Food & Cooking

Cooking, baking, recipes and what's worth eating, with the kitchen notes that make it work.

Food & Cooking

O-M-Cheese, and a Water Hole That Isn't Anymore

The new O-M-Cheese Burger at the Applebee's on Mill Plain in Vancouver, Washington, earns its name — melted into a skillet of queso, it's one of the best cheeseburgers I've had in a while. The room around it has had a harder time; the old bar that used to be the neighborhood's actual water hole isn'

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Food & Cooking

Twenty-Four Secrets in a Bottle, at La Provence

A French bakery on Mill Plain with a line out the door, a mezzanine, and a bottle of house sauce said to hold twenty-four ingredients. I ordered the salmon Benedict, which was very good, and spent the rest of the meal quietly wishing I had ordered the ham one.

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Food & Cooking

Mad Love and a Seattle Corner, at Red Robin

A national chain in an East Vancouver strip is precisely what a travel notebook is supposed to skip. Except this one started at a corner in Seattle, there is a photograph of that corner hanging in the lobby, and the MadLove is one of the best burgers I have eaten anywhere.

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Food & Cooking

Fully Involved, at Firehouse Subs

A New York Steamer ordered "fully involved," a hot sauce bar named after the founders' own father, and the case for why a sandwich chain's branding can be this good and its app can still be this bad.

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Food & Cooking

The Sandy Sauce at Cactus Ya Ya

A steak yaya roll and a fried fish taco to close out a Sunday food crawl at a Vancouver institution I've been driving twenty-five minutes to for years — and a case for why the happy hour burger, with a little-known sauce most people never ask about, might be the better order.

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Food & Cooking

The Egg Coffee at Trung Nguyên Legend

A tray, a bowl of hot water underneath to keep it warm, and a whipped egg-yolk foam dusted with cocoa — Vietnam's answer to tiramisu in a cup, plus a whole rotating board of specialty drinks worth its own second visit.

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Food & Cooking

The Trick with the Peppers, at In-N-Out

A brand-new location on SE 3rd Way, a Double-Double taken apart and rebuilt with pickle brine and pepper juice, and an argument for why nothing else in fast food beats In-N-Out on the ratio that actually matters.

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Food & Cooking

The Chashu at Ramen Ryoma

Three slices of pork in a Hokkaido miso broth, in a strip-mall shop behind a Japanese grocery in Beaverton — and the best bowl of ramen I have eaten on this coast.

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