kieran

The place you're thinking of is called The Savoy, and it really is good.

I second, third, and fourth this! More delivery! I believe we've talked about this before here, but I'd love to see a really great Jewish deli open its doors here. I'd also like to see a good all-night diner open up. (Hey, I grew up in New Jersey.) I miss them. Seattle has a couple of solid Italian places, but I'm always happy to get more.

I think you mean the Savoy, and for a buffet it really is good. We call it the Las Vegas Indian because of the decor.

Seconded. In fact, unagi was the food that began my de-vegetarianizing a few years ago. I had been vegetarian for eleven years and never tried sushi before. I took one bite and never looked back and since then I've become a sushi fiend. OBkebob: a friend tried the Kebob House recently and was pleased. Not glowing, but pleased. He said it had gone downhill from his last experience.

Awwww. Thanks for the update, Laurel. I'm bummed. Guess I'll have to keep going to other neighborhoods for my fresh produce fix.

None in Capitol Hill? I seem to remember at the end of last season that there were plans to open one there, and I've been appropriately excited about it all year. Can it be that I've been living a lie?

Although I am vegetarian no longer, I was vegetarian for eleven years and notice how many places do and do not have vegetarian offerings, and I think most restaurants around here seem pretty accomodating if you let them know you're vegetarian. To the many good suggestions already mentioned I would add some of the nicer Italian places in the city. Tulio, for instance, had ample vegetarian offerings to please my vegetarian (and very picky on top of that) sister. Probably not good if your girlfriend is vegan, as many of the vegetarian options in Italian places feature cheese. But if she's ovo-lacto don't rule out Italian places for nice dinners that will accomodate her and leave you with plenty of both veg and non-veg choices.

annexk8, consider not driving! if you live near penn, you can walk or train down and train back with all your loot. this would give you way more than a meter-parked hour to explore. no one has mentioned the cookies from (the rtm outpost of) famous 4th street. now that's a cookie.

last night we went to marrakesh for the birthday dinner. it was the first trip there for everyone in the party (there ended up being 8 of us). i think it was a pretty good choice that pleased both the more culinarily oriented members of our group and those who like to play it safe. we had the five course feast. we started with a very lemony lentil soup that was tasty if not terribly innovative. the next course brought two salads that we ate with chunks of soft moroccan bread. the first (better) salad was a carrot-eggplant puree that one member of our group remarked didn't taste much like carrot and another remarked didn't taste much like eggplant. i would describe it as mostly a smoky eggplant puree with a little carrot for sweetness. it was very good. the other salad was a tomato-cucumber mixture tossed with a very garlicky olive oil dressing. it was also good, but i liked the carrot-eggplant salad more because it presented more interesting flavors in my opinion. the appetizer course was to my mind the highlight of the evening. it was a large pastry made of phyllo dough and stuffed with chicken, almonds, and some legume (maybe the other person who was there and who is likely reading this can help me -- i can't remember), topped with powdered sugar and cinnamon. despite the fact that i think everyone ended up inhaling a little too much powdered sugar, this was great. the cinnamony sugar worked really well with the phyllo and the stuffing. it was just the right combination of sweet and savory. very messy to eat with our hands! we shared several entrees: roasted lamb shank; chicken with apricot sauce and sesame seeds; chicken with honey and prune sauce; couscous topped with chunks of roasted lamb and vegetables; roasted cornish game hen; beef and vegetable skewers (heavy on the beef, light on the vegetables). everyone else seemed to prefer the beef skewers, but my favorite was the apricot chicken. the most pleasant surprise was the chicken with honey and prune sauce, since i'm not generally a fan of prunes. the dish was a little sweet, but the chicken was tender and the prunes added a hint of flavor that really worked with the dish. for dessert we had fruit salads and mint tea. i was glad dessert wasn't anything richer because i was (we all were!) pretty full on the rich meal. it was just the right way to end. thanks for the recommendations, egullet amigos!

thanks for the suggestions, everyone. after consultation with the group i decided on marrakesh. i'll be sure to post a full report post-celebration! tsquare, we went to brasa for his birthday last year, actually. it was pretty good, but i think i prefer their bar menu to their dinner menu. kieran

wish i could join you tomorrow at union. we checked it out at long last on sunday and were very impressed. our meal was very similar to the pictures posted above. i was especially partial to the duck and the vanilla creme caramel (and that's not usually a dessert i'd order), but it was all very good. i'll definitely be returning post-promotion and recommending to others. thanks for the recommendation, egullet!

thanks for the suggestions -- both good ideas. i know he's been interested in trying marrakesh and seven stars pepper and has tried neither before. would seven stars pepper be good for such an event? i haven't been there before either. (it's been on my list for a while now.)

