Willows Inn: August 2014

After seeing Scott’s thread on Willows Inn, I thought I’d post some pics I took last night from dinner. Couple of quick thoughts:

  • Cocktails were good, not spectacular. You do get a “free” appetizer course with them. We had several.
  • All-in, with ~20% tip was $700. Included 3 cocktails, 2 dinners w/wine (and a beer) pairing. No option that I saw for additional supplements
  • Casual attire was interesting. One couple had running shorts, t-shirts and flip-flops, another was decked out. I opted for nice jeans, a button down and loafers, which was probably the right altitude.
  • Photos below taken with a Nokia 1020, no flash in a room that got progressively darker. A couple of the photos are a little blurry, but consider that they’re taken at short range, with me attempting not to be obnoxious about taking photos in a dining room champagne.gif

View from the porch, while drinking cocktails.
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Appetizer course, served with cocktails - Taylor’s oysters, lamb prosciutto and rhubarb with sugar.
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Mussel, smoked with alder wood, served in a box. Server pops the top on the box, smoke comes out.
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Will only let me post 3 photos at a time :smiley:

Crispy kale with black truffles. Truffle dots were intense.
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Crispy crepe with steelhead roe, chives. One of my favorite plates.
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Halibut skin cone, filled with halibut
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Wild plum skins, with grape/thyme sauce
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Grilled shiitake mushroom
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Rye bread with shaved, cured egg yolk and aged leg of venison tartar - awesome.
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Beets, with lavender, thyme and coriander, served with yogurt. Flavors were wild, and I’m not generally a beet fan.
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Strangest course of the night - gooseneck barnacles. Pretty sure this was added to the meal because the chef said “barnacle? I can make those edible.”
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Local spot prawn, poached with its roe, drowning in butter. Looking for a way to go? Drowning in butter would be in my top 5, behind drowning in pork fat and possibly drowning in pinot noir.
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Smoked sockeye. Jiro would be proud.
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Sliced geoduck with “pork crunchies”
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Fresh baked bread - served with butter and pan drippings. I could slurp the pan drippings until I had a coronary. Just saying.
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Grilled Romano beans with crushed herbs. Photo not as good; I blame the veggie plate.
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Steamed black cod with lovage and cherry tomato
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Grass-fed lamb, topped with… grass
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Ran out of gas here. Berries with some kind of a granita :smiley:
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Wood sorrels, chamomile ice cream
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Only thing I skipped a pic of was a ramekin of black huckleberries because it was… a ramekin filled with black huckleberries.

Wine/Beer Pairing:

  • Eaglemount Semi-Sweet Homestead Cider (Port Townsend, WA)
  • 2012 Maison Bleue “Metis Blanc” (Yakima Valley, WA)
  • Logsdon Seizoen Bretta Farmhouse Ale (Hood River, OR)
  • 2012 Lemelson Vineyards Reserve Chardonnay (Willamette Valley, OR)
  • 2009 Dusky Goose Pinot Noir (Dundee, OR)
  • 2012 Brooks “Tethys” Riesling (Eola-Amity, OR)

Overall service lasted exactly three hours. No way I’d try to visit and take a ferry back. We stayed at the Low Tide room, about a half mile down the road and walked to/from dinner. If you do that, make sure you have a flashlight app on your phone and it’s charged… it is pitch black outside :smiley:

holy smokes… amazing meal… that’s a lot of courses… i’d be stuffed half way through! :slight_smile:

i’d eat that

Great post!

Thanks Andrew- You had a very similar meal to mine (the menu hasn’t changed a ton in the last few weeks.)

One of the most memorable meals I have had in a long time. I can still taste the kale chips, the venison, the chicken drippings… The cod with lovage (I thought it was lummage) was a bit of a miss for me as it was just a bit bitter, but there were things that I doubt I will ever have better examples of. (The smoked fishes were unreal.)

And dammit- you were lucky to get Perceves! (Gooseneck barnacles) I haven’t had those since going to Lisbon. Were they local? Where were they sourced?

Thank you sir, I’m shaving shortly in preparation for dining there tonight.

I dropped wine off there yesterday, whatever corkage is we will pay it though we love that Logsdon Ale!

Lovage is a PacNW herb. Beats the heck out of dandelion greens, which has been trendy for a while.

Funny thing about the Logsdon - the server made a huge deal about it being a hard to get, highly allocated beer. Stopped at Whole Foods in Redmond on the way home… and found it on sale. Picked one up, of course :smiley:

Don’t recall where the barnacles were from. I enjoyed them more for the unique experience than any redeeming flavor/taste value. Overall the visual experience was on par with the taste, which really sent it onto overdrive. The halibut skins looked insane, sitting on a bed of rocks.

Hey it’s probably hard to get outside the PNW!

Doesn’t look like my type of food but this is a great wine:

2012 Brooks “Tethys” Riesling (Eola-Amity, OR)



Also - if that Gruner guy liked the food, it must be pretty good. [welldone.gif]

Whoa, we were both largely blown away. Glad we brought wine, corkage $35/btl.

Heart of Chicken Darkness really could have used a glass of aged LLC or Baron!

Kale w/ truffles, creme + roe, beets, salmon candy and that prawn haunt me this morning.

I’m curious how these pairings worked. Did they bring out a new pairing every 3rd course? Did you have multiple glasses on the table at once?

Intent was one glass at a time, with new glasses/pairing brought out in advance of dishes they paired with. Bottomless glass service, but aside from the beer, nothing that I was looking to plow through.

I enjoyed the cider too- first hard cider I have actually understood and liked.
But in general- I agree that the wine service was not super thoughtful or inspired. I would have been just as happy or happier even doing as Glenn did, or just ordering a bottle off the list.

I heard that juice service was really interesting, but juice is for breakfast, not dinner. [cheers.gif]

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