Just a few days ago it suddenly occurred to me that it had been several months since I last saw the ocean. Indeed, it had been almost a year since our last visit to the Oregon Coast. I spent my formative years in California and Hawaii and all that exposure to the Pacific did something to my brain — now if I go too long without seeing big water, I get a little… twitchy.

So it was with some excitement that I realized late last week that C and I had no plans for this weekend. I proposed a westward trip and 36 hours later we were going coastal. We made reservations at a hotel in Manzanita, a cute (but not cutesy) town on the coast where I’ve always wanted to stay but had never had the opportunity. Now we’d get a choice room a half block from the beach. Sweet!

As we rounded that last bend that reveals the vast expanse of the Pacific, I felt like William Clark did back in late 1805. But for those of you who get your 19th century explorer quotes from the backs of US currency, please note that unlike what it says on the back of the nickel our Mr. Clark did not write, “Ocean in view! O! the Joy!” He wrote, “Ocian in view!” Great explorer or not, he couldn’t spell his way out of a paper bag. I’ll never understand what Meriwether saw in him.

It was midday when we arrived on an unusually bright, warm and completely ungray November day. Was this really the *Oregon* Coast? Or had we made an accidental southward turn somewhere? No, it really was a rare treat: a sunny day on the Oregon Coast. We stopped off in Cannon Beach first, arriving at Haystack Rock just in time for low tide and some groovy tide pooling.

Lunch ‘n’ Munch at Ecola Seafood

Poking at anemones made us a might peckish so we headed into town and stopped off at the Ecola Seafood Market. Part fish market, part restaurant, this place serves and sells freshly caught goodies from the neighborhood. We had a basket of fried razor clams and fries, a smoked calamari salad and a cup of clam chowder. So many restaurants on the coast serve lamentably subpar chowder, but not the Ecola. This is fresh and briny and stuffed with clams.

The smoked calamari salad is very like a beloved salad we get at Ichidai Restaurant on Powell. It suffered from being uncovered in the refrigerated case a bit too long (that is, it was on the dry side), but it was still very flavorful. I love the little chili flakes and crunchy kelp bits.

The razor clams were good, but a touch rubbery. Not sure if they came from frozen or if they’d gotten overcooked or what. I still liked it all right — hey, fried seafood — but it could have been better. But it’s not like I didn’t eat all of those two massive clams.

Smoked Squid Salad: full of tasty bits

two big ol’ razor clams + a mess of fries = <3

A few miles south of Cannon Beach’s crowded, touristy streets is quiet little Manzanita with its vast expanse of mostly unoccupied beach. We checked into the Inn at Manzanita which was all kinds of charming. Our room was called The Mariner and was quite cozy and well-appointed except for that creepy portrait of a sea captain leering disconcertingly down at the bed. Every room at the Inn sports a fireplace, balcony, the tiniest mints you’ve ever seen — and a Jacuzzi! But only our room had Cap’n Creepy.

Nehalem River Inn

After a two hour long nap (really! the Jacuzzi was just that relaxing) we woke up just in time to make our dinner reservations at the Nehalem River Inn just down the 101 a bit. I’ve heard much about this place from Portland area food fanatics and have had it on my List(TM) for some time. At last, we’d get to see what the fuss was about.

The restaurant is in a rather unlikely spot for world class cuisine: it’s housed in a nondescript inn in the modest town of Nehalem. But the food, let me tell you, shines big and bright.

We started with two salads: Wild arugula with Israeli couscous, pepitas, currants and tarragon aioli (the house signature salad) and gravlax with mache, chevre, orange and red onion.

Of the arugula salad I must say this: wow. It was a fully successful interplay of flavors, colors and textures. The couscous was pillowy soft, the arugula maintained a healthy crunch and the currants added a perfectly restrained sweet note. C said that it was like looking at class photo with everyone lined up by height so you can see each one perfectly well.

The gravlax (house cured, natch) was great. It got a little overshadowed by the great and mighty arugula salad, but had it been matched against almost anything else, it would been doing the overshadowing. I loved how the onions in the salad had been chopped fine — and blanched? — to give the tastebuds a quick sharp jab without overwhelming the whole dish.

the wild arugala salad

a close up of the intricate going-on in this salad

Gravlax and Mache

Pretty much as soon as we sat down and opened our menus, I knew what the middle course would bring. All of the entrees sounded nice — and I’m sure they were — but one dishes was specifically engineered to be irresistible to me. Its entry on the menu said:

Syrah Braised Beef Short Ribs
Truffled macaroni, brussel sprout petals, chanterelle and hon shimeji mushrooms

Hello! wild mushrooms? truffle mac? brussel sprouts? wine-braised ribs?! I tried to stay calm and not shout in the hushed dining room, but suffice to say that I was very. very. ex. ci. ted.

