My friend Susan and I made it back to Daily’s Bakery in Asotin to sample the chicken enchilada special. Unfortunately, it only gets one spoon up. I give them points for the chunks of tender chicken breast and the freshness of the ingredients. The enchiladas themselves were just a little bland — mostly a mild tomato sauce with chicken, rolled into a flour tortilla. The dish could be improved with some seasoning added — maybe some cumin and chili seasoning with the sauce, and some onions, garlic and green chiles with the chicken. These were definitely enchiladas lite.

Everything else, though, continues to be a smash hit. Susan ordered a cup of Navy Bean with Ham soup, which she declared a clear winner. It was creamy and well seasoned, with plump beans, carrots and a definite hammy flavor.

And, because I’m such a nice gal, I bought a dozen doughnuts for my fellow staffers, who gathered this afternoon for a monthly meeting. One thing you should know: These doughnuts are about the size of a small dinner plate. I had the employee choose the doughnuts, which ranged from maple bars and filled doughnuts to apple fritters and cinnamon roll-style doughnuts. Being a diabetic who’d exhausted my share of carbohydrates at lunch, I abstained, but my coworkers have been enthusiastically sampling the goodies all afternoon. One declared the maple bars the best she’d ever had, which is high praise coming, as it does, from a maple bar aficionado. Bring a dozen of these to a morning coffee meeting and you’ll be the most popular person around.

NEXT: I’m going to try out the Jacques Spur cafe, which is under new management and has been running coupon specials in the Tribune recently. I’ll let you know how it goes.

For a while, it appeared the amateur division of the 2009 Tribune Burger Challenge wouldn’t get off the grill. Amateur burger chefs seemed to think the competition would be too fierce and we didn’t get enough entries.

But after a shaky start and an extended deadline, we’re looking forward to sampling the top two competitors in two categories: beef burgers and alternative burgers.

The grill-off is at 7 p.m. July 10 (Friday night) in the parking lot directly across from the Tribune building at 505 Capital St. It is open to the public, but the competitors will be making only two burgers — one for the judges and one for photographs. In other words, expect to go away hungry, but with your appetite whetted.

Ballots continue to pour in for the professional division. The top three restaurants are far outpacing the other competitors, and it could end up being a slugfest determined by the ferocity of the fans. I’ve been struck by how many people have taken the time to fill out the ballot form, only to fail to pick a favorite. Empty ballots are discarded, so some restaurants are obviously missing out on some crucial votes. And some folks apparently think it’s OK to vote multiple times. Multiple votes by the same person are counted as one, so if you’re taking the trouble to clip out 20 ballots with the intention of stuffing the ballot box, don’t bother. We want this to be everyone’s choice, not just those of the most determined ballot clipper.

And of course, July 19 is the date you’ll learn about all the winners. Tribune reporter Joel Mills will interview the winners of the grill-off and write a profile of the winning restaurant and its owner and staff. We’ll also publish all the recipes we received for the amateur division, although if we run out of space in the printed product, they may only be available online at www.lmtribune.com.

I could go on but all this talk about burgers is making me hungry. Time for lunch.

One of my favorite blogs these days is one offered by Men’s Health magazine. Eat This, Not That is a nifty list of the best (and worst) in food, from fine dining to home cooking and everything in between. The latest list is for the eight healthiest supermarket food picks.

It was from Eat This, Not That I learned about the immense number of calories and sodium in some of the chain restaurants’ most popular entrees. For instance, did you know that the Quiznos Turkey Bacon Guacamole Large Sub with Cheese and Reduced-Fat Ranch Dressing contains nearly 50 grams of fat and more than 4,500 mg of sodium? I didn’t until I read the blog post. The one that made my eyes pop was Romano’s Macaroni Grill Chicken Portobello. Eat that and you’ll have consumed 7,300 mg of sodium and 66 grams of fat.

One of my favorite Eat This, Not That entries was for the 20 Worst Foods in America. Warning: Don’t read it before you go out to eat. It’ll spoil your appetite.

Despite high gas and food prices, the local restaurant scene remains as lively as ever. New eateries are welcomed like rock stars and it’s often tough to get a seat at some of the more popular lunch spots in the valley.

