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Walla Walla is located at Southeastern Washington state. It is very well known for its wineries and very very famous for its Walla Walla onions. Walla Walla onions are huge! From Portland, Walla Walla is about 4 hours of drive time, which is quite far and difficult to do a day trip. However, Walla Walla valley is just a beautiful place to visit during spring where everywhere is lush green.
We paid a visit to Walla Walla during the long weekend. Drive to Walla Walla is very straight forward by simply driving East on I-84 along Columbia river. On the way to Walla Walla, we decided to visit Boardman Tree Farm but it was very very sad that the trees have already been cut down by the new owner who bought the tree farm. We were devastated by this news!
On the first day, we spend most of our time on the road and stopped at multiple places. We first stopped at Hood River historic railroad station and wanted to get the Hood River Railroad magical poster, but it was closed! Then we stopped by Boardman SAGE center to get the Wallowa Oregon magical poster and now we have one more in our posted collection. We then also visited the Wild Horse Casino just to check it out. After we checked in at Best Western Hotel at Walla Walla, we decided to head to Walla Walla Steak Company for dinner since it is just beside the hotel. The steak was simply amazing.
On the second day, the weather was rainy and it was raining very hard. We went to Maple Counter Cafe for brunch and we got so full from it. Then we looked around and found that it's not raining at Wallowa Lake. So we decided to visit Wallowa Lake again since it's only 2 hours away. However, as we drive over the mountain to get to the lake, it started to snow very hard due to the gain on elevation. We were not prepared for this and thus we decided to head back to Walla Walla for safety reason. After the sun set, the snow got even heavier and the snowy scene was quite pretty at night.
On the third day before we head back to Portland, we went to Palouse Falls that is an hour away from Walla Walla. We really love the waterfall, it is quite different from the ones we have seen before. After visiting the waterfall, we drove to Whitman National Historic Marker and we could see the Walla Walla valley from the top. Then we drove 5 hours straight all the way back to Portland. Luckily, there was no traffic on the highway and everything went smoothly.
Overall, we loved Walla Walla. We are thinking of visiting the place again during spring time when everything is green again and we can look down the valley from the view point at the top.
Maple Counter Cafe is a famous brunch place located at Downtown Walla Walla. The restaurant serves all day breakfast from 7AM to 3PM, and it also sells a lot of its own swags.
It is a very popular restaurant and always have people lining up at the front door.
We visited Maple Counter Cafe on this rainy day at Walla Walla. It was difficult for us to find a parking spot since there was only street parking and seems like everyone is here for brunch. When we walked in to the restaurant, the lobby was full of people sitting and standing there waiting for a table. We put down our name and waited for just about 20 minutes to get a table.
As we sat down, we actually waited for like 10 minutes before the server actually came to us. Not quite sure where he was. We ordered a Western Omelet and an Apple Pancake. There was a lit of drink selection, but we did not get any drinks.
Our food was soon delivered to us. The Western Omelet has green piper, onion, ham and cheese in it. Unlike IHOP, the omelet is not rolled up. It looks like the omelet is being cooked on the pan as it is, without being rolled up. The other part of the omelet is a bit harder and crunchy, the inner part of omelet is very soft. We really liked to texture and the flavor. Western Omelet also came with harsh brown potato on a separate plate. The potato looked quite messy to be honest, but it was very good!
The Apple Pancake is huge. It is like German Pancake with apple sauce on it. It was not a fluffy as we thought and it was very firm. It feels more like a real cake or pudding, then a fluffy soft pancake. It was very different. We think that this pancake is really like a cake that can be splitter among the table for everyone to have a piece. At the end, we could not finish the pancake and had to get a box. We only finished half of the pancake. It was just too much.
Overall, we liked the place, but will probably not order the pancake again. The pancake is just very different than what we were used to. For people who like pudding cake, the Apple Pancake may be a good choice. The restaurant does also offer other regular pancakes for people to order.
Walla Walla Steak Company is a newly opened steak house in Walla Walla, Washington. It is a high end steak house with a large selection of steaks. The restaurant is located on the 2nd street at Walla Walla, just beside Best Western Hotel. The restaurant offers a rather large parking lot for customers and easy to access since it is located just off the highway.
