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06/09/12 - Restaurant Update

We've been eating out a bit, so we have some updates on some old favorites we've been neglecting, and at least one new place.

Cafe Campagne

 We hadn't been to Cafe Campagne in a while. Our last visit, some years back, was a disappointment. We tend to go for lunch, and the lunch menu had be sorely reduced with many of our favorite dishes gone. This time, things were much better. We really liked the asparagus mimosa with asparagus, eggs and a mustard dressing. It was a lighter version of the old, incredibly buttery, asparagus flamande. We also enjoyed the country pate and our hanger steak frites. That's one of our favorites, and it was good to see it back for lunch. We'll definitely be coming back to Cafe Campagne again.

They had really good lighting for this picture of their bar.

Palace Kitchen

 Palace Kitchen was another neglected favorite. Here too, the problem was the menu. It had settled into a rather pasta heavy pattern and seemed all too predictable. Time, and a few more iterations of the menu, seems to have changed things, so we enjoyed old standards like the glazed chicken wings and coconut cream pie, but also some new dishes like a meltingly tender spring lamb ragout with green chick peas, ramp (wild onion) oil and little cavatelli stuffed with ricotta. We also had the pork debauch (our term) with crispy ears, pork loin lomo, pork belly, and bacon bits served with arugula. To compensate for all the porky goodness, we also had a spring time dish of flowering broccoli with nettle pesto and white beans.

More great lighting

California Taco

 We made a short side trip to chow down at this taco truck in a Lacey strip mall, and we were well rewarded. We took over a table in front of the next door pawnshop and devoured our tacos, with beef tongue and with chorizo. They had great fresh corn tortillas and wonderfully spicing fillings. Nothing was bland or greasy. Even the rice and beans were great. We also had a sandwich on a soft roll called a cubano with chunks of meat, green peppers and onions. Everything was absolutely delicious. This truck has the best Mexican food we've eaten in the Seattle area.

It's one of four trucks. This one was in a strip mall in Lacey.

Blue Flame

 Blue Flame is close to home, and we drive by all the time. There's the distinctive blue flame design and often the distinctive smokey smell, but we usually just pass by. This time, we were hungry, so we ordered up a rack of pork back ribs and a pile of beef brisket, slathered on the barbeque sauce and chowed down. The meats were great. The romaine salad with blue cheese dressing was delicious and refreshing. Even the smoked potatoes were wonderful. It's going to be much harder to drive by in the future.

It's hard to miss on route 101 east of town.

Joule

 We were in the cab, on our way to Joule, when we thought to call ahead and make reservations. It took a while for the phone to answer, and an apologetic voice explained that the restaurant was closed. They were moving to a new location. We are really excited about this. The word is that there will be few changes in the direction of the restaurant, so we can hardly wait until they reopen.

They are reopening in Fremont this summer.

Keywords: reviews, seattle, restaurants

05/08/12 - Revel in Fremont

We have been big fans of Joule and its fusion Korean cooking for a while now, so we decided to check out Joule's sister restaurant Revel. We went for lunch, but the dinner menu is the same or at least similar. It offers much simpler food than its sophisticated sister, but in the same vein, Korean fusion comfort food. This means wonderful noodles with oxtail ragout and even more wonderful dumplings stuffed with beef short ribs or, for vegetarians, cauliflower, chick peas and yogurt. The latter are curried and reminded us of wonderful samosas.

There are also the amazing savory pancakes. Think excellent egg foo yung, not iHop. We tried two, one with pork belly and kim chi, and an even more spectacular one with asparagus, feta cheese, almonds and kalamatas olives. The pork belly was just wonderful, but in the Korean fusion tradition. The later pancake was Korean-Mediteranean and would not have been out of place in a Greek fusion restaurant. The cheese and olives came through nicely and set off the seasonal asparagus.

403 N 36th St., Seattle, WA 98103 206.547.2040
We only tried one of the salads. We had to balance all the other dishes a bit with some greenery, so we ordered the salad of argula with thin slices of corned lamb. The arugula was great, and the corned lamb was wonderfully spicy. It was a great combination.

To be honest, we liked every dish we tried at Revel. Interestingly, our two favorites were the Greek - we'll call it that - pancake and the samosa, which combined ingredients and spicings from two widely varied cuisines with Korean techniques, and married them perfectly. We'll have to keep our eyes open and see what the folks at Revel come up with next. Until then, we'll be coming back for neo-traditional comfort food.

We should note that the restaurant is a bit noisy with a lot of hard reflective services, and it fills up for lunch and probably for dinner. We were able to converse once they turned down the music a bit, but this could be a problem for some. Despite this, we plan on coming back for our next fix.

