Eating Out

Dick’s cheeseburgers and a late night mah jong game—a perfect way to start my vacation! I’m off to the Oregon coast…

I may have an addiction to the Porchetta sandwich at Salumi. I dream about it all the time and crave it at odd moments throughout the day. I had to have another one, so Zach and I ran down to Salumi for lunch.

My porchetta sandwich wasn’t quite as juicy as the last time, but it was still incredible. This time it came with a slice of wonderful, aged provolone. Zach ordered the special, which was a fennel sausage sandwich. It had great fennel flavor and was incredibly tender. It almost had a taste and consistency like foie gras. I also had to get a half pound of the Finocchiona salami to go. It has a light fennel flavor and is embedded with black peppercorns. Very good, but also really hot when you bite into a whole peppercorn.

We sat in the back and heard a buzz that Giada De Laurentiis of Food TV’s Everyday Italian was in the restaurant—on a tour of the facilities. When she came back from the tour, every guy at the table had whiplash from trying to look at her. She is absolutely gorgeous. She also seemed incredibly friendly and had the largest smile I’ve ever seen.

Although this was my first celebrity sighting at Salumi, they are apparently fairly common; the very next day I read about Viv’s sighting of Ruth Reichl AND Ethan Stowell.

Zach and I finally decided it was high time we saw Sideways. It was playing at The Big Picture, so we wanted to grab some food in Belltown before the movie. For the first time in about two years, I have been craving sushi. I think I just burnt out on it, but now I want to eat it everyday. I looked on Sushi Finder and found out about Sushi Kyo. It had some mixed reviews, but it was close to the theater and trying a new restaurant sounded fun.

Despite the bad ambience ratings, Sushi Kyo was actually pretty cute. Very mellow with a somewhat nondescript decor, but comfortable. And empty. When we got there at 7pm we were the only people in the restaurant. We started with the agedashi tofu and I’ve never seen it so beautifully presented. The sauce was great, but the breading on the tofu was a little strange. Kind of gluey and viscose, but not unpleasantly so.

We then kind of went nuts on the sushi and ended up with a giant platter:

• Maguro – The tuna tasted slightly fishy to me and the texture was a little dense, but Zach thought it was fantastic.
• Smoked salmon – Pale, beautiful pink and packed with salmon flavor. Really great.
• Inari – I haven’t tried a lot of this, so I can’t compare it to anything, but it was sweet, sticky and good.
• Crab – This was so good that both Zach and I did the food dance in our chairs.
• Amaebi with roe – I’ve always had the regular, cooked Ebi and after trying Amaebi I was left wondering why I wasted my time with the cooked stuff. The shrimp were sweet and succulent. I loved the extra crunch that the roe provided.
• Saba with shiso – I’m not a saba or shiso lover, so I let Zach have both of these. He thought they were incredible.
• Salmon skin roll – Fishy in a good way. The rolls had a great crunch from the bit of carrot that was in the roll.
• Unagi – Broiled eel is always a favorite of mine and this one was great. The only bad thing was that I had saved it for last and it was cold by the time I ate it. Next time we’re getting two orders—one to start off the meal and one to end it.

Overall, Zach and I were blown away by the quality of the fish. I thought it was a little pricey (almost $80 with tip… but I guess we did end up getting two bottles of good sake…), but Zach felt it was worth every penny. He said it was some of the best sushi he’s eaten in Seattle. We’ll definitely be back soon—they have lots of interesting rolls that I would like to try.

Oh, and the movie was… ah… well acted? I found it to be incredibly depressing.

When I first started working on Capitol Hill, I was dismayed by the lack of lunch choices (my last job put me within a block of the Pike Place Market). A coworker suggested I try Honey Hole, but I resisted as long as I could. I just couldn’t get past the name. It was too similar to Honey Bucket. Finally I relented.

I got hooked on the Dirt Burger, which is a great garden-burger type sandwich. I burned out after three years of Dirt Burgers for lunch, so when Honey Hole started serving dinner, I never went. I assumed that it was the same menu as at lunch, but as usual my assumptions were wrong.

Zach said Honey Hole had really good (beef) burgers and that’s what I was craving tonight. They only had a few different items on the dinner menu, but one of them was the Western Sky Burger. I was really impressed that they used Misty Isle Beef. It seemed like an extra special touch for a burger and sandwich joint.

Either I was starving at the time, or the Western Sky Burger was the best burger I’ve ever eaten. Or maybe a little of both. Zach and I got into an argument over whether or not it was better than the blue cheese burger at Septieme. I say hell yes. I will tell you what was in it: bacon, cheddar cheese, deep-fried-crunchy-golden-yummy-yummy onion rings and BBQ sauce. It came with crisp-yet-fluffy, dangerously addictive French fries.

The only (and fairly major) downfall is that when we left, we reeked of smoke and grease. Oh yeah, and they play their music so loud that it’s hard to have a conversation. But it’s worth it for that burger.

Zach wanted to try a new breakfast place today. He’d never been to Macrina before so we headed to the Belltown location for brunch. It was of course PACKED. There were more people crammed into the bakery area waiting for a table than people eating in the dinning room. There was a list of 20+ people ahead of us, but luckily most of them had given up and left, so we got a table in about 20 minutes.

Zach had the French toast, which was thick-cut and fluffy, but I didn’t care for the peach syrup. It tasted funny to me. The pork and apple sausages that came with the French toast were great.

