(SpoCOOL) A Spokane Blog

So here's another good IPA from Iron Goat, one you can find in more places than what Taplister suggests. It has a crisp freshness to it, and is not overwhelmingly hoppy, yet plenty flavorful all the same. Balanced, in other words, and not as head butt-y as the name would suggest, even at 6.7% ABV with 90 IBUs.

The first impression, based off the look, was not entirely positive, mind you. It looked overly cloudy, though as it warmed up, a more golden amber color revealed itself through the fog.

A sniff revealed mostly hops, which might be why I was surprised at how balanced the flavor was. Don't get me wrong, you'll easily pick up on the hops here, and this is not the beer for those who are not fans of hops. There is, however, a lot more going on: Citric notes are ubiquitous, backed by a gentle fruit-like sweetness. Toward the back you'll even find a light spiciness which adds a certain je ne sais quoi to the typical dry finish you find in many hoppy ales.

I really liked the way all of these flavors came together in a complimentary fashion. I'm sort of in-like with hops, and I always appreciate an IPA that is more than a hop-bomb.

Iron Goat has succeeded well, in my mind, with making the Head Butt an interesting IPA. It's hoppy, but not overwhelmingly so, and flanked by an arsenal of flavors which makes it a truly good sipper.

For your perusing pleasure, we've updated the reviews page to include all of the Best of 2012 results. Relive the glory of your votes and be reminded where to eat until... well... you vote again in 2013.

And we've updated our rotation list, with the places we currently frequent.

Stop by Huckleberry's on Saturday for 20% off beer, wine, and liquor -- hey, prices will be close to what they were before deregulation! -- as well as 30% off the cheese and olive bar.

And neither here nor there, but Merriam-Webster's word of the day is always a good read.

Over the course of our Best of... we saw a few spots receive only a handful of votes, all of which were high scores. This put the restaurants under the threshold to be included in the final lists, but still served as a good reminder of places we needed to visit.

Phonthip has been recommended to us by multiple people, and we finally decided to check it out as the uniformly high scores for it trickled in. And you know, you were right. Phonthip is, likely, the best Thai food in Spokane. The menu is creative -- most Thai spots in the region have rather interchangeable menus -- and the food is good. What more do you really need? Reasonable prices? Phonthip has that too.

We tried the pumpkin curry during our visit, something that just seemed appropriately seasonable. Served with your choice of meat and kabocha, the curry had just a bit of kick toward the middle of the tongue. Not too spicy, but very warming, and the Thai basil added a subtle sweetness to the sauce. 

The accompanying rice was... Well, it was just rice, really, but served in a reasonable portion. That's a good thing; those huge buckets of rice often goes wasted, but here the size matched that of the main dish.

We also sampled the Tom Kha soup: The broth here was very good, with fresh flavors of ginger and lemongrass dominating the palette. Sadly the chicken hadn't quite taken on those flavors and kind of seemed like it had been thrown in last minute. That's too bad, as the soup really could have been of meritorious quality had it not been for the flavorless chicken.

The dumpling appetizer is recommended as a starter -- five small dumplings won't fill you up, and is the perfect amount for two people. Try the Thai ice tea too; very refreshing.

Phonthip might not be quite up there with Pok Pok, but we'll stand by those who claim it's Spokane's best Thai food. It's definitely worth the trek up north, should you live elsewhere, and hopefully by next year's Best of... enough of us will have tried the place to give it the recognition it does deserve.

"I call them fake eggs, but no-one can tell the difference from real ones." So said the cashier as we were checking out, but we had an inkling reality might be a bit different with Egg Land's Best Hard-Cooked Peeled Eggs.

Really, how could we at least not try them, though? Egg Land's Best Hard-Cooked Peeled Eggs. "Tasty, Nutritious. Convenient -- Ready to eat". Some things are just so odd and so wrong, there is no way you can not try them. Or rather, no way for us not to try them. This way, you don't have to.

Open the bag, and you're greeted by six egg-looking... things. Having eaten one, I'm really not sure this could be classified as an egg though. Not that it tasted bad, mind you, it simply didn't taste like anything. My initial impression was to compare it to rubber, but that'd be an affront to a material with actual flavor. No, the consistency of the egg-like thing was indeed very rubber like -- I'm fairly certain it'd make a decent enough nerf football substitute -- but the flavor was more akin to air. 

The second experiment involved making deviled egg-like things. Here we used a high-quality mayonnaise, lots of spices, all combined into a flavorful mixture. Yet, the moment it was combined with the the egg-like thing, it was like all flavors evaporated. They were gone, and the deviled egg-like things tasted like the aforementioned non-seasoned ones. How this is possible, I don't know, but I can only assume we're dealing with something diabolic here.

Really, don't buy Egg Land's Best Hard-Cooked Peeled Eggs. They're not eggs, and even if they were, it'd take you, what? Less than half an hour to boil up and peel some actual eggs. It was fascinating to try them, though. I had no idea anything could taste like so little.