richards1052

My 10 year log enjoyed wonderful Indian food on a visit to Chicago & now insists we must find something good here in Settle. I warned him this might not be possible since I've never heard of good Indian food here. Let me know if you've found anything you like here other than Poppy which we know & love. It's a bit pricey for an entire family.

Can anyone recommend a Bellevue bakery where you can sit down to have a good breakfast pastry & coffee. Something like Macrina, Volunteer Park Café, Sweet & Savory or Columbia City Bakery in quality & ambience?

She doesn't do cupcakes every day. But the staff told me that if you want to place an order (like for a birthday party) she might do them special. Sorry if it wasn't what you expected. I first came across her at the U. District Farmer's Market before I knew anything about her training & was bowled over. I guess sometimes these things are influenced by our expectations.

We'll have to agree to disagree. I've had the pain au chocolat many times & love it. The chocolate is rich & dense & the pastry dough just the right flakiness. I bought one of the BLTs today but won't eat it till tomorrow so I can't tell you how I liked that. I've had many of her sandwiches & liked almost every one. You seem not to have bought the cupcakes which, unless you don't like cupcakes or they were out, was unfortunate. Today, they were chocolate with chocolate icing & a chocolate mint on top. Mmmmm. As I wrote in my original post in this thread, it's a cozy little shop. It's just a storefront. I'm not sure what you expected. But it's not a big place. Also, there's the owner who bakes & only two assistants. This isn't Macrina or Dahlia. It's a very personal shop. The place is also only open till 2 PM. The best time to get there for a good selection is the morning (even late morning is OK). If you get there much after lunch time things will go. After all, that's almost the end of their selling day. If you'd gotten there earlier you might've found coffee cake, apple tart, chocolate chip and oatmeal raisin cookies, croissants, lemon tart & other items. There's also a homemade soup.

I just had breakfast at Sweet and Savory this morning and want to reaffirm it is one of the finest little bakeries in the city. I had a moist coffee cake with the most wonderful, crunchy streusel topping. For lunch I bought one of Cynthia's roasted asparagus and gruyere on bagel sandwiches (yes, she makes bagels & they're the best I've had in Seattle). It was superb. A few weeks ago she made another Jewish delicacy, rugelach, which also captured the best of this supreme Jewish comfort food. Tomorrow Cynthia's baking cupcakes. If you haven't had one, you owe it to youself to go there & try one. One of the nicest aspects of the bakery is that it's a sweet little shop in a nice, cozy Seattle neighborhood. When you enter you get a nice smile & welcome from the staff. I've reviewed Sweet & Savory at my food blog as has Seattle Bon Vivant. 1418 31st Avenue South (Mt. Baker) 206 325-2900.

Such lovely replies to my original post. Thanks so much everyone for trusting my advice & checking out the Café. Scarlett, I haven't looked at the pix yet but would you mind terribly if I uploaded a copy of one of them for the post at my blog. I'll give you credit by name & link, if you want me to feature yr Flickr site. The one weakness of their website is they have no food pictures up yet (they're workin' on it they told me). That's why I'd like to feature a picture for my blog review.

Thanks, John. I checked out those recommendations & was able to get a reservation at Boka. It looks good fr the menu. Will let you know how it goes afterward. Zoe looks fabulous too but they couldn't take us at the reservation time we needed. I'd already made a reservation at Tulio (where I'd never been), but Boka looked more interesting & so I cancelled the former. If anyone's partial to Tulio let me know.

My wife & I haven't gotten out to many restaurants for a few yrs while raising 3 young kids. Was wondering what you'd recommend downtown. The only parameters are the movie theater we'll be coming fr. is at 7th & Pike so somewhere within walking distance or 5 min. car ride would be great; and we'd like a place w/o stratospheric prices (prices approaching $30 or more per entree are too rich for us). Thanks for yr thoughts...

Yeah, isn't that a great idea? I'd never heard of it before myself.

