LaurieA-B

A very wonderful children's bookstore is Vancouver Kidsbooks, on W Broadway in Kitsilano. That neighborhood is fun for wandering and walking. Our favorite Chinese restaurant (very casual, cheap, and kid-friendly) is Szechuan Chongqing on Commercial. Visit Granville Island. And in Victoria, don't miss the provincial museum, it's great for kids.

On Buffy the Vampire Slayer, when Spike (a vampire) complains that they're out of Weetabix, Giles comments that isn't Spike supposed to consume blood? Reply: "Well, sometimes I like to crumble up the Weetabix in the blood. Give it a little texture." Giles: "Since the picture you just painted means I will never touch food of any kind again..."

I don't know what this says about me--but the first thing I said upon examining the cheese list was, "We definitely want the one that's barnyard." And it was good.

If you were coming from a long way away especially to dine at Lark, I think you would know about the no-rez policy and be prepared to wait a while, if necessary. Or you could go very early, or very late. While I understand the complaint about host behavior, I'm puzzled by the complaints about having to wait when you go to a restaurant that doesn't take reservations. You go knowing that you might have to wait a while. If that's not acceptable, you go somewhere that takes reservations. I can think of two restaurants--Kingfish Cafe and La Rustica--that I've been to several times that don't take reservations. At both I have sometimes waited a long time for a table, and I have also chosen to go to a different restaurant if they were busy and I didn't want to wait. That's how it goes. When we had dinner at Lark we decided to go at 5:30, when they opened, to avoid waiting. And, as Matthew said, we LOVED the meal. I think my favorite dish was the Arctic char served with rich, creamy lentils. And those madeleines got me interested in madeleines. tsquare's comment "This was a meal I enjoyed prior to ordering, while eating it, and long into the night" is very apt.

Just remembered that some time ago I was going down 45th, and noticed that Wally's Scoop in Wallingford looked closed. Perhaps someone can confirm this? I was sad to see it covered up as it was a charming old-fashioned style ice cream parlor.

Hurray for Jim, and Ken! Congratulations.

Ali Baba on Broadway opened in this space on Saturday. I had an okay falafel sandwich. They have a standard Middle Eastern menu. When we first moved to Seattle in 1996, there was a Johnny Rocket's on Broadway (between Mercer and Republican, where there's now an Indian restaurant). It closed up several years ago.

Great excitement in our household over the banner that just went up on the new building at Broadway and Roy: "Opening Soon Essential Bakery Cafe." !!! We've become quite fond of the one on Madison, which is much less conveniently located than Broadway and Roy. We've had lunch a couple of times at the new Simply Thai. The food is tasty and the lunch special is very cheap (they're baby-friendly, too). The larb at a nearby table looked delicious. Hollywood Burger Co. on Broadway is closed (no great loss). In the seven years we've lived in Seattle we've seen that storefront change more than any other one on Broadway. Saddest demise was Ezo Noodles. What will come next?

Now that I have a healthy six-week-old baby, I'm willing to admit to my cravings. The main one was cheeseburgers. At least twice a week. And they had to be squishy fast-food burgers, with American cheese (that was key). I usually picked them up at Dick's Drive-In, conveniently located a few blocks from our apartment, where I had never eaten before. The cheeseburger thing was out of left field, as I was a vegetarian for several years and even after I started eating meat again, did not care for ground beef at all. But pregnancy=cheeseburgers. (The funny thing is that during the week of conception, I was on vacation in California. I ate a cheeseburger from In-N-Out, twice. This was the first time I'd eaten a hamburger in at least 12 years; I was curious because everyone says In-N-Out is so good. It was.) I also liked eating meat (much more beef than usual) and American cheese (Kraft singles) in general. Definite protein theme. Dairy was also big; one of my first pregnancy clues was carrying home bags of yogurt, ice cream, milk, and cottage cheese from the grocery store. I ate lots of rice and chocolate pudding. While I sometimes wanted bland foods, I often craved strong flavors like olives and pickles. If my daughter loves Happy Meals, I have only myself to blame. (The discovery of mad cow disease here in Washington State coincided neatly with the very end of my pregnancy. I remember my last cheeseburger at Dick's because they had a sign posted proclaiming the safety of their burgers.) Okay, must go feed my infant!

