Admit it: When out for a nice meal, as you peruse the menu, you’ve wondered about the “early bird” offers, typically a three-course meal, with salad, entree and dessert for under $20, served between 4 and 6 p.m.
Some of you, your pride still stinging from the membership offer from AARP that came in the mail last week, have turned up your nose at the deal as something better suited for the blue-hair crowd. “Still,” you catch yourself thinking, “20 bucks for a full meal that doesn’t come wrapped in paper?”
Don’t let foolish pride keep you from enjoying a meal at Sockeye’s Restaurant and Bar, a Monroe restaurant on the bank of Lake Tye that opened in August 2007.
My wife and I arrived before 5 p.m. on a recent weekday, admittedly earlier than we typically eat out, but a deal’s a deal. (We learned later that Sockeye’s three-course meal is available at all hours Sunday through Wednesday and from 4 to 6 p.m. Thursdays.)
Some restaurants might take advantage of their late-afternoon diners and skimp here and there, figuring patrons won’t quibble over such deals. Sockeye’s three-course meals offer a selection of salads, entrees and desserts prepared with the same quality and care of its regular menu.
For my wife’s garden salad, for example, they didn’t just toss a glop of blue cheese dressing on lettuce and call it good. The greens were fresh and dressed with a generous crumbling of good-quality blue cheese. My Caesar, likewise, was lightly tossed with a house-made dressing and topped with a Parmesan-crusted crouton.
The real deal of the meals, $15.95 per person, are the entrees.
My wife ordered the grilled sockeye salmon, a generous fillet topped with herbed garlic butter and served over a tangle of julienned carrots and zucchini. Garlic mashed potatoes and steamed broccoli accompanied the salmon, which had a sweet, smoky char on the bottom but was still moist. Sockeye’s knows not to mess with its namesake.
Also on the three-course menu are a pan-roasted chicken Dijon, a beef and prawn kabob, ling cod fish and chips, and a seafood paella, which I ordered.
Again, Sockeye’s kitchen has its timing down with fish. Studded in the saffron-colored rice dish with onion, peppers, tomatoes, peas and julienned carrots were a piece of cod, several clams and mussels in the shell, along with prawns and shrimp, all of it cooked but not to the point of dryness. Even the rice, plump short grains, had the proper bite to them, soaking up a rich broth without being reduced to mush.
Sockeye’s regular menu includes a cedar-planked sockeye with a tomato and cucumber relish ($19), Dungeness crab-stuffed prawns ($23), pan-fried oysters ($16), and a 9-ounce top sirloin ($19), finished with a blue cheese, fig and port wine sauce.
Check its daily fresh sheet for specials such as cashew-encrusted Oregon rockfish ($19) or pan-roasted Alaskan halibut cheeks ($22).
Sockeye’s, handsomely decorated in Northwest colors and textures, offers a full bar, microbrews and a varied wine list with an emphasis on Northwest wineries.
Dessert was simple, but a pleasant end to the meal with a cup of coffee. My wife had a vanilla pudding cake topped with a mixed berry sauce, while I had burnt cream, custard topped with a crackling sheet of crystallized sugar.
Add to the deal the restful scenery of Lake Tye with red-winged blackbirds flitting from cattail to cattail and a chocolate Lab padding after a tennis ball.
All told, the dinner for two, with a glass of a Ste. Michelle riesling for each of us, came to about $50, not including tip. Maybe the little old ladies are on to something.
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