Eating and Drinking in Washington (mostly Seattle area)

Thought it would be nice to start a dedicated thread to Seattle and surrounding areas.

I’ll start since Scott from Bisato is back and Bisato in SODO and William from Mistral just opened Violet, anyone been?

It has been a couple years since I was in the area. I will say The Willows Inn is one of my favorite restaurants in the country. Highly recommended. Requires a trek to Lummi Island and most likely an overnight stay but it is worth it.

SO many great places, most of which I have not visited. I’ve really like RN74 (and yes I brought my own Sojourn pinot.) Ray’s on the water north of DT is usually great (sometimes odd) but do stick to the fish, not beef. Really enjoyed Brimmer & Heeltap; great service, interesting food. And Purple Café (several locations) has decent food & excellent wines WA & beyond. (I believe no corkage either!)
Recently went to Copperleaf near the airport. Meh. The service was amateurish—the waitress zoomed up to our table & just said, “What would you like?” And promptly forgot our order & had to come back to ask again. (The place was practically empty.) My Caesar salad was just OK, wife’s fish & chips fine. For $$$ I expect much better.
P.S. Did go to Mistral 2 years ago and was disappointed in food & service.

Cafe Juanita, always a winner.

Purple Cafe has corkage. Ate at the Bellvue location. Corkage waived by the waitress who was originally from Honolulu.

As un-cool and un-trendy as it might be, I really still enjoy Nell’s Restaurant on Greenlake. They have a well-thought-out wine list (lots of Burgundy, and a great selection of half-bottles, which I really appreciate) with decent prices and the food is always very good. We went a few months back and had some killer sweetbreads.

Went to Violet tonight, William Belickis’ new venture after Mistral. The theme is American Omakase with seasonal ingredients. You can order off the menu or a 5 course chef menu.

Thoughtful wine selection, mostly European, had a glass of Bieler 2016 Bandol Rose, followed by 1995 Charles Heidsieck Blanc des Millenaires and then a 2015 Jadot Vosne Romanee Les Suchots.

Food was excellent, scallop, beet carpaccio, anchovy, octopus and burrata all excellent as were main courses of muscovy duck, chicken and sea trout. One of the most creative chefs in Seattle.

Thanks for the review Kris. I must have walked by you while you were eating on my way home!

Stopped at Sandwich House Tres on my way to Willows Inn. Excellent. And just the type of unique not too heavy lunch I was looking for. There was a writer and photographer there from the Seattle Times.

http://www.tressandwich.com/eng/

Willows Inn up next!

I will try to do a separate post on the Willows. In short it remains my favorite restaurant in the U.S. and well worth the 12 hour commute from NYC. We dined there two nights and had one breakfast and one lunch. Just outstanding!

Breakfast

Lunch

Dinner

More photos in IG

hey Robert
that breakfast pic is beautiful
is that a glass of red wine in the top left corner?
[cheers.gif]

1 Like

Gorgeous pics, Robert.

Someone else that question. Do you think I would drink Red wine for breakfast! I prefer Sake for a meal like this. It is actually Blackberry Juice.

ha! btw looks even better than manufactory. certainly a lot prettier!

Picked up food from a couple favorites in the past week.

Bok a Bok Chicken…the thigh and breast are great and crispy, the umami BBQ sauce is my favorite along with a side of kimchee. The Sesame chicken sandwich is unreal too.

Buddha Ruksa…crispy duck noodle, crispy garlic chicken (crack chicken) is unreal, won ton phad thai (no noodles, bean sprouts sub in this recipe), and panang curry. One of the great thai spots in WA.

Loretta’s…awesome dive bar with a great tavern burger. The single is the way to go IMO, the proportion of meat to burn is ideal, the double is off balance. Great fries too.

Did Buddha Ruksa again, repeat on Crispy Garlic Chicken and Won Ton Phad Thai, but switched up #3 to vegetable and tofu Pad See Ew that always seems to come out a star spicier than ordered. Along with fresh rolls I can’t recommend this place enough, makes me miss living in West Seattle.

Peel & Press in West Seattle is another place I’d suggest for pizza, great fresh ingredients and good crust, we always order it well done.

Last place is Bakery Nouveau. After living in Europe, great bread and pastries were hard to come by, and then I found this place. One in Burien, West Seattle and Cap Hill. I have not visited Cap Hill, but the other two are consistently great options for Pain au Chocolate, Twice Baked Almond Croissants, Baguette, Quiche, cookies, olive bread, sausage roll, and coffee.

Bakery Nouveau (Cap HiIl) is fantastic – we love the simple ham baguette sandwiches with cornichons and cheese! While I love their pain au chocolate, I do think Seasmoke’s is better (though both are great).

Can definitely confirm that all of the places that Kris listed are delicious. Buddha Ruksa has been consistently the best Thai we’ve found in Seattle with the ‘crack chicken’ being a must order each visit.

My wife and I recently checked out Baker’s in Sunset Hill and were pleasantly surprised. It was on the late side so we just sampled a couple small plates of the cheeses and the chilled corn veloute, both of which were great. My vesper hit the spot and my wife’s rum cocktail was perfect for the hot weather. We’ll be back to check out more of the food offerings and explore the wine menu as well.

I was in Seattle for a meeting and managed to fit in a lunch and dinner. I was extremely disappointed in Canlis. Was it just me or is it slipping? The famous salad was almost a joke it was so bad. Every other dish was bland except the duck which was ok. One of the somms told me about the wine list at Wild Ginger and it happened to be 3 minutes from my hotel so I went there for lunch. Food was barely passable but the wine list! Wow there are some deals on there, so good I will go back on my next trip.