So I find myself writing much more about restaurants I have visited recently, rather than the food I am cooking. No surprise there really, considering our current situation of no kitchen!

Anyhow, I think we have found a new Sunday tradition. We had lots of them before Drake was born. We would almost always go for a walk after dinner, if the weather was good. The route would take us around our neighborhood, looking at houses, chewing the fat about the day. Lazy Sunday brunches, early morning runs, walking down to the water. Tons of em. As anyone with a young child knows, the first thing that you loose is that ability to get up and go, to be spontaneous. Of course, you get rewarded for all of this. You get the most amazing time of your life. The last year (Drake is coming up to his first Birthday) has been the most incredible of my life. I have never been so happy, so tired, so amazed, (and in the first week, so out of my depth). Thankfully now Drake is really down to a daily routine, and it is much faster to get out the house. I remember the first time we planned to leave the house with Drake, and go out to lunch. It was to Essential Baking in Madison Valley, just a few blocks away from us. I swear it took us over an hour to get ready – anyone would think that we packed for an outing to the arctic. Of course, we had to stop for Dani to feed Drake, let him nap a bit, and so forth. But we got out. Now we just pick up Drake and run.

So we can now get some of these little rituals back. And I reckon that Portage Bay Cafe is going to be the place that you will find Drake flirting with all the women there on a Sunday morning.

We have been to quite a few brunch/breakfast spots all over Seattle and the Eastside. So many come close to being excellent. When we lived in Queen Anne, we would always go to the Five Spot, and also Macrina bakery. The Five Spot was always way too much food, and Macrini was great but well overpriced.

A current favorite for a greesy spoon has been the Pancake Coral in Bellevue of all places. This place harks back to the good old days. The people that work there have been doing so for ages, and are really slick. They could be at complete occupancy, and the food would come out at the same speed, and the servers would never seem hurried. We love this place, but know that it isn’t good for us. The food is always well greasy, but we don’t eat there that often. Danika and I have the unfortunate luck of working in the culinary bleak Bellevue. It always seems like a long debate as to what to do for lunch there every day, and we are never quite satisfied. Current favorites include Flo’s (great Sushi), What the Pho (decent pho), Ooba Tooba (good Mexican). And that is about it. Porcella’s urban market has one decent Sandwich that is completely overpriced (the proscuitto and egg) – a place that would die a death with those prices if it was in Seattle.

I have many problems with Bellevue, and it really doesn’t end with the over priced terrible food that you can get there. McCormicks is meant to be good, but is just another chain restaurant in a city of large corporate chains. The food is pretty bad too, and yes, expensive. The people remind me of when I worked in LA in the film business. I think when you buy a condo there, the developers all give women a handbag with a dog in. Oh, and it seems like the female dress code is sweat pants with Juicy written on the arse.  Of course, you cannot forget that women there have to ladle on the old make-up with a putty knife just to go to the tired Bellevue Square.

OK, I will stop ragging on Bellevue, that isn’t the purpose of this post, no matter how much fun.

So, back to Portage Bay Cafe. This is the first time that we have ever been there. It has been on “the list” for ages, but we have never happened to stop there for breakfast or lunch. It started off great to be honest. I phoned ahead to see if there was a wait for a table, and it was going to be 45minutes. What was unexpected was that they put my name down over the phone, which obviously meant far less waiting when we got there.

We measure a lot of breakfast places by how people interact with Drake. Sure, the food is what comes first, but we like our long lazy Sunday breakfasts to be about family, and character. Thankfully Drake was in his element. All the female waiters seemed to stop by and flirt with him, which was of course fine by him. Not to mention any woman sitting down having breakfast. Yes, we are raising one bloody good flirt. Not quite sure where he got that from! (since I once told Danika that “you kinda have big feet”, I very much doubt it was from me).

So, the staff were great. The patrons were great. What about the food. Organic, and local for a start. They take that seriously too. Some restaurants flout those two words just for marketing, but these guys are the real deal. They care about wholesome food, for local farms, and I like that. I really like that. And if you ask me, the food tastes better for it.

I had a scramble with a decent pork sausage, spinach and parmigiano reggiano. Danika had scrambled eggs, potatoes and a chicken-basil sausage. All was excellent. Perfectly cooked, good balance of flavors, and just the perfect amount of food. This isn’t anything really creative, but it certainly is tasty. It is leagues above your local greasy spoon. To top it off we didn’t leave with that heavy feeling in our stomachs, and that fatty taste in our mouths. The wallet wasn’t hurt either. It seems like this is one of the few places that doesn’t ramp up the prices to insane levels just because they use local organic ingredients.

OK, so I have taken a lot of words to say one simple thing (and to rag on Bellevue). Go eat there. I cannot say what their lunches are like, but the two breakfasts we had were perfect. Locally sourced organic ingredients, well crafted. Down to earth food with creativity.