I surprised Heidi by taking her up to Lummi Island on Saturday. We had heard great things about the Willows Inn and I wanted to have a special treat for Heidi on our anniversary.  After a nice couple of our with my parents and dropping Lulu off, we made it to the little, tiny ferry.

The weather was beautiful and we walked up to the restaurant to sit on the deck for a drink and we came upon our friends Liz and Chris. Liz’s parents have a place on Lummi and we were fortunate enough to have a drink with them. It was great catching up with them. Turns out that Liz has a new company in Seattle. You should check it out!

http://www.eatseattletours.com

The drinks were excellent, as were the appetizer courses.  This was a vermouth infused with nettle and hibiscus, local of course.  All ingredients at the Willows Inn were local and all drinks were from Washington state.

The dried kale with truffle looked odd, but had an incredible flavor.

The grilled mushrooms were almost as good as steak!

Okay. Cod filled beignets were interesting and tasty!

And the local oysters finished off the appetizers. Yeah, those were just the appetizers. The sun was just starting to go down, the atmosphere was perfect and we were really just starting to realize how special this place was.

The local dry cider was the first of the wine pairing, which we actually decided to decline since I was driving. If we had elected to stay at one of the cabins, we definitely would have taken advantage of the pairing.

This tiny salad was comprised of all local pickings from the yard, including the nettle dressing.

The best dish of the night was the salmon. I’ve eaten A LOT of salmon in my life, as my dad was a charter fisherman at Neah Bay and Westport. He’s also a fishing fiend, so I’ve eaten salmon. This was the best I’ve ever had (sorry dad). They smoked it from 3 am to 5 pm, then lightly sugar glazed. Wow. They even brought us a second portion each after we gushed about it obsessively.

Here is the night’s dinner menu. As you can see, it was pretty unbelievable. At one point we just forgot to keep taking photos of the food and started enjoying it. We also had one of the best discussions about our relationship. I think we were both feeling really, really good about everything.

We left feeling full, but not stuffed. The night had been perfect and we will definitely be coming back again some day.