And if no one objects to an infant in the party, Matthew and I would like to come and bring our child. (Many parents we've talked to have recommended Chinese restaurants as good places to go with babies.) I haven't been to either Sichuan restaurant and I look forward to it.

i've eaten at la spiga several times and almost always have pasta, haven't tried anything similar to your stew. i love their pastas, esp. ravioli which changes seasonally. matthew is fond of the cresciones but i find the bread a bit bland.

Simply Thai restaurant has opened on Broadway (across from the Broadway Market). It was open for a while as Simply Paradise, closed for some time, and now is Simply Thai, presumably with the same ownership. I haven't gotten a look at the current menu, but Matthew and I liked some of the food at SP and very much enjoyed dinner at Simply Thai in Southcenter. Siam on Broadway is newly redecorated and has a new hot pink neon sign and awning after a brief closure.

I can't remember names, but when we were in Paris three years ago I saw at least a couple Starbucks-style coffee spots (with paper cups and similar menus). One was down the street from our hotel on Rue St Andre des Arts. (Then in Taipei, there was a Starbucks down the block from our hotel, across the street from "Coffee Latte," while in Bangkok we ran into "Coffeebucks" at the train station.)

I've been reading Bittersweet by Alice Medrich throughout December. Lots of stories/essays along with recipes. So far we've tried one recipe--Matthew made the chocolate mousse, which was delectable. This book really teaches you a lot about chocolate. I am a bit curious as to whether Medrich has really been as influential regarding chocolate in America as she says; I have no reason to doubt her claims, I just don't have any basis for judgment. It's a delightful book.

Speaking of babies and high-end restaurants, one of our Christmas presents was the book Feeding Baby by Joachim Splichal of Patina and Christine Splichal.

I don't think parents should take small children to high-end restaurants, and it is certainly appropriate for staff to ask parents to remove misbehaving children. I would be furious, however, if another diner took it upon him/herself to speak to my child about the child's behavior. You can speak to your waiter, you could speak directly to the parents if you felt comfortable doing so. But I do not think it is at all appropriate for you to intervene with a child when the parents are there. Even if you wished to kindly offer a pen and paper from your purse to distract the child, it should be offered to the parents first. Dealing with the child's behavior is the parent's role, not a stranger's.

Matthew and I put in each others' stockings the fleur de sel chocolate caramels from Fran's that we read about on this thread. They are delicious. Matthew also gave me a great t-shirt from Beecher's Handmade Cheeses. He is very happy with the Kitchenaid coffee grinder that he received, for grinding spices. Other food-related gifts included an immersion blender (esp. for frothing hot chocolate) and Silpat. We got some nice cookbooks too--though my favorite, Bittersweet by Alice Medrich, was received a few weeks ago and I've been enjoying it throughout December.

We bought a roll to try it out. I don't get it. Yes, it sticks to bowls and seals them tight (though I have also found it does not work on plastic). Isn't that what regular Saran/Glad Wrap is supposed to do? "Here, pay more for this product that actually does what we've been telling you our original product does!" By the way, we bought some Stretch-Tite plastic wrap at Costco, as recommended on egullet, and it works quite well.

The new Essential Bakery Cafe at Madison & MLK (right by Harvest Vine) looks like it will be open any day now.

