Latah Lounge

Another victim to the rising food costs is Hershey’s chocolate. Shouldn’t you actually have chocolate in your kiss? It is costly to produce chocolate the old school way using real cocoa butter from the real cocoa plant.

But who cares right?
Thankfully the FDA is requiring the new version to be called Chocolate Candy which is code for chocolate-flavored confection, or candy that contains chocolate but can’t be called chocolate because it has other stuff in it that’s not permitted by the FDA definitions (like more oil than actual chocolate).

The new ingredients: Sugar, vegetable oil (palm, shea, sunflower and/or safflower oil), chocolate, nonfat milk, whey, cocoa butter, milk fat, gum arabic, soy lecithin, artificial colors (red 40, yellow 5, blue 2, blue 1, yellow 6), corn syrup, resinous glaze, salt, carnauba wax, pgpr and vanillin.

The old ingredients:Milk chocolate (sugar, cocoa butter, chocolate, nonfat milk, milk fat, lactose, soy lecithin, PGPR & artificial flavors), sugar, red 40, yellow 5, yellow 6, blue 1 & carnauba wax.

Not all Hershey’s products are making this change so check the ingredients. Good chocolate ingredients should look like this:

“cocoa, sugar, pure cocoa butter, lecithin”, that’s all.
We have a huge selection of high quality real chocolate to choose from if you are interested.
Hugs and

This is a picture of Patty’s 60th Birthday party at our restaurant last Sunday. Fritz (her husband) planned this event and I was surprised at the size of their family. We love nights like this where big groups gather to enjoy an evening together. Needless to say, everyone had a great time. Thanks Fritz and Patty.

Here is the Wednesday night music schedule for October 2008

Every Wednesday night 6:30 - 9pm…

Oct 1 Gary Burris

Oct 8 Kalliope (Heather, Dave, Bob)

Oct 15 Gary Burris

Oct 22 Kalliope

Sweetcorn is so sweet. It never ceases to amaze me how good sweetcorn can be in the fall. It sneaks up on me and surprises me with its sweetness. Currently we have corn pudding and corn chowder as specials. Once again the chefs have outdone themselves with simplicity and style. Don’t underestimate the delicious fall corn. Sweet.

This Wednesday (9/24)we are back! Heather Dave and Bob will be playing from 6:30 - 9pm.

My favorite protein has to be duck, especially in the fall. Braised, roasted, pate, in pasta, even duck pizza works for me. If you are like me, duck is in the house so come check out the special presentations that DB and Don will dream up.

We do not have a microwave in our kitchen and never have had the need. Should microwaves really have a place in fine dining restaurant kitchens? Doesn’t this imply a reheat mentality or even a dumbed-down chain restaurant cooking method to food prep? You know, the food comes frozen and pre-prepped from a food vendor or centralized kitchen with microwave-able instructions on the bag so any chimp can reheat and garnish for consistency, speed and profit.

Centralized food prep is an obvious trend that began with fast food chains like McDonald’s. Why duplicate the prep at each store and risk inconsistency when you can prepare everything at one location, freeze it then ship to your stores for deep frying or microwaving? This corporate centralized food prep mentality was picked up by sit down chains like Applebees, Olive Garden, Red Lobster, Chili’s and even The Melting Pot and PF Chang’s (you can peek in their kitchen window).

If you have ever been to a food show (where food vendors show their products to restaurant owners) you would know the pre-prepared food items available are infinite. The frozen deep fried options outweigh the micro options but both have multitudes of variety including numerous fine dining options, and they continue to increase every year.
Knowing when to choose quality over profit is sometimes a tough decision but use of a microwave is a no-brainer. They breed lazy cooking and poor results not to mention health issues that are starting to surface and safety concerns.
Shouldn’t meals be prepared once then enjoyed instead of frozen and reheated? Being a single location fine dining scratch house, we believe you should make everything fresh from fresh high-quality food and enjoy perfecting the culinary arts of braising, baking and saute. That’s one reason why our exhibition kitchen is in the dining room.
Enough pontificating, does the microwave reign supreme under any circumstance?
It would be nice to know how many other fine dining restaurants use microwaves and for what reasons.

Ladies and Gentlemen, please say goodbye to our spring pasta and say hello to baked bolognese, made with Emtman beef, fresh tomatoes and fusilli pasta.

The last Latah Creek Variety Market for this season will take place this Sunday, Sept. 21st in our parking lot from 10am - 5pm. Here are the specials we will be offering. Come on down, bring the family and have a great day!

The market entertainment schedule on our patio is as follows:

10:30    Square Dancers

12        Brad Keeler  - acoustic guitar/vocal
1          Gary Burris   - acoustic guitar

2          Sam Endress - acoustic guitar/ vocal

3          Gerard Fisher band - folk

P.S. We will be closed Sunday night after 5pm for a private party.

Gorgeous fresh lobster and porcini mushrooms arrived from Western Washington yesterday. Don’t miss these delicacies in a veal demi topping our tenderloin this week. I can taste it already with a rich Bordeaux blend or a fat Robert Karl Syrah…yum! Chantrelles are only a couple weeks away and truffles will follow. Fall is truly my favorite season.