Results tagged “food”

"Delancey, Ballard, Seattle" by suomynona , from our Flickr pool

Belltown has a respectable ratio of good-looking people to not-so-much. That doesn't mean they are good people, just well maintained. As it's the city's preeminent non-Pioneer Square meat market, we thought we'd examine two of the more prominent neighborhood institutions to determine which locale is best suited for all-purpose hook-ups.

Saturday afternoon, Top Pot's 5th Ave location filled up as people arrived to watch their 3rd Annual Doughnut Eating Contest, sponsored by Light in the Attic Records and KEXP. Here are pics (and a grainy video) from the event, which was won once again by the intimidatingly-named Billy the Fridge (9 doughnuts in 5 minutes).

"Day 193/365 - The Fry Guy has seen better days" by tonyjcase , from our Flickr pool

"Bacon Explosion!!! As American as Apple Pie" by capnsurly , from our Flickr pool

Old School Frozen Custard, the new shop that just opened across the parking lot from Chop Suey, is already making adjustments to their menu. According to a sign in their window, they'll be discontinuing the chili and hot dogs on July 1, leaving them to focus strictly on the custard. We'd been curious about the dogs since they opened and had a couple for lunch. While tasty (and very filling), they certainly weren't a menu option we'll miss when gone. We've got Shorty's for hot dogs. Old School's making the right choice by focusing on the custard that is their namesake (and with Molly Moon's right around the corner, they don't need to waste time on culinary distractions).

The connoisseurs' way to cook sausage is to brown, then steam it, but it's summer, and we want to be outside. So we grilled some of Uli's sausage creations, which you can purchase at his stand at Pike Place Market, get delivered, or buy at select local markets.

Fridays at lunch, once upon a time, Skillet parked mere steps from our office door. Awesome! Then they were asked to move, so they started parking about a half mile from our office door. Doable. But apparently they need to move again. Blatant self-interest compels us to ask: Won't someone in Lower Queen Anne or on the edge of Belltown give Skillet a new Friday lunch home? The sculpture park, perhaps? Email eat@skilletstreetfood.com if you've got an idea. (In better news, they're going to be at Mariner games, and their West Seattle debut was their busiest opening day ever. Step it up, Columbia City!)

On the way to Mt. Rainier on Saturday, we passed a Sonic Drive-In in Eatonville that was having a grand opening and resolved to stop on the way back to Seattle. You may have seen Sonic's relatively clever (clever compared to, say, Taco Bell's "Fourthmeal" campaign which should be criminal) commercials on your television.

One of the defining characteristics of restaurant cooking--high quality restaurant cooking--is that chefs go to extreme lengths to coax flavors out of ingredients: A sauce may be several days in process. A bread dough may take years for its starter to develop its subtle flavors.

Seattlest just got a beautiful 250ml bottle of Kemal Kükrer Nar Ekşisi, or pomegranate sour, in the mail--direct from Antalya, Turkey. We fell in love with this stuff on our recent sojourn to the Mediterranean when it was served to us as a salad dressing, diluted with a mild-tasting oil and poured over greens. Now that we have this entire bottle of sweet, tangy, thick, deeply pomegranatey essence here in Seattle, we're wondering what else we could use it for. Cocktails? Could we bake with it somehow? How could we use this with meat? Any ideas?

Yeah, we know, the NBA left, and it’s being replaced with soccer. We’re all just going to have to deal with that.

Lunchbox Laboratory, Ballard, Seattle (23) by pouryourheartintoit

Happy Seattlest reader Tim sent us a note yesterday about the contrast on the covers of Seattle's glossies, Seattle Magazine and Seattle Metropolitan. The two get dinged for not being distinguishable, but this month at least they have their editorial sights set on vastly different horizons. Yet maybe we can see an underlying similarity still: Seattle Mag seems to be feeling anxious and looking for relaxation, while Seattle Met is dealing with anxiety by turning to a huge fucking cookie. Just out of curiosity, where's the Seattle glossy that gets anxious and fixates on sex? Or is that huge fucking cookie just a stand-in?

The last two weeks we've been deluged with PR about restaurant specials for Valentine's Day, and we kept putting off doing a list. Now our procrastination--and yours, if you still haven't made plans--has been rewarded by someone else doing the work for us. Seattle Metblogs has a great list of prix fixe menus, the P-I has some low-budget Valentine's ideas, the Weekly has "8 Things To Do" and some more foodie suggestions, and Seattle Foodster has a V-Day restaurant roundup, too.

Primanti Brother's vs. Cooking Super Bowl Preview

Capitol Hill Seattle was on fire today, with a Google-mapped report on the dog cops chased around Cal Anderson for an unreasonably long time and a poll on who should be the face on Capitol Hill's dollar bill. (Maybe we suggest Editor MvB's visage?) The Southlake enthused about The Bachelor's visit to Seattle, including five points of interest and--yes--a Google map of the episode's highlights. Cascade Bicycle and MyBallard want to talk about the Burke-Gilman's missing link. Matthew, Laurie and Iris over at Roots And Grubs were let down by their Trader Joes tortillas, but shared how they saved dinner. It sounds scrumptious!