I'm happy to report (unless someone's done it here before me) that Volunteer Park Cafe is a lovely new addition to the north Capitol Hill eating scene. It used to be Cafe Europa. The new place serves mainly breakfast and lunch with once a month dinnners. They currently offer one dinner takeout item daily though they'll be expanding their offerings soon. Last night I brought home the braised short rib pot pie & it was dee-licious. Moist crust, melt in yr mouth ribs, & veggies braised-in-wine flavor. The desserts are fairly typical (brownies, cookies, cakes) but wonderful. They also offer a large wine selection for retail purchase. The new owners made the room open, light & welcoming. There's a nice, friendly, neighborhood spirit about the place. They take well to kids too. I say: welcome to the neighborhood. Read my food blog for an expanded version of this post.

As I wrote, your site looks lovely. We just felt we didn't want such a full-on MEAT experience that particular night. But we will definitely check out Porchella.

Thanks to all for those replies. They're really helpful as we're from Seattle & don't get to eat in Bellevue too often. This will give us a few promising new ones to try. <a href="http://www.porcellaurbanmarket.com/index.htm">Porchella</a> sounded wonderful & the website looks yummy. We actually chose to go to Bis for a variety of reasons too complex to go into here. Suffice to say that while we liked the meal we had there a year ago or so, I can't say the same for tonight's meal. It was entirely ordinary. Nothing very bad, but very little that was very good. I had bacon wrapped scallops on polenta with apple coulis & brussels sprouts. When I ordered I didn't realize that apple coulis & scallops could taste quite strange together. It didn't ruin the dish, but didn't help either. If you don't do scallops perfectly when you're grilling or pan-cooking them you're left w. entirely avg. scallops, which happened tonight. The outside of the scallop must be seared nicely & crispy, while the inside should be tender & moist. There was very little sear on the outside at Bis. The bacon seemed undercooked (not raw, just not cooked till the proper full brown coloring came out). And at $28.50, it wasn't worth the price. The polenta tasted bland. The dessert list was entirely the "usual suspects" you find in too many restaurants. The typical molten chocoloate souffle pecan pie, & lemon tart, among others. We ordered the lemon tart. While it was good in its way, it did nothing to rise above the 400 other lemon tart servings you've had over the years. The restaurant makeover was nice. The room was still cozy and warm. But it was nothing like the wonderful, intimate familiarity of the old Bis setting. We really wished it was better. We truly wanted to like it.

My wife & I are going to the movies tomorrow at Lincoln Sq. (Bellevue). I wonder if anyone likes any restaurants very close by. I've been to Bis & quite liked it though I don't know if it's open on Mondays. Anything else worthy mentioning?

Thanks for all those great tips (unintended pun) about brisket. In my other post, I confused flank steak w. brisket, but I meant brisket & not the former meat. The recipe my wife uses is Nach Waxman's Brisket of Beef, The New Basics Cookbook, p. 494-95. It calls for 5-6 lbs. of brisket to be (after browning) placed w. the liquid in a 375 F. oven for 1 1/2 hrs., then cut into slices & roasted for another 1 3/4-2 hrs. BTW, we generally buy one or two whole briskets & add cooking time proportional to the increased weight over that listed in the recipe (5-6 lbs). I realize 375 degrees is a hot hotter than the 220 recommended by an earlier poster. But it has seemed to work for us at the hotter temp. before. I suppose the tough brisket we made might've been due to either under or overroasting. We'll have to be careful about that this yr. With all these good ideas hopefully we'll get a nice tender brisket this yr. In the NW food section where I also posted (on a slightly diff. topic) someone suggested a local meat purveyor who sells grass fed beef. I imagine grass fed would have less fat. Would that rule out grass fed since brisket depends on the cut having substantial fat?

Again, I apologize for confusing people by being imprecise. We make brisket & buy brisket. I mistakenly thought flank & brisket were one & the same cut. Shows how little I know about cuts of meat. But it's brisket I'm talking about & that's what we buy. Skagit Valley & A&J's are really good suggestions. I shop at Columbia City Market ea. wk. & I can talk to them there about brisket.