I wouldn’t say I’m a connoisseur of fish, and I’m certainly not a fisherwoman. I leave that to my father-in-law. But I do enjoy eating sushi and various types of grilled or sauteed fish. Salmon, especially, I love raw or smoked, but I have never had very good grilled salmon. It has always been a little too stiff and tasteless, no matter where I’ve eaten it.

Then I went to Ray’s Boathouse, located on Puget Sound on the top side of Salmon Bay. That is, in Ballard, the Seattle neighborhood Todd and I are staying in until mid-September. I saw it on a map one day, and when my birthday came around, I knew I wanted to go there for dinner.

I chose the Boathouse rather than the Cafe, although the Cafe is cheaper and offers outdoor seating (and blankets if necessary). The former was much pricier, but I wasn’t looking to economize. I don’t usually order a bottle of wine for just the two of us, but since the Boathouse had won lots of Wine Spectator awards, I decided to try one of the gruner veltliners on the menu (a dry blend with riesling), and Todd chose a drink made with cachaça (I can’t find it on the website, so I can’t tell you its name. I don’t think it was a capirinha). Each of us had a salad before the meal. Mine was the Boistfort Valley Farm salad, with locally grown peas, pecorino, mint, and an onion vinaigrette.Mostly, I remember that the cheese was nice. Todd ordered the Boathouse Salad, with butter lettuce, Point Reyes Farmstead blue cheese, almonds, and a raspberry theme vinaigrette. His salad is very colorful.Todd finished his drink and started helping me with the wine. Then our entrees arrived. Both our entrees were smoked with mesquite; his salmon on a bed of couscous was so tender it made me like grilled salmon again. I had sablefish, which I’ve never eaten before. It tasted lightly smoked and was lusciously fatty, like pork belly. They warned me there might be a few bones in the middle. The reasonable portion of risotto was crisp around the edges, and the apricot coulis was nice but hardly necessary. I took this picture with my BlackBerry, and the shallow puddle of coulis looks quite huge and solid here.

We decided against dessert, having already filled up on wine and fish and the sunset over Puget Sound.