hhlodesign

I Cook about 4 nights a week and eat out the rest. I live alone, so its not so easy to cook for one. I tend to make simple things just for myself. I learned Chinese food from my mom and Italian from the woman who cleaned our school in Florence (I spent my 4th year of architecture school in Florence). So you'll see pasta and fried rice, noodles and simple stir frys often on my weeknight coffee table. Although, I am friends with many people who live in my building, so we tend to cook for each other quite often. We also have quite a few cooking events and parties. Here is a link to a color dinner event we had last year. Color Dinner

You can get a sneak peak on my website: HhLodesign It's the project titled HhLodesign Studio Residence (obviously) I'm currently cleaning it so I can take some more photographs to post.

I got to work in the Veil kitchen last night. It was really quite the experience for me. The first time I've ever worked in a professional restuarant kitchen. I learned quite a bit about the way they cook vs. the way we cook at home. For those of you unfamiliar with Veil. It's restaurant about 5 months old in the Lower Queen Anne area of Seattle. The chef, Shannon Galusha, has an extensive resume including stints at The French Laundry and Michele Rostang in Paris. His kitchen is beatiful and very well designed for the way they work. There are 5 separate stations that all face North South with the pass facing east west on one side of all the stations. This makes it very easy for each station to complete their component of the dish and slide it to the pass for Shannon the assemble the final creation. Although I'm getting ahead of myself. I started by showing up at 3pm and they gave me some chef whites and apron to wear. (Damn! should have gotten a picture of me in those!) My first task was to slice kiwi for the pastry chef. Derrick, the sous chef, taught me a great trick for peeling the kiwi. Cut off each end and slide a spoon between the meat and the skin. Then just slide the spoon around the entire circumference of the kiwi. Comes out very clean. The next thinig I did was learn how to break down an entire Halibut. Shannon took off the first 3 loins. It was actually a very simply process of just finding where the backbone was. Slicing down that line, then taking the meat off the cartilage. This was easy because the halibut has a solid plate of cartilage, as opposed to individual bones. So I just had to angle my knife and run it along the plate. not very hard at all. Then we cut the loins into serving portions. Shannon gave me a whole lesson on portion sizes, food costs, waste, and such. Then I wrapped lamb shanks in caul fat. They have all these lamb shanks that are pre-braised overnight. In order to finish the braising process when one is ordered, they have to wrap the shank in caul fat netting. this keeps the shank from falling apart so that they many serve it whole on the plate. Caul fat is the stomach lining of a cow. It's basically all fat and disentagrates when they do the final braise. There are no signs of it (if I did my job right) on the finished plate. Dinner service begins at 5pm and the first ticket came in around 5:45pm. They have this small printer in the kitchen that spits out orders as soon as the servers put in the order (sorry if I'm going over things that most of you already know, this is all new to me). Once it started, it never stopped. The kitchen is really a smoothly oiled machine back there. To the untrained observer, it looked like chaos, but they kept coordinating all the dishes perfectly. Everyone knew when the individual parts of an entre needed to get to the pass; and they all got there, hot, within seconds of each other. It seemed that the protein guy, Jake, was the director, telling the others how much time it was going to be before the protein would be done. Then other guys would adjust accordingly. Here are some interesting shots I got: mise en place: Here's the veg guy hard at work One thing I really loved about a professional kitchen was the burners they were using. They never turn the heat up or down. Its always on one temp, but they regulate the tempurate for pans by how close to the center they place the pan. The amuse was BLT soup. Lettuce soup, with guanciale bits (smoked pork jowel from Salumi), and smoked tomato oil. Here's a shitake tapenade they were making for some dish. Its exactly they way you make a regular tapenade, but they used shitake mushrooms instead of olives. Here's a huge vat of stock that was cooking away the entire time I was there. They skimmed it all the time. I worked til about 8:30 then got a drink at the bar. That's a Hellkat. Invented by Katherine and Helen. Absolute Citron, Amaretto, Triple Sec, pineapple juice. Actually, the bartender forgot to put in fresh mint. His name is Scott so we called this the HellScat. After my drink, I was off to Crush for dinner. I would be eating at Veil the following night (tonight), so I didn't want to eat there again. I'm gonna watch some basketball then get back to my meal at Crush.

