And just like every other blog of mine, I’ve fallen into my typical habits of not posting for months. But here’s the latest in my long string of restaurants for the past month. Total puts me up to 97 since I’ve moved to Seattle. Not too shabby for 58 days.
My pacing should hopefully slow down as I unpack my kitchen and actually start to cook meals rather than eating out every day.
Dahlia Bakery - Had a sandwich here. Felt like I was overpaying for airport food, but the sandwich was actually quite nice.
Dick’s Drive-In – Outside of the attention drawing name, it’s really just a slightly better McDonalds.
Shallots Asian Bistro – decent enough takeout for generic asian food. They seemed to want to set themselves up as a place to get a few drinks as well. Must be due to the proximity to Belltown.
Pike Place Bagel – Never had a proper NYC bagel, but these tasted fine to me.
Moghul Express – tasty indian food in Columbia Center. I always have a weird aversion to pay by weight food places though.
Mama’s Mexican Kitchen – one of these days I’ll learn that I really don’t like mexican food in general. And having mediocre-bad mexican certainly doesn’t help that opinion.
Beba’s Deli – Uninspired breakfast sandwich(but aren’t they all?)
Spur Gastropub – Apparently supposed to be one of the temples of molecular gastronomy in Seattle. The highlights of the tasting menu were the veal sweetbreads(with white asparagus and rhubarb sauce) and the sous vide short ribs. The prior items were well prepared, but not the mind blowing awesome that I’ve grown accustomed to for tasting menus. The cocktails were very nice, and really Spur’s designation as a gastropub is accurate – it’s a nice place to stop in for a nice appetizer or two and a couple of cocktails, but not really for a meal.
Golden Singha – tasty quickish takeout thai.
Cherry Street Coffee House – ok breakfast baked goods
Assaggio – Really awesome service. The olive oil accompanying the bread was delicious. My main entree of gnocchi was merely decent.
Bell Thai – less tasty takeout thai
Crepe de France – ok crepes. I got an apple one, but failed to get the cheese on top.
Purple – Had a very tasty lamb dish here, and they had a nice cheese selection to sample from.
Ixtapa – Generic tasting Mexican.
Tandoori Hut – tasty tandoori indian food.
Mel’s Market – generic breakfast bagel.
Tenoch – decent takeout indian food.
Bambino’s – ok calzone.
Gyro House – ok gyros
The Counter – neat burger place where you basically check off what you want on it for your customization options. I picked out a burger with to many items on it and thus it became difficult to eat. Each of the components on the burger that I ordered was prepared well, so I don’t have too many non-fixable complaints.
Petra Mediterranean Bistro – god mediterranean food.
Pies & Pints – Amazing pies, tasty pints. Finally had the mac and cheese here, which was delicious even after a day of cheese tasting.
I Love Wasabi – Their sashimi place was pretty hit or miss. Some items were good, but others were merely mediocre. The plate itself was a decent value for the money.
Hot Mama’s Pizza – decent ny style pizza by the slice.
Taco Del Mar – never been to this chain before, but it was very blah and non-tasty.
Pita Pit – not that exciting either.
Rancho Bravo Tacos – probably not a terrible place to hit while drunk.
Mistral Kitchen – lovely tasting menu. Since we had intelligently dined on a Wednesday night, the tasting menu area of the restaurant was empty. Actually the other two parties that were supposed to go apparently cancelled, so the chef gave us extra items(6 courses on a 4 course tasting menu). Not only did we get extra items, each of the tasting menu items was a bit more than a mere tasting. The chef also took it as a personal challenge when I mentioned a slight preference against cauliflower. The ingredients in all the dishes had an impressive freshness.
Anapurna Cafe – Really tasty Indian/Himalayan curry. It’s got a nice hotness that starts out mild and slowly permeates the mouth.
Zaw Pizza – take and bake pizza, which is a really odd concept to me. They use a lot of locally sourced ingredients. It was neat to order a pizza and see a “made by” tag by the creator of my particular pizza. They also do bicycle delivery.
Mediterranean Express – really tasty mediterranean food.
Teriyaki & Wok – blah for cheap asian food.
Dilettante – had a really tasty root beer float using Thomas Kemper root beer.
Poppy – Amazing thali(which is like tapas on steroids). You order one set of courses, with many different small dishes all at once for you to sample. They do a great job of placing a focus on many items that’d simply fade into the background as an accompaniment in other meals. Each element was delicious on its own, and also in pretty much every possible combination of the components on the dish. A herb garden in the back provides many of the fresh spices used, and their fresh mint chocolate chip ice cream packed a punch.
Tat’s Delicatessen – I hadn’t had a good cheesesteak in a while and Tat’s certainly hit the spot. I can’t say that I remember the fine nuances of an Amoroso roll, but the meat was deliciously unhealthy. Combined with Cheese Whiz I had artery clogging deliciousness in my hands.
Ballet – generic asian cuisine, but it was quite tasty and the staff seemed really nice.
Via Tribunali – The calzone that I had was interesting, with some of the advertised fillings put on top for a nice looking package.
Seattle Taproom – Had a mediocre sandwich and a couple of beers before a flight. Nothing too impressive.
Cosi – Nice bagel for breakfast. It’s a chain so everyone should know them.
IHOP – Terrible omelette, bad coffee. But it’s not like my expectations should be high for an IHOP.
Five Guys – Best east coast burger chain. And their friends are delicious, and arrive in O-fry portions.
Dirty Dick’s – King of a tourist trap place for craps. I had been jonesing for MD blue crap, which they were apparently out of. As a second choice I probably could’ve settled for King Crab, but they didn’t have all you can eat on those like they’d had in previous years. I settled on the snow crab, which was acceptably tasty.
A&W – Had a very forgettable root beer float.
Berghoff Cafe – Had a really tasty ruben. But I was hungry, in an airport, and they had literally just pulled out a fresh hunk of brisket, so it was probably far better to me at that moment than it typically is.
Tap House Grill – Average food, but amazing beer selection.
Quinn’s – I had really high hopes for this place, but it really wasn’t what I was expecting. They had a lot of menu items that were for sheer shock value. Not exactly a fine dining establishment, but I suppose not a terrible place to stop for drinks and a bite to eat.
Pho Cyclo Cafe – Tasty pho. Though it really kinda all tastes the same to me.
Mae Phim Thai – Good cheap thai food. I think Seattle really loves Thai since there seems to be a rather large number of them. I do need to branch out my knowledge of thai foods from just ordering curry(as tasty as that may seem).