Revel, poorly photographed

Keywords: seattle, restaurants

05/02/12 - Like a Snout

When we put a roof over the front steps of Lake Crescent Cottage, one of the items in the statement of work explicitly stated that the result "should not look like a snout". Then, there are those times you do want something to look like a snout. For example, this Maximus Minimus pulled pork food truck on Pine Street. We didn't try any of their pulled pork, but we can imagine the statement of work given to the body shop.

It does look like a snout.

Keywords: seattle, art

03/10/12 - Joule in Wallingford - Our Kaleberg Review

We have been trying new restaurants, but we haven't been updating our reviews online. Joule is one of our great new finds. The chef, Rachel Yang, was originally at Coupage, but she's opened her own place in Wallingford, and it is wonderful. The cooking is based on solid Korean cuisine, but with an eclectic touch, following the seasons and borrowing freely. This means beef shortribs and tamarind lamb shanks, savory mochis and chickpea agnolotti, and a broad range of local vegetables including our Kaleberg favorites like kale, broccoli rabe and fennel. For more, read our glowing review.

The restaurant towards dusk

Keywords: restaurants, reviews, seattle, kale

02/18/12 - The Ballard Locks in Winter

We recently took a lightning trip into Seattle, and made our way to the Ballard Locks in hopes of seeing our favorite winter garden. We were a bit early for the richly scented winter daphne, but there were some magnificent witch hazel trees and a fair bit of industrial action. It was like something out of a children's book with the locks cycling, the diggers on the dredging barge hauling up rocks and the railroad bridge opening between mile long trains.

Nature may have been a bit disappointing. The daphnes weren't in bloom. The fish ladder was fishless, and the garden winter bare, but sheer industry made up for it nicely.

The dredger removing this year's crop of fresh rocks

A witch hazel tree in bloom

A lone barge and tug passing through the locks

The dredger and the railroad bridge in action

A kingfisher cooperatively sitting on a cable

Keywords: seattle, winter

11/19/11 - Seattle Light

We were in Seattle the other day and could not help noticing the amazing light. It was one of those typical sunny-cloudy Seattle days with dark gray clouds and bright blue sky. There was also that science fiction-y looking building to catch the light.



Keywords: seattle

09/13/11 - Wood Fired Pizza

For a while they were going to build some luxury condos on this lot. They even dug a deep hole for the foundation, but now it's back to a parking lot and wood fired pizza. We didn't actually try their pizza, but they've got the wood and flames all right. If nothing else, it shows imagination in the face of economic collapse.

You can see the flames

Keywords: seattle, food

07/19/11 - Some Arty Pictures of Capital Hill

On our last trip to Seattle, we wandered up Capital Hill and took some arty photographs. It's an arty looking neighborhood, so it's perfect for taking arty photos.











Keywords: seattle

07/18/11 - The Goats of Seattle

We were wandering around near Pike's Place Market when we saw these goats on the steep hillside. They're definitely urban goats and quite hungry. Apparently, they can't get a mower for that steep slope, so the goats are their answer. According to the press release, they're from Rent a Ruminant.

Keywords: seattle

07/17/11 - Seattle Collage

We were in Seattle a while back and visited the Ballard Locks which are always wonderful. The channel was full of water, and the fish ladder was full of fish. We got to see the railroad truss bridge go up and down. The locks didn't cycle this time, but they're a wonderful working piece of architecture as well as a museum piece.

We also tried out a new Ballard restaurant, The Walrus and The Carpenter. We came early, at 4PM, and loaded up on oysters which were half price. We also had some wonderful grilled sardines with walnuts and coriander, fried oysters with coriander aioli and some wonderful bread pudding with caramel sauce.

Like the Ballard Locks and the fish ladder, The Walrus and The Carpenter was a very Seattle experience. One enters through a coffee shop which fronts a bike shop which leads to the restaurant. Sorry, but we couldn't get a really good photo of the place, but we'll try again when we get back.

The Ballard Locks

There's a lot of water,

some wonderful early 20th century civil engineering architecture,

railroad bridges,

and, of course, fish in the fish ladder.

This is not The Walrus and The Carpenter, but we passed it en route.

The entrance to The Walrus and The Carpenter, a coffee shop,

which leads to the bike shop,

and finally to the restaurant where they had these wonderful oysters.

Keywords: oysters, seattle

04/26/11 - Quick Trip to Seattle

We took a quick trip to Seattle. Everything is sort of a haze. Yes, we flew in on Kenmore Air. We got back to Maneke which is as wonderful as ever. We had lunch at Monsoon which has a terrific pho and some great noodle dishes. We even tried out Fare Start which is a restaurant that helps the down on their luck get started with culinary careers. They had some pretty good salmon burgers and a falafel like vegetarian sandwich. The Seattle streets were full of ninjas attending some kind of conventio. Then, we bought a whole pile of cheese, had lunch at Seatown Snack and flew home.

The Olympics are pretty amazing from the air.

That's the REI garden.

That's Fare Start in an old industrial space near the courthouse.

