12/10/07 - The Remodeled Bus Tunnel

12/10/07 - Seattle Christmas

12/10/07 - Green Bean Lizard

11/17/07 - A Taste of Home

According to the docent, the original tree fell in the Tacoma area and was collected, along with lots of mosses and little undergrowth plants, to comprise the Neukom Nurselog exhibit. They did a nice job, though we aren't sure of what the museum people are going to do when the young trees growing from the old log start getting tall. We'd like to think that they'll have a fund drive and grow the building. Why not a taste of artificial rain forest in downtown Seattle?

10/22/07 - Pink Elephant Carwash in Seattle

08/05/07 - Black Douglas Cod - A Northwestern Treat

This dish was suggested by a dish we had at Coupage, a Korean fusion restaurant in Seattle. They served arctic char marinated in fir eau de vie, and it was quite good. This dish has a slightly stronger flavor, and the light green notes of the fir buds come across as rather bright and fruity. No, it doesn't taste like wood pulp.

You might want to check out Clear Creek Distillery, the folks who make the eau de vie, or check out the Washington State Liquor Board for availability.

08/04/07 - Rover's Summer of 2007

• smoked duck with a green olive tapenade
• a ripe red tomato with bucheron goat cheese - It's tomato season people, hint, hint.
• salmon with fava beans
• soft shelled crab with mussels
• lobster with corn kernels - Was this a tribute to the late Jean Louis Palladin?
• lamb medallions with flageolet and a grilled onion

07/25/07 - Exploring Seattle and The Local Vine

The walk down was spectacular, with Seattle's version of the painted ladies, perhaps a quarter of them being remodeled, and some spectacular views of the city and the sound.

It is often tricky to get a good glass of champagne in Seattle. The Hyatt hotel doesn't serve beverages in their lovely lobby, and most restaurants don't serve more than one or two types by the glass. Our best bets have been Cafe Campagne and the Sorrento Hotel. The local vine had seven or eight types of champagne (and sparkling wine) available. We tried two:

• Gossert Brut Excellence - a wonderful, rich champagne with an extra bite and a magnificent nose
• Gonet-Medeville Extra Brut Rose - an unusual pink champagne with a fascinating kumquat note

06/09/07 - The Kalebergs Check Out The Harvest Vine

Rover's is right across the street, so we kept putting off dinner at The Harvest Vine. We finally made a special trip, and we have to admit. The cuisine may be Basque, but maybe the Basque are just better cooks. This was the best Iberian meal we have had, ever. There was the expected, squid in its own ink, and the unexpected, venison with oyster mushrooms, and then there was the perfect, and we could go down a long list here starting with the sea urchin and porcini revuelto. Read our review to learn more.

02/18/07 - San Francisco Update - Clearing Our Plate

We have finally gotten around to posting our San Francisco restaurant reviews. We were in San Francisco back in December and January, and we have just been too busy to post anything about it, until now. And about time.

We hadn't been in San Francisco in six years. That's a long time, and things have changed. The great food adventure of the 80s and 90s seems to have vanished, and, to be honest, we were a bit disappointed with the food in one of our favorite food cities. Seattle is a much more interesting food town these days. In San Francisco, too many restaurants seem to be just going through the motions.

This isn't to say that one can't get a good meal in San Francisco. We had plenty, but something has changed. Read our San Francisco page for more, or check out the individual reviews: Boulevard, Dosa, New Asia, Nopa, Terzo, Ton Kiang, Tres Agaves, Yank Sing, Zuni Cafe, and Marinus in Carmel Valley.

02/07/07 - Three and a Half New Seattle Restaurant Reviews

We've been rather remiss on our reporting, but we've been visiting new restaurants including three in Seattle. We've reviewed three of them on our website:

• Coupage - a wonderful Korean fusion place; surely a cuisine that has come of age
• Nishino - Japanese classics with a modern touch by a student of Nobu Matsuhisa
• Tilth - an organic country kitchen in the big city

The one half a restaurant is Tom Douglas's Serious Pie, his new pizzeria. We had to admit that the pies were very, very good, but we just had a slice or two and have to go back for more testing.

02/07/07 - Douglas Fir Based Eau d'Vie from Clear Creek

We first heard about this product at Coupage, a Korean fusion restaurant noted in the item below. One of their dishes was arctic char marinated in a Douglas fir based liqueur. We had expected it to be overwhelmingly pine flavored, perhaps even resinous. It was not. The flavor was clear, but unusual, and rather hard to place.

The very next day we saw the bottle on the right at a Washington State Liquor Store. Clear Creek, based in Oregon, makes the unusual alcoholic beverage shown to the right. According to the little tag, they use grape based brandy and young, hand picked douglas fir buds. They soak the buds in the brandy, then redistill the batch.

As for the flavor, it tastes a bit like rose water with that rich tang. It's a very clear, clean flavor. Think woodsy, not pine-y. We can't find it at the state web site, so it is probably a one shot item, or perhaps being sold illegally. We don't care. We like it.

12/11/06 - Our Review of Fra'Mani Salumeria

We have long been fans of Salumi in Seattle, so when we heard about Fra'Mani in Berkeley we had to check out the competition. The comparison was not as simple as we had thought, and Fra'Mani is a serious contender. Can you guess our favorite? We are being deliberately coy here in hope that you will read our review.

04/09/06 - Update On Flying Fish

We were in Seattle the other day and had a really great meal. It had been a while, so we were pleased to find Flying Fish as good as ever, and now they are open for lunch.

Click here for our updated restaurant review of Flying Fish.