It’s not even 6am yet and I was so excited about starting my food blog today, I couldn’t fall back asleep. I had quite the late night last night, yet my body seems to be telling me that 4 hours of sleep is enough when there is food to write about! First, a bit about myself. My name is Henry H Lo. I am in no way connected to the “industry” but have found that I have a passion for good food and cooking my whole life. I am 33 years old and an architect in Seattle. The relationship between cooking and architecture is generally discussed among the architecture world. Both are art forms which are not always recognized as art by the general public. Just as food must provide nourishment for life, architecture must provide shelter. Once these basic requirements are established, only the educated few can see the artistic qualities which some architects/chefs elevate their work to. A few exceptions exist which are too obvious as to not be recognized as art. The buildings of Rem Koolhaus, and Ferran Adria’s work come to mind. I find that my architecture is greatly influenced by lessons I've learned from the cooking world. After all, in both endevours, we are creating "functional art." Another nice thing about being an architect was the fact that I was able to design and build my own kitchen. More on my kitchen to come. When I found out I would be food blogging, I set up a number of events in Seattle for myself and my friends to take part in. Here’s a short list of the things I have planned for this week: Friday March 17th Trail the chef at Veil Veil I did this last night and had a great time. More on this to come. Here's a teaser photo though: Friday March 17th Dinner at Crush Crush Had a great time! Stay tuned for more information. Saturday March 18th Dinner at Veil Sunday March 19th Brunch at Monsoon Monsoon (That's me on the webpage behind the potted cypress. The owner is sitting to my left) Sunday March 20th “Sopranos” Pot Luck Monday March 21st Dinner at The Barking Frog Barking Frog Tuesday March 22nd Dinner Party at home Wednesday March 23rd Special lunch at Salumi Salumi Thursday March 24th Dinner at Mistral for 20 Mistral Friday March 25th Trail the chef at Mistral Saturday March 26th Dinner at Marjorie Marjorie I also plan on taking you all on a sandwich tour of Seattle. After all, the sandwich is the perfect food! I am really looking forward to sharing my great food town with the rest of you. Please feel free to let me know if there are any specific places or things in Seattle you would like me to explore. Talk to you all soon!

Just stumbled onto your blog and am enjoying it. I did my undergrad at Cal Poly you are bring back many memories. Espescially the In-N-Out (good call on the animal style!) 2 other places I remember from college: 1. Alberto's Carnitas Burritos. It's a Mexican fast food chain from North San Diego, but they opened one in Pomona (I think on Garey) 2. A Churascurria place in West Covina called "Green" something. Damn that was good! Have you tried these places yet?

Is it just me, or is anyone else strangley curious about the taste of the Primanti Brothers Sandwich? I might have to add that to my Super Bowl Menu.

That was last Friday. ← Well than I am a bit behind in my reading! ← Went in tonight and had a loin of venison with polenta cake and mole sauce. Excellent contrast of textures and flavors. I can see how some may feel "the foie gras" as too rich and muddled by the peanut butter. But I find it a great take on the traditional pan seared with some kind of fruity sauce preparation which can be found in most any restaurant. I agree with Nancy that the amuse is always 4 star worthy and the salted peanut butter ice cream is fantastic! Funny how consistent they are considering what I've been reading. I've never had anything but great food and excellent service. I wouldn't let faint cries of inconsistencies deter you from trying one of the best restaurants in the city.

