Normally, I do what I can to avoid restaurants at prime hours on Fridays and Saturdays. Lately, that hasn't been possible. Saturday night, we took an old friend out to Steelhead Diner, to celebrate her return from five years in the Netherlands and her new doctorate (hurrah for you, Sarah!). The place was, of course, packed, and we ended up in the quieter back room. Several cocktails, much excellent food, an impressive whole fried catfish (which yes, was basically turned into a puppet fish head by the end of the meal) and a gigantic brownie ice cream sundae...all I can say is, "welcome back to the good ol' US, Sarah". We pigged out to a preposterous degree. As always, Kevin Davis's food was fun and tasty and the menu currently has a nice mix of simple (peppery fried chicken and garlicky greens) and fancier (black cod in a kasu marinade). We were all happy as one can be when one has eaten oneself sick.
It also reminded me of the semi-secret local ice cream magicians down in Shelton: Olympic Mountain Ice Cream. I generally prefer their basic chocolate/vanilla flavors, but some of their specialty versions--like the Snickers-packed caramel goodness we had in our sundae (we were fighting over caramel-wrapped peanuts)--are just delicious. They're only wholesale, which a "coming soon" website and only short mentions in a handful of restaurant reviews. They deserve to be world-famous.
And since I haven't had my sweet tea and lemon curd-topped scone breakfast yet and am craving cream and sugar, let me take a moment to sing hurrah over my favorite ice cream to actually purchase in grocery store: Snoqualmie Gourmet. I got to visit their plant a number of years ago for a story, and still remember the perfection of their Danish Vanilla ice cream eaten right as it came out of the freezer, before it had been packed and "cured", which is the second freezing of all ice cream (even that made at home). The second freeze takes the hard-soft serve consistency of freshly-made ice cream and turns it into standard hard ice cream; it alters the taste, sometimes softening intensity and sometimes deepening mild flavors. Fans of soft serve--imagine your favorite soft serve made with insanely high butterfat and exquisitely complex vanilla flavor. I ate about a pint of it for breakfast that day.
Their flavors also show up around town in restaurants--not sure if they still do the rose/pistachio flavor for Kabul, but when I've seen their custom creations, they seem sort of the opposite of the down-home thing (like Snickers) that Olympic Mountain does. I expect each company has their loyal proponents, but I could never choose one or the other to be the best. Steelhead diner now has Olympic Mountain milkshakes on the menu, and of course Snoqualmie Gourmet has their own sundae parlor in Maltby. There must be a way to determine which company's product is better in specific conditions. At the moment, Snoqualmie Gourmet wins for "best breakfast ice cream", and Olympic Mountain wins for "best late-night unnecessary dessert". I look forward to comparing sundaes, milkshakes, and if I'm lucky, rootbeer floats.
