Palouse Has Plenty To Please The Roving Palate

Ask people to describe the Palouse and they might linger on the treeless rolling hills, punctuated with grain elevators and picturesque farmhouses.

But when I look Palouse-ward, I envision lentil burgers, tomatillo quesadillas, lamb steaks smothered in a fragrant merlot-lavender sauce and giant platters of cheesy lasagna.

This pretty farmland is hog heaven for adventurous eaters. The Palouse is home to a surprising number of good restaurants including Eastern Washington’s only four-star eatery. On a recent culinary pilgrimage, I discovered a mouthwatering mix of hip spots serving dishes spiked with trendy ingredients along with a generous helping of homestyle food served in humble surroundings.

I enlisted the healthy appetite of a friend - a former Coug with a soft spot in her heart for the Palouse - to help with my eating odyssey. Here are my tasting notes: Patit Creek

There’s something about dining at a four-star restaurant that invites nitpicking. How could a tiny place on the outskirts of Dayton possibly warrant the high praise dished out by “Northwest Best Places,” the state’s most respected guidebook?

Well, Patit Creek lived up to its reputation.

The restaurant might not make the best first impression. Inside the rather drab exterior, the dining room sports dark wood paneling that’s vintage 1970s rec room.

The work of local artists was once displayed throughout the restaurant, but when that became too complicated to schedule, it was replaced with stills of Hollywood legends. Yawn.

But as the old saying goes, you can’t eat the scenery.

And the food at Patit Creek was flawless.

The menu favors beef, and chefowner Bruce Hiebert has a special knack for steaks and sauces. Friends from Walla Walla regularly make the 70-mile round trip just to savor the melt-in-your-mouth tender medallions of beef.

Not only is the meat flavorful and properly cooked, it’s accompanied by an exquisite sauce - an intense beef stock-based sauce seasoned with red wine and mellowed with sour cream.

Our meal began with an elegant appetizer, flaky phyllo dough enveloping a tangy Danish cheese. It was served on an herb-studded marinara sauce that provided a piquant contrast for the rich pastries.

Dinners come with a soup and a salad, a nice touch that ensures nobody will leave the table hungry. We relished every spoonful of the tomato-basil soup, a slightly chunky mixture that balanced the tart acidity of the tomatoes with a touch of creaminess.

Salads were fairly standard mixed greens, but the choice of dressings included an old-fashioned favorite of mine: green goddess. It was a much better version than I remembered with fresh herbs shining through the creamy “green” concoction.

For our entrees, my companion raved about her boneless duck breast served with a to-die-for sauce that drew much of its flavor from port wine and figs.

I was impressed with my lamb sirloin steak, a cut rarely available in restaurants and one I find tastier than chops. It was served with a concentrated merlot sauce that offered an exotic aroma, which was derived from the addition of lavender.

It’s those kind of unexpected touches that make Patit Creek such a popular destination with foodies from around the state.

Desserts are the domain of the chef’s wife, Heather, and selections lean toward down-home favorites. My friends swear by the slightly tart gooseberry pie. I was delighted when our friendly waitress said they would be glad to substitute fresh raspberries for the strawberries on my shortcake. And my companion found the chocolate decadence positively sinful.

After such a satisfying meal, it’s easy to see how Patit Creek earned its stars. Not surprisingly, reservations are essential, even midweek.

The Pastime Cafe

While Patit Creek offers the finest in sophisticated cuisine, the Pastime in Walla Walla earns its stripes night after night by serving up huge helpings of no-frills food. (The place is actually open from 5:30 in the morning until midnight every day but Sunday.)

The restaurant, which has been run by the same family since the 1920s, offers a satisfying blast from the past.

The decor runs along the lines of pink Naugahyde booths and bowling trophies.

After noticing the ashtrays in the front dining room, I asked a waitress if we were in the smoking section. “It’s smoking throughout,” she barked.

All right. A place that doesn’t give a fig for political correctness.

We took our time scanning the extensive menu. The classic neon sign outside says the restaurant offers American and Italian food, so the choices range from liver and onions, steaks and fried chicken to ravioli and pizza.

When I asked our waitress if the ravioli was made in their kitchen, she laughed and said no. I could almost read her mind, thinking I was a city slicker.

Her world-weary demeanor suited the kitschy surroundings and through the meal, she warmed up to us.

I settled on the $3.99 spaghetti special and my companion ordered the lasagna, one of the Pastime’s signature dishes.

Maybe I’m just a sucker for some traditional dishes, but I loved the rich, chicken noodle soup that preceded my meal. My dining partner’s salad with its Thousand Island dressing made her nostalgic.

Our dinners were belt-busters - platter-sized portions of nicely cooked noodles. (To call it pasta would be too trendy for the Pastime.)

I really liked the zesty marinara sauce. It contained chunks of zucchini, onions and mushrooms which were soft but not mushy. It gave the dish some character beyond the pour-it-out-of-the-can noodle topper.

The Pastime certainly isn’t for diners with upscale expectations. But I found it a refreshing break from the new breed of overpriced, pretentious Italian “ristorantes.”

Swilly’s

College towns are generally fertile ground for pizza joints, cheap ethnic food and a smattering of fancy places to take Mom and Dad when they come to visit.

In Pullman, Swilly’s does a fair job of pulling these elements together in a stylish package.

The dining room has rough brick walls covered with an eclectic assortment of artwork. Wooden floors and comfy seating give the place warmth.

On a lovely summer afternoon, we ate lunch on the patio, which faces the street.