We were visiting Walla Walla during the long weekend and were staying at Best Western Hotel Walla Walla, thus we happened to see this steak house and decided to go there for dinner. As we walk in, the front desk attendant asked us whether we wanted the steak side of sandwich side. We were confused since we did not know there is a different. The restaurant servers both steak and sandwich dishes. Customers who wish to have steak sit on one side, and customers who wish to have sandwich sit on the other side. We wanted to have steak of course, thus we went to the right side.
As we sit down, the waiter were kind enough to take our jacket and place them gently on the coat hanger. The waiter gave us the menu and told us about today's special on prime rib. As we looked through the menu, the waiter also offered us regular water or sparkling water. The sparkling water is at no additional charge, which is nice.
After a short while, we decided to get Hearth Oven Baked Oyster appetizer, today's prime rib special, and Fire Roasted King Salmon. The waiter happily took our order and brought us a well baked sour dough bread with butter.
Soon after, the oyster appetizer is here. The oyster is a bit smaller than what we were expecting and the oyster seems smashed, but maybe that's how it is. There are also some Walla Walla onions sprinkled on the oyster and we could taste the onion, which is nice. At the bottom of the place, it also looked like some amount of sea salts were placed there.
Our entrees were finally here. The prime rib that we ordered was 10oz, but it looked like it was a 14oz to us. It was huge. We also ordered the prime rib to be medium, which was amazingly cooked the way we want it. The prime rib meat was so tender and juice. It simply melted in our mouth. We did not even need to place radish cream on the steak since it was tasty enough. The prime rib entree also came with baked potato. The way how the baked potato was served is also quite interesting. The potato is uncut. The waiter gave us butter, sour cream, and green onions to let us decorate the potato however we want. The broccoli on the dish however, was quite salty in our opinion.
The salmon entree was out of this world. It was so soft and flavorful. We have never tasted a salmon that has so much flavors before. We loved the salmon a lot. However, after several bite, we also found the salmon to be a bit salty for our taste.
As we worked through our entree, the owner was so kind to come by and speak to us. We learnt that the restaurant only opened few months ago and it was getting so many customers revisiting the place.
The table sitting behind us actually got the signature dish of the restaurant, which is a 34oz bone in prime ribeye. It was insane. It was gigantic. The owner pushed the cart with ribeye to the table and cut it in front of them. This is something that we might try next time, but 34oz of meat is really a lot!
Overall, we really like the place other than the salty part. One thing to note is that 20% tips is added on the bill, which is a bummer. We understand that it is a high end restaurant, but most customers (if not all) would be willing to give a lot of tips when dining here.
Palouse Falls is located at Southeaster Washington. It is not as well known as other waterfalls due to its location, but it is definitely a beautiful waterfall. From Portland to Palouse Falls, it will take around hours to drive to there. Thus it is very difficult to make a day trip to the waterfall. We were visiting Walla Walla during the long weekend, thus we took this opportunity to visit Palouse Falls.
Going from Walla Walla to Palouse Falls is very easy, but it still took is an hour or so to get there. We really enjoyed our way driving to Palouse Falls since we were driving through Walla Walla valley and it was just beautiful. Once we got off the high way and entering Palouse Falls State Park, the road became a gravel road and poorly maintained. It seems like the road is meant to slow people down.
After 2 miles of driving on poor road condition, we finally go to Palouse Falls. We parked the car and found out that we could not use Northwest Pass here. It was very unfortunate. Also, the day use fee at the park is $10, this is crazy. Anyway, we paid and head to the fall.
Palouse Falls flows through the rocks and canyons, it was beautiful. The hiking trail took us to walk around the fall and get to the top of the canyon. We could see Palouse Falls very clearly from the top of the cliff. One thing to mention is that there isn't any rails at the top of the cliff, so people need to be very careful not to walk too close to the cliff side. People have fallen off the cliff before.
From the cliff, we also saw people who got down to the waterfall. We weren't quite sure how they got down there because we did not see any trails leading down there.
On the other side of the waterfall, we could see the water carving and flowing through the beautiful canyon. We could imagine that maybe thousands of years ago, there wasn't a canyon before until the power of water carved through and created a canyon.
In general, we really loved this place. There are also camp sites here as well and we would definitely try to come here again and camp here. The difficult part is that Palouse Falls is quite far, but if you ever visit Eastern Washington, this is a place not to miss.
