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Seattle: Shari's

I first discovered Shari's on a trip to Portland. The pies were what attracted me to the place originally---pie is the All-American breakfast. Berries are one of the great pleasures of Pacific Northwest food and their menu makes very good use of them throughout. So when Keith, Kim took me back to the airport, I suggested Shari's as a good place for a meal before I hit the airport food wall.

Keith is very fast with his fork, so I couldn't get a photo of my pie without a nick taken out of it by Keith's fork. The pie was my breakfast treat, complemented by a steak salad. The steak was very meaty, which was exactly what I was looking for. The salad also featured blue cheese, nuts, and a raspberry vinaigrette sauce, all of them very good. I must say that the raspberry vinaigrette was a nice change of pace from the typical balsamic. The strawberry rhubarb pie is something that you don't see every day. As Keith pointed out, rhubarb isn't the most obvious thing to put in a pie but it makes a great complement to the strawberries. Shari's crusts tend toward the small crumb but are very rich and flaky.

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