(March 1st-3rd, 2013) There comes a time in everyone's life when you're presented with a menu that looked so good that they thought: "I'd like to have everything on the menu!" But, alas, prudence usually ways in and you settle for just one (or sometimes two) dishes. Well, not on this trip to Seattle...
My previous trip to Seattle had taken us to Sitka and Spruce, a restaurant that I'm still raving about. This time around, we were in Seattle briefly for Katie and Leanna's wedding. It was a very nice, well done affair, but that's not what I'd like to talk about today. What I'd like to talk about is Sitka and Spruce's sister restaurant, The Corson Building. We went to the Corson Building with two of Kim's friends, and as the four of us looked over the day's menu, everything just looked too good to decide. When the waitress came around for our order, we made the off-handed remark of 'everything looks too good, if only we could have the entire menu.' Much to our surprise, she said that that could be arranged, and left us to wonder if we had over committed ourselves!
As plate after plate appeared out of the kitchen, we kept thinking that we had had the best of it, only to be surprised that there was another, even better dish to be enjoyed next. This was truly a treat, and a definite culinary highlight for the year for me. Don't ask me which was my favorite...they were all fantastic, and too good in their own rights to really choose between them.
A salad of chicories and beets with tahini, pistachios, and ricotta salata.
Potted shrimp on toasted sourdough.
Blackmouth lox with labneh, pine nuts, and caper shoots.
Marinated mussels with carrots, sultanas, and walnut tavator.
Boiled potato with Dungeness crab, stinging nettles, and Dinah's cheese.
Chopped ham and artichoke salad with last year's pickles, fava beans, and ramps-aioli.
Smoked duck breast with roasted kale tips, parsnips, hazelnuts, and apples.
Petrale sole with braised celery, roasted endive, lentils, and fried seeds.
And, of course, after we finished everything on the menu, we had to do dessert...navel orange tart with warm butter, candied dates, and ricotta.
Afterwards, we headed for a drink at Quinn's Pub, the fantastic bar that introduced me to my favorite beer, Ayinger Ur-Weisse, last year. We had put our name in for a table, but decided to just enjoy standing at the bar. Much to our surprise, they found us a table while we were still there (an hour or so later), so we felt a slight pang of guilt about the thought of not ordering something. Thus, we ended up with round two (much more modest in size though!):
Sauteed Swiss chard and farrow (an inspiration for me as I've been cooking farrow similarly to this ever since I first had it on my first visit to Quinn's), fries with fontina fonduta and veal demi-glace, and roasted bone marrow.
The next day, we headed out to dim sum, where we had soup dumplings at Din Tai Fung Dumpling House. What are soup dumplings? Something wonderous...take a normal dumpling, fill it with both the meat mixture and also a soup broth, and seal it up. You have to be careful when you eat it, lest the juices drain out, much to one's dismay. The crew working to assemble them were a blur of action:
Also on this trip, two must visits in Seattle: the original REI:
Through this forested landscape is a mountain bike trail circling the exterior of the building. Inside is even better than you'd expect an REI to be. And lastly to Top Pot Doughnuts:
Yes, that is a Feather Boa doughnut. Not quite as visually alarming as Voodoo Doughnuts in Portland, but fantastic nonetheless.
My previous trip to Seattle had taken us to Sitka and Spruce, a restaurant that I'm still raving about. This time around, we were in Seattle briefly for Katie and Leanna's wedding. It was a very nice, well done affair, but that's not what I'd like to talk about today. What I'd like to talk about is Sitka and Spruce's sister restaurant, The Corson Building. We went to the Corson Building with two of Kim's friends, and as the four of us looked over the day's menu, everything just looked too good to decide. When the waitress came around for our order, we made the off-handed remark of 'everything looks too good, if only we could have the entire menu.' Much to our surprise, she said that that could be arranged, and left us to wonder if we had over committed ourselves!
As plate after plate appeared out of the kitchen, we kept thinking that we had had the best of it, only to be surprised that there was another, even better dish to be enjoyed next. This was truly a treat, and a definite culinary highlight for the year for me. Don't ask me which was my favorite...they were all fantastic, and too good in their own rights to really choose between them.
A salad of chicories and beets with tahini, pistachios, and ricotta salata.
Potted shrimp on toasted sourdough.
Blackmouth lox with labneh, pine nuts, and caper shoots.
Marinated mussels with carrots, sultanas, and walnut tavator.
Boiled potato with Dungeness crab, stinging nettles, and Dinah's cheese.
Chopped ham and artichoke salad with last year's pickles, fava beans, and ramps-aioli.
Smoked duck breast with roasted kale tips, parsnips, hazelnuts, and apples.
Roasted and braised Guinea fowl with Brussels sprouts, many mushrooms, beet-creme fraiche and mustard puree.
Petrale sole with braised celery, roasted endive, lentils, and fried seeds.
And, of course, after we finished everything on the menu, we had to do dessert...navel orange tart with warm butter, candied dates, and ricotta.
Afterwards, we headed for a drink at Quinn's Pub, the fantastic bar that introduced me to my favorite beer, Ayinger Ur-Weisse, last year. We had put our name in for a table, but decided to just enjoy standing at the bar. Much to our surprise, they found us a table while we were still there (an hour or so later), so we felt a slight pang of guilt about the thought of not ordering something. Thus, we ended up with round two (much more modest in size though!):
Sauteed Swiss chard and farrow (an inspiration for me as I've been cooking farrow similarly to this ever since I first had it on my first visit to Quinn's), fries with fontina fonduta and veal demi-glace, and roasted bone marrow.
The next day, we headed out to dim sum, where we had soup dumplings at Din Tai Fung Dumpling House. What are soup dumplings? Something wonderous...take a normal dumpling, fill it with both the meat mixture and also a soup broth, and seal it up. You have to be careful when you eat it, lest the juices drain out, much to one's dismay. The crew working to assemble them were a blur of action:
Also on this trip, two must visits in Seattle: the original REI:
Through this forested landscape is a mountain bike trail circling the exterior of the building. Inside is even better than you'd expect an REI to be. And lastly to Top Pot Doughnuts:
Yes, that is a Feather Boa doughnut. Not quite as visually alarming as Voodoo Doughnuts in Portland, but fantastic nonetheless.
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