Bookwalter Brunch - The Best Way to Start Your Day and Shut It Down Before 2:30

- Brian Mark Griffin

I worked at Bookwalter for a year or so. In hindsight, it was the most consequential job that I have ever had. It was where I met the people that facilitated my transition into a career in real estate, for better or worse. It is where I met Ginger, which has given me the opportunity to explore the Tri-Cities with a purpose, and given me a platform to share my thoughts with you right now. I made a few friends that I still have the honor to see regularly.

Bookwalter is also where I developed a taste for wine. This development made waves in my transition into the life of an independent contractor. It gave me an excellent way to connect with clients and associates by discussing our booming wine industry. It gave me an understanding of the way that different varietals pair with certain types of foods. But perhaps most importantly, it gave me the new hobby of fighting alcoholism in a new and exciting way. I’m writing this in a coffee shop at noon because there is a bottle on my counter at home right now. What am I supposed to do? Ignore it?

I have long felt that Bookwalter was home to some of the finest food in town. Hands down, my favorite meal that I have ever had here was a spring evening out on the patio with a flat iron steak with garlic whipped potatoes and chimichurri. I still stop in from time to time to have a wedge salad, partly because it is delicious, and partly because of the way that it is constructed. They take a head of romaine, and stand it up in a pool of buttermilk blue cheese dressing with some bacon and tomatoes and chimichurri. I love a good salad presented in a different way, because they leave some of the work to you. And that really makes you feel like you earned it.

Another thing that I love about Bookwalter is that the wine gets you where you’re going a little bit faster than just about anywhere else. If you need to lose a Tuesday, this is your place. After a couple of glasses, I can feel myself descending into the rabbit hole, and single handedly keep Uber in business. I can think of no better way to live large and cut your Sunday short than with brunch and some wine on the back patio at Bookwalter.

Because we skipped church, we started with some donut holes. You have a choice of cinnamon-sugar and honey, or maple glazed with bacon. Or, you can be like us and get both. I think that guilt set in midway through, and we started passing them around the restaurant like we were feeding the multitude on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. It was Sunday after all.

Because of my affinity for all things hash (not that kind of hash) I had to order the Duck Confit Hash. I have only had duck a couple of other times in my life, and they were all at Bookwalter. There is something about putting duck in a dish that always makes me feel like the dish was designed by Mad Libs. The other dish I had was lavender duck, which sounded like a cartoon character, but that cartoon was delicious. I would like to see Sassy Duck, with his partner Cabbage. Cabbage would be a teenaged vegetable that while immature, grounds Sassy Duck with his youthful exuberance while they travel the world fighting food based crime.

Anyway, the hash was pretty good.

Ginger ordered the Red Mountain Eggs Benedict. I know that’s not their name, but I refuse to use the word Benny unless it is followed by “and the Jets.” Everywhere we go, Ginger finds the Eggs Benedict, and these were excellent. We had a brief discussion with Justin Webb about a pulled pork eggs benedict that Ginger and I both loved at Hill’s a year or two back. It was your standard eggs benedict, but with a pulled pork and barbecue sauce that was a phenomenal pairing with the hollandaise, and I would love to be able to go somewhere to get that again. Hill’s closed in 2016 after a fire, and it would be an excellent tribute to another Tri-Cities institution to include it on the menu at a place like Bookwalter. Right Justin? ...Right?

We also checked out the Huevos Rancheros, with a fried tortilla topped with potatoes, chorizo and two eggs over easy with an excellent pico de gallo. They were excellent, and truly a breakfast staple with a quality that you would expect from Bookwalter.

What I truly loved was the Hangover Burger that Zac Mason ordered. Zac and I have had our disagreements, in the past. In all honesty, I can’t remember what the problem was, but on this Sunday, we broke burgers and patched it all up. And breaking this burger unleashes a golden yolky goodness upon the Wagyu patty and ham. If you haven’t tried it before, there is nothing like egg on a burger, and I have never had a better one than this one. Ask them to throw a hash brown on it too. And then don’t eat again for the rest of the day.

We didn’t have any wine that morning. I had things to do for which I needed to be coherent. Though, I can’t imagine a better way to spend a summer afternoon with friends than there, having breakfast for lunch with a bottle of Couplet or some Bloody Mary’s.

By the way, Uber is available for download on iTunes and the Google Play store. You will need that.

Oh, also I’m a real estate agent. Real estate doesn’t have to be as expensive as it is. Check out my website at www.homeandharbor.net or shoot me an email at briangriffin@kw.com

Proof - More than a concept

Florida is weird, but we could learn a lot from them. Hear me out.

I spent my Christmas vacation in the Orlando area visiting some family. With the sea of humanity that poured into Disney World for Christmas, we spent a little more time than we usually do exploring the suburbs and neighboring cities. We took a quick trip to Tampa, and we were greeted by the most enormous confederate flag that I have ever seen in my life. Now, think what you will about that flag, but in retrospect, it did us a favor. It was a great indicator of what we would find if we were unfortunate enough to need to stop for gas. Denim shorts with matching vests come to mind. People drinking out of paper bags while sitting on  washing machines in their yard, considering all of the different ways that they could blur their family lines.

Florida is weird, but we could learn a lot from them. Hear me out.

My family likes food and beer. We live all over the country, and sharing recipes and discussing local beer gives us a common thread to keep us together on social media. My brother took us to a couple of excellent breweries while we were down there, but the one that stuck in my mind was Crooked Can. He brought us there through what he described as a retirement community where residents got around in golf carts. And by got around, I mean that they had different colored hair scrunchies fastened to their golf carts to announce what “different adult activities they were into.” The brewery itself is located in an open air facility shared with a coffee roastery, an oxygen bar, a sushi restaurant, and whatever else they could pack into it. It was incredible. I sat there wondering what this facility would look like back at home. What local businesses could benefit from this sort of co-op environment?

We also went to a barbecue restaurant called Yellow Dog. It is essentially a shack run by a beach bum named Fish. The line wrapped around the place like a sleepy snake digesting one of Fish’s ridiculous sandwiches. It was remarkable.

Florida weird. Learn lot. Hear me out.

What is the reason that we don’t have that here? Imagine restaurants and shopping centers along the banks of the Columbia river with bike paths and boat docks with kayaks for rent. Imagine diverting the water on the east end of Columbia Park and connecting it four miles away at the west end to create a man made river to have a beer and float the river with your friends. Imagine a place where you can sit out on a third story balcony and have a great meal and a cocktail overlooking the lights on Columbia Center Boulevard.

Hang on. You can do that one tonight.

I have been waiting for this place. Not just the environment that it provides, but I have literally been waiting for this building specifically. I worked at Fire for a year or so, and I remember looking across the parking lot at this building and wondering what would be on the top floor. I remember climbing the staircase when the building still under construction and looking out toward the river and hoping that it would be something like what it has become. That was in 2013 or 2014. I have driven by it countless times, and seen businesses move in to the lower floors while the top floor remained vacant, save for the wishful thinking of those like me. So we waited. And it was worth it.

We have entered a new era. You can now step out of an elevator, sit down in a black leather booth and order some crab cakes and clams. And that’s exactly where we started. The dungeness crab cakes are served on a red pepper sauce and topped with a basil aioli, and the clams are sauteed with garlic, lemongrass and ginger, and finished with butter and white wine. They are both excellent if that is what you are after, but I found myself in a high end pub food kind of mood.

I highly recommend the sweet and spicy pork nachos. It is tough to mess up nachos, and Proof certainly hasn’t. I am a huge fan of shredded pork, and whenever I have a dish of it in front of me, I taste the pork alone first. My initial reaction was that it was slightly under seasoned, but there is a lot of flavor going on in the rest of the ingredients . The tomatillo crema is an excellent choice for topping the nachos and paired perfectly with the pork, though this would be a very good vegetarian choice as well.

Speaking of vegetarians, if you are one, don’t order the skirt steak. I don’t want you to accidentally taste it and have a conflict arise. Stick to your guns. You are not an animal anymore. You have chosen to remove yourself from the food chain, and I commend you for that. In all honesty, I think that you are making the right decision. You don’t need this deliciously tender cut of meat awakening anything deep within you, though you do need to find something else to top with the chimichurri. It is a different take on the chimichurri that I love, with more of a minced texture rather than a puree. It would pair excellently with the fish and chips.

Wait, you can’t eat that either. Damn.

At a certain point, I found myself distracted by the atmosphere in the best way. The table also sampled the Reuben and the chili spiced prawns, and the Reuben was one of the better sandwiches that I have had here. I don’t want to diminish the food, because everything was truly solid. What really moved me, though, was the atmosphere. It feels transformative. After the sun sets, it feels like our own little slice of Seattle or Portland. You know, where the cool people live with their monocles and unicycles or whatever.

I promise you that I will be out on that patio every chance that I get this spring and all the way through the fall, sipping on a glass of WhistlePig. Proof is more than just a cool new restaurant or bar.  It is a revelation that we desperately need.

Brian Mark Griffin

I am a real estate agent. Selling your home doesn’t have to be as expensive as it is right now. Give me a call at 509-551-4141, or check out my website at homeandharbor.net. Happy New Year everybody.