A tale of two restaurants

Today starts with a leftover from yesterday – just a note to selves that you want to get to the Irish Table around 7, as the getting there when it opens thing just won’t work – our waiter told us there’s always a line when they open. You can call around 6 and get your name on the waitlist, or just show up around 7. Bring farkle.

Meanwhile, I had a lazy morning. I woke up about 7:30 and Dave was already up and raring to go for a walk. I, on the other hand, was not raring to go for a walk – I was raring to read a book and take a nap. So that’s what we did – Dave headed up the beach (North) all the way to the Rock WAHIT, about a 2.5 mile walk from here, while I got back in bed and read and napped until almost 11:30. Decadent, and very enjoyable. When he got back it was pretty much time to head out for lunch, so we pulled Tim out of his room (he was awake and reading too) and headed in to town. We decided to take two cars because we wanted to do some geocaching and wandering around town, and those aren’t Tim’s favorite activities. Then there was the question of where to lunch. My first thought was Warren House, but it was pretty overcast, and even their sunny beer garden, which is often sunny even when it’s not very nice anywhere else, probably would not be sunny. So we decided on Wayfarer.

Wayfarer used to be a favorite dinner location, so good that once or twice we’ve even come in from Forest Grove to eat there. Faithful readers will recall that in the past few years it has been going steadily downhill, and last year we decided it was no longer on our list. But I checked its yelp reviews, and although they were mixed they did mention a new menu and remodel, so we thought we’d give them a try. Dave parked in the lot at Midtown and walked over (a short walk), and Tim parked the van in front of the restaurant. Imagine my surprise when Tim and I were greeted by the lovely hostess, who turned out to be none other than Forest Grove’s own Kylie Marble! It was such a surprise that at first I didn’t recognize her – fortunately all the staff wear nametags with their hometowns, so I could say hello with confidence. Kylie showed us to one of our favorite tables, and that was the end of the good part of our trip to Wayfarer. The remodel is unfortunate – a giant canned salmon label on the back wall, fake leather with rivets and fake portholes on the other wall. Overall it makes the spacious room look dark and low-ceilinged. And the food, when it came, took presentation and taste to new lows – although Tim’s garlic fries, while not tasting of garlic, were very tasty. The wild mushroom dip, smothered in melted chedder, was served on in a white terrine on a white plate with flatbread cut in triangles. No garnish, no attempt to make it colorful or inviting. My tuna salad was sweet and insipid, and Dave’s fish tacos were just a gloppy disaster. Tim’s French dip and fries were the best thing, but he says the Eastern Star sandwich at McMenamin’s back home is better. So the results are in, and unfortunately, the Wayfarer – one of the first restaurants I ever ate at in Cannon Beach (with my mother, over 20 years ago) has joined the ranks of Restaurants We Do Not Go To. At least we didn’t waste a dinner to find out.

After lunch Tim headed back to the house, and Dave and I headed south along Hemlock to find a geocache. We walked for about half a mile towards the ‘S’ curves, which is not really a very fun walk because there are no sidewalks. But when we got to where we thought there might be a trail to the geocache, based on the description, there was no trail. In fact it looked like there couldn’t be a trail, since there was a very steep hill in the direction the GPS was pointing. Disappointing! We headed back towards the car, but found some stairs going down to the beach right opposite haystack rock, so we decided we’d walk along the beach to our secret road and go to town that way.

Walking on the loose sand is tricky, and pretty soon we decided we’d head up the dune and pick up the road. I thought I remembered from last year that you could pick up the secret road at Jackson, but looking at the houses it seemed we could get on to it sooner. So we climbed up the dune, only to discover that you get on the secret road at Jackson. We walked along some more and then got on the secret road, and arrived in town next to the Coaster Theater. At this point Dave was pretty tired out – don’t forget he already walked about 5 miles this morning. The Cannon Beach shuttle stops at the Coaster, so we went to look for a schedule to see when the next bus would be there. Turns out there was no schedule, but Dave looked up the street and saw the shuttle on its way. Sometimes you don’t need all the information. We hopped on the shuttle, took it to midtown, and hopped in the car (and dropped off our sweatshirts) and drove to the back parking lot, which had plenty of parking. This made us happy, because now we would not have to walk back to midtown after our time in town.

