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This was actually on the way back from Vacouver, but what the hay!... We stopped for dinner at Skagit River Brewing in Mt. Vernon, the original subject of this thread. I had ribs, which were not particularly good. I really like their sauce, but it was clear that these ribs hadn't been cooked nearly long enough. Way too much chew to them, at least for my taste. I think the brisket sandwich that two of our party had was a better choice, though certainly not Klink-ian.

From your list, I'm assuming that you haven't tried Jones BBQ on MLK? If not, its worth a trip, definitely the best I've had in Seattle, though that may not be saying a whole lot. I believe Herr Klink told me he hadn't been there either, so it may be worth an organized expedition for lunch or an early dinner, if there's some interest.

Are you referring to the brand new place accross the street from campus (Ginger Lemon, or something like that) or Lemongrass, down the street a little? Haven't tried the former, but have heard roundly mediocre reviews from my colleagues. On the other hand, I think Lemongrass is quite good, not pretentious or prices though.

Thanks for the great account of your trip tsquare. Sounds fun and tasty. I spent a couple weeks in Portugal on a "business" trip one time. Most of the time in the Azores and a few days in Lisbon. I didn't get to try the variety of items that your did, but came away very impressed with Portuguese food in general. I'd love to spend some time on the mainland.

I think the halibut was my favorite course of the meal, but then again, I'm a truffle whore. Our server did a remarkable job with the wine parings. As mamster said, the Dr L was a fantastic wine and I also thought the Malbec served with the pork was great.

Reaching slightly beyond the border of the good ol' USA.... By far the best Italian restaurant I've been to (outside of Italy) is Cioppino's in Vancouver, BC. I've been to Babbo, admittedly only once, and it doesn't hold a candle to 'Pino's. Creativity, quality of ingredients, consistency, however you want to measure it....

According to timlines published in today's Seattle Times, SBC was founded before Starbuck's, so perhaps you are thinking of a different firm. Undoubtedly there are former Starbucks employees who work for SBC. The Times article also said that there are no immediate plans for the SBC or Torrefazione brands to be eliminated. SBC Timeline (pdf) Starbucks Timeline (pdf)

My wife and I have hosted parties at friends' houses on a number of occasions when our house was torn up and we wanted to put on a party for them (baby shower, etc.). Of course there have been other occaisions where friends of ours were supposedly hosting a party and still managed to manouever us into providing the majority of the food and doing most of the cooking. Just suckers I guess....

I just checked out the web site for the Royal Hideaway, that looks like one gorgeous place. I imagine that it is a few price points above where we stayed. I imagine the Italian place there was just ever so slightly better than the one at Xpu-Ha.

It will be interesting to see if they completely assimilate SBC or if they keep the brand name. Of the major coffee companies, SBC's product has always been my favorite. Ironically, it has become difficult to find here in Seattle, but I see it in other cities pretty regularly. Overall I think this is really unfortunate.

Thought I would just add it here rather than starting a whole new thread... On our way up to Vancouver, we merry travellers stopped at the Oyster Bar on Chuckanut Drive for some lunch. The view from the restaurant is really beautiful and we had a bald eagle swoop by the window in the middle of lunch. The food was mostly quite good, if a little uneven. I had whiskey and crab soup to start which was great and fried oysters breaded with panko for my main course. Breading was too heavy for my tast and the oysters were huge, but none of that stopped me from finishing them all off. One of the highlights of the meal was the rolls of all things. Apparently they're from a place in Bellingham called La Vie En Rose Bakery. If they can get my attention with dinner rolls, I will definitely make a point of stopping in next time I'm in the area. Whether you stop at the restaurant or not, taking Chuckanut Drive is really worth it, with panoramic views of the water and mountains around every turn. Edited because I struggle to write/speak in complete, coherent sentences....

