I am a bit behind on the blog (as usual!) with several posts planned but not yet written. We've just returned from a fun side trip to Moscow -- Idaho, that is -- but that will have to wait for a later post. In the meantime, I realized I wanted to write a short post on a dinner we had in downtown Walla Walla before the trip to Moscow. Since arriving here in July, we've preferred to cook and eat at our vacation rental (that has a very nice kitchen) since we ate out so much during our cross-country travel in the month of June. But on this night, we finally ventured out for a bite. But not in our car, nor on our bicycles -- we took the local bus again, which is free for the entire summer here. Can't beat that deal! It was a beautiful evening to be downtown, and the Thursday night farmer's market was in full swing. I was in the mood for pizza, so we decided to try Sweet Basil Pizzeria. The restaurant wasn't exactly what I expected. I thought it would be a sit-down place where servers came to your table to take your order. Nope. Here, you order at a counter, one place for pizza, salad, and other foodstuffs, then farther down the counter, you order beverages and pay. A lot of the pizzas are sold by the slice. You can order a full pie (small or large) or slices of pizzas that are already made, which you can take a look at in a case. We split the difference: I ordered two slices and a salad, and Barry ordered a small pie and a salad. We also got a small pitcher of Sierra Nevada "Summerfest" lager, which really hit the spot on a hot night. You take your beverages, find a table, put your number on it, and when your food is ready, servers bring it out to you. The dining room was kind of noisy and lacked atmosphere, and normally we would have sat outside, but it the outside tables faced west, and in the hot, late afternoon sunshine of August, were not too appealing. If it had been a bit cooler, we would have chosen a table outdoors if we could have gotten one -- there were only a few. The food ended up being really good. I tried the potato pizza with bacon, cheddar, and scallions. The slices were served on paper plates. It's definitely casual dining here, but that was fine. Barry went for the small (10") Greek pie with spinach, olives, and feta. He loves olives and I don't, so this was his opportunity to get his fill. And he ate every bit of it, much to my surprise. It wasn't that small -- I would have been good for half of one this size, no more. After eating, we stopped in at our farmer friend Jennifer's Miles Away Farm stand at the farmer's market, which was going on right outside the pizzeria, and chatted with her for a few minutes. But then it was time for dessert, and of course we couldn't resist taking a short walk over to the wonderful Colville Street Patisserie, which we'd loved so much on a previous visit to downtown (blog post here). This time we each went with one of their BIG cookies (looks like they're baked in a round biscuit cutter mold) and a scoop of the lovely gelato. Yum! I went with a double peanut combo (peanut butter gelato and cookie), and Barry tried the chocolate peppermint gelato and an oatmeal raisin cookie. In the interest of full disclosure, I brought most of my cookie home for our bike ride the next day. Yes, I was FULL. After completely stuffing ourselves, we strolled back to the bus stop and caught our bus back. While we were waiting, the "golden hour" sunlight was hitting this building across from the bus terminal so nicely -- a fitting ending to a lovely evening. Stay tuned for posts from our fun side trip to Moscow, Idaho -- what a great time we had!
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Emily & BarryWe're a long-married, early-retired couple who are currently traveling as nomads with no fixed home base. After years of living in North Carolina (Emily's home state), we spent 18 months living oceanfront on Ambergris Caye, Belize, a year road-tripping the US in a Honda CR-V, a year in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, and are now roaming North America in our 32' motorhome, Pearl, following warm weather whenever possible. Archives
July 2019
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