Mistral is a very small restaurant in Belltown (trendy part of downtown area). The owner/chef is William Belickis who originally is from NY and worked for David Bouley. The Chef De Cuisine is Charles Walpole (who I think is one of the most talented chefs in the city.) He is classically trained from the CIA in Hyde Park. I like to refer to their food as minimalist. In that, they find the very best ingredients and do just enough to them to bring out every aspect that makes that ingredient special. I recently dined there and had a simple brown butter and parsnip soup with one perfectly seared diver scallop in the middle of the bowl. The soup had a wonderfull consistency and very refined flavors that nicely complemented the sweetnes of the scallop. Another dish I remeber was two oysters (I forgot the kind) with lime foam. I'm one who likes my raw oysers adorned with nothing. But the lime foam was very subtle and added just enough flavor to bring even more out of the oysters. The kitchen is very small and they usually only have 2-3 people back there cooking. So I know you would work very closely with the chefs. I met the extern they had last summer and he seemed to really enjoy his experience there. My feelings about the Herbfarm are as follows: Jerry is a remarkable chef and is doing brilliant things. But everytime I go there, I can't help but feel like I am at a wedding reception. The place is rather large and they have (I believe) 2 set seatings a night. Everyone gets exactly the same courses, so it has an assembly-line quality to it. Again, not to discount the quality of the food or the talents of the chef. But the scale of the place and assembly line aspect is what I mean when I say it has a corporate feel. Sorry Marc. Just my 2 cents.

Pork Cheek Sandwich from Salumi (in Seattle, Go Hawks!) Its even better than the Porchetta.

Pork Cheek Sandwich from Salumi in Seattle. Its a special that only comes around a few weeks out of the year.

I had a pork cheek sandwich from Salumi today. Its the special this week. This is what it looks like: Damn! Its good!

Wow! I can't believe I forgot to include this Seattle classic. Good catch!

You have to look at Mistral then. They are doing the best food in the city right now. Herbfarm and any of the Tom Douglas places all have a corporate feel to them. Rover's and Lark would also be good choices. As would Veil. If it were my choice (based on where you would learn the most): 1. Mistral 2. Veil 3. Lark 4. Rover's 5. Union

Funny, there's a discussion on Chowhound right now about this very issue. The overwhelming consensus (including my own) is the Grilled Salmon Sandwich at the Market Grill.

The Pork Cheek Sandwich will be the special next week at Salumi. It's definitely worth a 2 hour drive! Thought you'd like to know. And just to stay on topic: I had bowl of Chinese noodle soup with tomatoes, egg, spinach and tofu. The broth was made from chicken stock with a hint of curry powder.

I was just informed by Armandino... They will be making the Pork Cheek Sandwich at Salumi as the special sandwich next week. I consider this the best sandwich in Seattle! First the Super Bowl... Now this! I couldn't be happier!!!

Sorry, I get defensive sometimes. But I can see now how I misread the line.

India Bistro in Ballard

Clearly, you don't know where the trend of fresh, seasonal, local ingredients comes from! Granted Alice Waters' heyday was over 30 years ago. But to discount the culinary contribution of California is just irresponsible. Now if you are refering to delis, cheese-steaks, pizza, and BBQ; well I might let that slide. Although I should point out that the French dip was invented in LA (Philippe's the Original or Cole's is still being argued.) California has laid claim to a style of pizza all its own. And Langer's makes the best Pastrami sandwich in the world! Sorry about the rant But I moved here from LA and I had to stick up for my home state

I had a pizza in New Haven, CT last summer that made me want to stop eating any of the pizza available in Seattle. ← The Clam Pizza at Pepe's in New Haven is legendary! Did you try that? Modern Apizza also makes a legendary pie.

You can usually get a rez at Babbo if you don't mind eating late.

When you drive by, you'll see a ramp that goes below grade. This ramp is perpendicular to Elliot Ave. If the building is a U that faces Elliot, the Ramp goes inside the U. Follow the ramp to the bottom and Boat Street Cafe is on your right. It really is a nice space for a basement, and a nice addition to the neighborhood.

All this Monte Cristo talk reminds me of a post I read at dead to us. Its the one about Peso's in QA. dead to us

Most restaurants cater events as well. I had Mistral do one of my parties and the food was all unbelievable! I had them do just finger foods and they charged me per piece. It really wasn't extraordinarily expensive. I also had Monsoon do a whole roast pig for me. It fed almost 60 people and cost very little. It was quite the hit!

I had Don and Joe's (in the Market) create one for me this past Thanksgiving. They do it for only $20 plus the cost of the birds. I have to say, my regular brined, oven-roasted bird was more popular. I think the Turducken would be better if you put seasoning or something between the birds.