Spokane Food Blog

During a Spokane Food Blog business trip over in Hood Canal, the Spokane Food Blog Editorial Board was forced to drive through the Dalles because of snow conditions in the passes. This is not a good thing, as it tacks on a good four to five hours to the driving time. However, on the upside, it is an excuse to stop by Cousins‘, quite possibly the Mecca of diners in the northwest.

Nothing is done halfheartedly at Cousins’. As you walk through the mooing door, you’re greeted with a “Howdy cousin!” by your waitress, while a model train passes above your head. I mean, come on! You’re in The Dalles! Might as well soak in the barn-themed experience!

And really, the food is pretty awesome. My fried chicken with mashed potatoes and green beans tasted as classically home-made as I wanted it to be, with the potatoes soaked in gravy and all. The portions are huge. Mine looked like something I had expected to see in an eating contest. A dinner at Cousins’ is more like two dinners.

Same goes for the shakes, which are excellent, but really… You get two shakes for the price of one.

Food comas are part of the game at Cousins’, and I am OK with that. The home-style food is pretty awesome, and the shakes themselves are worth the trip.

There are many many reasons to visit The Dalles — they have a Home Depot people! — so while you’re there, check out Cousins’. It’s awesome and a half.

I purchased “one of everything” from this spice vendor in Kabul, AF.  I paid about 8Afs/ $15.00 for about a gallon of assorted spices that included saffron from Iran.  I found it interesting that the majority of spices in Afghanistan are sold by Hindus.

I won’t bore you with details a Discovery Channel type program could tell you about Dubai, just know it is all that and a bag of chips. And remember to see the laborers’ side of town so you get the full picture. If you stop over anytime soon, be sure to look up my friend Rahul. He can help you know the other side of Dubai.

Amazing food. We stopped at one Southern Indian style restaurant in the locals’ part of town. Amazing: All vegetarian and inexpensive. Follow that up with some Southern Indian sweets and you are set. Fresh squeezed mango juice, lemon and mint juice, pomegranate juice… I just could not get enough of that in the beautiful warm winter sun.

Then off to a few great restaurants serving mix-grill. This time I even loved the chicken. Wonderful, amazing hummus — not the kind you get prepackaged from the US grocery stores. This stuff is smooth, shaped to hold olive oil and sometimes meat or pine-nuts that you stir in yourself. While indulging and sitting on the patio, watching the parade of cars drive by. Check out this bit the license plate numbers: numbers 1-1000 cost extra money. The lower your number the more you paid for it. And by paid I mean $375,000 just for number 82. Some VERY exclusive expensive cars don’t have these special plate numbers and seem to lose their prestige. The cars with the elite plates, no matter the car, make you look up and say, “oh there’s a number 36, I wonder how he makes his money.”

After grazing late into the night, watching groups or men walk by or groups of women followed by their hired escorts, you may want to stop at the market and check out the “Not for Muslims” section of the store. There you can find a concentrated area of products made from pigs, or food not prepared halal style. For you meat lovers, this overwhelming amount of made-with-pig products could be your dream come true. When you go to pay, you may be surprised to find a small box of chicklets instead of small change. Gum is unofficially an official form of currency.

I wish I could tolerate Chili’s because there are as many in Dubai as there are Starbucks. When pretending you don’t see the popularity of the “American cuisine” look up to watch the “national” bird of Dubai, the crane, and I am not talking about the type with feathers.

Dubai = great food. If anyone has a bunch of cash and would like to invest in a great restaurant idea in Dubai, let me know and I will fill you in. Serious inquires only, please.

A typical produce store.

A typical KFC (Kabul Fried Chicken).

When we received approval through SMS messages that we could start crossing through Kabul after being on lock down due to suicide bombers at three ministries, I requested a stop at Flower Street to pick up a few items before the continuation of the lock down.

First I went to an International Market called A1 Super Foods where I grabbed some quick eats for tonight: A halal prepared cup of noodles from Singapore, some cheese from France, crackers from Pakistan, and plastic bags to make Valentines.

Then onto the search for some type of decorative paper. I found red heart and rose paper at a flower shop. Outside were several carts of different fruits, eggs, and nuts. I stopped for a few oranges imported from Pakistan, seven for 30 AFS ($0.60).

