Apr 22 2018

A High Bar – Tamari Bar

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One of my favorite restaurants is Kingyo in Vancouver.  They also have sister restaurants Suika, and most recently, Tamari Bar here in Seattle. It’s not quite the same, but it’s the next best thing when you’re crazing some of those invincible dan dan noodles and rock cooked kobe/waygu. Tamari Bar does have one ace up its sleeve – the Shokado (appetizer bento box).

tamari bar - shokado

shokado – NINE different appetizers; cauliflower pot de crème with white chocolate, pickled kale, poke, mackerel, hamachi, tuna – this box changes all the time, so whatever I have in here, you probably won’t get except for the cauliflower in the upper left and the poke in the middle. There are exactly 12 of these boxes available per night – so get there early if you want to try one! It’s so much fun to go through all of these to see one is your favorite and also see what combination of flavors the chef has come up with. It’s only about 2 bites per person if you’re splitting it, so it’s not overwhelming in portion, and it is a MUST TRY!

tamari bar - waygu beef

waygu beef – cooked on a hot rock; yes, you cook it yourself on a very hot rock so that you can control how done it is. Just make sure you don’t overcook these succulently marbled cut of beef! They’re fatty; they’re flavorful – if you overcook one of these, I’m sorry, but your grilling license is getting revoked. These are barely marinated with a bit of Japanese bbq sauice and sesame and green onions. Enjoy!

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Apr 9 2018

Taste of Ono – Super Six

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I’m not really a brunch eater as I’m rather sluggish in the mornings and my stomach is never awake during brunch hour.  However, if you can have brunch during lunch time, say between noon and 2pm and I’ve already spent my Sunday working up a sweat at hot yoga, I will eat like I didn’t have dinner last night. Lunch is just one of those meals I eat so I don’t starve to death before dinner. Six Seven was the restaurant of choice this time. It’s a taste of Hawaii – and come dinner, you can get all of your favorites, including saimin, spam musubi, poke, and even a prix fixe luau that include kaula pork and huli huli chicken. They only seem to be missing poi, which is probably okay.  But I’ve never been for dinner, so this is about brunch!

Super Six - the hangover

Hangover – French fries, kaula pulled pork, brown gravy, cheese, sunny side up egg; this is Hawaiian poutine and it is delicious. Like loco mocco and kaula pork made friends with canadian poutine

super six - chicken and waffles

chicken and waffles – bubble egg waffles, haupia (coconut) syrup, hot honey, Sriracha, basil; oh yes, this is the combination of all things from the east and west melded together with coconut syrup for a bit of Hawaii. It’s not too spicy and the fried chicken is juicy and crispy. The egg waffle lends a bit more fluffiness, so you’re not dealing with the sharp edges of a waffle and it’s balanced quite well with the sweetness and Srirach.

super six - pineapple cornbread

pineapple cornbread – with basil and honey; fluffy, sweet, and tropical. It’s pretty custardy for a cornbread, but cornbread is so far from Hawaiian, that they can reinvent it as they please. It was amazing – a little bit of crush and plenty cornbread flavor with fresh pineapples to boot. Malasada it is not, but a great interpretation of the south.

Sitting at the bar in this airy garage, I can’t say enough great things about this place. It’s not the mom and pop shop of traditional food like Kona Kitchen as it’s is more nuanced and complex in its flavors melding traditional Hawaiian with the comforts of stateside brunch. I love how they have their own interpretations and how well it all turns out. I shouldn’t be surprised – these are the same people that gave us the original kalibi beef tacos and kimchi fried rice after all. Next time, I’m doing the luau – anyone want to join me?

SUMMARY
Overall: happily ever after
Highlights: chicken and waffles, hangover
Footnotes: try the prix fix luau at dinner; malasadas with passionfruit caramel are also a MUST

 
Super Six Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

Mar 17 2018

Sweet Street – Wallingford Bakery Crawl

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Nofrodelius and I like to do themed crawls – and usually it’s cupcakes.  But the first year, after eating 8 different cupcakes from 4 different bakeries, we decided we needed to scale back, lest we wanted to die of sugar highs and food coma again. The second year, we were slightly more reasonable, opting for a boozy cupcake testing of just 4 cupcakes from Cupcake Royale – we didn’t quite make it through that either.  Year 3, we tried an ice cream crawl, which had us eating from 3 ice cream shops – that was definitely a mistake. Never eat that much ice cream in a half day – you’ll have brain freeze and a sugar high. We also did a macaron crawl that year, which was probably our most successful attempt with 16 macarons. We hardly ever finish everything we buy when we do the tastings, and we insist on doing all of the tasting at the same time to get the best comparison.

