10.29.08
Presently…
…overwhelmed. November will be full of panicked studying and very few adventures…so I’ll be stretching the last few interesting* posts out.
Here’s what you can look forward to:
1) Wenza Bronica, Garrpaccio, Frackaccino, & Bakin Bacon’s visit
2) Ohhhhh Canada
3) Katie Downs
4) Ode to a Sweet Potato
5) Hazy Raccoon Photos
*anyway, more interesting that me writing “so scared must study can’t study need to study procrastinating test is too soooooooooon”
10.23.08
Weezer!
I’ve loved this band since I was 12, since I wore out my cassette of The Blue Album playing it over and over and over and over. It took me a little longer to fall for Pinkerton, but when the band came back with the Green Album I was thrilled. I know people say that things have changed, and Weezer isn’t the same, and good grief stop letting Scott Shriner sing! I can’t disagree with any of that, but I’ll still take Weezer in any form right now. For me, Weezer is the one band that I’ll support unequivocally til the end. They’re also the one group I buy tickets for whenever I can.
I was incredibly excited to find out about the Red Album tour, and even more excited to see that the Seattle date fell fortuitously on a Saturday night. I managed to talk Amadeus into flying up for it (Garrpaccio already had tickets to something else) (I think my friends are sort of humoring my Weezer obsession) and everyone else talked me out of trying to fly back to the Bay area to see the Oakland show too.
Madeline and Campbell were supposed to go, but both backed out due to M: visit from mom, C: visiting Mabel. I invited Alexa to go with us since we already had the tickets, but Alex wasn’t interested and I couldn’t find anyone else free to go with us.
We had dinner at Serious Pie (see previous post) and then stopped at Gelatiamo on 2nd Ave for a tulip cup (chocolate shell filled with dark chocolate and raspberry gelato, with berries and chocolate shavings.) Since we were so full from dinner, it was all we could do to share this!
Alexa parked right across the street from Key Arena. When we got in we were surprised when they flagged our tickets at the door and sent us to customer service. It turns out that they hadn’t sold enough tickets and so they closed the entire upper level (where our seats were) and upgraded everyone to the lower level. Score! We got to sit directly across from the stage but we were still high enough that we could stay seated during the concert and not have to jump up and down to see over people’s heads.
Tokyo Police Club was good, and I did like Angels and Airwaves’ set. The problem with Angels and Airwaves though, was the insane light show. It was ridiculously bright, with about ten huge lights across the stage. If Key Arena was an outdoor venue, you could see it from space, is what I’m saying. I thought we might get seizures.
SO of course I took a video to show all of you!
Here’s the set list (I think…)
My Name Is Jonas
Pink Triangle
Perfect Situation
Say It Ain’t So
Susanne
Keep Fishin’
King
Undone (The Sweater Song)
Pork and Beans
Dope Nose
Troublemaker
Automatic
El Scorcho
Time [by Pink Floyd]
The Greatest Man That Ever Lived
Heartsongs
Island in the Sun
Beverly Hills
Buddy Holly
I loved all the Pinkerton songs and the Blue Album of course. I was a little bummed they didn’t play In the Garage. Can’t have it all!
I would have taped more songs but I realized after the first couple songs I videoed that I wasn’t enjoying the concert because I was concentrating on filming. So I tossed it. There are pictures though!
Rivers in weird white insane asylum outfit
The band started in these weird white jumpsuits…that segued into bright red jumpsuits…
Red jumpsuits
…and went to their Red Album alterego outfits…
Finale
I had fun. Thanks to Alexa & Amadeus for a great night!
10.21.08
Review: Indochine
Em’s birthday dinner!
We saw Indochine the very first night we went into Tacoma for dinner. As soon as we walked by, Madeline mentioned that she wanted to try it. The first thing I noticed was the round table in one corner of the restaurant that was curtained off for privacy, and the long draperies that lined each set of floor to ceiling windows at the front of the restaurant.
