Hey Jeff G!

[Jenise]

Lookie what just opened in my town. Fairly daring for a town that typically only gets one good seating in an evening since everyone around here is in bed by 8:30. Any comments on the dudes that hale from your neck of the woods?

Excited about the produce and aquaculture of the region, local partner Skip Williamson searched the nation to find the kind of innovative culinary artists who would do it justice. This isn’t Skip’s first time assembling a great team.

“Having learned from my experience producing several successful feature films, if you want to create an engaging movie, you team with a great director. Chefs are to directors as we hope our type of restaurant is to film” Skip said about his strategy. “Growing up in Gig Harbor and being an outdoor enthusiast, I feel blessed to be partnering with deeply talented chefs who fully embrace the lifestyle and culinary opportunities we have in our region.”

Carnal’s slow cooked bone-in beef short rib is finished over charcoal and brushed with bone marrow fat.

“Deeply talented” may be an understatement. The core team of chefs at Carnal includes James Zamory, Aaron Saurer and Sean McDermott, who met while opening the NoMad in New York City (one Michelin star, three star New York Times). Their cumulative experience also includes Eleven Madison Park (winner of the Best Restaurant In the World), Roberta’s, and the Chef’s Table at Brooklyn Fare. Prior to expanding with this new venture, the talented young threesome won the hungry hearts of New Yorkers when they created one of the top grossing food stands at Smorgasburg; the country’s most well known and acclaimed outdoor food market in Brooklyn, NY. Their most popular item was a slow cooked bone-in beef short rib finished over charcoal and brushed with bone marrow fat, which will also be featured at the restaurant.

Here's more background on the new place:
https://soundcloud.com/790-kgmi/james-z ... chef-owner

Honestly, I don't know these men's names. I know their venues, though.

For anybody working in a kitchen - that hasn't already got your name on it -- it is a chance of a lifetime to start your own place. They created the food and did the diligence on social media but a lot of credit goes to Skip for recognizing what he wanted and bringing people together.

See if you can get them to do a popup on your terrace! Offer to catch things in the bay for them....

[Jenise]

Great find on that interview, thanks.

I'm totally excited about this. Bellingham's the anti-Brooklyn. I mean, while I totally get what excited them about the PNW in general and Bellingham in particular (I felt like that too), the average Hamster is food-ignorant. Those of us who long for fine dining and clever food are way outnumbered by the idiots who think a taco made from a raw/uncooked corn tortilla is great as long as it doesn't cost more than $2. And everybody goes to bed early so most restaurants are closed by 8:30. Even those who claim to be open until 9:00 will start ignoring you at 8:30 to make you go away.

All the people who have come here with big ideas--and a few have--have failed. But the $2 taco place is where locals sent Alton Brown for their "$6 potato burrito". It's perfect food for vegetarian college students with no money (and that's their clientele) but that's all we got for a food celebrity like Alton Brown? God help us.

It is exciting. No doubt Carnal PNW is going to be great but it may light a fuse and start a bigger trend.

[Jenise]

We just have to get people out of the house. As one friend put it, "Yes, we're a foodie town but we all cook at home." Well, I'd disagree that that's a qualifier, but his point is correct that there isn't a dining scene here. My Facebook page (not my personal one, but one I named Birch Bay Wine & Food Enthusiasts) is starting to make a difference in that I can review restaurants and create conversation to help promote local businesses in an area that has no other portal for that kind of information. Nobody takes the paper anymore, so word of mouth via Facebook or other is nominally the only other means. I have around 450 members now, and it's growing steadily.

We just have to get people out of the house.

Well, confit beef ought to do it.

My Facebook page (not my personal one, but one I named Birch Bay Wine & Food Enthusiasts)...

For the Indiana senator?

...is starting to make a difference in that I can review restaurants and create conversation to help promote local businesses in an area that has no other portal for that kind of information.

Good for you. That is a worthwhile thing to do with FB.