MIDTOWN PUBLIC HOUSE
633 E. 1st St., Port Angeles, Wash.
Hours: 11:30 a.m.-9 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday; 11:30 a.m.-11 p.m. Friday-Saturday; closed Sunday-Monday.
Menu: https://www.midtownpa.com
Suitable for: Vegans, vegetarians, omnivores
On the outskirts of Port Angeles’ downtown area, along a busy part of First Street, it’s easy to miss a rather plain-looking, brown building as you zip by. But tap those brakes a minute and you’ll happen upon one of the very best restaurants in town: the Midtown Public House.
Operated from an erstwhile location for the longtime China First, the Public House is actually run by the next generation of family members who owned the original restaurant. And the menu is a clear homage to the founding family, with plenty of twists to keep things lively. From bahn mi sandwiches to rice bowls, Midtown’s Asian roots shine through with aplomb. But another theme shines through, as well – a craft-beer bar, blended with plenty of good old down-home craft-beer-bar food.
Think tots, slathered with an array of house sauces. Or fries. Or, yes, burgers – not vegetarian – topped with all manner of items, both Asian and not-so-much. But where Midtown Public House really shines is in that Asian cuisine, most of which is oh so veg-friendly. And totally worth the wait.
And there could very well be a wait – to be seated, anyway. My father and I, stopping in for an early dinner during our annual father-daughter trip to someplace new, were surprised and a little bewildered to see that we were only the second table seated for the evening at 5:45 or so. But by 6, the restaurant was filling up; by 6:30, there was a wait spilling out into the portico. Tables are fairly sparse at Midtown Public House, but nobody seems to mind – not the waitstaff, and not the patrons.
The soon-to-be-full dining room.
A quick skim of the menu shows off a good many food offerings just waiting to be devoured. Take the tofu bahn mi, for example; a sturdy, solid sandwich worthy of any lunch or dinner. Or the tofu rice bowl, which sounds much more paltry than it ends up being. Midtown certainly does NOT skimp on the fillings, both protein and vegetable. I was amazed at how much tofu was loitering about in my bowl – I almost couldn’t eat it all, which would’ve been a first! – as well as Asian greens and pickled everything, from daikon to carrot to red onions.
“It’s good for gut health, you know,” I said knowingly to my father, who nodded sagely.
One option that I didn’t take the servers up on is Midtown’s willingness to vegetarianize other menu items as well. The tacos, salads, and such could all stand for a protein sub to make them veg-friendly! And Midtown’s menu offers to do it. But I didn’t need to; the rice bowl was out of this world, a dish I still crave several weeks later on the opposite coast.
My dad and I toyed with the idea of popping into the cocktail lounge adjacent to the dining room. Simply dubbed “China,” it looked like a lot of fun. But we had an early-morning hike planned, and had topped ourselves off on beer, and thus we bade farewell to Midtown Public House, knowing that we’d be back just as soon as we found ourselves in Port Angeles again.
:)