Eating on Vacation

Ooooh boy! Do I love to eat! Ok, so on vacation, you know you have to eat out fairly regularly. Not too many places to cook a home cooked meal. Now, in general, I prefer to eat at mom&pop type places, or local owned places as opposed to chain restaurants. I will eat at chains, I just prefer to support small local business.

This trip, we ate at our share of chains, simply because sometimes that was the only thing available. We did find some gems along the way...

In and Out Burger - ok, so this is a chain. But it's one we don't have on the east coast. We saw quite a few of these around the Sacramento area. Popped into one for lunch on a Friday. The menu - simple. Burgers, Cheeseburgers, Double Cheeseburgers. Limited options. They were packed, and were turning over burgers at a pretty good clip. The parking lot was PACKED, so the "In and Out" part were a little tough going.

Eel River Brewery - This place is a local brewery in Fortuna, Ca. It was a little bit of a wait on a Sunday night, partly because a lot of locals visit this establishment, and partly because it's walking distance to at least 3 chain hotels. They have a huge selection of Seafood on the menu, nightly specials, traditional fare, and a whole line of beers! YUM! We each had a "California Blonde" beer. A pale ale. The seafood was fresh, lightly breaded, and plentiful. We could hardly walk out of there, we were so full. Luckily, our hotel was across the street.

Beacon Burgers - This little bitty dive (said affectionately), was in Crescent City, Ca. We looked on the GPS for a burger joint and this came up. We almost didn't find it, as it was a small shack tucked away near other larger restaurants, and near a marina. We got the "special" and then were asked if we wanted: fries, onion rings, "jo-jo's" or "jims". HUH? Jo-jo's or Jim's? One was potato wedges, and one was tator tots. We each got one of those.... The burger was big and juicy and messy. Everything we were looking for. The Jo-jo's and Jim's were delicious. One of the favorites of that leg of the trip. Will head back there again, if we ever get back to Crescent City.

Mo's - In Newport, Oregon we stopped for lunch at a place called Mo's. Looked promising from the outside. Appeared to be your local dive. Inside was a little unorganized, but the atmosphere was pretty cool. The food was fair (although fresh and local) and the service was a bit slow. The place was pretty full at lunch time with what appeared to be locals and tourists mixed. A semi-chain as they have about 6 or 7 locations along the OR coast. The best part was dessert - peanut butter pie, and triple leches cake. Both were scrumptious!

JJ's Fish House - in Poulsbo, WA. YUM! Best seafood we had out west. Perfect little local owned place. In an awesome little Scandanavian town that was picturesque. It looked like we walked into a villiage in Norway somewhere. The architecture, the shops, the whole experience. But back to the food. They had the best Fish and Chips of any restaruant we had tried, and the Fishwich was superb as well. Some else with us had the grilled Halibut and said that is was excellent. BIG thumbs up for JJ's Fish House.

One last thing... At the friend's house that we stayed at outside of Seattle (Shelton, WA to be more precise), our friend cooked breakfast for us each morning. Eggs one day. French toast another. But the icing on the cake were the pancakes. So, this sounds gross... But it's good! These folks put peanut butter on thier pancakes. Yes, you read that right. Peanut butter. Not instead of syrup, but in addition to. I was not going to try this, as it sounded downright un-appealing to me. But curiosity got the better of me, and so here I sit, blogging about peanut butter on pancakes topped with syrup. Yep - it was good. Pancake on the plate, thin layer of peanut butter, top it with syrup. Really adds great flavor and creaminess to the pancakes...

Well - sadly, I think the longest post for this trip so far has been about food.......

AMW