SBUX downsizing is in the P-I: A managing director at McAdams Wright Ragen is quoted as saying Starbucks may cut up to 1,000 jobs from its headquarters, and also some district managers and field employees--but not baristas. Over at Starbucks Gossip, the...well, the gossip is that previous layoffs have already affected customer service.

This Seattlest contributor knows when to throw in the towel. Yesterday, we published a piece called "Feed Your Fam on $3 Per Person, Per Day," taking a shot or two at a shopping guide from Grocery Outlet. In the comments, we were generally thrashed for characterizing it as un-healthy, so we decided to go to the experts--on food, nutrition, and health--and see what they had to say, appreciating that we don't know everything. We'd planned to publish a few opinions together, but the first one came back so decidedly not on our side that we decided to run it on its own. If any more responses come in, we'll post those too.

Ro Ro's BBQ inhabits a small shack that used to house the Stoneway Cafe in Wallingford for years. Generally replacing a neighborhood mainstay isn't easy shoe-filling but Ro Ro's has taken to the new location--3620 Stone Way N, between 36th and 38th--with authority.

As was noted after we reported on one parade's cancellation due to low turn-out, it looks like everyone headed over to the MLK Jr. rally at Garfield High School instead of going downtown--Central District News has photos to prove it. Via Rainier Valley Post's new Classifieds section, we found a link to Fresh-Picked-Seattle's list of food-related ways to volunteer on the Day of Service. The B-Town Blog re-posts a thoughtful Obama-themed MLK Jr. essay written just before the election. Most blogs were focused on tomorrow's presidential inauguration, and some--including the Big Blog and Tim Burgess' City View, were reporting from the very crowded ground in D.C.

We are dedicated to finding the perfect hot lunch in Georgetown. Top contenders thus far have been Smarty Pants' Troublemaker sandwich, a drippy cheesy mess stuffed with ungodly amounts of spicy chicken and bacon; the gouda fennel polenta at Georgetown Liquor Company, fried crisp and topped with a scrumptiously zingy and sweet apple balsamic reduction; and the perfectly crunchy, well-seasoned chicken salad sandwich at Georgetown Truck Stop, until that hut of heaven closed in fall of 2008. There's a new guy in town, though. The sourdough bacon burger at recently-opened Burger Madness, on 4th Avenue South (just north of Costco), just edged its way into our all-time favorite four hot lunches in SoDo/Georgetown.

  

End of year, thus time for the annual Belltown Bravo Awards. Yes, we'll add other neighborhoods in due course, we promise. In the meantime, don't get too excited; we're not. Hasn't been a particularly good year for restaurants in this nabe, in Seattlest's view. We lost some good ones (Cascadia, Qube, Marjorie), got some interesting new ones (Branzino, Kushibar, Tilikum Place, Spur) and the very promising Taberna del Alabardero, but overall, it hasn't been mouthwatering. Best promotions are still coming from the shoebox-sized Txori (the Tamborada, the San Firmin festival, the monthly Txoco dinners). For consistency and value, previous winners Steelhead Diner and Black Bottle continue to lead the pack. The real restaurant action these days is in Ballard, Capitol Hill, and (gulp) Bellevue.

This fall we are combining our love of the football and our dream of learning to cook by preparing a meal from the city of the Seahawks' opponent.

This fall we are combining our love of the football and our dream of learning to cook by preparing a meal from the city of the Seahawks' opponent.

The problem with this particular project is that the Seahawks play St. Louis twice a year. After meals of toasted ravioli and gooey butter cake we are left with slingers, St. Paul sandwiches, and the city’s official dish, Crisco covered in fried caramel and broken glass.

• We knew we'd heard that name somewhere--Steve Almond, who wrote a lovely innocuous column for Martha Stewart Living about Christmas candy, is familiar to us through his at-times NSFW short story collections. Matthew at Roots & Grubs points out that he, too, can write about Christmas candy, and his bibliography is 99% safe and Martha-approved.
• West Seattle Blog breaks out the snow talk! They're pointing everyone towards a community Christmas tree lighting, and as is the usual, WSB also has a scoop: the weatherman has a blog.
• The school closure meetings have everyone in a tizzy about their neighborhood schools. Capitol Hill Seattle reports with relief on their beloved Lowell, which was removed from the closure list, and the commenters react with skepticism and challenging questions (like, what happened to all the rhetoric about Lowell's building falling apart?).

Issaquah-based Organic To Go (which bought out Briazz a few years ago) is cutting 30 percent of its staff, says Northwest Innovation, and that despite a terrific advertising push. Meanwhile, Seattle's Cobalt Group just laid off 45 people, reports TechFlash. Cobalt runs auto dealer websites, and its CEO says that "auto sales are at a 50 year low and that an estimated 900 auto dealers have gone out of business this year." We honestly don't know how organic car sales are doing, but we bet the situation isn't great for them, either.

Let's see what's in the mailbag. Volunteer Park Cafe tells us: "We are now using Molly Moon Ice Cream. Haven’t tasted her Salted Caramel Ice Cream yet?" Why no, we haven't. Nor, to our shame, have we been by to sample some of your matzoh ball chicken soup. What is wrong with us? Plus, Ericka's collaboration with Linda Derschang, the Odd Fellows Hall cafe + bar, opens (in theory) on December 19. That's 10th and East Pine on Capitol Hill.