When I arrived back at my guest house, I turned on the satellite TV and flipped between AFN Spectrum, BBC, and one of the Northern Afghanistan War Lord stations. I stuffed the plastic bags from A1 with Kirkland chocolates, a heart cut from the paper, and a business card to complete my Valentines bags. Kabul is quite the American Psycho town when it comes to cards, they are worth their weight in gold. I added boiling water to the noodles which were surprisingly good and the oranges spectacular.

I also found out Le Bistro, the restaurant that serves my favorite cake and soup, burned down two months ago. Rumor has it they will reopen in another month.

However, this could just be another Churchill’s story.

Pulling up to Rose Cafe you can expect to see a grill master manning the BBQ with plenty of kebobs making a smoke big enough to send rescue helicopters.  The Cafe has expanded to a rather large dining area complete with a “Women’s” section placed away from windows and covered with a curtain entrance.  My lunch buddy Sardar and I were escorted to table 41 in the women’s section.

Of course I have to check out the bathroom before ordering and follow a great tradition that should be used more strictly in the USA, washing hands before eating.  This bathroom came with a men’s sign but all of the men in the cafe assured me it was unisex.  A “squatter toilet” –  not bad because sometimes a seat is not good in cold weather if you know what I mean.  But dressing for the scene with long coats and shirts and layers it can be a challenge.  Overall on a Kabul bathroom scale this could be a 2/4 star.  About average.  Working lights, relatively clean by comparison, without toilet paper (always bring your own!) and soap at the sink.

Sardar ordered a spicy lamb kebob and a pull-tab Fanta for 150 AFS ($3.00).  He also recommends dipping the meat in the Knorr’s spice sauce and eating it wrapped with a piece of bread.  I tried the new item on the menu: pizza.  It was a mushroom, corn, green pepper, vegetarian pizza, with some spicy sauce.  The cheese leaves much to be desired.  Overall, though,  it is a good place to eat when you are in the Kabul University area.  You will find the restaurant is packed inside with locals, and outside the front-door you will find men to repair the soles of your shoes instead of men with guns guarding the door.

A refreshing change compared to the “Foreign Passport Restaurants.”

When in New York, see the Statue of Liberty. When in Philly, go eat at Kingdom of Vegetarians.

I am, as my many followers and fans know, an unapologetic omnivore, and I have no dilemmas about that. So while certain contributors to this website had praised Kingdom of Vegetarians into the sky, I didn’t expect their dim sum to be that outstanding. Good, sure, but come on… Kingdom of Vegetarians? Where’s the pork?

Well, tie me down and call me Betty, but just this one time I was wrong! Kingdom of Vegetarians isn’t just good, it’s great. Fantastic even. Had I not known better I would have thought there was meat in there. The dumplings? Out of this world.

To illustrate how much I liked the place, let’s just put it this way: The next day I insisted on going back to the Kingdom for lunch. And it was, again, fantastic. The best General Tso’s Chicken I’ve ever had, and it didn’t even have chicken in it. How’s that for irony?

Going back to Philly? Actually, yes, I think so.

Location: 129 N 11th St Philadelphia, PA 19107

Best vegetarian food ever.

Many will claim New York is the ultimate pizza town in America, and I will probably agree that many are right. And while local New Yorkers will religiously proclaim their personal favorite as the best pie in the city, many of the aforementioned many agree that Di Fara Pizza in Brooklyn might very well be the king of pizzas.

Now, by all means, we have some nice pizza places in Spokane. Bennidito’s, David’s, and Ferrante’s all deliver great pies, but Di Fara is in its own league, and is a reason itself to make your way over to the east coast. Watching Domenico De Marco prepping pizzas in slow, zen-like motions should be as big of a part of a New York trip as seeing Times Square, riding the Staten Island ferry, or rubbing shoulders with Maggie Gyllenhaal at Gorilla Coffee.

And the pie? Thin crust, with porcinis soaked in… something heavenly…, and basil cut by Domenico in the same tai-chi movements he uses while making the dough. Yet what makes the pie the standout in a town that literally has ten million pizzerias (give or take) is the tomato sauce. Even if you usually scrape off the sauce of your pie, you will want to marry this sauce. It’s slightly sweet, slightly tangy, and absolutely out of this world.

