Snow!!

I hope everybody is hunkered down and enjoying this snowy day! I've got a kitchen full of tasty ingredients and am looking forward to using this day for some home-warming cooking.

Since we seem to be in a collective snow frenzy, I thought I'd take this opportunity to mention the Snow Buddy app, written by my faithful dining companion:

http://www.nwsnowbuddy.com/

This app (for iPhone and iPads) is a one-stop-shopping resource for everything you want to know about the current snow fall, future predictions, avalanche conditions and ski reports in the Pacific Northwest.

Enjoy!

Cinnamon Twisp

Cinnamon Twisp, in Twisp, is another standout in the Methow area. In addition to the famed cinnamon twisp pastry pictured below (a delicious twisted buttery doughball gooey with cinnamon laced honey and chopped nuts), I noticed that their pastry case carried small take-out containers of vegetarian friendly foods: peanut noodles with tofu, tabbouleh, etc. YES!!!

East 20 Pizza

East 20 Pizza is one obvious stand-out to the dearth of good, vegetarian food in the Methow area,
and its nightly overflowing popularity speaks to this.

Suffice it to say the pizza is tasty and reasonable priced. We ordered a "Puttenesca" with chicken on just one half. It was deliciously packed with olives, capers, tomatoes, pepperoncinis, oregano, spicyness, etc.

If there wasn't some part of my brain/body telling me not to eat pizza every night, I probably would cut out the relatively fruitless Methow vegetarian dinner search and eat only here.

Carlos 1800

My dining companion and I had been dreaming of tacos all the way across eastern Washington and it was with excitement that we spotted Carlos 1800 Cantina in downtown Winthrop (a town with an old-West theme).

I didn't take any pictures, but can say that it was a mistake to eat there. It is quite possible that the meat entrees were good, but we both ate vegetarian and our experience was lame and over priced. I ordered fajitas, and they consisted of a a bunch of (almost assuredly recently frozen) veggies (rubbery slices of orange and yellow carrots, soft broccoli, etc) in a sauce that tasted like the liquid from a can of tomatoes. My dining companion ordered a sauteed veggie quesadilla that came with the same wet, soft, lame-ass veggie mixture (minus the sauce) in a spinach tortilla with a little barely melted cheese. The quantity of "mango salsa" (a selling point for his quesadilla), would have maybe filled a thimble.

To add to our growing regret, the waitstaff had a few practical jokes up their sleeves that were of one of my least favorite types of humor: do something unexpected but not very funny and force your "audience" to react. For example: If a dining patron drops a fork and asks for a new one, return with a comedic fork the size of your leg and offer to them. See what happens!

Eating here reminded us that we were in the middle of an old-west Disneyland type of environment and that our hopes of a quality vegetarian dining experience were naive.

The Twisp River Pub

I recently spent my birthday in the Methow Valley and did some serious research about where to eat on the special night. Unfortunately, it appears the Twisp/Winthrop/Mazama stretch is pretty bleak for good vegetarian food.

I initially got really excited about this: http://www.winthroptipidinners.com/, an unusual (and not corny/cooperate/tourist trap, as the name might make you think) restaurant developed as a life dream by a local woman that revolves around eating artfully prepared, healthy, traditional (local as possible) Native American foods while in a beautiful tipi. In the winter time, there is fire and candle light and and animal skins to keep everything warm. The proprietress, Suekii, cooks everything in a nearby kitchen and brings it via hand held wagon to her hungry guests. I spoke to Suekii about what she does for vegetarians (no bison steak for this birthday gal), and it all sounded wonderful... hummus and pickled asparagus, stuffed squash, emmer farro, etc. But it turned out that the tipi was already fully booked (it only holds 8) on the night of my birthday.

There are other fancy type options in the area, including the Sun Mountain Lodge and the Arrowleaf Bistro, but these have really limited vegetarian entrees that are priced at meat prices. No thank you.

So I went to the Twisp River Pub, where I knew there were decent vegetarian options to be had. My dining companion and I split two things: the Asian salad and a veggie burger with fries.

Based on the menu description, I had hoped that the Asian salad (with rice noodles) would be similar to the contents of a Vietnamese bun. Turned out the noodles were more of a garnish, and the salad was mostly green. I ordered it with fresh tofu (instead of fried), which was possibly a mistake, because it came fully unmarinated (rather than in the sesame marinade the menu describes).

The pub-made veggie burger was tasty, and the fries were excellent.

For my birthday dessert, I ordered a warm walnut brownie with vanilla ice cream. It was delicious.

Tacos El Asadero

I have walked past the jumbo bus, Taco "truck" at Othello and MLK, by the Othello lightrail station, countless times and finally stopped in for some tacos. There weren't any vegetarian tacos on the menu, but it was no problem to order them. After you order, you can actually board the bus and and sit inside and eat and watch Mexican TV, but I got my tacos to go.

I ordered three vegetarian tacos. They were somewhere around a buck fifty a piece, and came full of beans, rice, lettuce, tomatoes and sour cream. Both the red and the green salsas were delicious and spicy. I think the refried beans may have been cooked with lard.

The one thing that was obviously lacking was the little packet of pickled carrot/radish/jalapeno/fresh lime... on one hand, they are tiny insignificant garnishes, on the other, they are one of my favorite parts of eating at a taco truck.

These tacos totally hit the spot, and are hard to beat for the price. One complaint is the use of styrofoam in the packaging for the tacos to-go. I'd definitely be willing to pay a little more for a compostable option.

Revel

Some hidden hipster part of me is really reluctant to embrace restaurants that gain quick noteriaty; I tend to initially shy away from places with too much hype (or accolades, eh). And then eventually, once curiosity or necessity or social obligation finally requires it, I drag my snagglepuss self out into the world to check then out. And on occasion I am blown away. Revel was a restaurant like this. I should have gone sooner.

The menu is small and changes frequently, and is grouped into a few categories: salads, dumplings, rice bowls, etc, each of which has maybe 3-4 varieties in it, including one that is vegetarian.

On a surprisingly lovely recent night I began with a spinach salad with palm hearts, black lentils and smoked peanuts. The dressing was salty and lightly acidic and every item was perfectly in balance. I would not have guessed that the explicit flavor of the lentils would be important and enhancing in a salad like this, but it was.

Next I had the vegetarian dumplings, which were filled with cauliflower and ricotta and served with pickled leeks and a black truffle puree. They were every bit as interesting, delicious and unusual as they sound.

The perplexing this about this place, which had fancy, well crafted, artsy type food, was that the prices were in the same ballpark as a "normal" restaurant. Both the salad and the dumplings were $9 each. Ordering them together made the meal extra fun and decadent, but wasn't necessary to get full. I am intrigued by whatever else is going to be coming out of this kitchen!