oysters
 

Things I learned this weekend, in order of amusement:

  • If you go away for an overnight trip and only good meal you have comes in a plastic cup, you’re in trouble.
  • Canola oil is not an acceptable substitute for sugar syrup in an Old-Fashioned, even if they’re both in brown bottles with pour spouts. It is also better if you just throw this away instead of thinking that the oils in the bitters came out of solution because you constructed it wrong, and making a shaken drink with it instead, and not realizing that it was canola oil until the next day.
  • It is possible to cook an egg longer than it took the chicken to produce it. At this point, it acquires the taste and texture of a silicone oven mitt.
  • When choosing a hotel, try not to pick one that is between the train tracks and the only road appropriate for mating rituals involving large car stereos and loud aftermarket exhaust systems.
  • If one does choose a hotel in such a location, attempt not to choose a room with two windows overlooking said street, beside the communal bathroom, above the movie theater, and beneath a 24-hour tap dance studio. (The tap dance studio is the only joke.)

olympic seafood co

 

The bright shining light of our trip to Olympia this weekend was Olympia Seafood Company, along the waterfront. It’s exactly what a seafood purveyor should be: a large, chilly, sparsely decorated, concrete room with refrigerated cases in it. They had all the great local stuff, plus imports from Alaska and Hawaii. We got a cocktail cup of dungeness crab and shrimp, that was the best thing I had the entire trip. We also got some great oysters and roasted them for dinner, some scallops from Alaska, some “salmon candy” (basically, smoked salmon with a sugary glaze), and some salt cod. The address
is 411 Columbia St NW, Olympia, WA 98501-1032 and their phone number is (360) 570-8816.

inside of olympia

 

crab tank

 

The dim lights of the trip were the meals at McMenamin’s Olympic Club in Centralia, Washington and McMenamin’s Spar Cafe in Olympia, Washington. My Bacon Cheeseburger at the Olympic Club was overcooked and chewy, which isn’t hard with a pre-made patty (the same kind Burgerville uses). I was also expecting a little more than half a thin strip of bacon broken up on the patty. I guess I’m just spoiled by having Oaks Bottom Public House in my neighborhood. At the Spar Cafe, the breakfast service was terribly slow and everyone within earshot had something wrong with their orders, including burnt toast, poached eggs that looked like they’d been hard-boiled, and my own silicone omelet and oysters encased in an impenetrable ball of breading. Oh well, there’s always never again.

Oh, and I am so stoked about the Year of the Fire Pig. Oink!