a birthday whirl

We celebrated Matt's birthday with dinner at WD-50, Wylie Dufresne's restaurant. It felt odd to be eating such a fancy meal in such a casual setting, but i suppose it all fits into the general theme of being thrown off track. But the track kept moving, and fast. I've never had such a rapid tasting menu before...Sure, yes, we were inhaling because we were starving, but at some point, usually a tasting menu halts you in your track and starts testing your will power and sanity. But this 12-course menu was like a contest, and one that I could actually win! Eat? Yes, I can.


The lovely, crispy, flaky sesame flatbread. So delicious. Yet it very disturbingly reminded me of skin, which I enjoyed repeatedly telling Matt.


Awesome, Brother! That's what I say to Matt whenever I like something. Actually, that was the name of my cocktail of rum, Saint Germain and passionfruit. Yummy and easy. Matt had the Green Hornet: celery gin tonic. A healthy cocktail indeed. I prescribe one every morning.


Fluke with whiskey-cranberry jam, smoked macadamia nut and nori. I love fluke, love. This would have been perfect but the fluke was a little tough. Nevermind, though. Next.


Our tour through New York began with the everything bagel, smoked salmon and cream cheese. My friends, this was bizarre, in a good way. Imagine it's Sunday brunch in your mouth. Except that the everything bagel is ice cream, the smoked salmon are threads and the cream cheese is the thin and crispy. Wha??


No time to consider what just happened to us. Because our plates were cleaned and cleared, a new fork and knife were brought forth and suddenly a new plate was there. We were exported to our favorite falafel joint to have the Foie-lafel. Now this was insanely delicious...falafel balls that contained hot tahini that oozed once you bit into them...very heady. Perfectly plump and pillowy pita bread, shredded lettuce, tomato and cucumber...It all sounds so like your everyday falafel but it was a far cry and one of our favorite dishes.


Another one of our favorites and it was completely unsettling: a poached egg in the shell, pumpernickel, caesar dressing and lily bulb. A perfectly dreamy and oozy egg. A perfectly crunchy shell...what? Yes, eat your shell. It's made with milk. And when you eat it, you will think...ugh, I think I have a piece of shell in mine. But no, you are eating it...all of it, and it feels like a mistake, yet you keep doing it because you think, when else am I going to eat shell?


King oyster 'udon,' sweetbreads, banana-molasses and pickled ginger. Soft, chewy and voluptuous noodles.


Coho salmon, carrot, root beer oatmeal and cherry. All I could taste was root beer!


Duck, nasturtium yogurt, turnip and nutmeg. Bloody good.


This was fun. Lamb loin, 'red beans & rice' and chayote squash. The red beans and rice were actually pine nuts, and it was shocking how much they tasted like red beans and rice! Uncanny. Although at this point, I'm starting to think I'm getting brainwashed.


At this point in the meal, I'm done with fish, meats and glands. I got full. I wanted something sweet. But then what looks like a giant ol' piece o' chorizo with some parsley lands in front of me. *gulp* But that hunk of bloody sausage was a lady. She was concord grape sorbet with cheesecake and lime. Wait a second, folks. Somebody forgot to put my cheesecake together! Nevermind, I got it.


Okay, I have to say it, but when this showed up, that squiggle made me want to throw up a little. What is that and why does it look like pistachio Easy Cheese? Sorry for my unsophisticated reaction, but really. It was apricot, buckwheat, brown butter, quince and green tea. And you most eat only a little bit of everything on your spoon at once otherwise you will be overwhelmed and confused and think you are eating nothing but green tea.


Soft chocolate, beet, long pepper and ricotta. This thing will own you. Own you, I say! I cannot stop thinking about that chocolate.


And for a nightcap, hot rice pudding balls and rice krispy treats.

the spectrum

I'm not a fan of Asian fusion (remember that?), but a fusion of modern and tradition can be fun. Growing up, the Korean food I remember was always traditional. Okay, there really was no such thing as trendy, modern and fusion Korean back then. Chinese was as far as the average person went. But now, everything can be modernized, traditionalized, trendified, fused and gentrified. And you can have it both ways at Danji, a cute and tiny Korean restaurant in Midtown West that has a Michelin star. I feel like my mom would laugh at all this food. My god, bulgogi burgers?! I can hear her saying. But she'd also find them very cute, mockable and pretty good, all at the same time, and then wonder why am I am eating in such a place in such an area isn't it all dangerous?

