Rising Star Café, Wheeler, Oregon – clockwise from top left, café building, menu on September 6, 2015, Cioppino, British Columbia Rockfish, three desserts, and Wild Oregon King Salmon.

At the edge of the estuary, in sight of Neahkahnie mountain, just off highway 101, in the town of Wheeler, hidden behind a massing of blooms and a tangle of plants, is the Sunrise Café. There’s space for about 16 guests inside and perhaps as many on the patio outdoors.   The food is uncommon, each dish layers of taste and texture, enveloped by sauces that seem well matched to the critical palates of our family. And indeed when you enter, you seem to be welcomed as family. It was my impression on both of our visits that the guests around us were people who had returned again and again. We are by no means food critics, but as residents of Portland have accumulated considerable experience with Northwest cuisine. The Sunrise Café in comparison, while not experimental in the Portland sense, is just purely delightful.