Our whirlwind culinary tour of the Pacific Northwest has come to an end. ??We ate a lot. A lot. ??Dave was very organized and planned almost a different meal a night while we were out and about. ??The weather was mostly cloudy unfortunately. I thought it was funny that every time someone found out Dave was visiting from the East coast they would apologize for the weather. We’re in a temperate rainforest people! It’s expected! ??

Some of the highlights were:??

1. Cafe Juanita – Kirkland, WA??www.cafejuanita.com

2. Sooke Harbour House – Sooke, BC??http://www.sookeharbourhouse.com/

3. Paeso – Fremont, WA??http://www.paseoseattle.com/index.php/menu.html

4. Restaurant Zoe- Seattle, WA??http://www.restaurantzoe.com/

5. Serious Pie- Seattle, WA??http://tomdouglas.com/index.php/restaurants/serious-pie

I believe the best discovery had to be the sandwich shop Paeso. It’s a small carribbean eatery in a small neighbourhood that serves fantastic, tender cuban roasted pork sandwiches. ??It got a little messy as you can see.??

Ryan, not being a big eater was the driver for this trip and drinking partner for Dave which helped since I was out of commission the last few nights.

I made sure every hotel had overpriced internet and even more overpriced valet parking for the duration of our stays.

We spent the last few days back down in Seattle to drop Dave off at the airport. ??Here they are at Pike Place Market determining the next course of food-related action. We had a very good Washington State wine from a winery called Mark Ryan. We spent a good few hours hunting down the place and bought a few bottles. ??It was an unusual set up seeing these wineries. ??We’re used to visiting rolling vineyards when tasting and here in Washington, we first went to some sort of business compound that looked a lot more like a business park for shipping/receiving and autobody work than a winery. Apparently they have tastings and distribute from the same place. ??When we finally found Mark Ryan Winery, the set-up was the same albeit a bit nicer business compound. ??No vineyards here. ??

We finished our trip at Lola’s for some drinks and Serious Pie for some pizza. This is a group of restaurants/bakeries/lounges owned by the same group. Talk about diversification.