This was originally posted in my LiveJournal blog, in a slightly different form, while staying in Auburn, WA on October 9, 2006

Whenever I am on the road, I try, as best as I possibly can, to eat ‘local.’ Why the hell would I want to dine at the ‘wherever the hell I am ChilisApplebeesTGIRubyTuesday’ when I can sample the fare of The Athens Spaghetti and Pizza House? Oh, I am not above swinging through the drive thru of a Popeye’s Chicken or knocking back some Cracker Barrel turnip greens and okra. But whenever possible, it is strictly local.

So far, since arriving, I have eaten at The Milton Wok a couple of times. They are a local chinese restaurant/bar/karoke lounge that is near the park where I am performing and I can get Hunan Beef at 1:00 am. Standard chinese fare. Tasty but nothing particularly memorable, although while waiting on my food one night, I heard a small Asain woman doing the karoke rendition of “It’s All Right To Be Little Bitty.” Now that was priceless!!

I dined at Kouros Kuisine, small greek restaurant in a neighborhood house. The food was fairly pedestrian and highly overpriced. I have had excellent greek food in the past and this ranked a ‘decent’ at best.

Tonight, I dined at the aforementioned Athens Spaghetti and Pizza House here in Auburn, a couple of miles from the hotel. It is a fairly inconspicuous family joint nestled at the end of a tiny strip mall (do 4 businesses make a strip mall?) that had interesting and hunger inducing aromas wafting in the parking lot. That is always a good sign. I entered to be greeted by two lovely locals. When they learned I would be dining alone, they seated me at a small table with a good view of the TV that was cranking out the Monday Night Football game. Since it was Baltimore (Nashville Titan’s hated rival) playing Denver (Seattle Seahawk’s hated rival) I really had no dog in that particular hunt so it was mainly background noise. I checked out the menu, poring over the full range of pizzas, subs (called ‘grinders’ here) and the Greek inspired Italian entrees.

There was a pastrami pizza which sounded interesting. The range of grinders was impressive but I had a man sized hunger working tonight. My lunch consisted of a banana, strawberry and papaya smoothie from Emerald City Smoothies. It was delicious but it ran out a couple of hours ago. I was hungry and the thing that grabbed my attention was something called Spare Ribs and Lasagna. I had pictured a nice chunk of pork ribs with a probably too sweet BBQ sauce and a tasty square of lasagna. Sounded doable to me so when one of the local lovelies who greeted me at the door came to take my order, I had to go for the Ribs & Lasagna. Their wine list consisted of ‘Burgundy, Chablis and Blush.’ In spite of my recent Kouros Kuisine wine experience (I ordered the ‘Greek Wine’ at $5.50 a glass and it was just a bad table wine) I ordered a half carafe of Burgundy. ‘You want that room temperature or chilled?’ she asked. I opted for room temp and settled in to wait for my food to arrive.

The salad, bread and wine came out. The bread was tasty, full of butter and garlic and grilled. The salad was fairly ordinary but the in house made bleu cheese dressing was good. The wine ($5 for half a carafe) was a good honest table wine. No pretense, no harsh edge. Hearty and very tasty and well worth the Lincoln it was costing.

The main course arrived and all I could do was stare at it for a couple of minutes. It was not at all what I expected. It arrived in a deep, football sized oval dish, bubbling and steamy. There were two planks of braised pork spare ribs, 3 bones each. The ribs were the top layer of the lasagna. I mean the lasagna was built in the dish, filling it from edge to edge, but rather than the top layer being more noodles, it was two thick slabs of ribs, covered with sauce and cheese and baked until a molten and bubbling mass. It took me a minute to figure out how to approach it. Once I got the logistics down, I tore into it. Grabbing and twisting one of the bones, it slid out with a slight resistance. Nice!! I sliced through the cheese into the rib and popped it into my mouth. Tender, moist, perfectly braised. The sauce was that weird blend of Italian and Greek seasonings, rich with tomatoes, cinnamon and basil and delicious. Under the ribs was the lasagna and, while the noodles were very slightly past al dente, it was still very, very good. It was one of the more unusual and delicious dishes I have had in a while.

When my server came back, I had to rave. I mentioned that, being from Tennessee I thought I had eaten pork in almost every possible way but their take was different and absolutely delicious. She started beaming, like I had told her she had a beautiful, well behaved child. I asked her if that recipe was distinctive to her restaurant or whether that was a common dish in the area. She said that it was pretty much their exclusive dish. ‘Well, there is one other place up north, another Greek place that makes it, but their’s is a little different and we are the only ones around here making it’ she told me. She mentioned, with a wink, that ‘it’s a Greek thing.’

Democracy, The Olympics, Sodomy, Ouzo and now, Ribs and Lasagna. Thank heavens for Greek Things…