consumed on 8/12/05

The Sunset Supper at the Market is an annual fundraising event for the Market Foundation which takes place in the Pike Place Market. It was my first time attending an event here and I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. The main street was closed off to car traffic and was filled with restaurant vendors, tables and a stage.

The gates opened at 7pm and we were there by 6pm, but there was already a line of at least sixty people. My astute friend noticed there was a second entrance listed on the map. We took a chance and walked down to find that there were only five people waiting in that line. Score!

When the gates opened we got our little plates and started meandering through the booths. At first there weren’t too many people around and we loaded up on food and found an area to stand while we sampled the food. Our second round of foraging fared much worse. By this time there was a sea of people and we were standing in lines for ten to fifteen minutes just to get a sample bite of something. Luckily after round two we were pretty full so we found a spot to sit and listen to the band.

About an hour or so before the event ended we decided to check out the desserts. This was probably the best part because almost everyone had left at this point, so we were able to sneak into the reserved seating areas and sit down with our desserts.

I think there were about seventy food and drink vendors, but we only made it to the following:

Canlis / Canlis Salad – Romaine, bacon, Myzithra and Romano cheeses with a minty lemon dressing. Very good, but extra points for serving the salad on skewers which made it easy to eat

Brasa / Bbq’d Smoked Brisket – decent, but not outstanding

The Art Institute of Seattle / Panzanella Salad – average as far as panzanella salad goes, but the students were really nice and talked about the program and restaurant

1200 Bistro / Fennel & Pork Sausage

McCormick & Schmick’s / Clams and Crab Cakes – good but generic

Dragonfish / Korean Bulgogi skirt steak – I go up and down with Dragonfish because they add sugar to everything, but this was fantastic. YUM!

Racha / Lamb Satay

Bandoleone / Yucatan marinated short ribs – good, not too sweet

DeLaurenti / Assorted cheeses – cave aged gouda was my favorite

Earth & Ocean / Rabbit terrine with white truffle oil – sounded so exotic but tasted bland

Ponti Seafood Grill / Cilantro lime scallop ceviche with habanero & grilled corn salsa

Andaluca / Chilled green gazpacho with Dungeness crab

La Panzanella / Caponata

Grand Central Bakery / Savory vegetarian swirls – Beautiful idea, poor execution as they were greasy and cold

Ten Mercer / Smoked sturgeon on crostini with herbed avocado cream cheese and roasted red pepper vinaigrette

Six Seven / Smoked black cod on crispy plantain with Asian aspic, Whidbey island micro greens – this was my favorite dish of the night

The Ruins / Chocolate dipped brownie

Etta’s / Peppermint patty chocolate cookies with peppermint cream dipped in chocolate

Procopio Gelateria / Rose gelato

Rose’s Chocolate Treasures / Gold dusted chocolate roses

icon Grill / Hot Fudge Sundaes – very good. So good that afterwards I went searching for the guy to get the recipe