Restaurant Bliss

We roamed the aisles of Uwajimaya today. The Bellevue, WA Oriental supermarket moved, after thirty some years, to a new location near downtown Bellevue. All the years we lived on the East Side (around here what we call communities across Lake Washington to the east of Seattle). The old location was across from a restaurant we used to frequent in the 1980’s, Kamon of Kobe. Husband loved the sushi, and I loved the tempura, Udon soups the side salads with a sweet tangy sesame dressing and sometimes the soupy beef of Sukiyaki. It was a familiar Wednesday night destination. The rich and peaceful ambiance, the laughter and quiet conversation in a favorite booth--what memories.

Eating out has been hobby and since Husband cooks gourmet and went on to write a food column for two magazines for eight years, food has been a serious hobby. McCormick’s on 4th Avenue in Seattle was another favorite place and the site of our first date. They have a Bouillabaisse with a deeply satisfying broth. They won’t serve it until the broth has aged a couple days. Oh, and their Chocolate Decadent, a small round dense and moist indulgence.

Another type of restaurant memory comes from the Farmhouse restaurant in Anacortes, ninety minutes north in the San Juan Islands. Living weekends on our ketch up there, Sunday mornings, especially Seahawk mornings, would find us relaxed in the bar having breakfast. We were football fans then, in the era of Craig and Largent. Husband would always get a few pull tabs (he’s from Vegas and sometimes they would buy our breakfast). He loved their perfectly appointed Eggs Benedict, always enjoyed with shakes of Tabasco. I enjoyed the breakfast buffet and can almost taste the fried potatoes and thick smoky bacon. If we lunched there it was always the hot turkey sandwich (they roasted turkeys daily). And, it was one of those places with homemade pies piled high with perfectly browned meringue, oozing with berries, or the pumpkin pie with huge dollops of fresh whipped cream. The only trouble was their meal portions were so large there; you’d have to stop by for dessert only.

We’ve been fortunate to have many memories of enjoying delicious food together starting with the thick and juicy stuffed pork chops from a local meat market that husband cooked on the Weber grill for our first serious evening together. Yes, I was seduced by pork chops, but you’d have to taste my husband’s pork chops to really understand.

Not Many Food Surprises Left

We love Chorizo sausage fried up with eggs. We have many good memories of casual, lingering breakfasts with the Sunday paper at Halisco's on 1st Avenue in Seattle, savoring Chorizo and eggs. We'd tear off pieces of warm flour tortillas and maybe add a bit or sour cream and salsa or maybe just savor the flavors of the mildly spicy sausage.

It was a new treat for me. My husband, though, has loved the dish since young adulthood. He remembers when stationed for training in the Army at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. He had no money for luxuries like eating out. He recalls walking by a restaurant one day and being stopped by amazing aromas. He stood there transfixed watching folks through the window eating a big plate of chorizo sausage fried up with eggs. They would tear off pieces of hot tortillas and scoop up some of the egg and sausage mixture. "I was salivating, it looked and smelled so delicious", he remembered. "I vowed to myself that when I got rich, I was going to have that for breakfast every day!"

Today was a hallmark in our lives. There are few food surprises left for people who love food as much as we do and who have been as adventuresome with it as my husband. We are open to everything. We each have a couple things we truly don't like, but which we've been willing to try at least once. For me it's raw oysters and most sushi for husband it's beef tongue and for both of us it's tofu. We are comfortable with our quirks and certainly not deprived. One year, sometime back, cilantro was showing up in foods more often and we realized we really didn't care for the taste. Husband decided, though, that we were going to learn to like its flavoring potentials. I was game, so, during the year of Cilantro, we tried it often, he cooked with it and it became a flavor favorite. So you food stubborns out there, you can evolve!

Tofu, though, was a different matter. Yes we'd tried it. Husband couldn't stand the tasteless, pudding-like texture of soft tofu and, to him, the barbecued chunks weren't worth the bother of chewing. He would tolerate small pieces of it floating in Miso or Hot and Sour Soup but, to him, it had no redeeming qualities and could never fool his palette. I would try to convince myself I enjoyed the taste of the barbequed chunks of harder tofu I'd try at the deli counter of the natural food market, but I never could really perpetuate the lie on myself. I saw no redeeming feature and I'd rather have a noodle floating in my soup than some slimy tofu.

Then came a gift from someone who knows our food tastes fairly well. She gave it as a gift because she knew we would never buy it and would only try it because of her kindness in sharing. A ten-inch loop of Chorizo.......TOFU. It looked just like a loop of sausage with the deep orangish red characteristic of Chorizo. We assured her, with a bit of laughter and some smirking, that we would try it. "Take about a 1/4 of it out of the casing and fry it up "like sausage" she offered. "Whisk two eggs and add them, frying the mixture up just like chorizo and eggs". OH KAY...we rolled our eyes. Then it sat in the fridge for about a week. We'd look at it, and then decide on something definitely more tasty. But it sat there guilting us. We were adventurous eaters...yeah but it's TOFU!...yeah but who knows...SURE, we know!. Imagining that white-gooey-Miso-soup-floating stuff,

I finally took it out on a Saturday morning. How were we going to get past knowing it's TOFU? I melted a bit of butter in our coated electric frying pan, and then squeezed about a quarter of the loop into the pan, breaking it up a bit with the turner. Hmm, it looked amazingly like Chorizo sausage. The aroma of the familiar spices wafted up from the warming mixture. I turned it over and it had browned nicely still looking eerily like the real stuff. I whisked the eggs and dumped them on top and began mixing them in and frying. Husband was watching all this with a very wary eye, but so far nothing had assaulted or insulted his senses...just the familiar, pleasant memory of the aroma of Chorizo and eggs from that youthful, Arizona morning.

I scooped up some for each of us into half a warmed flour tortilla with just a light smear of butter. Then we both had a Twilight Zone moment. It was delicious. The texture, the flavor, the aroma, everything about it was perfect. In fact, it didn't have the grease which is the only down side to real Chorizo. This moment was a first for husband who has never been turned around by a food he's spent years determined he didn't like on many planes. We loved it; we will eat it again. It isn't one of those flukes you try in a store and think you'll like again but can't figure out what you were thinking when you try to make it. Chorizo Tofu, who in the world would have thought!

If you're intrigued and have a Trader Joe's market near you, it's Trader Joe's Soy Chorizo.