Collector's Choice keeps up with tastes

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Collector's Choice keeps up with tastes

Saturday, November 27, 1999

By GREGORY ROBERTS
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
RESTAURANT CRITIC

When John and Donna Hagar opened their restaurant 17 years ago, they called it Collector's Choice to reflect the reputation of Snohomish as a regional antiques center, and they offered a limited lineup of soups, salads and sandwiches for lunch only. Since then, the name hasn't changed, but the menu has, with Collector's Choice dishing up breakfast, lunch and dinner seven days a week. Their adjoining Star Lounge pours drinks, too, and serves food till last call at 11:30 p.m.

John and Donna Hagar's Collector's Choice in Snohomish has a mural out front showing the town as it was years ago. Robin Layton/P-I

Nowadays, John Hagar says he sells more food than any other restaurant in town.

"We've kind of developed our restaurant along with the town's taste," he said.

Hagar takes credit for introducing fettuccine Alfredo to Snohomish in the mid-1980s, and seafood fettuccine ($16.95) ranks as a signature dish at dinner, tossing the pasta with prawns, halibut, bay shrimp and Dungeness crab in a garlic cream sauce. In fact, Hagar said, seafood in general is the top draw at Collector's Choice, from halibut 'n' chips ($11.95) to grilled prawns ($15.95) to crab-and-artichoke-stuffed salmon ($16.95).

RESTAURANT REVIEW
Collector's Choice. 120 Glen Ave., Snohomish. Hours: Breakfast 7 a.m. to noon Monday-Friday; 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday; lunch noon to 4 p.m. daily; dinner 4 to 10 nightly; meal service in lounge until 11:30 p.m. nightly. Full bar. Visa, MasterCard, Discover. Smoking in lounge only. Accessible main restrooms downstairs; handicap restrooms available by request. Free parking in adjoining lot.

There's plenty of red meat on the menu, too, from London Broil ($12.95) to New York strip ($14.95) to the 16-ounce certified Angus roast prime rib ($17.95). Dedicated artery cloggers can supplement their steak with a generous side order of hefty chunks of Dungeness crab awash in a garlic hollandaise sauce ($3.95).

Crab also shows up a couple of times on the appetizer menu, cool in the Dungeness cocktail ($9.95), warm in the stuffing for mushroom caps drenched in more of the garlic hollandaise ($7.25). The restaurant's take on lahvosh ($9.95), a k a Armenian cracker bread, adds a touch of exotica to the appetizers, though the covering of melted cheese and the toppings of bacon, artichoke and other ingredients give it a close resemblance to pizza, albeit with a very thin crust.

Dinner includes a starch and a salad or soup. The house-made Potlatch Chowder enfolds clam and smoked salmon in a thick, creamy dill-laced broth. The soup du jour might be a hearty, satisfying vegetable beef.

The nightly specials afford the kitchen its best opportunity for innovation, and one recent effort yielded a big slab of fresh chinook salmon shrouded in a pumpkinseed crust and moistened by a buttery lime-cilantro sauce ($16.95), a dish of sweetish intrigue. The honey-citrus baked chicken breast ($12.95) on the regular menu tilts the same, sweet way.

But the real sugar hit comes at dessert. The not-too-cheesy Oreo cheesecake ($4.25), confected in house, is lush, gooey and nearly irresistible. The house-made Reese's ($3.95) cake is intensely peanutty and not for the faint at heart. The chocolate mousse cake ($4.25) comes from an outside supplier, but it's another rich, scrumptious seducer.

The restaurant and bar sprawl through the lower level of the Star Center Antiques Mall, a rambling assemblage of shops on Second Street downtown. Wainscoted booths and grandmotherly wallpaper add old-timey accents to the casual look of the carpeted main dining room. On the walls, vintage black-and-white photographs provide a glimpse of Snohomish in decades past.