Finally checked out the new Top Pot last weekend. The space is amazing. It is absolutely gorgeous, the design delightful; we sat in the balcony overlooking the main floor, from which you can look out over 5th. So pleasant and the furniture is great (I loved the little individual lamps over some tables). I had my favorite cinnamon-sugar cruller. On Saturday morning the business was steady but we weren't in line more than a few minutes. They are also offering a lunch menu: sandwiches on baguette, $3.79 each. The list includes ham and swiss, turkey, tuna, mozzarella tomato, and El Coyote: chipotle chicken, pepper jack, chipotle mayo, lettuce, and tomato. Sounds good to me. Soup is also available. The actual paper lunch menus are super cool too.

Dahlia has lots of special holiday treats in right now; I am looking forward to sampling the Cranberry Almond Lattice Tart. Matthew brought me some of their pumpkin bread, which was very tasty, with sugary pumpkin-seed topping. They have a holiday menu with special pies, cakes, and cookies. (And the house loaf is delicious as always.)

I'm glad you went to Uglesich's--it was my favorite place on our visit to New Orleans last year, based purely on how good the food was. (And, of course, it was the place I went to with friends on the last day of the trip, when Matthew had flown home to Seattle a couple of days before me ) I had a dish that was someone's "special", which I recall as pan-fried trout topped with shrimp, over those great fried potatoes. At the time I said that if we had eaten there earlier in the trip, we would have gone back to U's at least twice to try more. Looks like you sampled a fair amount of the menu.

Our dinner at Nell's is reported in The Stranger this week--check out November 13. It should actually be credited to scrat, who I am sure wishes she had not had to witness that particular scene. (For those of you who are not regular readers, Last Days regularly reports examples of inappropriate public grooming.)

Bobby Flay makes totally false pseudo-scientific claims about his food? Who knew.

Lunch at Bandol=superdud. Since Matthew and I both had the day off today, we had big plans to treat ourselves to lunch before a visit to the obstetrician. Our original thought was the 25/25 menu at the Georgian Room, which sounded delicious. We didn't think much about making a reservation for lunchtime; I called this morning to check if we needed a reservation, and it turned out they were full today. So I immediately cried, "Bandol!" Judy just ate there with a friend last week and said it was fabulous. I'd been drooling over the menu for weeks, so this seemed like the perfect opportunity. We ordered the brandade de morue to share, then the croque monsieur for me and baked eggs for Matthew. We looked forward to dessert (we had sampled a couple at the opening party that were delicious). At that point the only off note was the bread: very, very pale-crusted baguette. I whispered to Matthew that it looked like it had been parbaked but not baked again. It was totally tasteless. The brandade was served with crostini that was also very pale (I commented, "If Jason Perlow were here he would send it back for more toasting"), but crunchy, with a slightly darker crust than the baguette. The brandade was nicely textured and tasty; Matthew thought it was a bit heavy on the rosemary. When the main courses arrived, I was surprised by the soft, sloppy appearance of my sandwich. I took a couple of bites and found it very wet and soggy. Responding to Matthew's query about my food, I said, "I thought it would be crisp." As served, it was non-tasty. The beautiful baked eggs dish turned out to include, unfortunately, undercooked white beans. So we both sent our dishes back. It was the first time in my life I have ever found a dish so poor that I sent it back. Thus Bandol will forever occupy a notorious place in my memory (along with Barcelona, the only movie I ever walked out of in a theater, because I was bored). The server returned the menus to us. I felt like leaving, because it was difficult to choose something else off the menu after being served bad food, but we still needed to eat lunch and leaving wasn't the best option. When Matthew chose the duck salad, I decided to get the plain wild greens and an order of frites to share. We got the frites with bacon, an enormous heap as they serve at Cassis, and they were quite delicious. The salad was fine. By this time we were out of time, and had to leave without ordering dessert. The people next to us had the caramel cashew chocolate tart and it looked really good. So, if this was my only experience with Bandol, I would think it pretty much failed. But considering other visits, perhaps it was just an off day for those dishes? The people around us were enjoying their food. But I was very disappointed. (Both offending dishes were, of course, removed from the bill.)