Get outta the way! We're going to Ray's!

You might find it hard to believe, but not everyone leaps at the chance to go out on a restaurant-review date. And yet when I dangled an offer of dinner at Ray's Boathouse, you'd have thought I was Ed McMahon showing up at the door with a check from Publishers Clearinghouse.

"Ray's? You're kidding!" shrieked one friend, who joined me at a window table in late spring. She forked into a fatty fillet of expertly grilled Copper River king salmon paired with a bouquet of Yakima asparagus, and she deemed everything right with the world.

"Ray's! I've been dying for seafood — and a glass of wine!" said the erstwhile Ballard resident who now makes her home in the dry Saudi Arabian desert. Watching her sip Elk Cove rosé and sigh over a bounty of petite Penn Cove mussels (steamed till their natural nectar melded with Thai red curry and coconut milk) recalled the days when — young and broke — we would jostle with the happy-hour crowd upstairs at Ray's Café, wishing we could afford to eat in the "fancy restaurant" below.

My husband, who generally needs to be dragged out of the house for dinner, was all over the idea of a Sunday repast on Shilshole Bay. And what's not to love? While enjoying Skookum Inlet clams and devouring a martini glass filled with mixed-berry trifle, he took in tugboats, sailboats, kayakers and fishing vessels floating beneath a breathtaking bald-eagle ballet.

I was more interested in the three-course "Sunday Market Supper" ($38) prepared with items purchased that morning at the nearby Ballard farmers market.

That locavore's delight began with a dramatic presentation of Taylor Shellfish Farms geoduck, served two ways. The glistening clam was sliced as sashimi paired with purple-edged slivers of Boistfort Valley Farm radish, as well as gently fried, for dipping in aioli made with Skagit River Ranch eggs. That ranch was also the source for the entree, lean pork slow braised with Anselmo Farm's garlic in Seabreeze Dairy organic milk. For dessert: Bill's apricots baked into a cobbler.

Take that, neighborhood bistros!

Long a destination for local sustainable seafood, Ray's menu now reflects the best of our local farms and fields as well — an effort that executive chef Peter Birk has helped implement since he was lured to the Northwest to serve as Ray's executive sous chef in 2000. Soon elevated to chef de cuisine, he took the helm at this local institution early this year.

Pardon my seafaring metaphors, but between the seafood-saturated menu and the dining room's dockside expanse of wood, glass and sea, a description of Ray's practically commands it. And when the sun goes over the yardarm, I command you to inspect the cocktails list, perhaps settling on a minty cucumber-lime mojito, or a rosemary grapefruit drop whose sugared rim wears a hint of the herb.

You'll likely wait a bit for those drinks, a lag that buys time to peruse the extensive wine list, consult with the sommelier and slather sea-salted butter on Tall Grass bread. That wait isn't the server's fault: This shipshape crew is willing to go the distance to please the customer — and their knowledge runs deep.

Take their advice when they suggest such seasonal salads as roasted Walla Walla onions with a spray of watercress and a sprinkling of Hempler's pepper bacon. And bear in mind that the Asian-accented Dungeness crab salad offers a profusion of sweet plump crabmeat at a relative bargain ($11).

Unimpressed with a (flavorless) heirloom tomato-and-mozzarella salad, and with a dull tomato-and-zucchini soup whose intense tomato hue outweighed its cry, I'd unashamedly broaden my carbon footprint if chef Birk — and every other cook who's jumped on the "heirloom" tomato wagon — would import some sweet, ripe beefsteak tomatoes from New Jersey.

But I can always depend on longtime classics like Chatham Strait sablefish — still as silky as ever when marinated in sake lees and seared till its edges crisp. And Alaskan weathervane scallops — carefully caramelized and prettily presented over a Mediterranean medley: artichokes, chard, fennel and olives. Don't miss the Alaskan sockeye salmon, especially if it's layered over a pilaf re-

imagined with red wheat-berries, oyster mushrooms and edamame.

A $34 grass-fed Thundering Hooves rib eye proved far leaner and chewier than its grain-fed cousins, and came off the grill lacking char. And though the Alaskan red king crab legs ($38) were a clever take on a New England clambake (with new potatoes and sweet corn on the cob), the crab had the texture of something flash-frozen at sea too many months ago.

In the 34 years since it evolved into a fine-dining destination, Ray's, a former coffeehouse and bait shop, has earned its reputation as a James Beard Award-winning "America's Classic" — and a top-rated tourist attraction. Deservedly. Yet expensive entrees, patrons inexplicably dressed to chill in shorts and flip-flops, and the proliferation of other, hipper, serious-about-seafood restaurants that compete for our attention might persuade some to seek port elsewhere. But if you were to call and invite me to dinner at Ray's Boathouse, I'd jump at the chance.

Nancy Leson: 206-464-8838 or nleson@seattletimes.com.