Back to Sammy's; Paddy Brannan's

Ashland, April 14, 2012—

IT'S TIME FOR LUNCH, and one of the best restaurants in the world is just up the road, but you had dinner there last night, but lunch there is only fifteen bucks, and nothing else in town is much better than routine. So naturally we go back to New Sammy's.

There I had lamb sausage cooked up with sweet peppers and onions, pointed up with spices with a North African sensibility, with two fine poached eggs on top. And, for dessert, that splendid plum Linzer torte I had last night. A remarkable lunch: I'm glad we came.

Domaine la Garancière (Cotes du Rhone), 2007

• New Sammy's Cowboy Bistro, 2210 South Pacific Highway, Talent, Oregon; 541-535-2779


DINNER IN TOWN, since we have another play this evening, at a place we hadn't noticed until this trip: an Irish pub. Here I had a Martini, then the steak dinner: a small sirloin, pan-fried, with a square of potato gratin (what was called scalloped potatoes when I was a boy) and a green salad, bar-baked Guinness bread on the side.

House red

• Paddy Brannan's Irish Pub, 23 South 2nd Street, Ashland, Oregon