Feast On Fowl
Confetti's
1722 West Marine View Dr.,
Everett Marina Village,
Everett.
Lunch ($5.95 to $10.95)
11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Monday through Saturday.
Dinner ($7 to $16) 4 to
10 p.m. Monday through Thursday; until 11 p.m.
Friday, Saturday; noon to
10 p.m. Sunday.
Lounge, full liquor.
Major credit cards.
Nonsmoking area.
Reservations: 258-4000.
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WHAT DO YOU DO with a Puget Sound-view, dockside restaurant that you do not want - for sound commercial reasons - to serve mainly seafood?
Chicken out?
Perhaps.
That was the central operating principle behind Confetti's, a gorgeous, brilliantly decorated new restaurant at the Everett Marina Village.
It is a few doors up the waterfront from Anthony's Home Port. And that was part of the seafood problem. Confetti's, you see, is owned by Anthony's Restaurants, the same company that owns Anthony's Home Port restaurants (presently also docked at marinas in Des Moines, Edmonds, Kirkland and Shilshole).
Confetti's moved in after Pelican Pete's flapped off. Bud Gould, the CEO of Anthony's et al., coveted the Pelican's roost, but any restaurant he put in there was likely to compete with his own Home Port. Especially if there were any glaring similarities in their menus, decor, format, etc.
So the job of making the new restaurant truly new fell to Sally
McArthur, Anthony's executive chef.
I am frequently asked just what it is that executive chefs do - as opposed to just plain chefs. The answer is similar to what executive editors do: try to keep other editors functional and happy, neither of which - for chefs as well as editors - is easy.
Executive chefs, however, do it 12 hours a day, six or seven days a week. McArthur is a remarkable person. She is responsible for menu development for the Anthony's organization, as well as the steady upgrading of quality and service that has marked the company's impressive growth from its original seafood perch in Kirkland. French-trained, versatile, energetic, she is a one-person quality-control department, as well as a traveling training seminar.
Her task with Confetti's was to create a restaurant that would almost adjoin Anthony's, but not detrimentally compete with it. In short, she had to introduce a gustatory companion.
McArthur turned chicken. Literally. Chickens on spits. Trussed chickens roasted on long steel spikes, rotated relentlessly in front of a leaping alder fire, the whole affair contained in a dome-shaped, windowed oven with top temperatures of 900 degrees. Roast chicken was to become Confetti's signature dish.
These were not ordinary chickens.
``The World's Best Spit-Roasted Chicken,'' proclaimed a banner out front.
And if it isn't, it's close. Here's how they make it.
The locally grown, premium-raised (meaning minimal chemicals) birds have a mixture of crushed garlic, basil-olive oil and orange zest stuffed under their entire skins. Then the chicken is massaged all over with more basil-and-garlic-infused olive oil and dusted vigorously with rosemary, thyme and more basil.
Finally, it is sealed in clear plastic and left to marinate in the cooler for a full 24 hours. The chickens are then grilled on a large, rotating cylinder of spits that pass them in front of the cherry-red alder coals about every eight seconds. They are done in 55 minutes.
The results are astonishing. If your notion of a chicken dinner is something that is often bland and usually dry but safe in a dietary sense, you will have your notions profoundly adjusted. The Confetti chicken is done all the way through, but still surprisingly moist. There is a slight - but definite - flavor of alder smoke, as if the bird had been half roasted, half smoked.
The full day of wet and dry marination imparts an herby, robust flavor that is a joy to bite into. You get the ``Chicken Special'' for $8.95, including roasted red potatoes, julienned ``Confetti'' vegetables and a basket of hot, hearth-baked, pizza-like foccacia.
On each table is a bottle of olive oil containing fresh basil and garlic. It's meant to splash over the foccacia, or puddle on the bread dish as a dip. But you may be inclined to drink it.
In these days of upward spiraling food costs, $8.95 is a bargain for half a spiral-roasted chicken. The bargain has not gone unnoticed. Weekend nights lately, Confetti's has been (to use a trade term) ``slammed.''
It's an appealing place to be, chicken or not. The interior was done by architect William Joey Ing (who also did Chinook's). More than 28 colors are used in a kaleidoscope of hues and patterns, including a dazzling, overhead mobile sculpture made of 7-foot-long hanging streamers.