Amadeus & I got there a little before everyone else and we were surprised by the size of the place. I think it takes up about three storefronts. There’s a bar at one end, a private room behind the bar, seating in the bar, seating by the front display of desserts and gelato, and then a large dining room that includes the aforementioned round table, a large reflection pool, and several big booths. The reflection pool is lined with tables and big benches that are doubled between the tables. I wish I had a picture of the dining room because this is hard for me to describe! If you go to their website at indochinedowntown.com and check out the photo gallery, my description will make more sense.
We decided to have a drink in the bar and I really enjoyed my mojito! Fisher, Em, & Scrabble arrived and we were shown to a large table right next to the water feature.
I thought this was Asian fusion but after dinner there I think it was trying to be more “upscale Asian” than anything. I liked my pad thai though, and I think everyone else enjoyed their food too.
Pad Thai
Spicy Siamese Noodles
Since it was a birthday, we had to get dessert! I knew I was getting creme brulee as soon as I saw it in the display case when we walked into the dining room. It was a really good version, with a nice vanilla flavor, and the sugar crust was just thick enough – though it didn’t really look well torched when it arrived at the table.
Creme Brulee!
Scrabble ordered espresso gelato. Their gelato is really good and they make it in house. All the flavors we tried were delicious – not too sweet, and very smooth.
Scrabble & Espresso gelato
The server brought Em a slice of their flourless chocolate cake with coconut gelato for her birthday. When Fisher saw that he ordered the same thing, but with raspberry gelato. Yum!
Flourless Chocolate Cake
Overall Impressions?
Food 3.5 It’s overpriced for what it is, but the flavors were good.
Ambience 4.5 The restaurant is beautiful, and it surprised me how casually many of the other diners were dressed (baggy t-shirts, old sneakers, ripped jeans). I could see this place in SF or a more urban environment, not quiet downtown Tacoma. They put orchids in everything! Our table had orchids on every dessert and every drink. There must be bushes of them in the kitchen just stripped of all flowers – and yeah, I know, orchids don’t grow on bushes. Branches/sprays then!
Why I’d go back – HOUSEMADE GELATO. Also, good drinks! Fisher & Amadeus had a lychee sake that smelled so fragrant – I liked the taste too!
10.15.08
Review: Lark
This dinner was very disappointing. I saw it continually listed in top ten great Seattle restaurant lists and the menu seemed interesting. Amadeus & I headed there for an early dinner on Sunday. It’s on a quiet street near the Seattle Ferrari dealership and across the street from Seattle University. We were seated immediately in the almost empty room and given menus. The menu was cute – long rectangles of paper connected by a single square brad in the corner. It was hard to choose from all the delicious sounding options, but we were able to agree on six dishes.
Our first dish was this delicious fresh, stringy burrata cheese drizzled with basil oil and colorful heirloom tomatoes. The cheese was great, but the olive oil croutons were very oily, and the tomatoes were predominantly flavored by salt. This will be a recurring theme.
Burrata with Heirloom tomatoes
The second, third, and fourth dishes arrived together.
Roasted Eel with Saba and New Potato Salad
Now the roasted eel was good. But this was only 2 2″ pieces on a small cylinder of purple potato salad. I know you can buy 1 pound pieces of eel at the Asian market for $4.99, or $3.99 when they are on sale. (I would rock the Price is Right). So $12 for a dish that was maybe 4-5 bites in total seemed a bit galling. Also, neither of us could figure out where the saba was. That’s a fish with a very distinctive flavor, so I can’t imagine what they did to it so that I couldn’t find it at all. Guess what? It was all salty.
Carpaccio of Yellowtail with Preserved Lemons and Green Olives
I took the first bite of this dish and was dumbfounded. The only flavors dancing across my palate were salt and pepper. Each slice of yellowtail was liberally sprinkled with celery salt and black pepper. I could not taste the fish at all. I asked Amadeus to try it to see if I just happened to get an overseasoned bite, and he concurred. We sent it back, and they made us a new one without salt. (It was still salty). Also, the quality of the fish was poor – it was stringy and mushy. In Seattle!
Black Sea Bass with Green Pimento, Calasparra Rice, and Black Olives
The entire dish tasted like olives. I guess that’s what we get for ordering a dish with two kinds of olives in it. Even the fish tasted only of olives. And olives are…you guessed it, salty! I think the fish was fresh and not overcooked. It was hard to tell under the single note flavor.
Duck Confit Salad
My favorite part of the salad was the candied walnuts. There was a nice mix of greens on the plate and the dressing wasn’t too overwhelming. I don’t eat salad dressing normally as a rule, so the fact that I didn’t have a problem with the dressing speaks volumes about the lightness and balance of the salad. The confit was a fairly generous serving shredded over the greens, but it was also overly salty.
Painted Hills Coulotte Steak with Potatoes da Delphina and Squash Gratin
I am not sure what Amadeus may have thought about the doneness. I liked how rare it was (pretty much black & blue), but I regularly order meat medium rare or rare. I’ve had Painted Hills meat before and I remember enjoying the depth of beefy flavor. It was missing here. Perhaps the cut of meat is to blame. I think I tried the Painted Hills rib-eye at the now defunct C&L Steakhouse in San Francisco. Rib-eye steak, to me, is always more flavorful because of the marbling. The potatoes da Delphina were cubes of purple potato that were either roasted or pan fried – fancier home fries? The squash gratin was good, if rather wet. I think squash might have too high of a water content to make a good gratin.
One reason we chose Lark was for the dessert menu, but when the time came to order dessert I wasn’t willing to try any more of their food. This is uncharacteristic of me.
Now, you could tell from the start of the review that I wasn’t happy with our meal. I realize this is all completely subjective. When we’re paying that much for dinner though (~$100 for two people, no alcohol), then I expect to at least be content with the food. I didn’t leave angry, probably because it was nice to have a last dinner with Amadeus before he left and it’s always fun to try new places, but I am irritated now as I write this review.
In a restaurant supposedly famed for fresh American-French flavors, I was unhappy with 5 of 6 dishes we ordered. That isn’t an acceptable ratio for me. It’s a small plates restaurant, and the server recommended we order 4-6 for our group of two. We weren’t super hungry (having gone to Hiroki just an hour or so before) but we easily finished all six dishes. It seems to be a common thread on Yelp – portions are small. Even though we were one of only two tables, initially, (later five), and there were four servers, I found the service to be maddeningly inconsistent and inconsiderate.
We decided not to drink, and were brought water soon after being seated. Then we were ignored for 15 minutes though we showcased hallmarks of being ready to order – making eye contact with servers, sitting with our menus closed, etc. When we finally did order, the server made a point of explaining the order the kitchen would send out our choices. Of course, when the food came, it was not in that order. Everything was oversalted or, in the case of the two dishes with olives, tasted predominantly of olives. I love salt! But they used so much that even a salt lover like me was overwhelmed. I drank about six glasses of water while at the restaurant, and felt somewhat dehydrated for the rest of the evening. Amadeus collects menus, and politely requested a menu to take home from each of the three servers that came by our table. He ended up asking two of them twice. This happened at the beginning of the meal, and then throughout. Five requests, and each server responded politely with “I’ll get a copy for you right away.” None of them actually came back with a menu, until it was literally the last reason we were still sitting there. They changed the dishes after the first four dishes but they didn’t crumb the table. I sound nitpicky, but these things add up! Honestly, the best thing about the meal was the rich, almost cheesy butter that was served with the bread.
Overall impressions?
Ambience: 4 It’s a pretty restaurant but I don’t like the art (one large picture of two cow heads, several color block paintings along the walls). Even though it’s a small room, wispy curtains and high ceilings make it seem airy and open, and the candles on each table warm the room with flickering golden light.
Food: 3 SALT!
Why I’d Go Back: I wouldn’t. And I wouldn’t recommend any of you even try this place.
10.14.08
Review: Serious Pie
Serious Pie is one of Tom Douglas’ restaurants. He has quite the empire in Seattle: Dahlia Lounge, Dahlia Bakery, Lola, Etta’s… I chose Serious Pie because the best pizza I’ve had around here so far is Little Caesar’s, and because of its convenient downtown location.
Alexa, Amadeus, & I met up for dinner before the Weezer concert. Since we got there about 5:30, there was no wait. It’s a very small restaurant though, and the tables are communal, so I’d be cautious about taking any more than 4 people there.
We chose three pizzas to share and basically inhaled them. I really like the crust here – it’s thin without being too cracker like, and has a nice chew with good flavor. We all finished the crusts, even the slightly charred edges.
Arugula, Guanciale, & Soft Eggs
This one was my favorite. The arugula was added after the pie was removed from the oven, and the heat was enough to wilt it so it added a nice spicy bite without any bitterness to the richness of the other toppings. The guanciale was mostly a salty note, but my favorite was the egg. It was cooked so that the white was set and the yolk was still runny, so it spread across the pie like a creamy sauce.
Clam, Pancetta, & Lemon Thyme
This one was also good but I didn’t taste the lemon thyme. The pancetta and clams were more than enough to flavor the pizza though. Even though they were both fairly salty toppings, I think the amount was perfect so they didn’t overwhelm each other.
Margherita with Buffalo Mozzarella, San Marzano Tomatoes, & Basil
I always consider the margherita to be the classic pie. If a restaurant can’t do this one well, then how can you expect them to succeed with more unusual offerings? It was a good rendition. The cheese was beautifully fresh and the tomatoes were extra sweet.
Overall impressions?
ambience: 4 – cozy but very tiny – if you were unlucky you could get stuck with less than ideal tablemates
food: 4.5 The pizzas were all very good – with prices on par with SF restaurants like Pizzaiolo, Dopo, and A16.
why I’d go back: I really enjoyed the meal and I’m interested in trying some of the other flavor combinations. It was also a more affordable place to eat downtown that was a real restaurant – not a fast food joint.
10.13.08
Coming Soon…
I went from having nothing to write about to having too much to write about! These will run in order or priority…not necessarily chronology.
1) WEEZER
2) Indochine
3) Serious Pie
4) Hiroki & UW
5) Lark
Why yes, four of the five involve food reviews. Be glad that I’m not subjecting you to yet another Pike Place review!
10.09.08
Chain Restaurants and Birthdays!
October is a very celebratory month! Last week we hit up Applebee’s for happy hour to celebrate Charlie’s birthday. He’s one of the other optos that lives in the guys’ house. We squeezed into a booth just in time to catch the last ten minutes of happy hour. We over-ordered wildly (appetizers were half off! Draft beer just $3!) which resulted in a spectacular incident towards the end of dinner where an almost full tub of ranch dressing was flipped off the table and managed to hit half of our group, the bench, and the carpet. We are awesome!
Sarah, Em, Charlie, Fisher, Campbell, Me (bottom left, counter-clockwise)
Campbell and a very stringy piece of fried cheese
Fisher has been mentioning Red Lobster for a while now. After we saw the “all you can eat shrimp” commercials, I knew we’d be making a trip there soon. The four of us (Fisher, Campbell, Madeline, & I) showed up there ready to eat! Being the experienced shrimp eater, Fisher told us we needed to eat 70 shrimp each (about 6 orders) to break even. They offered five types: coconut, hand breaded, scampi, Cajun, and linguini. Between us, we tried all the varieties. Without going into a complete breakdown of shrimp consumption, let’s just say that we beat the system. And I plan never to join in that again. It was a little scary. The only thing I would go back to Red Lobster for is those delicious cheesy garlic biscuits.
Hot Biscuits
Jeanne’s List of Top Chain Restaurant Breads
Red Lobster
Macaroni Grill
Popeye’s
Olive Garden
Cheesecake Factory
Here we are doing a shrimp “toast” as we dug in!
Em’s birthday is Friday, but because of conflicting plans, we decided to start celebrating a day early. Since we’d been to Applebee’s so recently, we decided to go to Hooter’s. Slightly embarrassing fact: I really like Hooter’s. Not because I’ve switched teams or anything, I just really really really like chicken wings! There are a few independent sports bars and breweries around us, but we knew Hooter’s had a happy hour menu so that clinched the decision. They now have tater tots!
Sarah, Madeline, Me
Fisher, Lena (a resident), & Campbell
WINGS!
Campbell's giant chicken sandwich
CHOMP
10.05.08
Here comes the rain…
This was the first really rainy weekend in a while. For the first time, it was raining as we walked to and from work. This week, with a combination of residents being gone, I think we all had our own rooms for most of the days. As a result, I logged my busiest week. It’s nice to be busy in clinic but it’s always a struggle to balance the learning with the need to work through the stack of waiting charts! I also had my fourth vasovagal patient. Nothing will ever be as scary as the first one, especially since he fell out of the chair, but this one was pretty shocking. His hands started shaking and I thought he might be having a seizure. Then he spouted some gibberish and continued to shake. When we reclined the chair, he went stiff as a board and after a tense moment, started snoring. His eyes were wide open the entire time and it was eerie. He recovered after about 25 minutes, and when I anxiously checked his log the next day there was no ER note, so I hope he got home all right. I’m also glad I managed to not cause mass panic…instead of yelling “PATIENT DOWN” at the top of my lungs, I had the presence of mind to holler a name instead, and then the resident I called and Campbell shot over from across the hall to help me.
I looked forward to Friday all week because Sunny and Kate were coming! Kate is leaving for Hawaii in a couple of weeks for Fall II so I knew we wouldn’t see her again until January. I haven’t seen Sunny since July, and I really missed her!
I picked Sunny up from SeaTac and we used my new gps to navigate our way to Pike’s Place. The first time I went to Pike’s Place, Campbell drove, and the second time, Alex drove, so I have a rough idea where it is and that’s it. Also, my sense of direction is too poor for me to count on just “figuring things out,” and I’ve gotten lost so many times from internet directions or missed freeway exits…anyway…everyone, meet Emily! She’s a Garmin nuvi 350 currently set to “female: British English”. We tested out all the voices yesterday and this was the best, IMO.
Sunny took this picture of me and I wanted to post it to show my Orla Kiely bag, as requested. It’s a midi sling and I like it a lot! The lining is bright green with polka dots, and I like the pattern and color a lot. Bonus: it’s waterproof! Check out the enormous mangos that I’m inspecting in the picture.
We started at the south end of the market and tried something completely new to me: mini doughnuts! They were cheap, warm, and completely delicious. Ours were coated in cinnamon sugar and I was very tempted to lick my fingers. (I didn’t). Then we wandered past all the gorgeous stands of produce and the pretty pretty pretty flowers.
The piroshky place was almost empty again so I dragged Sunny inside. She chose a chocolate hazelnut cream one, and I got a broccoli, smoked mozzarella, and mushroom piroshky. Verdict? The chocolate one made us sad. I thought it would be oozing with Nutella goodness, and it was not even Nutella! I’m not sure where the hazelnut was. Mine was ok…a little bland overall. It was a cute shape though – a leaf instead of a simple cylinder. I realized after studying the display at the smoked salmon pate one I had a couple of weeks ago was actually shaped like a fish!
We also stopped in Beecher’s and watched them turn the cheese curds. We shared a cup of the regular macaroni and cheese. I stand by my previous statement – the sauce is too grainy for my taste. World’s best? Not by a long shot. It’s pretty good, but I probably won’t go back again.
We left the market and walked around the city a little while discussing dinner options. We ended up deciding to return to the market, buy some fresh fish, and head back home to have dinner with everyone else. Sunny & I chose a fresh king salmon that the fishmonger kindly filleted for us (although his scaling technique was terrible, I ended up having to run a knife against the grain to flick off the rest of the scales.) I also got a couple of heads and some salmon collars to make sinigang with. This is probably one of the most Asian things I like.
