Posts tagged “Marrow”

The end of Summer 2012 has been a rather unusual one for me in that it involved a high number of outings. Especially weekend outings. I actually missed some Fools Play to do some of these. Here, very briefly, are all that I can remember:

Portland, about which I wrote extensively already.

“Mystery Day Trip,” about which I am going to write extensively soon (stay tuned).

Camping: Yes, I went camping. We went to Millersylvania State Park, which is just South of Olympia. We went there in large part so that I could sneak away Saturday night and perform Fools Play, then sneak back afterwards and continue the camping. I really enjoy the “sitting around the campfire” and “hanging out with 8 or 9 friends all day” parts of camping. Including some rather amusing obstacle-riddled croquet. I don’t so much enjoy the “sleeping in a tent” part of camping.

Marrow: For our 8th wedding anniverserary, Carrie & I went back to Marrow for the first time this year. They were offering a special three-course menu, so we opted for that and also threw in a couple extra courses. Here’s all what we had:

1. Wild mushroom and sorrel salad. Very tasty.
2. Salmon belly tartare covered with fish roe on an amazing dill cream cheese sauce, and served with crispy wonton shaped like a cornucopia, out of which the chunks of raw salmon were pouring. The play of all the textures was outstanding, and the flavors all really went well together.
3. Chicken fried sweetbreads, which were like smooth and buttery chicken nuggets.
4. Oxtail, which is rapidly becoming one of my favorite meats, especially the ways they prepare it at Marrow.
5. A boiling hot pear & gorgonzola tart. The pungent/sweet/salty combination worked really well, once the thing cooled down enough to actually touch it.

Marrow is good.

Birthdays: My sister and her stepdaughter both had birthdays within about a month of each other.

Apple Day: Carrie & I returned to the childhood home of Marvel’s X-men’s female clone of Wolverine (X-23) for our 6th annual Apple Day, wherein we crushed apples into fresh apple cider with the help of an apple press, and had a potluck dinner wherein we ate too much delicious food.

Cabin & Leavenworth: Carrie & I (& Suki) once again rented our favorite cabin up on the Skykomish river and introduced her parents to it. After we checked out we continued over the mountain to hang out in Leavenworth for a while. It was kinda hazy because of all the wildfires on that side of the mountain, and indeed we had to go back up and through Highway 2 to get home because the normal way we would have gotten home (down Highway 97 to Cle Elum then back via I-90) was so smoky that it was not a viable alternative.

Pancake Party: Just yesterday we went to an almost-all-day Pancake Party at the Skylark. More on that soon as well…

Um, I think that’s about it. There were also various trips to Pint Defiance and one to the Parkway Tavern. This post was meant more to help me remember everything than it was meant to be entertaining.

Last Friday Carrie & I went out to dinner at the brand-new restaurant that opened up on 6th Avenue here in Tacoma: Marrow.

It’s a genre of food that hasn’t really existed in Tacoma before: haute cuisine. But, you know, really good. And not expensive; the priciest thing on the menu is $23 duck (we didn’t have that).

Here’s the premise: the menu has two halves, “Arrow” (which has only vegetarian dishes) and “Marrow” (which has meat-based dishes specializing in “under-appreciated” meats). You’re free to mix-and-match between them, of course. But Carrie & I ended up ordering exclusively from the Marrow side just ’cause it looked so durned good to us.

Here’s what all we had:

DAUPHINE POTATO DOUGHNUTS, BACON BEER DIP

Mashed potatoes that had been piped(!) into a ring, then deep-fried, served piping hot with a creamy sauce. So frikkin’ good.

SOUP OF THE DAY: BROCCOLI

Shockingly light and flavorful, with a good amount of spicy heat, but too heavy on salt for me.

ESCARGOT, BACON, BASIL BUTTER, POTATO BREAD

Pre-shelled snails languishing in a bowl of basil/garlic butter with enormous and thick chunks of bacon in it. Wow. Tender and delicious. The bread helps to sop up the juice.

BONE MARROW, OXTAIL, POTATO BREAD

I’d never had a bone marrow dish before. It’s basically meat butter; you spread it on the bread and eat it. I’m not usually a fan of meat fat, but this was much creamier than that squeaky & wobbly texture that tends to upset me. It was also nicely seasoned. The oxtail, though, was probably my favorite thing of the evening. It had been braised in something delicious and was ungodly juicy and tender.

We also had some cocktails, all of which are named after women. I don’t remember what mine were named, but one of them had ginger vodka and lime and coconut and something else tropical I can’t remember. The other one had rye bourbon and candied ginger on a skewer and some other things that were a little overpowered by the very good bourbon. Carrie had one that had tequila and blood orange juice, and I don’t remember her second one. But they were all very good.

So, in conclusion: Is good.

It’s interesting to have a place like this in Tacoma. It’s not that Tacoma has crappy food. In fact it has some of the best restaurants, but they all specialize in standard genre fare; we have the best hot dog restaurant, the best Indian restaurant, the best sandwiches and deli sammitches, the best tavern. And though we do have some fancier restaurants, none of them really do the unusual foods that are Marrow’s bread-and-butter.

Photo ripped from Marrow's Facebook page, used without permission (shhhh—don't tell)