The opening of the new IHOP in Lewiston Orchards is no exception. I’ve sampled the food there three times — once for breakfast, once for coffee and breakfast, and once for dinner. The food’s so-so and fairly typical of what is often found in chain restaurants. Restaurants like IHOP, Applebee’s and Red Lobster rely on a menu formulated at company headquarters, which is then prepackaged and delivered to the individual franchises. It homogenizes the dining experience, which is good if you like predictability, but not so good if you prefer a more regional menu. Put more bluntly, you won’t find regional favorites like bite-size steak and Sharp’s-style fry sauce on the menu at chain restaurants.

Back to IHOP. The wait staff seems to be well trained and is fairly efficient. My first visit was several days after the restaurant opened. My order was simple — a child’s hamburger and a salad. Not much could go wrong with that and it didn’t.

My next visit came when I took my nephew out for dinner and he asked to go to IHOP. I wouldn’t have gone again so soon otherwise. He ordered a full breakfast — pancakes, hashbrowns, eggs and sausage. The portions were huge. He made it through the pancakes, but ran out of room (and he’s a 16-year-old boy) before he could finish the eggs and hashbrowns. I ordered a small portion of the prime rib. The salad was wrong and had to be sent back. By that time, my meal had been served. The prime rib had good flavor, but nearly half of the portion was fat, something I don’t enjoy eating straight. The vegetables were a simple California blend, cooked in water. They could have been drained a little better, as they left a little puddle of water on the plate and made the potato a bit soggy.

My most recent visit was to meet on my Edge readers for coffee. I grabbed a spot of breakfast at the same time. It was hard finding entrees that were light on the carbs while also going light on fat and calories. IHOP is another one of those chain restaurants that refuses to provide nutritional information for its menu items. Instead, it offers IHOP For Me, a scant few entrees and breakfasts that are touted as being less than 600 calories and less than 15 grams of fat. They can’t seem to put the few calories together with the carb conscious entrees. One breakfast item advertised as being carb conscious featured four eggs, three strips of bacon, three link sausages and three grilled ham strips. Carb conscious? Yes. Healthy? Nooooo. My final choice was egg and toast, hold the butter.

The verdict on IHOP? It enjoys great national exposure from its TV spots, but if you want a truly great breakfast, I’d recommend sticking with one of the terrific local restaurants we have here. The Lunchbox in North Lewiston offers great scratch-made breakfasts and lunches. (Best scrambled eggs I’ve ever had.) They’re open for breakfast from 8 to 10:30 a.m. Monday through Friday and from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sundays.

Happy Day Corp. has also embraced weekend breakfast service. Both Zany Graze and Main Street Deli are open for breakfast. I’m also told Hazel’s in Clarkston serves up a terrific breakfast/lunch menu. I haven’t tried any of those out yet. Anyone out there given them a try?

My picks for the best breakfast in the region:

1. The Lunchbox in North Lewiston
2. The Rivers Cafe in Kooskia. This is a nod to my old hometown favorite. The biscuits and gravy are superb. Best of all, it’s real sausage gravy, not that fake packaged variety so many restaurants use.
3. The Pantry at the University Inn in Moscow. Nice variety and an excellent atmosphere. They’ll also customize an order to almost any taste.
4. Waffles N More in Lewiston. Good home cooking, good service, great waffles and pancakes and good coffee.

What are your favorites?

I pity Rachel Ray’s poor stylist. One bad decision on an ugly scarf and all of a sudden she’s supporting terrorism.

This latest dust-up over politically correct clothing (and doesn’t that make you snort coffee through your nose?) is particularly ridiculous.

For the woefully uninformed, ubiquitous, perky Rachel Ray is Dunkin’ Donuts’ hired mouthpiece. She appears in print and TV ads touting the chain’s cup of joe and various goodies. The latest ad features her in a heavily fringed, print scarf. To pundit Michelle Malkin, it looked suspiciously like a kaffiyeh, a traditional Arab headdress. Which, of course, must mean Dunkin’ Donuts was showing mute support for Islamic jihad and its apologists, according to Malkin. Feel free to snort coffee through your nose.

Do I have to list the many dozens of ways this is utterly ridiculous? I won’t. I’m only going to point two obvious things:

1) Fashion is a nondenominational, nonpartisan whore. It embraces the latest cool look and cares little about politics or world events. Which means that if the Paris or Milan fashionistas decided tomorrow that Saran Wrap dresses accessorized with shoes made of multi-colored neoprene should be the latest rage, everyone would buy the plastic outfits and feel chic. Ditto Arab-inspired clothing, though Dunkin’ Donuts says the scarf had a paisley design. (Paisley terrorism?)

2) Michelle Malkin is to nut jobs what Dunkin’ Donuts is to … well … doughnuts.