Our soccer team got thoroughly stomped in Bellingham last weekend, so we went to two of our favorite places to cheer ourselves up.

Boundary Bay Brewery came first. These folks make some of the best beer in the Northwest, and I’m thankful that the IPA has become pretty common on taps around the area. Jon’s partial to the Scotch, which is rich and smooth. On this visit we both got the Best Bitter, which isn’t normally available anywhere but this brewpub. Back when we were playing Irish music here every Sunday I drank quite a lot of the bitter, and I rather missed it.

It was happy hour, so we picked up a couple of barbecue pork sliders to go with our beer. The food here is always solid (we really like their lamb burger and the fish tacos) but we didn’t feel like getting dinner this time. For that we went to La Fiamma.

Just up the block from the brewery is our favorite pizza place, La Fiamma Wood Fire Pizza. We developed our standard order here years ago: a small salad, a half-carafe of the house red, and a medium Grecian Formula pizza. Sometimes we break out and get a Diablo instead, but it’s usually the Grecian.

What’s on the Grecian? Thin pieces of steak. Peppers. Spinach. Olives. Feta. Tomatoes. And a wonderful herbed white sauce that, depending on the night, either bubbles up around everything else or provides a quiet background accompaniment. We’ve tried reproducing this pizza at home but it’s never quite the same. And I love the crust on the pizzas here (not burnt, as they say, but “kissed by the flames”).

This is one of those dinners that always makes us happy, is always the right amount of food, and always keeps us coming back, even though we live half an hour away. We love La Fiamma.