Swilly’s menu is flush with contemporary touches. There’s grilled polenta served with marinara, a burger with chipolte (smoked jalapeno pepper) ketchup and a chicken sandwich topped with a fetamayo. For dinner, the crab-stuffed ravioli is bathed in a creamy tomatovodka sauce. There’s also an impressive lineup of pizza, though I’d be tempted to try the smoked salmon calzone.

This being lentil country, I opted for the veggie burger, which is made with those legumes.

The sandwich had a terrific, savory flavor. It was well-seasoned, not spicy. A wonderful basil mayonnaise made it memorable.

My companion was less taken with her ginger chicken salad. The greens were fine, but the grilled chicken was dry and the dressing was too tart.

Still, I couldn’t help liking Swilly’s. Especially when I walked into the dining room to pay the bill and was entranced by the smell of roasted garlic. With the sun streaming in through the window, this seemed like just the place to cozy up with a cup of coffee and while away the afternoon.

Cafe Spudnik

There are only about a dozen tables at this Moscow, Idaho, restaurant, but the place has a bigcity feel.

The small dining room is divided in half by a big banquette. Tables sit companionably close to each other. The stark black-and-white scheme is occasionally interrupted by a splash of color. On the night we ate dinner there, big-band tunes serenaded diners.

The restaurant started out as a humble pizza joint. Owner Denver Burtenshaw gradually branched out into more sophisticated cuisine, though pizza and calzones remain a mainstay.

The menu at Cafe Spudnik changes frequently, so there’s no sense getting attached to a certain dish. Last winter, I went ga-ga over a most-imaginative antipasto plate. The marinated mushrooms were especially enjoyable.

On a recent visit, there was nothing remotely resembling an antipasto. Instead, we started with a tomatillo quesadilla. Shrimp were tucked into a flour tortilla with artichokes and a smoky mozzarella cheese and then grilled. It was served with a black bean salsa and a pleasantly tart salsa made with those green Mexican tomatoes.

This dish was interesting and boring at the same time. Some bites were a symphony of flavor hitting the right notes when ingredients melded together, while other bites - without the featured ingredients - were plain bland. That kind of inconsistency usually signals a lack of attention to detail in the kitchen.

The entrees were also uneven.

My companion’s sirloin steak came wrapped in overcooked bacon, which detracted from the dish. Fortunately, the port wine-pepper sauce provided a tasty salve for the overdone meat.

And she loved the spuds - roasted red potatoes and the flavorful, perfectly tender-crisp carrots. Still, it’s disappointing when the side dishes outshine the entree.

My linguine was loaded with nicely cooked prawns. The pasta was tossed in a cream sauce that had an intense, white-wine flavor. It was ultra-rich, but not really what I was expecting.

I blame the somewhat misleading description on the menu for that. It said the dish had a “light” tomato cream sauce. I thought it would be more of a tomato sauce with a splash of cream thrown in. I even told the waiter to have them go easy on the cream. I guess what we had was a failure to communicate.

Another gripe: I had to make a special request for bread and when it finally came, it was as dry as a crouton. Pasta without soft, chewy bread is like French fries without ketchup.

Our visit ended on a sweet note, though. Three perfectly wonderful chocolate truffles, to be exact. Made on premises, these bittersweet marvels were elegant and rich, but not too filling.

, DataTimes MEMO: These sidebars appeared with the story: Detour The rear end of a shiny red and white bus sticks out of a building. It looks like the bus took a wrong turn and plowed into an old service station. Nah. It’s just one of those kitschy theme restaurants. At Gasoline Alley on Dayton’s main drag, diners can eat in booths surrounded by nostalgic service station signs and a vintage gas pump. Or they can munch on burgers and fries in an old bus that the sign says was used on Buddy Holly’s 1958 tour. After gentle pressing on whether it really was Buddy’s bus, the counter help admitted it was just a replica. Well, so what? The place is still fun. The cutesy menu features sandwiches named after vehicles of all sorts. Try the Harley, grilled hot dogs on a hamburger bun, or the GTO, a double cheeseburger. The Cadillac is sure to rev up your cholesterol count. It’s three patties, two slices of cheese and six pieces of bacon.

Detour Jacobi’s is one of those sprawling restaurants that tries to please everyone. And, judging by the packed house during a recent lunch, it does just that. The menu at one of Walla Walla’s most popular eateries covers a lot of ground. There are stuffed potatoes, Mexican dishes, Italian food, including pizza, a huge selection of salads and sandwiches and nearly 20 upscale entrees such as prime rib, salmon and teriyaki chicken. Just reading the menu can be exhausting. Built around an old train depot, the restaurant includes an old-fashioned railroad dining car, which is a fun spot to sit and munch baby back ribs, nachos and foccacia bread. I was overwhelmed with Jacobi’s “small” broccoli salad. It was a mountain of the fibrous veggie dressed in a semi-sweet creamy dressing. It was tasty, but it was much more than I could chew-chew.

If you go Patit Creek, 725 E. Dayton Ave., Dayton, Wash.; (382-2625) Pastime Cafe, 215 W. Main, Walla Walla, Wash., (525-0873) Jacobi’s, 416 N. Second, Walla Walla, Wash., (525-2677) Cafe Spudnik, 215 S. Main, Moscow, Idaho; (208) 882-9257 Swilly’s, 200 Kamiaken, Pullman, Wash., (334-3395) Gasoline Alley, 134 E. Main, Dayton, Wash., (382-2775)