Jacobi's Cafe

Location: 416 North Second, Walla Walla, WA

Just the thought of eating at Jacobi's excites me.  This is yet another place where I haven't found a bad meal.  In addition, they are the home of one of my favorite meals ever.  My husband gave me a hard time for not ordering something new to review for the blog, but I can't help it.  I know what I like.

Jacobi's has a ton of great specialty salads you can order for an additional price.  We decided to start out with their Pea Salad.  They combine sweet peas with jack and cheddar cheeses and then mix in a ranch-style dressing.  It's a super yummy way to dress up peas, and their homemade dressings are absolutely fantastic.  Don't even get me going on their sweet shallot dressing.  We'll save that one for next time.  ;)

I've discovered one of the hardest parts of hosting a video blog is waiting for my husband to film the meal before I get to dig in.  I joked about knowing how our dog felt when we ate apples in front of him.  He salivates all over, which is precisely what I wanted to do while I not-so-patiently waited to eat. So what great dinner did we choose?

Think I might need a drumroll for this one...

We had the Wild Mushroom Sacchetti.  It is true pasta perfection.  I love it so much it makes me want to cry.  Why?  Well, most times I can figure out how to duplicate a recipe if I like it enough.  This one, though?  This one is a challenge.  Sacchetti is not your everyday pasta.  They are cute little "purses" filled with various things.  Most I've seen contain cheese as one of the ingredients.

These particular sacchetti are filled with roasted portobellos, wild porcinis, ricotta, mozzarella, parmesan, swiss and fontina cheese.  Have I ever mentioned how much my husband and I like cheese?  Between the melting of all those cheeses and the mix of all those mushrooms, it's like Heaven.  And just when you thought that sounded good, they cover it in a wild mushroom pesto cream sauce.  I seriously want to lick the plate when I am done.  I actually counted how many I had and how many my husband had and made him fork over another because he had 6 to my 3.

Since I chose our dinner entree, I let my husband choose our dessert.  Let me tell you a little story about that.  I dislike 2 kinds of cake - chocolate and red velvet (which might as well be chocolate in my opinion).  I'm getting better about the chocolate, which you might have been able to tell by the Iron Horse post, but I would never order red velvet cake on my own.

My darling husband thought it would be funny to order the red velvet cake.  I threatened to let him eat it by himself.  He challenged me with a comment about reviewing something I didn't like for the blog.  It was a reasonable enough idea, and I only needed to take a bite to note my thoughts.

It arrived at the table, and something crazy happened . We both grabbed our forks and started eating...before we got a chance to film it.  And I didn't have just one bite.  I started shoveling that stupid cake down my throat.  We were halfway through before we realized what happened, and I told him to film the half-eaten cake anyway.  It would make for a funny story.

It was amazing.  It wasn't dry and nasty like most red velvet cakes I've tried.  It was moist, and it was covered with an incredible cream cheese frosting.  I think there was some chocolate sprinkled on the top, but I was too busy eating to pay much attention.  I think it's time to rethink my feelings on red velvet cake.  When it's done right, it's good stuff.

Jacobi's was packed when we got there, so they seated us in the dining car.  That was fun.  I've always wanted to take a train ride, so this was a pretty good simulation (minus the bumps I'm sure happen on a moving train).  It seemed a little noisy, but I didn't mind it too much.  Our service was great as well.  Our waiter was polite and checked back with us to make sure our waters were filled and to see if we needed anything.  Ummm...maybe the recipe for the Wild Mushroom Sacchetti if you can spare it.  Just kidding!  But seriously, try it and you won't regret it.