We stopped off at the picnic basket to pick up some treats and then headed to the post office to mail a package to Josh. Then we wandered around town, stopping in at many favorite shops, but not really finding anything. El Mundo for Men, where Dave has found many good things over the years, is for sale, and they are clearly closing out their inventory. Maggie and Henry’s, one of my favorite shops, had plenty of inventory but nothing that really pushed my button. But we had a good time popping in and out of shops (although Dave was definitely ready for a nap), and were very very pleased that our car was local. We stopped at Mariner market to get some cheese for tomorrow night’s dinner, and then headed home. On the way we looked to see if there was a trail to the geocache we were looking for, but didn’t see anything. We’ll need to do some more research.

Then it was afternoon nap time. The weather continues to be poor, with long cloudy periods broken by sun breaks. It was warm and sunny enough for Dave to do his nap outside. At about 5:30 I was feeling pretty logy from mostly sitting around all day so Tim and I went down to play giant frisbee for a half hour before I needed to get ready to go the the Stephanie Inn. I love playing giant frisbee and Tim was very patient with my complete inability to throw it to where he was. If he had been 3 people standing in a line about 10 feet apart it would have been good. As it was he got plenty of exercise, and I was pretty sweaty myself – throwing the giant frisbee takes a fair amount of oomph. By the end I had actually gotten to where two out of three throws would go close enough that he only had to take a step or two, but most of the time on those throws he had to leap in the air. Needless to say, his throws were pretty much all right on.

Then it was time for me to go up. Since the tides are weird, it was about halfway to low tide, so Tim ran out to the carriage road while I went up and took my shower. I’d been trying to do laundry all day, but I kept forgetting about it, so my towel was in the dryer when I got in the shower. When I was done showering Dave brought me the towel right out of the dryer. A warm fluffy towel straight from the dryer has to be one of the very best things in life.

Although it was cold and cloudy most of the day, it cleared up this afternoon more than it has so far this week – all the way down to the horizon. This means it’s sextant time! Fans of anachronism will appreciate Dave taking sextant sightings, then entering the numbers into his sextant iPhone app for it to do the number crunching. When I got dressed, Dave was on the deck teaching Tim to use the sextant. The very nice picture I have of them is posed.

Then it was time to head off to the Stephanie Inn. Last year the Stephanie Inn had a two-seating, prix fixe dinner setup, and we went on a Friday night when the assistant chef was in charge. They have changed to an open seating arrangement with both a prix fixe option and an a la carte option – with the nice touch of having individual wine pairings for each course. Last year we enjoyed our dinner, but thought that it didn’t quite measure up to the price or the ambience. This year I made very sure that the chief chef would be there, and it made quite a difference. While none of the items was spectacular, all of them were well above average – and if we’d had anything even remotely like them at the Wayfarer, we would have stood up and done the dance of joy. The highlights for me were a goat cheese and butternut squash ravioli – I know, I know, it’s so two years ago, but it’s not often done this well, and the curried lentil soup. I also very much enjoyed the J Lohr Chardonnay and Sylvan Ridge sparkling early muscat that were paired with my smoked salmon chowder and crème brulee. Stephanie Inn is now on our for sure list.

When we got home, Tim was very excited to see us – he had clearly missed us terribly. Dave went out to try to do some twilight sextant sightings, I folded the laundry, and Tim got the fire going. We needed to get all our chores done so we could get down to some serious rematch. First: Trouble. It was an unusually quick game – nobody got trapped at home, unable to do anything for roll after roll. And it was also unusually close at the end – we were all trying to get our last men in at the same time. But in the end, it was Dave who had the victory – well deserved, indeed. Tim came in second, and I came in last. I hate Trouble. After trouble Tim requested Yahtzee. I got what might have been my first yahtzee ever, but Dave won. I hate Yahtzee. Then it was time for 3 quick games of pepper. Tim won the first one. Tim won the second one. Tim even won the third one, in a particularly nasty battle with Dave where Dave thought he’d won, only to discover that Tim’s last card was the blue 6. I hate Pepper. Tomorrow night it’s bananagrams all the way.

Then it was time for flying helicopters and reading. And that’s the day.