For game lovers, GW Hunters a pleasant surprise

It’s not every day you can go into an everyday restaurant and find something unique.

GW Hunters Steakhouse in Post Falls certainly qualifies as an everyday restaurant, serving up mostly traditional meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner in a building that obviously housed a chain long ago.

It’s a place we have passed time and again in our combined decades in Spokane without much of a thought of stopping in. (Hey, the venerable garlic heaven White House Grill is across the street!) We guessed, because of the name, that some unusual meals might be on the menu, but in the past when we’ve found a buffalo burger it was overpriced.

So GW Hunters just wasn’t on our radar. But we’ve been offering an opinion on service, cleanliness and dining value for more than two years now and our radar found GW Hunters.

Our recent visit surprised us.

Yes, there is wild game on the menu, although not as much as we expected, and it was affordable.

But the first impression, especially considering the outside, was the decor. Some may be offended by the taxidermy overload, but we thoroughly enjoyed seeing all the different mounts. While we gawked, we received a warm greeting from the hostess.

Once seated, our server, Kelsey, was very patient as we looked over the menu to decide which wild game was going to be our choice.

We settled on a yak burger ($12), which we were warned was “gamier” than buffalo or elk, and buffalo meat loaf. But we felt it was our duty to go all in for our readers.

The yak was very lean, and good – gamey was not an issue. Condiments were avoided just to see if it was something our spouses would try when we go back.

The surprise was the meatloaf ($11). It was tasty but there was enough to almost make two meals. And the potato salad side was a wise choice

We had ordered fries with the burger, just as a hedge for our potato salad philosophy. We have long discussed (as we attempt to limit our french fry intake) that there are three kinds of potato salad. One is your favorite, the one you grew up on, or Mom’s. The other two are good (I can eat this) and bad (inedible), with no real in-between. That is why it’s a bit of a gamble when ordering. Not that there is anything wrong with a different potato salad – we just believe if it doesn’t lean toward Mom’s, most people aren’t really going to like it.

GW Hunters makes its own potato salad, and we would recommend it to Mom. And we want to thank Kelsey for saying she would get us fries if we didn’t like the potato salad. Most places would do that, but the unsolicited offer was appreciated.

Since we’ve been talking up our latest stop, we have been told the nonexotic meals, which sounded good, are good. We heard a couple of criticisms, particularly about service since the restaurant last changed hands, but that was not an issue on our visit.

There are so many dishes we want to try on future visits, such as the machacca (prime rib with Mexican herbs and spices), omelette (breakfast is served until 3 p.m.), elk meatball sandwich, elk noodle soup, elk steak, buffalo steak and elk lasagna.

But mostly we want to have the combo appetizer plate of duck tenderloin, marinated alligator and elk fingers – hold the sauce.

One thing we really enjoyed was when we went to wash up and discovered …. Well, should we tell you or make you go see for yourself?

GWH is a short drive from the Valley and just south of the Spokane Street exit, so a return visit isn’t difficult from our location. It passed our test for service, cleanliness and quality for price.

Long ago a friend suggested we eat at GWH, which we nixed for reasons that had nothing to do with any knowledge beyond the sign. Well, forget that. Let us just say, Jack, there has been a change of opinion and if want to go to GWH, we’re game.