Keywords: kenmore, seattle, salmon

02/11/11 - Some Views of the Olympic Mountains

We got a great view of the Olympic Mountains on our last flight into Seattle. We got another view from near Pike's Place Market. Enjoy the pretty pictures.

Valley haze in the Olympic Mountains

Some snow covered peaks

Another view, from in town - No, they aren't made of Beecher's Cheese.

Keywords: seattle, flying

12/10/10 - Our Flight Home

We flew home around dusk. Here are some pictures of Seattle at night, suitably blurred by the planes vibration. That last photo is one of our plane's lights.

That's Seattle.

More Seattle lights

The lights on our plane's wing

Keywords: seattle, flying

12/09/10 - Christmas in Seattle

We made another lightning trip into Seattle, and since it is December, we checked out the gingerbread house show in the Sheraton Towers lobby. This year, the theme was houses, so they had cozy houses, tree houses, farm houses and space houses, all done with gingerbread, candies, icing and other wonders.

Remembering the good old days, before the housing bust ...








Keywords: seattle, christmas

12/04/10 - Quick Trip Into Seattle

We made a lightning run into Seattle to handle some business. Even though the trip was short, we did manage to get around a bit.
  • We had the Beef Seven Ways at The Tamarind Tree. A vegetarian friend recommended this restaurant, so we were surprised to see this on the menu.
  • We wandered around the International District. We rarely just wander around this part of town. In the summer, it is just too hot.
  • We discovered Hing Hay park. This is another one of Seattle's great freeway parks. It's a community, memorial and mediation garden set hard between the I-5 freeway and the international district. It was a bit past season, but still quite pretty.

That's beef four ways.

We really liked this space available sign.

The view from Hing Hay Park. Yes, there is a bit of climbing.

Some autumn color

One of the lanterns

Keywords: autumn, seattle

09/28/10 - Labor Saving Design

We were walking around Seattle and noticed an excellent piece of lazy design. Instead of designing their own facade, these clever architects just copied the one across the street. Nice work!

It'll look just like the building across the street.

Keywords: art, seattle

09/03/10 - New, at Least for Us, in Seattle

We were briefly in Seattle. We visited a few old haunts like Le Pichet, Trabant, the coffee house, and REI, and we discovered a few new places:
  • Melrose Market - This is a mini-mall of little food shops on Melrose Avenue between Pike and Pine. Rain Shadow Meats alone was worth the visit. There are quite a few interesting places cropping up between Pike and Pine, like Cascina Spinasse, Eliot Bay Books and now Melrose Market.
  • Belle Epicurian - This is a pastry place on Fourth Avenue between University and Seneca, and we nearly walked right by except for the wonderful scent of buttery baked goods. To be honest, we didn't try anything. Despite rumors to the contrary, we Kalebergs can only eat so much. Still, everything had the right look and scent, so we'll be back.
  • Seatown Snack Bar - This is Tom Douglas's latest addition to his empire. It has taken over the retro-1970s furniture store next to Etta's. (See our review below.)

Meat at Rain Shadow Meats

Cheese at Calf and Kid

Belle Epicurian

Seatown Snack Bar

Seatown Snack Bar - A Brief Review

We had a porchetta sandwich, which was almost as good as Salumi's. We also had an amazingly good beef short rib sandwich. They have a great potato salad made with a simple coarse Dijon mustard dressing. We also had a wonderful dish of thinly sliced octopus with turmeric cucumbers and a plate of heirloom tomatoes and avocado skordalia. We were quite impressed. Not only is the food great, and you can get a light snack or a full meal, but they serve all afternoon and into the evening.

Keywords: seattle, food, restaurants, kale

08/18/10 - More Pictures From The Air

We flew into Seattle briefly on Kenmore Air. As usual, the scenery was spectacular. The Olympic Mountains are spectacular, but the park is the largest roadless area in the lower 48. That means that you don't see a lot of the mountains when driving, but a short scenic flight offers awesome views.

That's coastal fog. It's often sunnier inland.

More coastal fog

The mountains

More mountains

Even more mountains

Amazing mountain profiles

Do we really need a caption here?

Snow capped mountains

One of the many green valleys

Keywords: kenmore, seattle

05/15/10 - News From Seattle

We were in Seattle recently for a lightning visit. Everything was a bit of a blur, but we did note the curious sign on the right. It seems to be for a law office, but a closer look reveals a chapel. An even closer look reveals that the chapel offers food and a bar. That sounds like full service to us.

Below we offer our update on Spinasse. They've changed seating plans. Gone are the long communal tables. They now offer more private seating options. The food is as good as ever. That's a shot of their Russian salad with fresh English peas, pickled beets and tuna. We can hardly wait for the local peas to be ready, so we can try this at home.

Food - Chapel - Bar

Tables at Spinasse

Russian salad

Keywords: seattle, restaurants

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