We also ordered a roasted quail salad that was listed as a starter. Hey, look at us! We’re eating light!

So out they come and all I can say is: hot! damn!

No, wait, I guess I can say more… First the ribs… my only quasi-complaint here is that it was a dish of emotional extremes. I dubbed it a “culinary diatribe” because it seemed to be an extended rant about all the most vivacious and vibrant flavors known to man. Deep wine flavor infused the ribs. They served this dish with a steak knife, but we never even picked it up. A spoon would have been more appropriate. The brussel sprouts, separated into individual leaves, were cooked the barest minimum possible keeping their peppery flavor bright and high. The mushrooms were earthy and meaty and draped in high quality butter.

And finally, the truffle mac. I can’t really talk about the truffle mac without getting a little weepy. It was a beautiful thing.

All together, the dish had the feeling of a mad man ranting on the street corner. It was wild and unpredictable and it could have been a total mess, but as it was it had its own internal logic that held it all together. And it’s not like I’m going to say anything bad about truffles and short ribs!

The quail was a lovely dish, too. Quail can be difficult to get right — it’s easy to overcook — but here it was perfect with every morsel juicy and tender. The accompanying salad was well put together — I especially loved the smoked chevre from Elk Creamery — but I have this weird aversion to beets and couldn’t eat them. C said that they were exceptionally mild and tasty beets, but to me, they still tasted like my elementary school cafeteria. No fault of NRI’s, though; the blame lies squarely on the shoulders of Richmond Unified School District.

A Method in the Madness. a close-up of the ribs, sprouts, ’shrooms and mac. Chaotic? Maybe. But insanely delicious, too.

Perfectly cooked quail.

For reasons that are hard to fathom now, we decided to order not one, but two desserts. For me, as soon as our server said the phrase “made-to-order donuts” everything else in the room kind of faded away and before I knew it, we were looking at two desserts: cappuccino semifreddo with the aforementioned donuts and a flourless chocolate cake with caramel ice cream.

Now, it’s entirely possible that our impression of these dishes was colored by the excesses of the previous two courses, but I was just ever so slightly disappointed. I mean, the desserts were fine, but there wasn’t anything there to make me want to jump up and jig. The donuts were sort of dry and overly yeasty, the semifreddo maybe needed to be a bit more freddo, the chocolate cake was very good, but nothing really made it stand out from other flourless chocolate cakes. But take this with a grain of salt (or sugar): not only were we already stuffed when these treats arrived, but I’m also not a huge dessert aficionado.

Donuts!

The Inn seems to have been adopted by a mama cat and her litter and these semi-feral cuties keep close watch on the proceedings in the dining room. They lurked just outside on the deck through our whole dinner.

At least they were less menacing than the Captain back in our hotel room.

‘S Wanda-ful

We managed to get home safely that night, fall into a food coma and wake up actually hungry. I think it must be because Daylight Saving Time ended and we had that extra hour to digest. On the advice of the hotelier, we visited Wanda’s in Nehalem. There was quite a line out the door when we got there so we figured we must be in the right place.

We ordered a green chile omelet and eggs florentine. The omelet was of the fluffy, stuffed variety with plenty of cheese. It was nicely done, but the real star of that plate was the fruit salad. I don’t really think of fruit salad as being a knock out, but this one was. The eggs florentine was perfect, with the eggs poached perfectly. I’ve been complaining about bland hollandaise sauces lately, but not here. This was buttery, rich and flavorful.

Wanda’s was also the location of my favorite overheard conversation of the trip. A woman was looking over the movie listings with her friends and said, “Oh, we could see “The Darjeeling Limited,” that’s supposed to be good. It has those two brothers from “Dumb and Dumber.” I wonder who would be more surprised by that: the brothers Wilson or Jim Carey and Jeff Daniels…

The green chile omelet and (I never thought I’d use this phrase before) killer fruit salad.

Eggs Florentine

At long last, perfect hollandaise.

as you’re headed down Hwy 101, this is the sign you’re looking for.

Afterwards we attempted to walk off our last two meals on Manzanita’s beach, strolling for a couple of hours before deciding to retire to a cafe for a Scrabble throwdown. After the game (in which Chris beat me, 303 to 301!), I sulked back to the car, but to cheer me up, Chris drove us back to Ecola Seafood where we bought a sack full of fresh clams to cook for dinner. We got home and steamed them with garlic and white wine and because enough is never enough, I made some fries to go with it. Vive la mer!

Oh la la! Poulardes et frites!