I seldom make mention of interior
design, partly because over the years I have discovered that the integrity of the kitchen is frequently in inverse proportion to the size of the decorator's fee. But in this instance, attention deserves to be paid. The overall effect is visually stunning without becoming a distraction. Fun, but not silly.
The dinner menu begins with seven starters ($2.95 to $7.95). One is a must-try. The Baked Garlic Cheese & Toast Rounds ($3.45) features custardlike baked cheeses with a head of oven-roasted garlic.
Manilla Steamers ($7.95) and Sweet and Spicy Baby Back Ribs ($5.95) are fine, but I found one order of Garlic Pepper Chicken Wings ($4.95) somewhat dry and surprisingly tough.
Spit-Roasted Chicken Chili ($3.95) is, clearly, not a strict constructionist's idea of a classic chili - no beef, many beans - but it's uncommonly tasty. I'd like to see the dish made someday with cubes of spit-roasted beef (or lamb) and, if possible, no beans at all.
Homemade Chicken Ravioli ($8.95) is a dish that practically slurps just sitting there on the plate in a tangy white sauce. It's made fresh to order (and frankly looks like a nuisance to prepare), but it's a nice first course.
Confetti's is not all chicken. A formidable Char-Grilled One Pound T-Bone Steak is done not on the spit, but over an alder-coal fire. It's served with a basil black-olive butter, or a chive-and-dill butter (take the basil black-olive).
Coming to the menu will be roasted lobster, spit-broiled lamb and possibly a couple of other items. The opening menu is still evolving.
Among the desserts, I can recommend the Huckleberry Cobbler a la Mode and the Hot Fudge Brownie Sundae (both $3.95). The latter is decidedly sinful.
Confetti's is a definite departure from Anthony's Home Port's highly successful menu structure. It works.
The restaurant is a considerable addition to Everett's dining scene - and well worth the 25-minute drive from Seattle.
BAKED GARLIC CHEESE WITH ROASTED GARLIC & TOMATO CONCASSE
4 servings
For the Tomato Concasse:
1 pound ripe roma tomatoes3 tablespoons finely chopped fresh basil
4 teaspoons olive oil
1 teaspoon red-wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon finely minced fresh garlic
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon sugar
French bread, sliced thin, toasted and then rubbed with garlic
For the Roasted Garlic:
4 whole bulbs garlic
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
For the Garlic Cheese:
1 cup whole-milk ricotta cheese
1 cup grated smoked mozzarella
3/4 cup grated provolone cheese
1/2 cup grated asiago cheese
3 tablespoons cream cheese
1 egg
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
Pinch freshly ground black pepper
Pinch freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 cup toasted chopped hazelnuts
1. To prepare the tomato concasse: Dice the tomatoes into 1/8-by- 1/8-inch cubes. Toss with the basil, olive oil, vinegar, garlic, salt and sugar. Set aside.
2. To prepare the roasted garlic: Trim the top 1/2 inch of the flower end of the garlic bulbs, exposing the cloves. Place in a small baking pan and brush the cut surfaces with the olive oil. Sprinkle with the kosher salt. Bake in a preheated 350-degree oven 1 hour.
3. To prepare the garlic cheese: Put the ricotta, mozzarella, provolone, asiago, cream cheese, egg, garlic, kosher salt, pepper and nutmeg into a food processor and process until smooth. Distribute evenly in four 1/2-cup ramekins. Top each ramekin with lightly oiled parchment paper or foil. Place in a water bath and bake in a preheated 350-degree oven 25 minutes. (The cheese can be baked along with the garlic.) Remove the parchment and sprinkle with the hazelnuts.
4. Serve each ramekin with thin slices of French bread that have been toasted and then rubbed with garlic, a small ramekin of tomato concasse and a bulb of garlic.
JOHN HINTERBERGER'S FOOD COLUMNS AND RESTAURANT REVIEWS APPEAR SUNDAYS IN PACIFIC AND FRIDAYS IN TEMPO. HE ALSO WRITES A WEDNESDAY COLUMN FOR THE SCENE SECTION OF THE TIMES. BENJAMIN BENSCHNEIDER IS A SEATTLE TIMES STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER.