Tuesday 22 May 2012

Savouring Seattle - Final Chapter

I have to say, for a rainy weekend, Seattle sure was dry and sunny-ish for most of our stay! We could have sat in our hotel room and waited for the sun to properly set into the distance, but we had more eating to do!


Flying Fish was recommended to us as a good place to experience true Seattle seafood, and my goodness were they ever right! The restaurant itself had a slightly industrial feel, with high ceilings, exposed pipes and light fixtures, walls of windows toward the dark street in the background.


The halibut was fresh, straight out of the ocean, and prepared with full respect for the flavours and textures of the fish itself. The carrots retained their bite next to the pillowy soft flesh of the fish.

My scallops were gently caramelized and served with buttery soft and smooth puree of turnip. The crispy pancetta added salt and crispiness to this delicious dish. If I could have it weekly, I would! It sure satisfied all of my needs in one dish, sweet, salty, crispy, soft... And then the delicious centre of a not fully cooked through scallop. Is there anything better?







But the star of the show, if the scallops did not take home the trophy, was truly the chocolate lava cake dessert. They could have skipped the chocolate sable, the lava cake shines bright enough to light up the whole restaurant. It spoke directly to my very chocolate loving heart. The vanilla ice cream sat on a crunchy chocolately crumble, and the espresso syrup held it all together. We've all had less than perfect chocolate desserts out and about, but if you are in the Seattle area and looking for chocolate dessert, I have found it for you! 

Our Saturday night ended on a high dark chocolate flavoured note. Only a few short hours of Sunday left of our Seattle eating extravaganza! And only one more area on our list left undiscovered...

Seattle's International District is kinda like a Chinatown. But not like Vancouver's Chinatown. Unfortunately. We walked all the way from our hotel to the International District, craving amazing dim sum in new surroundings. The sun was shining and the wind was extremely cold, but we couldn't figure out why there were no buses along the street, our concierge had said it ran along this street and ended up in the International District. Only later did we discover the underground bus system of Seattle, remarkable and probably all thanks to the old underground network mentioned in Seattle part 2.

Arriving in the International District early on a Sunday morning was rather dull. Where were all the people? Where were all the good restaurants? Nothing was open, and those that were open had maybe 2 out of 6 tables occupied. Not exactly the kind of place we were looking for. Now we were HUNGRY, after our long walk and the thought of dim sum, so we were almost at the point of giving up and giving in to one of the less desirable places along the way... But then, we turned a corner, and as if by magic, there appeared a restaurant in front of us, with a huge line up: Jade Garden Restaurant! Ironically, the owners are from Richmond, BC, just another hint at Richmond being the best place in the North West for true Chinese cuisine... That, and the fact that our Vancouver favourite is Jade Dynasty on Pender, made us devote our Sunday brunch to Jade Garden Restaurant.

The sad part when I go for dim sum is that I cannot stop to take pictures. Inner monsters take over, jump out and start eating before I even gather my thoughts to think of it as another picture opportunity. Rice rolls with shrimp, shrimp dumplings, turnip cake (steamed or pan fried, depending on my mood du jour), vegetable dumplings, I just can't help it. (I really should go see a shrink about it. That and chocolate.) All I can tell you is that dim sum at Jade Garden Restaurant is good quality dim sum. It is an authentic Cantonese dim sum restaurant, where the service is minimal, the steam baskets are hot, the trolleys are loaded to beyond their capacity, the servers are expert acrobats maneuvering between packed tables of happy families busy eating.

Full from dim sum and still managing to dodge the rain clouds, we make our way back to our hotel. We have to check out, and with some hours to spare, we make it down to Pike Place Market one last time. What a place, what a market, what an experience. One last attempt at a picture of the both of us.

But wait! We have to eat something before getting on the train again! Hmm... I could have sworn we missed at least one of Tom Douglas' restaurants, and what would you know, they're all conveniently located close to our hotel! I once mentioned Serious Pie to someone I know from Seattle, and his eyes lit up. Literally. Taken completely out of context and in a different country, those two words create emotions in people.

Serious Pie is a small restaurant that is serious about their pies. A small menu that focuses on doing a few pizzas seriously well. Unfortunately with pizza comes garlic, so my choices were limited. But their Penn Cove clams pizza is naturally garlic free and, lucky for us, seriously good! Crispy crust, well seasoned toppings and their own house pancetta - a very serious pie! Tasty pizza, good atmosphere, and I wish we'd had more time and bigger stomachs...

And so ends our Seattle foodie safari anno 2012. We look forward to returning next year for new and old flavourful favourites! We took Amtrak back up to Vancouver and returned to our daily grind, and tried to recreate some of the flavours of Seattle in words, in the hopes that you'll get tempted and try some out too.

Now, let's get talking about some Vancouver favourites... What are yours?

No comments:

Post a Comment