ladybugseattle

The globe veggie coffee house space on 14th tween pike and pine is being renovated. Anyone know if its becoming something new or just cleaned up?

Whats the plan with other egulleteers? Has anyone seen any restaurant specials advertised? A nice big hunk of a little tender lamb home cooked would be nice too. Or, is there a family mandated tradition? Please share.

Alki just cries out for a nice romantic date restaurant maybe a Serafina sort of place just so two can walk the beach afterward. Ugh a hotel! how did that happen? Weren't there future land use signs up?

I was there a few months ago. It really wants to be a high profile location but my feeling was the owner and bartender didn't quite have the knowledge to pull it off. ← What was your experience Ledlund? Its my understanding the owner and his chef both made their fortunes elsewhere and are now dabbling in a neighborhood boite. Do you know anything more? The chef has a fan club of sorts for his non-cooking skill at looking good unclothed and his willingness to charge for said skill, or so I've heard.

Anyone been to Impromptu down in Madison Park? I haven't but with the view location and a menu that reads well for both food and wine, it seems like it should have a higher profile.

they are more than just coffee houses but Café Septieme and Local Café both serve breakfast and septieme serves those bowls of café au lait and has a whiff of franco café authenticity in feel, if not reality.

I just keep hearing Tony Bourdain in my head reminding me who's doing the cooking in most of the restaurants these days in America and wondering: whose expertise shouldn't we credit, even if the recipe is French, for want of a better word, the Hispanics.

Just for reference here is a link to Min Liao's review from the Stranger http://www.thestranger.com/2003-08-07/chow.html This review appears in the Best Food Writing of 2004 which also I see contains some of Mamster's work. Congrats Mamster I just noticed.

Via Tribunali sounds fascinating, what with generating strong opinions, and Dino-the-Pizza-Diva sounding like Seattle's answer to the soup nazi. Not to mention the $100 wine. I can't wait till the beta testing is over and the final reviews are in, will we love it like Lark or send them packing like W. Puck. Has anyone been in Tarragona yet? Its the new Spanish wine and food shop just north of Crave on 12th. Mostly wine but one glass case of food (just cheese maybe.)

Mystery restaurant request. Who knows anything about the new, now open wood fired pizza place on Pike half a block east of Broadway. Its open, and busy, but no sign or menu in the window. Some second hand info tells me actual Neapolitans cook there but its locally owned.

Downtown is pretty good with the cookbooks I concur. Remember the collection is split tween those that circulate and those in the reference section, but you can freely browse both sections sort of on the same level of the Spiral, with a few special oldies you have to ask a librarian to retrieve like "The Epicurean" At home I browse the catalog and use Amazon.com in another window to use their "if you liked this book..." feature to find similar items. If the Library doesn't have it you can request a purchase or interlibrary loan with a few clicks and keystrokes.

Are wild mushrooms legal in WA? Some states have laws on the books forbidding all wild/foraged mushrooms in restaurants not just the magic varieties for the safety issues. Who's good with health code technicalities?

doing a large batch of steamed eggs creates some problems as steam temperature can be much more variable than a steady 212ºf (Hint) and although it gets hotter than liquid water the lower specific heat of steam means there less total heat to cook the eggs i.e. less efficient. It also implies packing in a number of eggs will make the timing variable for one egg to the next as the eggs closest to the heat will cook faster and insulate the next egg. And don't you have to boil water to make steam anyway, I say boil 'em.

New owner, new name, new interior, new menu, no holdovers at Local Café.

My junior year college roomate got a summer job bartending in Sperry's in Saratoga Springs NY. Lovely restaurant can't recommend it enough, still there I hope. I would go and keep him company and taste test his newly aquired mixing skills. Unfortunately his menu knowledge was even more untested. One sultry summer night the soup du jour was announced from his mouth as "gestapo"

You're welcome. Dilettante is all over Seattle. One caveat: the stuff has a high butterfat content thats separated out into droplets floating on my coffee on me before. This however may only be my bastardized technique of microwaving my milk for mocha lattes. When my Rancilio Sylvia cleans her own steam wand I might bother, otherwise with two not-so-fussy bachelors using her the machine is just disgusting.

Local Café in the former Green Cat location on Olive is now open. Brunch was tasty with well intentioned but awkward service. I was there late in the service (2pm) and more than half of the menu had been 86d thus causing the awkwardness. The chef came out himself to reccomend a meal of what was left. I ended up with a gorgonzola onion tart slice with two fried eggs on the side and the dining companion went with a chickpea and sausage stew again with two eggs on the side. The chef sent out some fingerling potatoes and french bread along the orders. The space has been stripped down to a basic open clean country creamy ivory white walls with mix and match antique/second hand oakish furniture and hardwood floors. One note about the design all the hard surfaces makes for a loud room. This seems to be a growing trend. Please future restaurateurs budget some fabric in your designs. I reccomend an afternoon browsing in Soft Coverings on Queen Anne for premade or custom work. Both the Tart and Stew were rich and tasty with a mediterranean mix of garlic and rosemary. The stew had been cooked long enough to mellow and blend the flavors without overcooking the chickpeas. The tart was thin and crisp with the onions sweetly caramelized and not bitter, there may not have been any eggs at all to bind the ingredients just the gorgonzola to fill out the flavor and add some richness.

The bottle description sounds something like a Dilettante Chocolate package design http://www.dilettante.com/store/products.aspx?cat=16

So your server expressed her opinion, as described, the insult to your intelligence is all in your own head. As you write it was a table with out-of-towners who may not know what you were about to bestow upon them, she was only giving more info for those present unfamilar with the beasts. Judith Martin aka Miss Manners, herself expresses a similar opinion in regards to whole lobster in restaurants. Is a difference of opinion inherently an insult or just your perception? Informed consent is my preference in restaurants after an experience with a whole woodcock and smarmy snickering staff at Wiltons in London.

This was mentioned casually as a traditional way of fortifying hard cider in the Midwest in a memoir with recipes I'm reading (Stina the story of a cook by Herman Smith, 1942, M. Barrows and Co. Chicago.) The author equates it to Calvados although its not distilled. This seems like an obvious and often naturally (in northern climes) ocurring method to fortify brews of all sorts but just havent heard of it being done before. Has anyone tried this? and at what concentration of alcohol is freezing stopped?

Another possibility is the pool hall and bowling alley on Broadway called Garage. The food is not the emphasis obviously but might offer more attraction for a group of grad students on a budget if not everyone in the group is a foodie.

Alternatively to pomegranate molasses remember grenadine is pomegranate syrup.

Todays Nicole Brodeur column in the Seattle Times included the detail that the owners burnt some sage with the opening of Maguire's Irish Bistro to chase away the negative vibes of the three previous failed businesses at that location. I'm hoping Oasis on Pike did the same as I'd like another sushi place on the hill. Not to mention the whole length of Broadway seem to need a full blown exorcism just to get some occupants for the empty spaces. Changs Mongolian grill, the original Galerias space and that long empty Pizzeria at the corner of b'way and Denny, are the largest spaces. Does anyone want to nominate other locations for sage burning due to high turnover or longterm vacancy?

A little frappucino history. The name came from a Boston based chain Coffee Connection. Shakes are sometimes called frappes (one syllable) in New England. They were a pre-mix loaded into a slurpee style machine. Starbucks didn't license the name they just bought the whole chain for $23 million. I remember them tasting better in a Coffee Connection.

The once upon a time Hamburger Marys at Olive and Denny is now something called The Redline. It seemed like an honest to goodness food service establishment and not just an excuse for a liquor license. Looks like some real money was spent redoing it too, might just be café counter service though.