My wife and I recently returned from a week on the Mayan Riviera. We stayed at the Xpu-Ha Palace, about 20 minutes south of Playa del Carmen. It’s a great place, offering a lot of different activities, but doesn’t have the ‘mega-resort’ feel of the other Palace resorts. As an all-inclusive, our expectations for the food were modest, but we found that once you learned your way around the menus/buffet, it was possible to eat well. Before leaving home, we had decided to eat out at least a couple times during the week and chose Yaxche in Playa for our first meal out and ended up going back for our second as well. It was simply fabulous, one of the best restaurants I’ve been to anywhere. There’s no doubt that it is geared towards tourists; the prices are too high for most local residents I would imagine, but most of the food is based on traditional Mayan recipes. First dinner Bread was served with a garlic cream sauce and green salsa. Both were excellent and even better together. Boxito: shrimp tacos cooked with a chilmole sauce. Spicy but intensely flavorful; the sauce was almost black. Tsic: a salsa made with lobster ceviche, corn, chiles and cilantro, layered between fried tortillas, maybe the best single dish we had. Putun: a whole red snapper marinated in the traditional Tikin Xic way, with axiote paste and sour orange juice, then grilled wrapped in a banana leaf. One of the greatest fish dishes I’ve ever had. Perfectly cooked, extremely fresh with an amazing flavor. Chac Mool: Shrimp that had been marinated in tangerine, chipotle and tomato sauce and then grilled. Very good, but not as flavorful as I would have expected. With dinner we had a surprisingly good (to me at least) Mexican Chardonnay from the Calixa winery. Second dinner (all appetizers) Pibxatic: a large (and hot) chile pepper, stuffed with pork pibil and onion, then roasted. So spicy it hurt, but so good I couldn’t stop myself from eating it. Xtoloc: crepes made with chaya leaf that were stuffed with cheese and roasted sweet chile peppers and then baked in a gratin dish. A fabulous dish if you love cheesy things, kind of an upscale enchilada. Naha: tuna salad with chipotle peppers on a bed of chaya leaves. When I ordered this I was envisioning grilled tuna on top of a salad, but this was actual “tuna salad.” After getting over my disappointment, I really enjoyed it and will probably put chipotles in my tuna fish sandwiches from now on. Pork pipil tacos: pork marinated with chiles and sour orange juice. Simple, beautiful, tasty. Grouper ceviche: an ample portion of fish flavored with lime and chiles, mixed with onion, tomato and some other things I'm forgetting. My first experience with real ceviche, and I'm totally sold.... Tsic: again. For dessert I had the ‘Café Maya’, which is a large mug of coffee with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and xtabentun (a local liquor made with anise and honey, think sweet Sambuca). The best part is how the xtabentun gets into the coffee. The picture doesn’t do it justice, but two waiters, each holding two metal gravy boats, if you will, create a cascade of flaming xtabentun. Definitely the best restaurant tricks I’ve ever seen. After dinner our waiter introduced us to a cocktail called a ‘Mayan Kiss’. A shot of the aforementioned xtabentun, on the rocks, with a shot of Kahlua. Way too tasty and easy to drink. A somewhat surreal part of the experience was sitting in this great restaurant and being bathed in the glow of yellow neon from the TGI Friday’s across the narrow street. Somehow I think that if you're going to eat at a TGI Friday's, you shouldn't be allowed to leave the country, then again some people would probably say the same thing about staying at an all-inclusive resort..... The other notable place we ate was during a tour to Isla Mujeres. While the others in our group were being herded through the shopping area, we snuck off and had lunch at a place on the beach at a place called Velasquez. Sitting under a palapa on the beach with a beer and some great grilled seafood is real hard to beat. Although we’d had one lunch already, we still ordered two items, grilled squid and grilled prawns in garlic sauce. Both were exceptional in their freshness and simplicity. It was my first time in the Yucatan, not to mention Mexico. I’m anxious to go back and spend some time traveling around the area and experience more local places. Edit: added a course that I forgot first time around

Uhhhh, who, me?? My sieve like memory for wines has struck again, maybe due to the wine. I can't recall who the maker was, but it had all the characteristics that I like about Vino Nobile: earthiness and more body than most Chiantis. At ~$70CDN I thought it was very reasonable as well. I did have the waiter write down the name of the absolutely killer grappa I had after dinner, by far the smoothest I've encountered: Distilleria Botega 2000. My duck was just out of this world. The composition of the plate was excellent, with the creamy/fattiness of the duck and white beans offset by the astringency of the pickled cabbage. (I know I took a couple shots of it, and I think the blurrier of the two may be the one that got posted...I know, always a critic.)

My guess is that it will be great and I'll be kicking myself for not going after I hear your account of it.... Scrat and I went to BM for dinner last night, hoping to catch the cassoulet before the menu change. The bad news was that the cassoulet has already been taken off the menu, the good news is that it got us to try a couple new things that were out of this world. First was the foie gras appetizer. The first thing that jumps out about it on the menu is the price: $18.95!...now thats one pricey appetizer. Then you get the plate and realize that it is probably the largest slab of foie gras you've ever seen served in a restaurant, the size of a small steak, I $#!^ you not. I have no idea how they accomplish it, but the foie is crispy on the outside and almost molten in the middle. Its served with a port reduction, vanilla-port poached figs and toasted brioche. I thought I was going to die.... The second stellar item was the paella. After some otherworldly paella experiences in Spain, I am always a littel hesitant to order it here. I had a very good one at La Tienda Cadiz, but most others I've tried have failed. This one combined seafood (salmon, shrimp, clams & mussels) with chicken and house-made sausage. It was just outstanding, with all the ingredients cooked perfectly. The waiter said that the best thing on the menu is the Braised Cider Chicken, but if its better than these two, I don't know if I can take it....

Scrat and I went to Tango the night after nightscotsman et. al. were there and had a really good meal. It was our first time, not sure why it took us so long. We also had the blue cheese souffles which we both thought would have been a great dessert. Our other items were sauteed mushrooms with serrano ham and kale, braised beef shortribs and the pan-seared calamari. All were excellent. The texture of the shortribs was absolutely divine, it must have been braised for days. A very interesting part of the calamari dish were the crispy chickpeas scattered over the plate.

For anyone who's interested, here's a link to the menu for the upcoming Australian wine dinner at BM: Menu I don't find it as interesting as the last two and will probably pass.