The pizza might be expensive — around $30 for a large Costco-size pie — and the yoga style prep time means there’s quite a wait until you see the finished product. That’s all good though, as the pizza’s well worth it. Keep in mind that it’s kind of hard finding the hole in the wall too. On our trip we accidentally stopped at a different pizza place a block off, which also was closed. Thinking this was Di Fara, one of the members of our party almost broke down in tears (again, literally) thinking he might have to settle for NY-style tamales over a Di Fara pie. Luckily, we soon noticed we had made a mistake, and walked down the block to witness the pizza god in action.

And so should you.

Location: 1424 Avenue J, Brooklyn NY 11230 (Cash only and BYOB.) Map.

I haven’t been able to find much information about Eleanor’s Corner Saloon in Uniontown… Actually, I haven’t been able to find that much out about the scarcely populated town either, but that’s neither here nor there… Anyway!

Eleanor’s, from what I understand, prides itself on using all organic ingredients, which, while perfectly doable out on the Palouse, is still pretty impressive in a town consisting of only 345 people. The tap selection, in a bar which ceiling is covered with dollar bills, is equally or possibly even more notable. I might seem like a townie-hater here, but frankly I expected to see only Coors and Bud, not organic Fish Tale. 345 people. Organic beer on tap. Uniontown is OK with me.

As for the food, my burger was good in its own right, yet not up to the awesomeness of the side order of pottage. Pottage, if you’re not familiar with it, is a British type stew, and Eleanor’s is fresh and homemade. Which is pretty awesome. Dip some of their equally tasty home-made potato chips in it, and baby, you got a stew goin’!

Uniontown, then, is worth a visit if just for a stop by Eleanor’s. And hey, if you have time, check out The Artisan Barn also. It’s an impressive building, even if you’re not into anything artisan.

I need your help.

The best cake my lips have touched lies in the bowl of the Hindu Kush Mountains in Afghanistan, at a French restaurant called Le Bistro.  I tried to make this cake and failed. If you find a way to recreate this masterpiece please let me try it; the recipe is posted below.

During my first visit to Kabul, I discovered Le Bistro.  It became a frequent stop to try their amazing soups, bread, and salads.  Then I tried the Very Rich Chocolate Cake.  It was divine. When I came back to Spokane I went searching for something similar to this cake.  Mizuna has a flour-less cake — wonderful, but not what I was looking for. I found myself spending my 23rd and 24th birthdays in Kabul during two hot summers, and of course I went out to Le Bistro for the best birthday cake I could dream of.

The owner of Le Bistro keeps his recipes top secret, but, after spending many days at his restaurant’s tables, he decided, with a bit of a snicker, he could give me his cake recipe, eluding I would not be able to recreate it.  He did provide some advice to use only the best ingredients, preferably from his motherland, France, and only use farm fresh eggs. American chocolate or butter was not recommended.

I came back to Spokane and sought out the best chocolate, farm fresh eggs, etc. I could find, but failed at creating a cake even remotely comparable to his.  If you dare to make this cake and succeed please let me know.  If you fail and want to find Le Bistro, follow these directions:

Fly to Kabul.  Then find the Shar-e Naw District. Le Bistro is located behind the Ministry of Interior, on the unmarked street parallel to Chicken Street. Coming down from the Kabul City Center with Kabul Park on your left, make a right on the street at the end of the park, across from the gas station, then make the next left. You should see the small sign for Le Bistro hanging at the corner.  Turn right; the restaurant is on your right.  Then call 0799-598852 when you get lost.

Recipe:

• Dark Chocolate 200 grams
• Butter 200 grams (or thick cream, soften)
• 5 eggs
• Sugar 250 grams
• Salt 1 pinch
• Flour 1 tablespoon

Melt chocolate and butter using a double boiler.  Add sugar, salt and flour. Then add the eggs one by one.  Put it all in a pan and bake at 200 degrees Celsius.

To make the yellow sauce the owner said to follow what he called a basic Frech technique, a heavy cream and sugar sauce.