Breakfast at Salish

I don’t know if the place was called Salish when Tom told me about the gourmet breakfast buffet laden with scrumptious fare and honey poured from six feet high. We were still in debt from student loans at the time of our marriage and even went back to school after marriage, so it was understandable that he did not take me to the buffet before we moved out of Washington State, but it didn’t occur to me that he still had not taken me to the buffet ever since.

During a daytrip to Orcas Island with my father-in-law Bill, while we were enjoying a nice breakfast at the Rosario resort, the idea of breakfast at Salish was materialized. We were having so much fun in Orcas Island that we began to plan another daytrip together. I suggested Snoqualmie Falls – not because of Salish, I didn’t even know about Salish – mainly because I wanted to learn how to take good pictures of waterfalls with my new camera. I started a new hobby of photography a few months back. I suppose I can call it a hobby, since I did spend a few hundred dollars on a new and bigger camera - even if I refused to spend north of ten hundreds, would not travel with more than a fixed lens, and had not participated in all of the photography class field trips. Snoqualmie Falls triggered Tom’s memory of the breakfast he had there for his confirmation. That’s when I realized that Tom had never treated me to the iconic breakfast he told me about. I felt it was time I have the simple pleasure of experiencing something I’d only known about for so long. But neither Bill nor Tom had been back to the lodge at the Snoqualmie Falls in a long time, and they could not be sure if the lodge still serves the same kind of breakfast. Bill decided that they no longer do. But going to Snoqualmie Falls for breakfast and to enjoy the view is something we all agreed would be a fun thing to do together.

Unlike the Orcas Island trip when we had to get up so early to catch the ferry, we took it easy the next morning. We had the routine of putting the wheelchair and accessories into the half-open car trunk down pretty well. Away we went with Tom at the driver’s seat and Bill, serving as the navigating consultant, next to him.

Snoqualmie greeted us in soft rain and light fog and colorful flowers of every kind. We parked at the lot a wooden bridge away from the lodge. After traversing the bridge, we could either veer to the left to enter the lodge or to the right to take the pathway bordered with spring flowers to the viewing deck of the upper falls. We came with breakfast as our main mission, and took the left turn.

While waiting to be seated, I had a narrow and straight-ahead view of the dining room, which leads to a large glass window looking to the outside. It looked so romantic, more so with the diffused sunlight in the fog and rain. The table at the window was empty and inviting. I thought of taking a picture of it. And when we happened to be seated at that very table, I took a picture of it, no longer empty, but with my favorite people in it. The window gave us a clear view of the falls, which was full and alluring. How sumptuous. The menu offers a “classic country breakfast” that may be similar to the buffet Tom described to me, with fresh pastries, pancakes, oats, eggs, bacon, ham, sausage, hashed potatoes, coffee, tea, and juice. But none of us was into consuming that much food. Since I don’t get Dungeness crab where I live, I went for the Dungeness crab eggs benedict. Bill did the same. Tom went for the honey and buttermilk pancakes. Did he secretly want the “honey from heaven” service, which was not advertised on the breakfast menu? It turned out they still have the service, which is advertised on their website and which we didn’t know we’d have until it was delivered, where “honey from our hives is poured from high above your plate onto buttery house-made biscuits.” And we didn’t have to order biscuits for it. The biscuits and honey were complimentary. When I mentioned to the waitress that I had to wait for forty years to experience honey from heaven, she told us that her grandmother used to perform the task of pouring honey forty years ago and she had to climb a ladder to do it! Now that was fun.

The food was certainly delicious, but the coffee was out of this world. I’d never had coffee so good that I finished the first cup and refills in quick succession. Tom was impressed with the array of condiments for coffee that includes things like sugar, whipped cream, half-and-half, and shaved chocolate. I was a bit greedy with the shaved chocolate and whipped cream for my first cup, but decided to keep my coffee black when my cup got refilled afterwards. Aah – next time when we go to Snoqualmie Falls, I’ll have to stop in for a cup of coffee.

What a sweet and romantic man my father-in-law is. He shared that although Salish is more impressive than Rosario, he has a soft spot for Rosario and prefers it because he and his wife had spent a night there. But that didn’t mean we didn’t relish our breakfast at Salish. I was so glad I suggested Snoqualmie Falls and without planning it, got to have breakfast with the iconic honey from heaven with Bill and Tom. Bill and I kept having our coffee refilled until we couldn’t drink anymore. I was satisfied. Although I did not have the classic country breakfast, I felt that “Tom has taken me to breakfast at Snoqualmie Falls” is something I can put a check mark next to.

After breakfast we perused the gift shop and walked to the viewing deck. I returned to the lodge to retrieve my cell phone which was accidently left in the women’s room. No need to panic. I claimed it at the lost-and-found. Since I was back at the lodge anyway, I went back into the gift shop and got myself a souvenir scarf I was eyeing earlier.

Before we returned home, we took the lower falls trail, but couldn’t get the wheelchair up and down the many wooden stairs; so Bill sat at the viewing platform of the pipeline to the power station below and let us run to the lower falls viewing deck to snap pictures.

It was another “successful” daytrip, meaning we were happy and content to be in each other’s company, to have had a fabulous breakfast, to be in the luxurious outdoors, and to see the beauty that the Pacific Northwest has to offer. Rosario may be more special to my father-in-law, but the place from which I have a tangible thing to hold on to is Salish of Snoqualmie Falls.