After our squirrely friend and a tasting at Flying Dutchman winery where we really liked their Wild Blackberry port (this was one of two tasting rooms we visited during the Coast- the other was Nehalem Bay with amazing light mixable wines), we went to our Moolock Shores hotel for our themed rooms to drop off our stuff and try to find dinner. Since the men were in the front, even though I handed a map to the front they somehow missed the "Historic Bayfront" signs along the street and on the map. We ended up at Panache because I had remembered it from a bit of internet browsing the day or so before and I had at least caught some signs mentioning the Nye Beach area. It has a cute interior as it exist inside an old English styled house. The chef started out by sending out pairs of tasters of the roasted tomato seafood soup and the New England clam chowder with bacon. I hadn't had good chowder in a while, so I chose that as my starter (it came served with a Parmesan crisp) before my lamb chops. The salads also each came with a Parmesan split, even the split portion of the Caesar, and the greenery was fresh and crisp. The entree of the risotto and polenta cake dish was really great as a vegetarian dish. The dessert was just as beautifully presented.

The next day, we spent it in Newport, with the highlight being the Yaquina Head Lighthouse- we had visited Yaquina Bay earlier, but my reading of the map saw two lighthouses, and the one we had been admiring from our beach motel view was exactly Yaquina Head, not Yaquina Bay, lighthouse. The beach there is all rock, which made it hard to walk but unique from normal beaches that have sand, and there was lots of cool smoothed by the sea driftwood. Whenever the waves would crash, it "played" the rocks as it retreated back which was very peaceful along with the sounds of the winds, surf, and birds. Unfortunately it was pretty windy and chilly the entire time we were at the Coast. Once we walked to the lighthouse, we almost felt like we were watching something you'd see in National Geographic or BBC's Blue Planet with the seabird colony.

After the coast, I was off to Austin, Texas for work. Since it was a touch work week, I didn't get to really research any place good before I arrived. I was lucky enough to try barbecue twice though: once at Uncle Billy's and the other time at Salt Lick. I couldn't decide which bbq meat to try, so I went with the 2 meat special each time. That is very filling by the way as a lunch item.

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I arrived back on Friday to go off to the Umqua Valley Wine Barrel Tour. I'll write a separate post on that. I'll just skip to after the weekend, when I was in the DC-Baltimore area. The highlight meal was at Central, Michael Richard's more casual restaurant since Citronelle was not in my budget. The Faux gras terrine and country pate was my appetizer: the faux gras terrine really does deserve all the praise and hype as it really is amazingly smooth and rich. The country pate wasn't bad, but I'm spoiled by Chop at the Portland Farmer's Market and when I can get it fresh like that, Central can't compare. The lobster burger was ok, certainly not worth the price tag- give me a lobster roll instead please. The fries that accompanied the burger were nothing to write about- even Chicago's Rockit Bar and Grill can do better as they offer wonderfully crisp truffle fries with their lobster burger, and it's tastier as well as cheaper.

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I'll cover the Umpqua Valley wine trip and the tour I went to next post. Like last time though, I wanted to end on an amusing note… my new over mitt, courtesy of the Saturday Market (which we went to on Sunday)…

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