Year 4, we’re back to a cupcake theme, but since I haven’t been to some of these bakeries, I didn’t know if cupcakes were available.  If there were cupcakes, we bought them.  If there weren’t, we tried other things. Now, the magic in this year’s crawl is that all the shops were located within a half mile of each other on 45th on the Wallingford side in Seattle.  We didn’t have to trek all over town for our goodies, got a bit of a walk in, and stopped in at few cute shops along the way (our favorite was Paper Delights – they have the Brause blue pumpkin nib in stock!!!).

We went to Sweet Side – a custom cake bakery, Cubes Baking – a newer bakery where all their items are baked in cubes that focuses on Mexican pastries where you pick up your own pastries with tongs (similar to Chinese bakeries), and finally, Trophy Cupcakes.

cubed - dulce de leche cupcube

Cube’s dulce de leche cupcube – like a dense poundcake in texture, not too sweet and in the shape of a square in fitting with the bakery theme. Good frosting to cake ratio, but not very strong on the dulce de leche flavor.

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Feb 10 2018

Escape – The Lake House

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Birthday celebration 2017 – needed a place on the Eastside that had inventive food, something more interesting. Jason Wilson’s Lake House of farmhouse inspired craft cooking in the middle of downtown Bellevue seemed to offer just that. It’s an airy, white-walled, spacious temple for locavores humming with the energy of shoppers newly energized by some retail therapy.

lakehouse - pesto pasta

housemade sarde shell pasta – foraged mushrooms, soft cooked egg, green garlic pesto. This is my favorite dish at The Lake House hands down. It’s an al-dente pasta, lovingly wrapped in clingy egg yolk with pesto and I swear a hint of truffle. Just pop these in your mouth, one at a time, and savor the chew, the silkiness, and the richness of this dish. Like carbonara moved up north in Italy.

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Aug 13 2017

Top Shelf – Butcher’s Table

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They say Butcher’s Table is the swankiest new steakhouse in town, with tasting flights of different grades or different cuts of beef. It’s trendy and it’s a bit of a extravagance, but if you’re going to have steak, you might was well go all out. We were celebrating a birthday afterall, so no expense was spared.  And that’s how I like it.

Butcher's Table - uni

uni – lardo, seeded bread, jalapeño. Considering that Butcher’s Table specializes in beef, this uni had a delicate sweetness and creaminess that paired well with the bread and the spice of the jalapeños. It’s always fun to see how uni is used outside of sushi and they did quite well with this fun bite of appetizer.

 

Butcher's Table - 4-cut tasting flight

If you wanted to know what the difference in cuts tastes like, this is how you do it. If you can’t taste the difference between the cuts, then your best bet is to get the cheapest cut and stick to it. This happens to be the 5-star tasting – filet, new York, cap of ribeye and eye of ribeye. All the pieces had a lovely beef flavor, the filet was the most tender (as expected), though none of them had any issues with gristle and chewiness. This is about as good as it gets.

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Nov 13 2016

Great [Again] – Young American Alehouse

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This post is as much about food as it is politics, as fair warning. I’ve had a hard time processing the results of the 2016 election and writing is cathartic to me.

It was election night. Nutkin and She-Nutkin and I met for dinner so that I could regale them with my tales from New Orleans (beignets, music, and history!).  I wanted to check out Young American Alehouse since it was in their neighborhood, and it was Maria Hines’ re-imagining of Golden Beetle. They had just opened three weeks ago. Golden Beetle was my favorite Mediterranean restaurant in Seattle, so I was sad to see the change, but I assume they had good reason for the change. Maybe the locals weren’t interested in the unrecognizable spices or the fancy small plates among the growing population of craft breweries springing up all over the neighborhood?

