Door County restaurants

K and I left for Door County on Thursday, May 29. We kind of ambled along the way, so we got to the Square Rigger in Jacksonport just in time for the 5:30 fish boil. K said she's been told that the Square Rigger has one of the best fish boils on the peninsula. Not having tasted any of the others, I can't say, but it does compare favorably to the fish boils I've had on the other side of the state in Bayfield. They make a nice little show out of the boilover, with a little historical commentary.



Friday morning we headed up to Bailey's Harbor for breakfast at the Harbor Fish Market & Grill. I can highly recommend the Tower of Power, eggs benedict with walleye cakes standing in for the Canadian bacon.



We took the ferry over to Washington Island and meandered around for awhile. We hadn't planned to have lunch, wanting to save room for dinner, but found ourselves getting a little hungry around 1:30. We were passing the Farm Museum when K said, "Wait! What's that?" Fiddler's Rest turned out to be a charming little shabby-chic coffee shop/cafe with comfy couches and a big, friendly Black Lab welcoming visitors. We had a very tasty roasted red pepper and tomato bisque with homemade bread and hummus with pita bread. We stopped in at the Washington Hotel to check out their gift shop and picked up a schedule of the culinary classes that they offer. I'm sure it's not an inexpensive place to stay, but it's definitely on my list for someday!


We met a friend of K's for dinner. She works at the Sturgeon Bay Public Library and asked her colleagues there for suggestions. We ended up going to Florian II in Bailey's Harbor, which was a blast from the past. It reminded me of any number of places we used to eat when I was a kid -- standard Wisconsin supper club decor and menu. However, the food was quite good. I had a salmon filet stuffed with shrimp that was very tasty.



Breakfast Saturday morning was at the White Gull Inn, where I overdid breakfast by eating both cherry coffeecake and cherry-stuffed french toast. It was so good that it was hard to stop!



We skipped lunch on Saturday but stoked ourselves for dinner by checking out the posted menus at the restaurants on our list. We stopped at the Mission Grill (http://www.missiongrille.com/) and the Inn at Kristopher's (http://www.innatkristofers.com/), both in Sister Bay, but ended up deciding to eat at T. Ashwell's (https://www.tashwells.com/) in Ellison Bay. The restaurant is in an old house with beautiful woodwork and hardwood floors. No tablecloths (M always wants to know), but very elegant. We began by sharing a morel mushroom and asparagus vol au vent, which was heavenly. I was a little disappointed by my main course, which was halibut over whole wheat pasta with a lobster reduction sauce. The halibut was a little underseasoned and I really couldn't taste lobster in the pasta. K was happy with her filet mignon, though. After consumering a chocolate flourless torte topped with vanilla ice cream for dessert, though, I decided that I would go back to T. Ashwell's again.



Sunday morning we went back to Sister Bay again to have breakfast at the Sister Bay Cafe. This has all the same Scandinavian heritage treats as Al Johnson's across the street, but there are no goats on the roof and, at least when we were there, no crowds waiting to be seated. Strangely enough, K and I had just had a conversation about waffles, and I said that I didn't own a waffle iron and wasn't all that crazy about waffles. However, the cafe had Norwegian heart waffles and I wasn't in the mood for eggs, so I tried them. You could order them plain with maple syrup or with strawberries and whipped cream, but the waitress confessed that the strawberries weren't fresh, so I stuck with the plain ones. They were very tasty and I'd order them again, although I still don't think I want to buy a waffle iron for my kitchen.

Let's get started

Just a quick post to get things started.

We are a group of friends and colleagues who enjoy fine dining, a nice glass of wine and a fabulous dessert.

We want to share our experiences at local and sometimes not-so-local restaurants.