Fall Menus On The Wild Side

Fall menus are looking good, as game dishes and offbeat accompaniments come on strong.

Paprika is continuing its cafe-style approach with innovative first plates and main courses that reflect the season.

Expect warming, cool-weather dishes such as braised rabbit with rosemary noodles, sea bass and scallops served over polenta, grilled quail with red chili sauce and salmon paired with black lentils.

The lineup of first plates includes such temptations as curried pumpkin and leek flan, wild rice and mushroom soup, smoked trout and warm potato salad, foie gras with plum confit and grilled Swiss chard packets.

Sweets that say autumn range from a pumpkin bread pudding with whiskey hard sauce to gingerbread with warm pears and an apple compote in a crispy phyllo cup.

Paprika serves dinner Tuesday through Saturday. Call 455-7545 for reservations.

At Patsy Clark’s, chef David Goldman has cooked up some exotic offerings. For instance, there’s a dish called fasian frangelique that’s a marinated pheasant breast, stuffed with pears, oyster mushrooms, sundried cherries and toasted hazelnuts. It’s pan-seared and finished with a Frangelico-spiked cream sauce.

New Zealand venison makes an appearance as in an updated cordon bleu. The farm-raised deer meat is wrapped around prosciutto, spinach and Gruyere.

Other fall-friendly dinners include boneless pork chops filled with bourbon-soaked figs and grilled with an apricot glaze and an Asian-style ahi tuna served with slaw and vanilla whipped sweet potatoes.

To sample some of this stuff, call 838-8300 for reservations.

Luna’s lineup of fall dishes starts with smoked salmon lox on crisp sweet potato cakes, pumpkin risotto and Small Planet tofu layered with pear and roma tomatoes. That “tower” is then drizzled with a blood orange vinaigrette.

Savory new pizzas cooked in the restaurant’s apple wood-fired ovens include a smoked duck with fontina cheese, a potato, anchovy and spinach pie with roasted red peppers and a pear pizza with herbed cheese and toasted pecans.

Main plates making their debut next Monday include pan-seared duck breast with cherry-port glaze, Chilean sea bass with savoy cabbage, Yukon gold potato puree and pomegranate jus, grilled pork chops served with polenta and honey-cumin roasted chicken with a French lentil pilaf.

New lunch and brunch menus are right around the corner.

To make reservations at Luna, call 448-2383.

Changes at Fugazzi

Meg Rychel-Edwards is leaving Fugazzi after a three-year stint at that downtown Spokane eatery.

Her penchant for mixing Asian influences with fresh Northwest ingredients elevated Fugazzi into one of the area’s top dining rooms. It will be worth watching how the place fares in her absence.

You won’t have to go far to enjoy Rychel-Edwards’ food, though. She’s moving over to The DoubleTree Hotel City Center, where she’s going to introduce upscale lunch and dinner menus at the Cityside Bistro. That lobby area restaurant will undergo some remodeling to reflect its new focus. An expanded wine selection will be developed, too. Look for the bistro to be open around the middle of the month.

And, yes, she will be doing her famous mashed potatoes there.

Dinner and a movie

Magic Lantern Cinema is open again, offering beer, wine and food with its lineup of art movies.

The menu is an abbreviated version of Europa’s offerings. It includes several sandwiches, an antipasto plate, a couple of entree-size salads and pizza. There’s also a selection of desserts available.

Wines by-the-glass are several steps above the standard pours: King Estates pinot gris, Carmenet dynamite cabernet sauvignon, Canoe Ridge merlot and Woodward Canyon chardonnay.

On tap, they’ve got Alaskan Amber, Deschutes Black Butte Porter and Bridgeport India Pale Ale. There’s also a variety of brews in the bottle.

For film times and titles, call 456-6212.

Field trip

I recently made a culinary pilgrimage to a couple of the West Coast’s most famous restaurants.

Alice Waters, the chef at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, Calif., is widely recognized for igniting this country’s love affair with food by giving haughty French food a California twist.

I was thoroughly impressed with how gracious and welcoming the staff was at Chez Panisse. I scored a table upstairs at the more casual cafe without a reservation.

For starters, the pairing of paper-thin slices of jamon serrano (a prosciutto-like ham) and fresh figs was simple and inspired.

My main course was chunks of lamb braised in white wine served with hand-rolled noodles and tender fava beans. Heaven!

At The French Laundry in Napa Valley, it was a much more formal affair.

The extensive menu read like a mouthwatering classic with endless courses that ranged from squab stuffed with foie gras and served with truffles to wild striped bass from Rhode Island.

I had the eight-course chef’s tasting menu that included things that had never before passed my lips: filet of red mullet, wild fennel sorbet and osetra caviar. Yes, it was decadent, but it was a once-in-a-lifetime treat.

The food at The French Laundry might have been flawless, but the stuffy service left me cold. Our waiter checked back during just one of my eight courses.

Ultimately, I felt as if I had been taken to the cleaners.

New outlook at Windows

Windows of the Seasons has a new chef and a new menu.

Executive chef Harry Helbig has 20 years of experience in the kitchen including a stint with Westin Hotels in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

His menu reflects his training in French cooking, along with a willingness to explore global cuisine.

Appetizers include a wild mushroom terrine, citrus-marinated lox and honey-roasted breast of duck.

Entrees range from a portobello mushroom flan to grilled ahi tuna seasoned with five spice and served with black beans and papaya salsa. Among the other mouthwatering choices are a pepper-crusted pork tenderloin, rack of lamb, a filet mignon with brandied figs and Penn Cove mussels with pasta.

House specialities showcase game dishes such as a smoked breast of pheasant with Madiera cream and pink peppercorns and tournedos of bison with chantrelle mushrooms and cognac.

Windows of the Seasons is located at Cavanaugh’s Inn at the Park. For reservations, call 328-9526.

Say what?

Geronimo’s Food and Spirits in Springdale takes the prize for the most politically incorrect advertisement to cross my desk. A flier listing the restaurant’s daily specials ends with this note: “Our prices won’t scalp you, but the chef might!”

Yeah, that’s a place I want to eat.

A second helping

Several alert readers called in reports on buffets that had been inadvertently left off the list of all-you-can-eat Asian restaurants in last Friday’s Weekend section.

Kay’s Teriyaki Plus - located at 601 E. Francis - offers a lunch buffet that includes rice bowls and its signature teriyaki-seasoned meats. It’s $6.99.

Also, Peking North lays out a lavish Mongolian barbecue for lunch and dinner for $5.95. It was one of the first in the area to offer this instant stir-fry option. It’s located at 4120 N. Division.