Somewhat tangential to the topic, but... I've seen adds for Olive Farm in some food mags. They sell Turkish olive oils and are based out of Portland I believe? Has anyone tried their product? Opinions, comments? Thanks.

Don't think they carry anything in bulk, but ChefShop on 15th W carries a really good selection of different oils and you can go in and sample before you buy.

Coming up with this list has been trying, but fun, and I will admit to poaching from some of the already-posted lists. Do I cheat by combining multiple things into single courses?, absolutely!; is this etched in stone?, absolutely not! 1- At least a dozen (probably two) kumamoto oysters with Tabasco and a champagne mignonette on the side. Beverage: Deschutes Black Butte Porter. 2- A mixed sushi/sashimi platter from Nishino including spider roll and otoro plus whatever else the chef recommends (no sea urchin please!). Beverage: Momokawa Pearl Sake from SakeOne in Oregon. 3- The truffle, asparagus risotto I had at Locanda dell’Amorosa in Tuscany. Beverage: a Vino Nobile di Motepulciano. 4- A slab of Copper River sockeye, grilled over mesquite charcoal. My wife’s potatoes au gratin (super cheesy version) on the side. Beverage: WillaKenzie Pinot Noir. 5- The pesto-crusted seared ahi I had at Indigo in Honolulu. Beverage: Ferrari-Carano Chardonnay. 6- A trio of cassoulets: Cassis’, Braserie Margaux’s and the one I had in France way back when. Beverage: the best Gigondas I could get my hands on. 7- Ellensburg lamb ribs, marinated in soy sauce, pineapple juice, vermouth and garlic (my Dad’s recipe) and grilled over charcoal with hickory chips. Grilled artichokes on the side. Beverage: McCrea Syrah. 8- A trough of La Spiga’s Tiramisu and my Mom’s biscotti. Beverage: Passito. 9- A very dense, rich chocolate torte enveloped in chocolate ganache with homemade vanilla ice cream. This may only exist in my imagination, but I’d know it if I found it! Beverage: a great Vintage Port. 10- A selection of small dessert items such as nightscotsman’s canelle, my Mom’s chocolate chip cookies, a sampling of local and international chocolate truffles, etc., etc. Beverage: the best Bas Armagnac I could find. I figure it would only take me 12 hours or so to plow through this menu.

Like Jonathan, it is hard for me to imagine that something served at West would be "inedible", but I also believe that there are times when people have bad experiences at otherwise great restaurants for whatever reason. Despite all the glowing reviews here and elsewhere, I had an unquestionably bad meal at Babbo in New York. Many people find this inconceivable, but my wife's dinner was almost inedible, litterally. So, I believe it happens. I also wonder if we have some different definitions of "inedible" in play here. To me inedible means that eating the dish in question either causes significant physical pain or makes me gag. Some people would probably say that anything that they don't care to put in their mouth again is inedible. I also think inedible has a component of personal taste, there are a number of things that I can't stomach that other people absolutely relish. In any case, just as it is very unlikely that I will ever go back to Babbo, oakland barb will probably never go back to West, and perhaps thats unfortunate for both of us.

BM is having another wine dinner this month featuring Australian wines and I went to their site to look for the menu. Not posted yet, but I noticed they're offering the menus and pairings from their first two wine dinners if you have a group of 8 or more. Price is only $65 per.

I had the lamb prosciutto sandwich last time I was there and agree that it is fantastic. I could have eaten it for days. I'm a big fan of lamb in general and wonder if the gaminess of it that I loved would turn some other people off. There's something thats been bugging me about Salumi for a while and I hesitate to even bring it up because it certainly isn't going to stop me from going there. However, I have to say that the treatment I've gotten from Armandino himself has consistently ranged from luke-warm to downright rude. I've read numerous places about what a gregarious guy he is and have seen how people who I presume to be regulars get treated, so I'm left a little puzzled. Am I exuding the "I'm a prick" vibe without realizing it?, is it because I'm not a regular?, is there a secret password I need to mention?

To me, Red Stripe is possibly the most overrated beer there is. The only time it has ever been palatable to me is when I was also partaking of Jamaica's other major export.... Since we're reaching far afield for favorite "mass-produced" lagers, I love Bohemia from Mexico.

Nah, its more like country-club spacing. Only 450K people in 1K square miles (Rhode Island has over 1 mil in 1200 square miles). Grapes are grown on their side of the Moselle; bone dry rieslings and off-dry Auxerois. Very tasty stuff.

I think that was a couple of decades ago. No, it was two years ago. My father in law cut it out of Men's Journal or some other crappy magazine. It did suck because then he always had Stroh's at his house, instead of Pilsner Urquell or Heinekin. Vindication! I've been arguing ever since college that Stroh's was the best mass-produced American lager. Don't get me wrong, I wont touch the stuff now, but in the hypothetical "someone has a gun to your head and you have to choose a mass-produced American beer" scenario, its Stroh's hands down! I'm a big fan of Prajdroj (Pilsner Urquell), especially when I can find it on tap.