I have been entrusted with organizing a (surprise) birthday dinner for someone on pretty short notice -- dinner is to be this coming Friday. The birthday boy is culinarily adventurous and has great taste in food. The catch is the number in the party -- I'm guessing we'll have about 10-12 people in all. Total cost should be maybe $25-40 a head, but at this late stage just finding somewhere good is more of an issue than cost. Any suggestions for a place with tasty food that could accomodate a big party with less than a week's notice? Type of cuisine/ambience not an issue. Thanks for your thoughts! P.S. Finally going to do the tasting menu at Union tomorrow eve. Can't wait!

oh man i'm salivating over here. thanks for the link. i can't wait to check it out soon.

tighe, can you tell us more about porta? i love greek food and i've never been there. any special dishes i should make sure to order? do i need a reservation?

amen. one of our friends insists every year for her birthday that we go to the melting pot. there's nothing to be done about it: she likes the place. so every year we go and spend too much on totally craptacular food. fondue is one of those things that can be okay if you make it at home. it makes absolutely no sense to me to go to a restaurant and pay $50 or $60 or $80/person for it, particularly a restaurant like the melting pot where the ingredients aren't even good. for my $50 i'd rather go get a better meal somewhere else.

thanks -- that's the place! i agree about the fries. i always substitute those for rice pilaf or order them as a side if they don't automatically come with my order.

how about cedar's? indian and middle eastern. the food doesn't blow me away but is consistently solid, and it's easy for both a vegetarian and someone with celiac disease to do indian food (skipping the naan bread for the latter). also, how about the cheap greek place on the ave? i can't remember the name, but i'm sure someone else here will know. it's next to the wing dome place.

when i was in town i went to buon appetito with mrbigjas and mrsbigjas and some other friends and the only thing missing was the limoncello! the seafood risotto i had was chockfull of a variety of excellent seafood (and living in seattle for a couple of years now i feel comfortable saying i know from excellent seafood!), and i was also particularly impressed with the antipasti we ordered, especially the mozzerella cheese. it was definitely worth a stop on my visit.

That was something we noticed too. Our service was okay, but it definitely seemed like they could have used another server working the room. The two guys that were there were pretty frantic.

We finally tried La Carta de Oaxaca tonight and once again egulleteers have not led me astray. The best Mexican food I've had in Seattle for sure. It was all good (we shared ten dishes for four people and that was about right for our group), but I was particularly partial to the posole and the tacos al pastor. We'll definitely be going back.

Yes! I've tried a couple of their sandwiches and they're really, really tasty. I've had both the tomato-basil and the smoked turkey, and while I liked them both I preferred the tomato-basil. I was there today too (along with the rest of Seattle)! I've become a great fan.

The excitement in your household has just become the excitement in ours. We live a few blocks from Broadway and Roy. I used to work a couple of blocks from the Fremont Essential Bakery and I miss the location enormously. You just made my weekend!

There was a great deal of discussion about this basically right next to us, before we ever saw the bill. In the end the server who was not ours prevailed upon our server to make deductions from our bill. We paid for the omelet and not for the French toast in the final reckoning. I really wanted to like this place. Maybe the dinner staff are better than the breakfast staff.

after all the positive reviews here, i was really excited to try crave. well, i've now tried it, and i won't be going back. our experience was terrible. we went for brunch today. there were no tables available when we got there, so we sat at the counter. i ordered the crave omelet (duck confit, goat cheese, shiitake mushrooms) and a side of sausage and my s.o. ordered the french toast and a side of green chile hash browns. now the thing about sitting at the counter at crave is that you can see everything going on in the kitchen. and the first thing we noticed is that the french toast is not soaked overnight in orange custard, as it says on the menu. we watched the cook slice bread off a dry loaf and dunk it egg for a minute and then pop it on the grill. this was a little irksome -- why advertise something on the menu that isn't true? when the french toast was finished, our server took it to another table, so we figured that one wasn't for us. a couple minutes later my omelet was ready, and it sat in the to-be-served area a few feet away from us for ten minutes before i finally asked our server if the omelet was mine. he looked and said, "looks like it is. it might be a little cold. hope that's okay." and then he left it in front of me and walked away to seat some other customers. we wait for a while for the french toast, but no french toast arrives so we nibble at the omelet. the omelet itself was eh. there were almost no mushrooms. the goat cheese was very good. the duck confit was extremely dry and leathery. fifteen minutes later i am finished with the omelet and there is no sign of the french toast. our server gets into a public disagreement with the cook, who says he already made the french toast. someone has accidentally turned the grill off so it needs to be fired up again. fifteen minutes later we are ready to leave but the french toast is done. there is no sign of either of our sides, the sausage or the hash browns. according to the menu, the french toast is served with blue cheese butter and maple syrup. maybe it would have been better with the syrup but we can't say because the syrup never arrives. as it is it is a couple of slices of sourdough bread with blue cheese butter and it manages to achieve what i would have thought impossible: it is both dry AND soggy. pretty lackluster. ten minutes later my s.o. is finished with the french toast and we are gearing up to pay when our server asks if we still want our sides. he drops one of the sausages on the counter, picks it up with his hand, and then puts the plate in front of me. we say thanks but no thanks on the sides (the hash browns are nowhere in sight, not that that would have made a difference). i realize it's still a relatively new place and that mistakes happen. if it had just been a wait for the food, or if it had just been that our dishes ended up not well-timed we wouldn't have cared. but the food itself was bad, and it definitely wasn't prepared as advertised on the menu. and the service was truly horrible. (fwiw, by my observation the other server did a much better job with her tables.) there are too many good places to eat. i won't be going back to crave any time soon.