface as if lost at sea. Being a savory gal, I also had a good look at the Chorizo con Huevos, which was refreshingly absent of dark pools of chorizo grease.

My friend was feeling sassy pants that morning (she had just gotten a "promotion" - which is a foreign term to me) and ordered the Crab Cake Benedict and the Brioche French Toast.

The Brioche was bathed in an orange-cinnamon batter before grilled perfectly, the result a divine texture combination: a wee crispy on the outside unfolding to light and fluffy yumminess. The restaurant didn't skimp on the syrup -Vermont maple.

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Meet the Willy Wonka of Walla Walla . . . Paul Jenes, a mild mannered version of Roald Dahl's famous classic candy character. Although the University of Washington grad does not possess the flamboyance of Mr. Wonka, his passion for making life much sweeter for the world, and particularly the Walla Walla Valley, is just as evident.

Jenes is the proud owner of Bright's Candies, which he transformed into an old-fashioned candy shop back in 2005 when he moved it to Main Street from its cubby-hole existence on 1^st Avenue. When you meander through the doors of Bright's, you step back in time - a pleasant step - into the full service candy store one used to find on every main street of an America gone-bye, replete with a popcorn machine, spilling out buttered, cheese and the coveted caramel corn, the long glass case of freshly made chocolates, ranging from turtles to peanut clusters to wine filled cordials, the colorful wall of jelly beans, the swirling lollipop table, and every child's favorite - the candy making room that resides in full view, enabling youngsters to stare through the window as Paul Jenes works his magic, creating chocolate wonders as the rivers of chocolate pour out of the machine.

Not to be overlooked is the ice cream counter with the traditional offerings of Rocky Road, Chocolate Chip and Bubble Gum flavors. Families sit on the patio, licking their cones or drinking their shakes in the early summer evenings. Where is Normal Rockwell? He'd paint this scene in a heartbeat.

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Saffron Mediterranean Kitchen

I wrote about Saffron Mediterranean Kitchen for Northwest Palate several years ago, and at the time, I thought Chef/Founder Chris Ainsworth was bonkers: In the course of a year, he had moved to Walla Walla, opened Saffron, then opened Pho Sho, got married, and bought a house. I waited for his reality-show-worthy meltdown. It didn't come. Instead, he saved his drama for the plate, and was named a semifinalist for a James Beard Foundation award (top chefs Northwest). Apparently bonkers is the new winning.

The laid-back Ainsworth was just named a semi-finalist for the fourth consecutive year, so it seemed only fitting to visit the restaurant for our inaugural Beyond Bread blog.

There is no host stand, so when you walk into Saffron, it's as if discovering a locals-only find in Marrakech. In fact, Ainsworth, who draws inspiration from his travels, recently returned from a trip to Morocco. The restaurant has remained small despite a full reservation book since opening. Despite its minimalism, the earthy green color on one wall and exposed brick on the other, custom woodwork, and star-shaped hanging lights keep the space warm and bistro-like. Old Champagne riddling racks serve as the table bases.

I sat at the chef's table - an intimate table for two that allows for an insider's view of the open kitchen. Tonight was chilly, and I welcomed a view of the fire in the wood oven, and the smoky aroma of mesquite from the grill.

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To say that Nimal Amarasinghe, Executive Chef of the South Fork Grill, is far from home is a grand understatement. The likeable head of the kitchen is some 15,000 miles from his native country of Sri Lanka. Yes, the small former British colony in Southeast Asia is where Chef Nimal spent his childhood, swimming with his friends in the ocean and playing cricket with bats constructed of coconut tree remnants.

Studious and ambitious, Nimal became a computer programmer and set his sights on climbing the tech corporate ladder, the idea of being a chef never entering his mind. He earned a scholarship to study Japanese for a year in Tokyo, in preparation for upper management - Japan was the main computer client of Sri Lanka. But that's where the story takes its turn.

To earn money, Nimal worked in a restaurant kitchen on weekends and soon found himself enraptured by the art of cooking. The chef showed Nimal a few basics and when the young student caught on quickly, he began to be a part of the cooking operation. When his year of study was over, Nimal decided to forgo his computer career and become a chef. By this time, he had gained fulltime work in the kitchen which began a six-year culinary stint in Japan.

During that time, Nimal became schooled in French, Korean and Japanese cuisine, becoming a valued member of several restaurant kitchen staffs. Yet, his aspirations were to receive an actual degree in culinary arts and also to someday master the art of baking. Those desires brought him to South Seattle Community College to study at its respected culinary school. While in the Emerald City, Nimal worked under critically acclaimed chef Thierry Rautureau at Rovers. There, he learned the nuances of French cooking. Ascension in the Seattle culinary world followed along with marriage to a pastry class colleague.

