Oyster Creek Inn

This one-room, rectangular dining room just off scenic Chuckanut Drive feels like the interior of a well-appointed treehouse. Massive windows overlook a deep plunge of leafy forest, and in nice weather, diners on the deck relax to the murmur of a bubbling brook below.If you like oysters, you'd be crazy not to order some here, thanks to the proximity of oyster farms. (The entrance to Taylor Shellfish Farms' driveway is just outside the restaurant's door.) The menu offers them raw on the half shell, topped with cheese, baked, broiled, pan-fried, scalloped, wrapped in bacon, roasted and topped with spinach and Hollandaise to create a version of Oysters Rockefeller. We liked every preparation we tried. An oyster sampler, available in both appetizer and entree portions, included five preparations. All are made with the big Pacific Bay variety, so don't be surprised if you get one the size of a child's fist. Stick with oysters, or with seafood prepared simply, such as grilled fish or steamed shellfish. The kitchen is less consistent with more complex dishes, such as seafood stew in a thin, underwhelming saffron broth. A Northwest version of salade Nicoise combined luscious mussels, crisp mixed greens and a standard dressing, but pink salmon in the mix was bland and a bit overcooked. For non-seafood fanciers, the long menu offers meat options. If you can't find what you want, friendly servers will deliver special requests, such as a fish-and-chips platter, to the kitchen. The wine list covers just a single, legal-sized page, but even so it's impressive: vertical offerings of Leonetti and Woodward Canyon, and a respectable set of half-bottles. House wines under a proprietary label from nearby Mount Baker Vineyards are reasonably priced by the glass or bottle. —Kathleen FlinnScene: