MOUNT VERNON — If you want to visit the Porterhouse, you’d better be at least 21, and you’d better be hungry.
Enjoying craft beer would be a good idea, too.
The Porterhouse, tucked on a side street in downtown Mount Vernon, serves big beers and even bigger plates of food — much of which, thankfully, is pretty decent.
It’s the kind of independent, locally owned place that deserves the support of folks who might be inclined to spend scarce dining dollars at one of the national chain eateries plopped in the middle of vast parking lots.
The Porterhouse is a warm, convivial pub that makes for an especially nice “third place” to gather with friends on a cold, blustery winter evening.
The two-level dining area was packed during our recent late-afternoon visit — a good sign, because what’s sadder and more off-putting than an empty restaurant? Overhead flat-screen TVs were tuned to football games, but the audio was muted and they were easily ignored. There’s a couple of dart boards in a back corner.
The Porterhouse offers about two dozen ales from West Coast microbreweries. We chose a cask-conditioned ale ($5 per pint) from Boundary Bay Brewery up the freeway in Bellingham. Beer is definitely the star here, although wine drinkers can choose from 15 selections at $7 a glass.
The nightly specials were New York steak with shiitake-gorgonzola sauce ($21); pan-seared scallops in butter, citrus and ginger ($19); and clam linguine with white wine, garlic, tomato, capers and roasted red peppers ($16).
We chose the scallops and the clam linguine, with the Porterhouse ploughman ($13) to nibble on while sipping our beers.
The ploughman turned out to be an enormous pile of prosciutto, cheese, spicy marinated vegetables, smoked salmon and more, served with bread. Accompanied by a couple of pints, it would be a meal for two. We wound up taking much of it home for movie-night snacking.
The scallops were nicely seared and cooked through, but not overcooked or rubbery. They also were less than piping hot, presumably because they sat on the plate during preparation of our pasta dish, the order for which, our server disclosed, was sent to the kitchen some time after the order of scallops.
Alongside the scallops were an assortment of tasty grilled and seasoned vegetables that were prepared with more care than you might expect from a side order. The dish also came with rice, but we substituted a small salad of greens dressed in a vinaigrette.
The linguine contained a generous serving of fresh, clean-tasting shellfish, which, our server said, came from Hood Canal. I sopped up the fragrant liquid at the bottom of the bowl with slices of rustic bread. The pasta itself was ordinary. Fresh pasta made on the premises would have been much preferable.
In all cases, portions were large. You won’t leave here hungry.
The standing menu includes 10 starters ranging from $8 to $13; five pasta dishes ranging from $14 to $18; three mains at $15 to $18, including a flat-iron steak (curiously, no porterhouse) with a honey-mustard-India Pale Ale glaze. There’s also an assortment of pub food: burgers, sandwiches and fish and chips, priced from $7 to $15.
The Porterhouse is a fine place to recover calories burned off bicycling the Skagit flats. You’ll be happy there, especially if you’re a beer buff.
Mark Carlson: 425-339-3457, mcarlson@heraldnet.com
The Porterhouse
416 Gates St., Mount Vernon; 360-336-9989; www.porterhousepub.net
Specialty: Pub food, steaks and pasta, hand-crafted beer
Hours: Open for lunch and dinner every day; 21 and older only
Alcohol: Beer and wine
Price range: Moderate; nearly everything costs less than $20
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