Besides the salmon it was basically a reprise of Wednesday’s meal: roasted vegetables, cheesy orzo, and the salmon. We grilled it on Fisher’s little hibachi (it fits great on the porch) and it took on a nice smoky aroma. It was super fresh and delicious. Dinner actually turned into an even bigger thing when Fisher & Campbell invited their housemates. We ended up having 8 people for dinner. Good thing our dining room table is so long.
We had some grand plans for Saturday including dim sum, watching the Cal game with the alumni club at the Ram near UDub, and then possibly the glass museum in Tacoma. Unfortunately, the rain derailed some of our plans, and timing and location took out the rest. I could not find any dim sum places closer than Seattle, and since Fisher & Campbell had some grading to do, they didn’t want to drive alllllll the way to the city. We’re going to go at some point though, because neither of them have ever been! We ended up at the Old Milwaukee Diner. The four of us (Em was driving to Canada, and Fisher was waiting for FedEx) shared a huckleberry pancake, a ham steak, some bacon, a polish sausage scramble, a short stack of french toast, and a side of home fries. True to form, the table was covered with plates. We efficiently divided everything into quarters and created our own little breakfast buffet. I don’t know that the wait is really worth it, but the food was as good as I remember.
Sunny & Kate
Me & Campbell (or is it Campbell & I?)
Polish Sausage Scramble
Home fries & Huckleberry pancake
The rain was really coming down so we decided to head home to watch the game instead. We stopped at Safeway and picked up some really delicious pineapple (so sweet, we got two!) and beer. That, along with some funsized candy, was our lunch. Don’t judge.
This is what's left!
The game ended at 4 but the museum is only open til 5 on Saturdays. Instead of going out to Tacoma, we went for a walk around the grounds that was cut short by some more rain, and watched a bit of the Oregon-USC game.
We went to Katie Downs’ for dinner (review in the future) and then to watch Eagle Eye. I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised. Unlike many other movies, the preview didn’t give away all the twists and I was consistently surprised.
It was a great visit. I’ve got about 3 pounds of pineapple left…so if anyone wants to help…come on over!
10.01.08
Recipe: Cheesy Orzo
I have to thank Consuela for introducing me to orzo. I love that it has a lot of the same qualities as risotto but is so much easier to prepare. Orzo is really ideal for a quick weeknight meal, and I was very sad when Trader Joe’s stopped selling it. I finally got my hands on some up here and we had this for dinner tonight.
Cheesy Orzo Pasta
Ingredients:
1 pound of orzo pasta (look in fancier grocery stores or Italian markets)
6 cups of liquid (water or broth or a combination)*
2 tablespoons of butter
1.5 cups of shredded cheese, any type – I used 1 cup of shredded cheddar and monterey jack, and a half cup of grated parmesan – anything works! This is a good dish for combining leftover bits of cheese.
Salt & pepper
1) Melt butter in large pot over medium heat. Pour the dry pasta in, mix well, and toast until golden brown – about 5 minutes.
2) Turn the heat down to medium low and pour liquid in. Stir every few minutes and simmer until the pasta has absorbed all the water – about 20 minutes. If it seems like a lot of liquid, don’t worry! Orzo is pretty forgiving.
3) Right before you’re ready to eat, mix the cheese in and stir until combined. Salt and pepper to taste.
This tastes as good as homemade macaroni and cheese in my opinion, and is a lot easier than making a roux, etc. etc.
We had this with roasted carrots and broccoli and pan seared boneless chicken thighs. This is also really good with crab meat, or anything really.
* I’ve made this with just water and it comes out great. I happened to have chicken broth I made a few weeks ago and froze, so this time it was all broth. I’ve also made it with 4 cups of broth and 2 cups of water. The standard boxes of broth sold at Trader Joe’s and in regular grocery stores holds about 4 cups.