Nevertheless, Tricia and I shared the bulgogi beef sliders with spicy pickled cucumber and scallion salsa. A nice bite from the Modern side of the menu. I think I would like to serve this at a cocktail party.


But it was the tofu that actually blew me away. And I can hear my mom saying, tofu? My god. But yes, the tofu, simply and unassumingly described on the Modern side of the menu as "tofu with ginger scallion dressing," was scrumptiously soft, crispy, spicy, zingy and etheral. But if you are like Tricia, you might find it offputting.


Over on the Traditional side was the japchae: stir fried vermicelli with beef and veggies. Sweet, salty and glassy. Yes.


Still on the traditional side, the kalbi jjim: "Danji" braised short ribs with fingerling potatoes, cipollini onion and toasted pine nuts. Hearty and succulent, but not anything different.


No, my friends, it's not corned beef hash and an egg. We finished up with the Modern: kimchi bacon chorizo "paella" with a fried jidori hen egg. How bizarre! How, Dr. Seuss! I want to put a fried egg on my next paella. As a matter of fact, I want to put a fried egg on everything now. All strange, intriguing and kind of silly, but deliciously addictive.

pre-dinner

I did not expect a LINE outside the door shortly after 5:30 pm when Tertulia opened for dinner. Who are all these people who want to eat so early besides my old lady self? After managing to grab two seats at the bar, I was delighted to discover that the delicious sangria came from this oddity of a half-barrel mounted to the wall. I wondered if I should somehow install something similar in our apartment.

Okay, half-barrel daydreams aside...it was a relief to be up front at the bar to eat tapas, the ideal way to keep you from eating tapas for dinner, which inevitably leaves you underfed and overspent.

And was this dinner? Because it tasted like...


...breakfast! A glorious, glorious, eggy and bacony breakfast. For elves. Here, the cojonudo...revisted: two bites of smoked pig cheek, quail egg and pepper.


A rich and toasty pan con tomate, which is a far cry from all the other sad pan con tomates you think you've had.


The best way to eat tapas is also to eat OTHER people's tapas...ones that you didn't order but thought you had because you had wanted to but didn't and then ate and realized oh-dear-I-ate-someone-else's-tapas and they're sitting right next to me. That kind. Here, the culprit was the tosta setas: marinated mushrooms, smoked ricotta and pine nuts. And oh yummy it was good because it was so wrong. Oops. So sorry I ate your tapas!


But then the wild-caught amberjack comes along and makes everything even better. Lightly smoked amberjack with fabes beans and roasted peppers. Smoky, buttery, creamy, soft and melty.


Yes of course fried must rear its head at some point. The berenjenas rebozadas: fried fairytale eggplant, citrus yogurt and hazlenut pepper sauce. There was nothing fairytale about the way these things were devoured. Look away, people.


Who says you can't have dessert after tapas? Here, some rum-soaked cake with berries. Now, what's for dinner?

a sampler

It was the 2nd Annual Good Food Fest on Sunday, so Lauren, Matt and I gathered our tickets and our appetites and headed out to the Meatpacking District to have a sampler, one of the best formats of eating if you're not buffeting.


Some pate, chicken liver mousse from Great Performances.


Possibly our favorite thing was the pulled pork and mango tostada from Delicatessen.


Some compressed apple with pickled beets on top...swashbuckingly pickly, from Gramercy Tavern.


From City Grit...


...a grits and pimento cheese concoction of goodness.


And from the Guilty Goose, round toasts with prosciutto, tomato, egg and arugula. A nice breakfasty bite. To get more of.


Tomatoes, onions, zucchini and olive oil bruschette from Dell'anima.


Spongy bread from Le Pain Quotidien.


Succulent peekytoe crab raviolis from Perry Street. Nice and peeky.


Yes, it was pretty hot out in the sun, and yes, we were eating some hot soup in the sun. But it was ridiculously good: a mulligatawny soup that was intensely creamy and rich, from BLT Bar & Grill. I could eat this hot soup all day, until I can't.


This was a tiny bite from a much larger piece of soft and creamy and bechamelly mushroom lasagna from Zampa.


Um...back for more of that pork tostada.


But save room for dessert...from Marc Forgione.


One must always double-fist dessert. Here, a "banana cream pie" and rum-soaked apple torta.


And Lady Ashton's Chocolate Cake.