We were halfway through our entrees when She-Nutkin checked her phone for the election results. All we saw was a sea of red. A little bit of math told us that Hilary had lost the White House.  It was as if we had all swallowed rancid milk (or in this case, a rancid Cheeto) in our stomachs. What was supposed to be a celebration of our first woman for President, quickly became a shot to the gut with an instant reaction to throw up. This wasn’t supposed to happen.  How could someone who spews racist, misogynistic, and bigoted comments be elected as a leader in a country that once was a haven with freedom of persecution from race, creed, and religion? What fear has torn this country asunder to turn to hate? Continue reading »

Nov 1 2016

Come On In – Screen Door (Portland, OR)

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They say that Sunday brunch is an institution in Portland.  The proper way to brunch, according to locals, is to put your name on the waiting list, go home to eat a bowl of cereal or to a donut shop, and then come back about an hour later. In other words, be prepared to wait for a while, so grab your favorite friends/family and enjoy the company. In our Portlandia adventures, we chose the most popular brunch spot, Screen Door, for the experience.

We arrived at 10:30am, and as promised, the wait about about 1.5 hours and we were seated just past noon. We had a table of four, so we had the opportunity to share a few items. Otherwise, expect to take lots of food home.

Screen Door - chicken and waffles

Fried Chicken and Sweet Potato Waffles – a 6 oz. chicken breast that is still surprisingly juicy bursting with peppers and breading that isn’t too crispy; enjoy this classic combination of sweet and savory kicked up a notch with sublime sweet potato waffles to add more just a touch of sweetness without needing maple syrup. This is the mini-version; it usually comes with THREE chicken breasts for a total of 18 oz. of meat. It could be some of the best leftovers you’ve ever had.

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Oct 27 2016

Comrade – Copine

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Ever since the Book Bindery closed, I’ve been keeping an eye out for chef Shaun McCrain. Book Bindery had clean dishes that sought to highlight the main ingredient in an inventive way that was minimalistic, and yet inventive. It’s fine dining, but not overly fussy without being boring. So it was with high hopes that t0e and I went to Copine in Ballard to see how the chef had faired in his own restaurant.

Copine - fried salmon pate

Fried Salmon Pate – with salmon roe, with crème freshe. A nice amuse bouche to start the meal – a take on salmon multiple ways in a very complex bite.

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Oct 15 2016

Fusion Done Right – Miyabi’s on 45th

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When it comes to Asian fusion, we have a pretty good choice of restaurants: Dahlia Lounge, Marination Station, Joule, and Stateside to name a few. However, the one I like most for dinner with my family is Miyabi’s. It’s mildly adventurous combinations and recognizable ingredients makes it the perfect place to branch out without hanging too far off the limb. You’ll still have your traditional sobas and sushi’s here, but you’ll also find shaved foie gras.  Foie gras tofu anyone?  Don’t question it too much – just enjoy the creativity and the mingling of flavors.

Miyabi's on 45 - agedashi tofu

agedashi tofu – with saffron and chanterelles, in a broth so good they provide you with a spoon

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Aug 3 2016

Scrumptious – Salare

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They call Salare a chef-driven restaurant and a labor of love. Mr. and Mrs. Nutkin agreed to give it a try with me for one of our dinners. They recently returned from their honeymoon in Zion, and what better way to celebrate love, than dining in a restaurant that is a labor of love?  The reviews have been positive and Salare has made Ravenna somewhat of a hotspot. Salare has a bit of southern influence that you can see in the cornbread, grits, and okra, but you can also taste Europe in the lamb au jus and duck confit. It may be eclectic, but it’s thoughtfully curated and wonderfully prepared.

Salare - fried okra

Fried Okra – with pineapples and bacon. So no one likes okra, except for me, most of the South, and Mrs. Nutkin (thankfully), because it’s slimy and furry. Well, when you deep fry it in the most delicate and silk thin of batters, pair it with a hearty bacon and then punch it up with some pineapple, it’s not your average fried okra anymore. Granted, they probably should have cut the okra in half so some of the older ones weren’t so stringy, but overall, this is one of the best preparations of okra that I’ve eaten.

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