Thirty-five And Counting

It's hard to believe that I have been married for 35 years.  Most days it's hard to believe that I am more than 35 years old. However, the mirror and my intermittently creaky knees betray me. Anyway...we went out to dinner to celebrate. Our two favorite local "nicer" restaurants (Moses Point and Pillar Rock) are closed on Mondays so we decided to go for atmosphere and went to Don's in Soap Lake.  Don's is, shall I say, eclectic. It is down home country cookin' with Greek food on Fridays.  It has been in Soap Lake for 30 years and the owner was Greek. He passed away so his wife, or at least his family, still runs the restaurant. We have been there for the Greek food from time to time and we really like it. I hear that the steak is really good but since neither Dave nor I are big steak eaters, we went with the down home cookin this time. (They also have good local trout, which I have had and will opt for the next time we are there not on Greek night)  Before I get to the meal, I'll share the atmosphere.

The Western theme gives no hint of Greek Friday. The front door is hand carved. After going through a short hallway there is an inner door with a deer antler for a door pull. Dave usually opens doors for me, but in this case I insist. 

Once inside, our hostess/server, a very cheerful woman of approximately 70 years old, asked if we would like to sit by the fireplace. Of course we said yes, but this was a bit of a marketing tool because the fireplace is also next to the kitchen. Still, being by the fireplace was great because the portrait over the fireplace made it feel like we had a celebrity dining companion. 

The special of the night was chicken and dumplings, salad and dessert for $9.99. The price was certainly attractive so we also splurged on an appetizer.  We ordered deep fried pickle chips.  It's kind of funny that neither of us had ever had chicken and dumplings. What was even more funny to me was that Dave HAD eaten deep fried pickle chips before. 

The pickle chips were surprisingly not horrible. The cake was yummy. It was homemade and the cream was real cream, freshly whipped.   The salad was a cucumber and tomato salad with a house dressing. It was fine, just typical. The chicken and dumplings were not so good. The dumplings were heavy, kind of glue like and tasted strongly of baking soda. The gravy was ok, probably based on Campbell's soup, and the chicken was fine..tasted like chicken. I have heard people rave about chicken and dumplings so I will have to have one of those people cook it for me sometime.  Still we had a great time.

 Here is a parting photo. It is a photo of the original (deceased) owner lassoing a sword fish.         

 If that isn't Greek-Western fusion, I don't know what is.