Friday Harbor

When John heard that we were going to the San Juan Islands, he told us that we should definitely visit Friday Harbor. So we took the ferry over to Friday Harbor from Orcas Island one morning, looked around, had lunch, and returned.

We had been doing a lot of serious eating, so we were not in the mood for a big meal. We picked Downriggers Restaurant for lunch because it was right on the harbor edge with a good view. We were told that all the tables on the deck outside were taken, but we could sit inside and look out the window. That was fine with us because neither of us likes to sit in the sun.

We each ordered a salad. I ordered a "Blackened Salmon Cobb". While we were waiting, I reflected on how you can never get a real Cobb salad any more (as invented by the Brown Derby Restaurant in Hollywood) with all the ingredients chopped and blended before it is brought to the table. When it arrived it was as I suspected: a pile of lettuce topped with some chunks of grilled salmon, a sliced avocado, a sliced hard boiled egg, and a handful of bacon bits. I tasted some of the salmon. It was as good as salmon ever gets. I tried some of the lettuce. It was fantastic - very fresh, tender and flavorful. When I mixed the salad I found that the proportions of all the ingredients were perfect. I could not identify the clear dressing, but I think that it was similar to the original dressing at the Brown Derby. They called it a Chili Lime Vinaigrette. It harmonized but did not intrude.

Amazing. We walked into a rather plain looking restaurant that we knew nothing about and I had the best Cobb Salad in forty years. It was even better than the version served at Charlie Brown's in Marina Del Ray, California in around 1965.