03/07/06 - The Farmer's Market Has Left Downtown, Peace and Quiet Return To Our Dying City Center

We've been putting off posting this, since it is kind of a downer. We've been big fans of the Port Angeles Farmers' Market for years, even before it moved downtown. Then, we were even bigger fans after it moved downtown, since we almost never got downtown, except to have dinner at Bella Italia, visit Port Book and News, or see a movie at the Lincoln Theatre. Now we had an excuse to shop downtown, and we did.

Let's face it, downtown Port Angeles is dying, what with a Walmart a bit to the east, Sequim, even further east, turning into a down market mega-mall, and the changes in the lumber and fishing industries, the traditional mainstays of the town. There are some great 19th and early 20th century buildings downtown, but all too many empty lots and closed stores. The Farmers' Market brought us, and many other shoppers into town. There were even a few businesses that chose their locations to take advantage of the market, and now we'll see how well they do.

While we may have liked the Farmers' Market, it apparently bothered a small group of local merchants, even though there were many merchants in favor of it, and others who didn't care one way or the other. These anti-market merchants seem to have gotten stuck back in 1952, but it's not 1952 anymore. The big timber is gone, and one man with a chain saw and a self-loader can do the work of an entire team back then. Rural downtowns have to compete with their own suburbs, and everyone owns a car. If they don't find what they need in town, they can drive to Sequim, or Silverdale, or Seattle, or whatever. Some will even shop on the internet. Rather than embracing the Farmers' Market and the foot traffic it brought, these merchants felt that it interfered with their ability to park in front of their own stores, that it interfered with what little traffic flowed along the truck route through downtown Port Angeles, and quite possibly that having spent their money on a head of cabbage, few people would still be able to afford any further shopping.

In any event, there was some politicking. There was the Port Angeles Planning Commission meeting that ran into the wee hours. There was the shutdown, more politicking, a reprieve, and then the market was moved back to its old location at the Courthouse, as shown on the map above. We like this location too, and we'll be there most Saturdays. There is lots of parking near the Courthouse, and it's a bit closer to our house. We often walk down the block to the big Safeway on Lincoln Street to buy what we can't get at the Farmers' Market. But, we don't get downtown as often, and we don't spend as much money there.

02/10/06 - Winter Trails in Olympic National Park

We don't stop hiking in the national park just because it is winter. True, we need to snowshoe up in the high country, and a lot of the high country roads are closed, but there is still some beautiful hiking down below. Even the recent winds and rains haven't kept us from the Spruce Railroad Trail along the north shore of Lake Crescent or from the Elwha River trail from Whiskey Bend towards Lilian Camp.

There was a recent wind storm that caused a lot of damage, though it was much worse in Seattle and the Puget Sound area. We could even see this on the weather map, which showed the wind speeds in Port Angeles as about a half to two thirds of the wind speeds in areas not sheltered by the mountains. If you fly in a small plane, you will often feel the strong winds starting as you fly over Discovery Bay, and out of the shelter of the Olympics. Still, our internet service was down for most of a day, and the Whiskey Bend Road was closed while the Park Service cleared the fallen trees and brush. Whiskey Bend Road is an interesting drive under the best of circumstances. About a lane and half wide, hard packed, but unpaved, it twists and turns and climbs along the ridge to the east of Lake Mills.

There was a fair bit of freshly sawn timber by the roadside, but the road was quite passable in our Honda Civic. There were a few trees down along the trail, and a fair bit of water in the little side creeks, but the trail was open and the views of the Elwha River and the surrounding hills as gorgeous as ever.

As for the Spruce Railroad Trail, the much disputed roads in the area seem to be open, though there were a good number of downed trees along the roadside, and a bit of brush on the road. Lake Crescent is high, but the water has been going down lately during this drier spell, so it is just one short step over water to get on the Devil's Punchbowl bridge. Our special surprise waterfall has dried up, but a number of other channels that are usually dry are now full of running water.

In other words, the roads are opena nd the trails are open, so take advantage of the sunny days of February.

02/10/06 - Le Gourmande - Adventure in Ballard

Maybe that's a bit dramatic for a headline, but Ballard has always been somewhere in the wilds of Seattle, as yet unexplored. We now know a bit more about Ballard, and a lot more about an excellent, elegant restaurant where France meets the Pacific Northwest.

01/07/06 - Reviews of Lampreia and Joy's Wine Bistro

Here are two new Kaleberg reviews. Lampreia is an elegant restaurant in Seattle's Belltown, and quite a dining experience. Joy's Wine Bistro is a less formal newcomer in Port Angeles, and shows a lot of promise these early days.

Lampreia is an elegant restaurant in Belltown. It is a foodies paradise. We dined on truffles, white and black, foie gras and langouste. We also checked out the wonders of cooking sous vide, a recently popular slow cooking method for concentrating flavors and optimizing textures. Our Review

Joy's Wine Bistro is an informal newcomer on glamorous Front Street. It is a beautiful place with an excellent wine list, and a number of great dishes. Not everything was perfect, but the spirit is right. We'll be back to try more of the menu, and to see how they develop. Our Review

10/05/05 - Pike Place Market at Night (An Urban Wonderland)

We took some pictures of Pike Place Market at night on our last trip in to Seattle. The market is rather mysterious at night with the crowds gone and signs all lit.

07/20/05 - Long Peppers - An Unusual Pepper-Like Spice

06/06/05 - Chocolate Beans

09/06/04 - Seattle Notes

06/18/04 - Salumi in Seattle

06/14/04 - Seattle Update - Palace Kitchen

05/19/04 - Copper River Salmon Has Arrived

Also, we've been thinking about the old computer game of Dazzle Darts. It was one of those rather simple games, like Pong, that came out of the 1970s, except that Dazzle Darts seems to have vanished.