And for later dessert needs, a cannele from Las Delicias boutique gourmet bakery.

our final day in seattle

Our last morning in Seattle...no island hopping, just pastries. We headed over to Macrina Bakery, where there was a healthy line for some very unhealthy delights.


Like a spinach and cheese dumpling: a flaky pillow stuffed with spinach and parmesan. Do you think Bed Bath and Beyond has this for me? It might help me sleep better.


A softly scrambled egg sandwich on a toasty onion bialy. Yes.


I cannot resist the cute brioche...here, stuffed with egg, cheese and ham.


A morning roll: A swirl of yeasted croissant dough sweetened with vanilla sugar and baked to a golden brown. Sigh. This is perfection. I also want to sleep on these, roll over and eat them. Every morning.


Down the street, the perfect car for me to make my pastry getaway in.


But no. After pastries and egg sandwiches, we were off to hike around in Discovery Park. I don't know who killed Rosie Larsen, but if you see me at the bottom of this trail, you'll know I resting on a bed of those morning rolls.


At the bottom, a lovely view of Puget Sound.


Matt checks out what's around the bend: more Puget Sound.


Bainbridge Island, where we were earlier on our trip, in the distance.


I present Peloton with a clam shell, which he goes crazy over.


He furiously paws at and noses it until he has succeeded in opening it. Did I tell you that that's what I sometimes do with brioche?


Away we went, walking along the sound.


We were surrounded by blackberry bushes...they're actually everywhere, all over Seattle. Scott and Matt decide to reach for the most tippy-top ones...


Plump, juicy and deliciously sweet, we fed ourselves along the way.


None for you, pup! You'll just eat them without savoring!


Down near the beach.


The islands in the distance remind me of giant ocean pastries.


Rainier is always looming in the distance, like an eerie mirage. Strange to think we were there at the start of our trip.


Somehow, Matt wants to touch me with claw fingers and I prefer to touch him with just these two just so.


Reminds me of Hawaii for some reason.


Through the trees...


Thar she is.


I do say, sir, the earth is indeed round.


All this view is making me hungry. Actually, after what felt like an eternity of a hike, Matt and I were dragging our feet, starving. No more hiking.


Let's do some waiting...in the long line that forms at Paseo, an insanely popular Caribbean spot for everyone's favorite sandwich.


The Midnight Cuban Express: Cuban roast pork nestled atop sweet banana peppers, draped with slices of smoked ham and Swiss cheese melted between a hot press. Holy sandwich, this was insane. Once you pick it up, you cannot put it down because horrors will ensue. You will never recover your saucy, meaty sandwich from the mess you have created.


For you non-meat lovers, the Onion Obsession sandwich: caramelized onions sautéed in a garlic tapenade with fresh cilantro.


Fish in Rojo: delicate slices of fresh fish sautéed in extra virgin olive oil with a garlic tapenade. Ladled with rojo sauce comprised of tomato puree, diced onions and tomatoes, roasted red peppers and array of veggies.


Some of the yummiest black beans I've had.


After lunch, we drove over to West Seattle to visit our friend and former New Yorker Scott.


We headed over to Alki Beach to stroll along the waterfront in the searing heat.


We quickly sat down at a bar and happened to order some malt liquor beverages. Huh.


After Alki Beach, time for dinner at Madison Park Conservatory.


Cocktail, why yes I do.


Columbia City Bread, complimentary, says the menu. Interesting.


But the Golden Glen Creamery Butter had a price: $3. Holy sweet cream.


To start, flatbread with charred eggplant, taleggio and black olive oil. Delicious.


Fried sweet and hot heirloom peppers with Murray River salt. Mmm...blistery.


Roasted Stokesberry chicken with heirloom tomatoes, hand torn herbs and skordalia.


A side of braised spigarello with chili and garlic.


Pappardelle with local mountain mushrooms and marjoram.


Potatoes roasted in duck fat and herbs. But are these hand-torn?


Local roots' carrots, ras el hanout, creme fraiche.


Willie Greens' lettuces, fines herbs, lemon and parmigiano. A bowl of leaves.


Poached Alaskan halibut, summer squash, sultana salsa and saffron.


Olive oil gelato.


Bay leaf panna cotta. Overall, a local, seasonal yet very underwhelming meal.


But a spectacular trip. On our plane ride home early the next morning: a Macrina Bakery red velvet cupcake. I ♥ Washington State.