For the love of lunch
ED MURRIETA; The News Tribune
I don’t cheat on lunch. When I treat myself, I treat myself with time.
Lengths of my mid-day affairs vary: 45 minutes between meetings to enjoy onion soup and Oscar Wilde … 90 minutes to nibble my way through an unfamiliar menu … 21/2 hours if the source I’m interviewing is on a roll.
What makes a good destination for a long lunch?
• Varied and (hopefully) affordable menus. A great selection of appetizers, small plates and light entrees are ideal for grazing the afternoon away.
• Eye candy and comfort. Waterfront views are great, and so are interesting interiors, sturdy tables and cushy places to sit for spells. Good light helps if you’ve got something to read.
• Sweets and other treats. If you work the graveyard shift, or especially if you don’t work at all, I’m sure you know all about cozying up to cocktails at noon. This one’s for you. Midday, I’ll take dessert, since ruining my dinner is an occupational hazard to begin with.
Here are five restaurants where I’ve been lucky in long lunches.
Masa
2811 Sixth Ave., Tacoma; 253-254-0560
More and more, Masa feels like a nightclub. While it’s hard to compete with scantily-clad young women shaking their salsa in Masa’s dining room on Saturday nights, I prefer Masa midday, midweek.
The décor alone is a colorful run for diverse borders: Day of the Dead Meets Jorge Jetson, with industrial touches like roll-up doors that extend Masa’s dining room onto Sixth Avenue. The tables look sturdy and comfortable, but I wouldn’t know: I prefer to slide onto thickly padded benches that remind me of the low-riders I loved in my youth.
For a lingering lunch recently, I began with a trio of creamy melted cheeses (queso fondido, $7), guacamole ($7), and chips and salsa (on the house to diners). Lacking salt and lime, guacamole was just mushed avocado. Luckily, when lingering, I don’t mind futzing with my food, so I eventually got the guacamole how I like it.
I savored my way through tortilla lasagna – a towering stack of grilled veggies, corn tortillas and cheese ($9) – and managed to save room for dessert: Luscious peach bread pudding that brightened the first day of fall. Or was it the fruity sangria ($7.50)?
Enoteca
21 N. Tacoma Ave., Tacoma, 253-779-8258
Enoteca doesn’t just serve cheese and wine: It serves an enticingly broad selection of European and American artisan cheese and wine, plus sandwiches, salads and salami plates. The décor is cozy in a quasi-rustic way. It’s a good place to belly up to the bar and linger, nibbling and sipping your way through lunch.
Three-ounce samples of three cheeses, served with an assortment of herbed olives, cornichons and Italian bread, are $12. Hot sopresatta and spicy coppa salami are $3 extra.
Tastes of wines – choose from nearly three dozen – start at $3. Five-ounce glasses range from $5 to $18.
What’s for dessert? A cheese course, of course.
C.I. Shenanigans
3017 Ruston Way, Tacoma; 253-752-8899
I like the daytime vibe at C.I. Shenanigans, especially in the lounge, where thick-padded banquettes offer an upscale counterpart to dining at the bar and a more relaxed atmosphere than the stuffy dining room.
Aside from the great view, there’s another bonus in the lounge: You can order off the bar menu. Sixteen dishes – from burger sliders to organic chicken wings – are labeled “snacks and appetizers” that can double as lunch entrees. Fitting, since they’re priced like lunch entrees, $7-$12.
I enjoyed the king crab quesadilla ($12) and the king crab Louie ($12). The quesadilla was noteworthy because it was made in a corn tortilla, which soaks up cheese better than flour and turns crispy with a little grease on the grill. The Louie was lumpless (all shredded king crab was slightly disappointing), but it was plated with just the right balance of iceberg and crab, and adorned with asparagus, black olives and eggs.
I lingered over a bowl of French onion soup. Served in the hollowed shell of a yellow onion, atop a warm bed of rock salt, the soup was good-looking and good-tasting. The broth had a fair amount of salt, the onions bit back and cheese and croutons lasted almost until the end.
In the middle of the afternoon, C.I. Shenanigans’ mini-desserts (cheesecakes, chocolate mousse, peanut butter thingamajigs served in little glasses, $2.50 each) made sense: I could have dessert and save room for dinner.
Chambers Bay Grill
6320 Grandview Drive W., University Place; 253-460-4653, Ext. 112
Linger inside the golf course restaurant and you’ll think: Asian Noir Meets Ikea Drab. Interesting decorating choice. Then request a table on the open patio and behold how lunch here warmed up a chilly day: a postcard view of Puget Sound, from Fox Island to Anderson Island, the railroad and the brand-new $21 million Scottish links-style golf course below. (Nevermind, for now, the unfinished development of the former rock quarry.)
Dining above a Scottish-style golf course, I teed off over satisfying Scottish eggs: two hard-boiled eggs wrapped in mild sausage and fried until brown crispy ($9.95).
I’m still wondering what was “Scottish” about the quesadilla ($7.95) besides a green tortilla. If I’d had a do-over, I would have noshed on nachos ($9.95).
Chambers Bay Ale, a Scottish ale smartly brewed for the restaurant by Seattle’s Pike Brewing Co., packed the wallop of a malty one-iron.
The rest of the menu ($7.95-$14.95) includes salads, sandwiches, Guinness stew, bangers and mash, and fish and chips.
I tried just one dessert, a chocolate-peanut butter pie that I’d rather leave in the rough. But, oh, that view. Go the first nonrainy day that comes.
Pacific Grill
1501 Pacific Ave., Tacoma; 253-627-3535
Here’s how you linger: Start with a half-dozen oysters ($12.95). Indulge in plate of lobster spaghetti ($19.95), or go lighter with gooey gruyere and white cheddar grilled on sourdough, with a cup of soup on the side ($10.95). Crab Louie will keep you busy, too. Don’t forget butterscotch pudding with salty caramel – you’ll linger as you lick your spoon.
Or linger under the warm glow of seaform statues perched above the dining room.
Or linger at the office and arrive at Pacific Grill at 2 p.m., when many things on the lunch menu (burger sliders, salami-and-cheese plates, mussels and fries) turn up on the super-early happy hour menu for a buck or two less.
Ed Murrieta: 253-597-8678
ed.murrieta@thenewstribune.com
blogs.thenewstribune.com/edsdiner
