Enjoy an organic lunch at new Snohomish eatery

If you're looking for lunch in Snohomish's downtown antiques district, Grilla Bites will be as welcome as a cool breeze off the river on a hot day.

A newcomer to Snohomish, the Grilla Bites franchise was started eight years ago in Chico, Calif. It emphasizes locally grown and organic food, with choices for vegetarians, vegans and people on gluten-free diets.

Customers order sandwiches ($8.50 to $9.25), burgers ($8.50 to $9.50), soups ($3.50 for a cup) and raw juices ($3.50 for 8 ounces) at the counter.

Salads are priced by weight ($7.95 a pound) and customers begin with a wooden bowl at the salad bar, heap it full and take it to the counter. And that's exactly what I did, selecting a layer of lettuce and spinach along with beet and carrot threads, soybeans, yellow and red pear tomatoes, and a shitake-sesame vinaigrette dressing. Every bite was crisp and fresh-tasting.

As an extra taste treat, I added a scoop of Thai tuna salad. If you don't sample anything else, try a bite or two of this. It's great, and is also a sandwich choice.

Nonvegetarian selections include a burger made of wild salmon or buffalo, and pastrami on rye. The vegetarian burger choices include a portabella mushroom and veggie burger with barbecue sauce.

My friend had a smoked turkey-cranberry-mozarella cheese sandwich. All sandwiches come with veggies or blue corn tortilla chips and hummus dip, and both of us had the chips and dip. My friend isn't a hummus fan, so I had his and mine along with my mozzarella cheese-tomato-spinach-pesto sandwich. We enjoyed every bite of everything.

The soups were as interesting as the salad bar selections -- tomato-Gorgonzola and borscht, which you don't see every week on area restaurant menus. So I had to have a cup, and it came with dill-seed laced rye bread and a small side of sour cream. The bread and soup were superb, and combined to make each other taste even better.

For those of you craving a fresh, organic lunch that you didn't have to make, and especially for the couple asking about a gluten-free restaurant for their daughter, Grilla Bites is the place to go.

Herald restaurant reviewers accept no invitations to review, but readers' suggestions are always welcome. Reviewers arrive unannounced, and The Herald pays their tabs. Contact Anna Poole at features@heraldnet.com.