I had a demi baguette with ham and Dijon. The bread was awesome, but I was wishing that they had used nicer ham and saltier mustard. I also had a side order of the applewood smoked bacon, but I fear that I have been spoiled to the point of no return and nothing will ever compare to wild boar bacon.

I have eaten at Macrina before and remember it being great, so I’m not sure if today was an off day or if I’m just getting jaded. I suspect it’s the jaded thing. Although, watching the cute kid at the next table over puke his breakfast all over the floor didn’t help.

I had been to FareStart several times a few years ago, but it had kind of fallen off my radar. Then FareStart contacted me about attending a food bloggers dinner where we’d have dinner, learn more about the program and get a tour of the facility. How could I refuse?

The only other food blogger that was able to attend was Hillel of Tasting Menu, so we had a small table. Zach and I arrived a little early and check out the place. It’s definitely not fancy, but it’s also comfortable in its own way. The room was abuzz and PACKED with patrons.

After we were seated, someone came over to our table to give us more information. FareStart is a program that teaches homeless adults and teens job training so that they can enter the foodservice industry. An impressive 80% are employed immediately upon graduation—and most of them stay employed with the same company for at least a year, which is quite good considering there’s so much turnover in the foodservice industry.

What impressed me the most was the organization’s diversity. They offer lunch service, two cafes (one in the Downtown library and one in Rainer Valley), Thursday night guest chef dinners, and catering services. They also provide meals to low income childcare centers, Head Start programs, homeless shelters and senior centers through their Contract Meals program. Whew… that’s a lot!

And they do it all in the smallest of spaces. When they took us on a tour of the facilities, I couldn’t believe they put out over 2,500 meals every day. The catering area was about the size of my hallway. The main kitchen was a large room, but there was barely enough space to fit two people shoulder to shoulder in the narrow walkways between the islands and stoves.

By the time we finished our tour and sat down at our table, our first course had arrived. The guest chef of the night was Heath Swanson of McCormick and Schmick’s Harborside and the set menu was Butter Lettuce Salad with Jicama, Cedar-Plank Salmon with Berry Beurre, Roasted Potatoes, and Asparagus, finishing off with a Berry Shortcake.

So here’s the thing. The food wasn’t incredible, but it was good—and a great price at $19.95 for a three course meal. But it just felt good eating there and it felt like a very worthwhile thing to spend money on. So I’ve already requested my reservations for the upcoming events:

June 2nd: Eric Banh of Monsoon (and Baguette Box, oh how I love thee)

June 16th: Chef Scott Staples of Restaurant Zoë (oh, how I love thee, even more)

Also, Chef Eddie Montoya of Ovio Bistro (5/5/2005) and Philip Mihalski of Nell’s Restaurant (5/12/2005) look great. Actually the whole guest chef line-up looks great. Sign up on the guest chef email list and they’ll even let you know when new chefs are added to the line-up!

Learn more about FareStart
Donate to FareStart

It’s been way too long since my last visit to Salumi, so I set a date with K to pick me up from work and go for a long lunch. The last time we tried this, Salumi had been closed for vacation. We were so disappointed! But it made this trip even more anticipated…

As we approached Salumi, we saw that not only were they open, but there was a line snaking its way almost out the door. Normally, this would make me impatient, but at Salumi you need at least five minutes to read through the beautiful menu and another five to figure out what you want.

I settled on the porchetta sandwich and K got the lamb prosciutto sandwich. Since my visits seem to be few and far between, I also decided to get some cured meats to take home. I really wanted the Finocchiona salami (it’s addictive—even more so than salami should be), but they were sold out. I got the Mole salami instead. I also wanted some pancetta, but again, sold out. We asked about the Guanciale (gwan-CHA-lee) and when he said it was pork jowl bacon I nearly burst into tears. I purchased a big hunk.

By the time we got our sandwiches and paid, a few seats at the communal table in the back had opened up. We sat down and ogled our sandwiches. Actually the whole table ogled them and asked us what we had ordered. I got out my camera and the couple across the table asked if we were tourists. I sheepishly shook my head and tried to explain about my obsession with food and my blog, but most people don’t get it.

As I took my first bite of the porchetta sandwich, I felt a rivulet of juice run down my cheek. I looked at the plate and realized that my sandwich was soaking in a puddle of pork grease. Gross you say? But this was the best pork grease I’ve ever tasted! The hunks of pork were tender and flavored with garlic and onions. The vinegary, stewed peppers were a perfect counterpoint to the richness of the pork. The normally hard sandwich roll was soft and heavy with pork juices. The sandwich was messy and falling apart as I ate it, but I was in heaven. If I could purr, that’s what I would be doing.

Halfway through K and I switched sandwiches so I got to try the Lamb Prosciutto. I was expecting something mild and delicate like regular prosciutto, but this was quite the opposite. It was bursting with lamb flavor, almost like it was lamb concentrate. It came on a giant roll—so giant that I had to take the top off and eat it like an open faced sandwich. It was robust and chewy. The rich lamb flavors meeting the tang of provolone. Delicious.

I may need to find a new job. One that’s closer to Salumi. So that I can go there everyday for lunch.

Zach and I met at the Baguette Box for a delicious lunch. I had the Salumi salami sandwich, with Mole salami, a rich balsamic vinaigrette and sweet pickled daikon radish, which gave the sandwich great flavor and crunch. Zach had the tuna salad sandwich, which was light, fresh and healthy-tasting. We also had to get the truffle fries, because they are SO good.