BlatherMunch17: spring hill

Spring Hill
4437 California Avenue SW; Seattle

Spring Hill? It was a mine disaster, wasn't it? (I said it in that peculiar didactic way I have which turns everything into Trivial Pursuit, and makes normal people want to excuse themselves).

A British "progressive" school? I offered obliquely. The town in Oregon where Ken Kesey lived? I said cutely. A cheap, sweet wine favored by teenage girls? I persisted...

(None of the above guesses were anywhere near correct in the context of restaurants in Seattle, showing that my age and experience belies my surprisingly limited deductive skills, and dataset).

(photo: Chef Mark Fuller)

Turns out this sleek West Seattle restaurant is named after Spring Hill Pond, the euphemistic name for the swamp that once graced where The Junction of California & Alaska Streets which now defines the spiritual, if not retail center of West Seattle. Sitting there, we remembered where we were when a roughly dressed crowd inquired of the hostess, "Denny, party of 10?"

(We were glad to hear that the owners deliberately avoided giving the place a single word (or syllable) name as is the fashion these days in our fair city. You know: Lark, Crush, Pimp, Tilth, Fork, Frog, Flab, Crave, Slime;  Crust, Pork, etc).

Stirred from our summer solstice torpor by the smell of clams, we sat ourselves down at the deuce directly in front of the kitchen serving window plucking dishes out of the hands of passing waitroids.

Never suspecting they were totting up all these plates as we grabbed them, we went right for the sautéed Manila clams with spicy pork belly and lemon mayo; served with little crispy-on-the-outside grilled olive oil-soaked chunks of bread and plenty of juices to sop up with them, which we enthusiastically did.

We thought they were "chicken tenders" á la Mickey D's when we first spied them going by, but they turned out to be veal sweetbreads, those thymeless thymus glands fried all brown and crispy with little dishes of dipping sauces: an herbed crème fraîche; a coffee BBQ sauce we didn't like very much, and a fireweed honey mustard which we did.

The roasted beets were cold and overlapped in a line on a little rectangular sushi plate with salty-smoked hazelnut shrapnel scattered 'round; plus fresh basil and sweet bosc pear dice. (Our vaunted age and experience assure us that eating beets also keeps one regular -- another plus for beets and a point on the plus side of our much-maligned dataset).

A salad of butter lettuce leaves stacked one on another had mild breakfast radishes sliced thin into money layered in, all tangy with citronette, (lemon vinaigrette) and dusted with Parmigiano.

Couldn't help but snatch a duck egg yolk raviolo going by. The large yolk was poached just a little and refrigerated, we're told, before being wrapped in a delicate -- almost transparently thin -- pasta sheet, then boiled like a ravioli. Served with a green, fresh-tasting sauce (called freshly, "green sauce") and fragments of duck ham this was the hit of the night for me... (what a great idea: duck ham!).

(photo: Jesus god, the burger)

The burger sure looked good as well it shoulda at 15 bucks, but it was about 4 ft. high and packed with homemade bacon, special sauce and all that melty teleme on a sesame bun made of real bread. We might have passed it by, except it came with fries cooked in beef fat, a rare treat because it's a bane to Hindus and other picky or healthy folk these days.

And oh yeah, the thick patty came medium rare without you even asking.

A roasted duck breast, also medium rare came amid glazed thumb carrots and English peas (peas & carrots!). There was a golden quinoa biscuit. (yes, a quinoa biscuit, I said -- you know -- quinoa, the Inca cereal secret of long life? Called goosefoot where I'm from). Did I mention orange mustard? Wish I had, because all of this added up to a sweet & tangy, savory/roasty flavor range that hit all the buttons on our inner autoharps.

(photo: duck on a plate)

We couldn't pass up the big bowl of handmade tagliatelle with little green favas, cherry tomatoes, young onions, and way too many morels. (I later told the chef, "I love a man who's generous with his morels." He looked at me oddly --admirably suppressing an urge to plunge his bayonet thermometer deep into my breast. I was spared because he has better dining room manners than mine, and because we had not yet paid).

The light desert menu has many local cheeses which we quickly eschewed for the vanilla bean panecotta with fresh bing cherries and a pinot noir jam. It was an adult dessert but made me feel like a kid fighting over it with our spoons the way me and the Small Architect did.

(photo: panecotta -- more adult than we were).

Chef/owner Mark Fuller worked 7 years -- 6 of those as the head chef -- for Tom Douglas at the venerable Dahlia Lounge. His wife, Marjorie Chang Fuller who has an unrelated professional career of her own, does the expediting and is a constant presence on the floor. She remembers names, and engages customers in the ways so vital to neighborhood small restaurant success. (I don't remember anyone's name unless I'm in arm's reach of The Google yet get more than a little miffed when someone disremembers mine).

One of the great things Douglas and his executive chef Eric Tanaka have done for Seattle besides running 5 very-well run, tasty restaurants and introducing the greasy bag of donuts as a concept of haute cuisine is the many great chefs his joints have spun out over the years.

Mark Fuller is one of them, and the flavors and the professionalism of the place show it; we'll definitely be around to watch as he takes off from that firm grounding.

From the look of Spring Hill pumping the groceries on a couple of nights, it looks like the place is in for a good run despite it hasn't been reviewed yet by the print fooderati.

Comments

[wsb]

Who needs the print fooderati? We discussed Spring Hill extensively before and after its opening -- Chef Fuller was kind enough to answer questions for several WSB updates during the year and a half that elapsed between the time we caught first wind of their impending plan and the night htey opened. Over here in West Seattle, folks are food fanatics -- we report on someplace new (other recent arrivals include Zippy's Burgers or Full Tilt Ice Cream), the joint gets mobbed by folks looking for a new taste thrill. Next up, if you are interested, Cafe Revo in September (we just ran an indepth preview). We don't personally review restaurants (we leave that up to the readers) but we did check out Spring Hill a couple weeks after they opened - I agree WRT the duck. The dessert we tried was the "chocolate cake" (not typically cakey) that all our readers had raved about.

[sparky]

Some men scale mountains.
Some men jump out of planes or go wingwalking.
Some men ride motorcycles without helmets.

Our Bla'M? He eats undercooked eggs and hamburger and fries cooked in beef grease!! What a guy!!

Sounds like an interesting place, Michael. I am always amazed at the combinations of food that they come up with...beets with pears would never occur to me.

It mostly sounded good...I won't eat veal, though. I know how those calves are raised. :(

[Joanie]

Ditto on the veal, Sparky. My mom was raised on a Montana ranch and even she never ate the veal.

Almost had me on the beets,too, but after a moment or two my natural anti-beet genes re-took control and even with Bosch pears said no.

Everything else sounds wonderful.

How do you eat a 4' $15 hamburger? And the bill came to ...?

I can see how the wta has become the sa. Just kidding, wta! These fifteen course meals must be taking their toll...

Wonderful writing as usual.

[joanie]

I wonder who it is that trains these chefs: Tom or Eric. Are these chefs that come out of Douglas' kitchens the beneficiaries of his expertise or Eric's?

I have never been to a Tom Douglas eatery. I think I must have missed something good. Shall remedy that asap. I did watch him on Iron Chef and I was given one of his seafood books. And I have listened to his show. Seems like an ordinary sort of guy. I like that.

[howie in seattle]

Man, am I a foodie-moron or what. I live in West Seattle and didn't even know about this place.

[howie in seattle]

Man, am I a foodie-moron or what. I live in West Seattle and didn't even know about this place.

[howie in seattle]

Man, am I a foodie-moron or what. I live in West Seattle and didn't even know about this place.

[howie in seattle]

Man, am I a foodie-moron or what. I live in West Seattle and didn't even know about this place.