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In the 1920's when Ernest Hemingway penned out his observations of the cafes, bars, and hotels of Paris in his memoirs of A Moveable Feast, he certainly didn't have Walla Walla in mind. However, since 2008, the second Saturday of April, Walla Walla has been bringing their own celebration of fine food, wine, art and even live music to downtown. Residents and visitors gather at Main Street in a very large and moveable white tent that spans from the First Avenue crosswalk to almost the Alder Street crosswalk.

The gigantic white tent begins to take shape Friday evening and by Saturday morning, it can pack up to 600 people and several food and wine purveyors. The excitement begins at the tent entrance when guests receive an etched wine glass commemorating the event, a souvenir plate to hold the "feast" from local food vendors and 10 tokens to be used towards food and wine.  Once inside the tent, with chandeliers hanging from the top, you tend to forget that you are in the middle of a street as you discover the smells and sights awaiting you for the afternoon.

Every year, if you go away hungry, it is your own fault as the menu is always so varied and oh-so delicious. This year was no different as there was something for everyone: sushi, hand-carved baron of beef, traditional cassoulet, spinach salad, hazelnut cappelletti, vegetarian pad thai, green curry halibut, and pork tacos, to name a few.  For those with a sweet tooth, that was covered as well, with a decadent selection of chocolate truffles, fruit tartlets, cupcakes and even the quirky, but mouth watering, bacon caramel popcorn and chocolate beef ribs.

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I arrived at Olive this morning and settled in at my table. I'm here most mornings for coffee and the temptation of jam-topped biscuits. I don't get the biscuits anymore. But I look at them.

Bob and Horace are at their table-same table every day.  Bob brings his Bible. He drinks a latte and munches a cinnamon bun while he lectures Horace. Horace drinks chamomile tea and mostly listens.

Sarah, Gertrude, and Meg sit on their sofa-same places every day. Sarah has coffee and a raisin-walnut scone. Gertrude eats grapes and drinks free water. Meg has a cappuccino.

Scott's in his chair-same chair every morning-drinking his coffee-black.

Ron sits at the table at the top of the stairs-the one surrounded by stools-eating one of those biscuits I told you about. Sometimes Ron sits at the table next to mine, but not today.

Ron is sort of unpredictable.

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Ever wondered what an oak tree would taste like in a truffle?  How about chili pepper?  Mango citrus?  Lavender?  I'll be honest and say I never did, but the answers are delicious, strangely sweet, luscious and perfect, respectively.  Just in case you were wondering.

With the cooler weather settling in as the official end of autumn acclimates us for a Walla Walla winter, many minds turn their thoughts to indoor activities.  The Walla Walla Valley offers plenty of opportunities for outdoor entertainment in the warmer months - farmer's market, an aviary, the fair, multiple parks, a gorgeous Main street for perusing on foot - but when winter arrives, it's time to evaluate options for indoor diversions.

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In Chicago, red hots (hot dogs, to the rest of us) are taken so seriously that some of the finer hot dog establishments charge ten cents extra for that little bit of flaky charring the tube steaks get from spending a minute longer on an open grill. But we digress.

What brought this factoid to mind was our trip to Pendleton recently to sample the wares at the Char-Burger, which has, right on its mansard roof, the words "PENDLETONS FINEST." One assumes that there used to be an apostrophe, and either a strong wind or some Roundup revelers removed it, but you never know.

The Char-Burger is approximately 75 percent kitchen and 25 percent dining room, a healthy ratio in our book. (Of course, the Ice-Burg in Walla Walla is 100 percent kitchen, but that's another story.) The dining area has two four-person booths and a short window-facing counter with four stools. The dutch door into the kitchen serves as the order-taking area and cashier's stand, and offers a prime view of the leaping flames on the grill.

Our only disappointment during our visit was that the milkshake machine was out of service. It was one of those days when a milkshake seemed almost mandatory alongside a burger; but it was not to be.

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We're not sure exactly how to defend this confession, but we have spent a dozen or so years in the Walla Walla Valley, luxuriating in everything it has to offer the hedonist and gourmand, and never tasted a Jason Burger.  We know, we know.

At least a few of you are shaking your heads, we can tell, and are wondering if we will be willing to surrender the esteemed Bürgermeister title immediately.

And to further humiliate ourselves, we will disclose right off that the napkin rating for the Jason Burger we ate recently was an unprecented 9.  That's right, nine napkins were required to consume this burger.

We're writing, of course, about the famous burger available at the Tuxedo Bar & Grill in Prescott, a short jaunt from Walla Walla.

Where to begin?  This is a bar with a family dining area, so bringing the kids is not an issue, even if the overall impression is not necessarily kid-friendly.  The block it's on is... unimpressive, shall we say, but for the avid burger hunter, this of course only raises the stakes and makes the appetite swell in anticipation.  Serious burger-safari aficionados always hope to find the elusive burger-in-the-wild, don't we?

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