Terms of crêpes

Lisa and I have been best friends since seventh grade. We lived in different time zones from college through our 20s.

I was living in San Francisco and fleeing the crazy Bay, driving up I-80 every weekend to spend time with Lisa and the mountains. Lisa was relaxing after grad school at her parents’ house at Lake Tahoe.

After biking or hiking, we often stopped at Joni’s, a restaurant in Kings Beach, for veggie burgers.

Enter Reno. We got an apartment, and, among other changes, Joni’s became Toni’s, which is now something else. Last weekend, Lisa and I spotted the former restaurant owner Joni at the Blue Onion Café, located at the Old Brockway Golf Course in Kings Beach.

Since we don’t play golf, we found this place by chance. We were hungry, and the log building at the corner of Highways 28 and 267 sort of looked like a restaurant, so we stopped. We sat on a deck overlooking Lake Tahoe among the golfers.

Each table had a lovely potted plant as a centerpiece.

Lisa observed that we could overhear all the conversations around us.

“Good for eavesdropping.”

“When you don’t have much to say, you might as well.”

Fortunately for those around us, Lisa and I never run out of things to say when we’re together.

We looked over the menu: BLTs, salads, focaccia sandwiches and savory crêpes. Lisa and I had French together in high school, so it was only appropriate that crêpes dominate our meal.

I had a crêpe with smoked salmon decorated with scattered capers, dill sprinklings and stripes of fresh cream ($8.50).

Scholars have written tomes on The Perfect Crêpe, which this wasn’t, but how often am I going to eat a hot crêpe made by a street vendor on my way to the Eiffel Tower? Not this year, anyway, so I take what I can get without being fussy. This crêpe may not have been authentic, but it tasted good.

Lisa ate a veggie panini ($7.25) with oozing Monterey Jack cheese, roasted red peppers, caramelized onions, grilled zucchini and aioli on whole grain bread.

Generally, lunch does not include dessert, but there were too many crêpes to pass up. Besides, who knows when we’ll be in Kings Beach together again?

We split two: The first came with banana and Nutella ($5.00). It was presented as a rectangle with both inside layers coated with Nutella and loaded with banana slices. For those unclear, Nutella is a hazelnut butter (like the peanut variety) with cocoa added for a chocolaty appearance and flavor. It tastes good on everything. According to the Nutella people, it outsells peanut butter worldwide.

Our second crêpe was made with fresh lemons ($3.50) and was presented with a dusting of confectioner’s sugar. It was light and crisp-tasting: a perfect complement to the decadent Nutella crêpe.

On our way out, we spotted Joni. We gave her our condolences about her restaurant, but she seemed right at home at the Blue Onion.

Lisa and I hugged each other in a melancholy farewell. She’s headed back out to sea. Our conversations will revert to e-mail, and this lunch will be a page in the history of our friendship.