[Seattle] Farewell & Welcome: Closings, Transformations, Openings (Part 2)

[ScorchedPalate]

The Wing Dome location on Greenwood is still there, I believe, and the food there is even better. Service is just as crappy, though.

[Fay Jai]

I heard (emphasis mine, but wanted to emphasize that! ) that the U-District location was absolutely filthy.

Ick.

~Jason

[chefturnedbum]

When I owned BOB wingdome was right down the block. OK if that is where light gourmet is off roosevelt then I take back what I said. Boy is that going to be a rough pill for the new owners of my old place. Will be the first test of competition but with a new chef and fresh outlook it could really help as well.

As you all saw, Mission has taken Zaffarano. Sorry I could not let the cat out of the bag.

[BradS]

When I owned BOB wingdome was right down the block. OK if that is where light gourmet is off roosevelt then I take back what I said. Boy is that going to be a rough pill for the new owners of my old place. Will be the first test of competition but with a new chef and fresh outlook it could really help as well.

As you all saw, Mission has taken Zaffarano. Sorry I could not let the cat out  of the bag.

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I think there's a little confusion here. I believe (but am not 100% certain) that the Wingdome on Roosevelt is still there. The one on the Ave is the one that closed and now has been replaced by the gourmet place, which I need to try ASAP.

Speaking of the Ave, has anyone tried little the Indonesian place just up (within a block I believe) from the University Book Store? I was walking past and saw a sign for some kind of oxtail soup. Another place I need to stop by. I think it's fairly new.

[ScorchedPalate]

I don't think the one on Roosevelt is a WingDome. It's like a WingZone or something insultingly similar.

[dandelion]

Wing Dome:

<a href="http://seattle.citysearch.com/profile/10774479/seattle_wa/wing_dome.html">7818 Greenwood Ave N

Seattle, WA</a>

<a href="http://seattle.citysearch.com/profile/35787989/kirkland_wa/wing_dome.html">232 Central Way

Kirkland, WA</a>

<a href="http://seattle.citysearch.com/profile/41149866/seattle_wa/wingdome.html">1416 E Olive Way

Seattle, WA </a>

[little ms foodie]

And the one on Roosevelt is indeed WingZONE (imposters!)

[rockdoggydog]

Please, please, please please, go to Light Gourmet. I went there for lunch today and had one of the best shrimp bisques of my life. The prices are ridiculously low, the serving sizes decidedly sane, and everything that's not a sandwich absolutely wonderful. My lunch companions kept asking if we were really on the Ave or not. Sorry Jason, this place is going to keep me from visiting your favorite pizza place very often, but I'll wave as I go by. Seriously, get here as soon possible and maybe we can keep it away from the frat boys.

Rocky

[chadum]

Vivanda at the Market had a for lease sign in the window today.

[little ms foodie]

is 94 Stewart Cafe new or have I just never noticed it? Just west of 1st on Stewart before you get down into the market.

[BradS]

I don't think the one on Roosevelt is a WingDome. It's like a WingZone or something insultingly similar.

←

I apologize!

As penance, I will go to the Light Gourmet are the earliest possible moment.

[tsquare]

is 94 Stewart Cafe new or have I just never noticed it? Just west of 1st on Stewart before you get down into the market.

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It's fairly new - I posted when they opened, but haven't been in. It was The Garlic Tree.

[scrat68]

is 94 Stewart Cafe new or have I just never noticed it? Just west of 1st on Stewart before you get down into the market.

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It's fairly new - I posted when they opened, but haven't been in. It was The Garlic Tree.

←

I went for lunch recently with seawakim's husband. Good stuff including a salad of panko coated/fried avocado w/crab meat. I've been meaning to post a review....elsewhere...

Whoops! This is tighe posting as 'scrat'. Damned computer crash....

Edited July 28, 2005 by scrat68 (log)

[little ms foodie]

is 94 Stewart Cafe new or have I just never noticed it? Just west of 1st on Stewart before you get down into the market.

←

It's fairly new - I posted when they opened, but haven't been in. It was The Garlic Tree.

←

I went for lunch recently with seawakim's husband. Good stuff including a salad of panko coated/fried avocado w/crab meat. I've been meaning to post a review....elsewhere...

Whoops! This is tighe posting as 'scrat'. Damned computer crash....

←

I knew that Dave had been there, he told me about it! I didn't know you had the scoop too!

[tighe]

is 94 Stewart Cafe new or have I just never noticed it? Just west of 1st on Stewart before you get down into the market.

←

It's fairly new - I posted when they opened, but haven't been in. It was The Garlic Tree.

←

I went for lunch recently with seawakim's husband. Good stuff including a salad of panko coated/fried avocado w/crab meat. I've been meaning to post a review....elsewhere...

Whoops! This is tighe posting as 'scrat'. Damned computer crash....

←

I knew that Dave had been there, he told me about it! I didn't know you had the scoop too!

←

So Dave is now not even admitting to having lunch with me? Damn....

I liked the place and am putting it in my regular lunch rotation....

[crouching tyler]

Speaking of the Ave, has anyone tried little the Indonesian place just up (within a block I believe) from the University Book Store?  I was walking past and saw a sign for some kind of oxtail soup.  Another place I need to stop by.  I think it's fairly new.

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I've been to the Indonesian place once, and have been trying to get back to explore more of the menu. The staff was super friendly. It is a casual, inexpensive place and has that vibe. The food was great (but I was also experiencing waves of nostalgia for Indonesia so I might have been biased). There was one really tasty chicken dish. I 'll try to remember the name of it and let ya'll know.

edit: The name of the restaurant is Batavia (or something very very close).

Edited July 28, 2005 by crouching tyler (log)

[mamster]

The teriyaki place that used to be a sushi place next to the Post office is now called "A Burger Place"

I went for lunch yesterday, and I liked it a lot. To start with, the place is immaculately clean, which is saying a lot on the Ave. The burgers are of the cooked-through ilk, but there's a good choice of toppings and good buns, similar to Franz BBQ buns if not actually Franz brand. I had my burger with cheddar, sauteed mushrooms and onions, and hot sauce, with onion rings. The rings were quite good for frozen. You get a free soda if you buy rings or fries.

I think the total price was $6.50. I'll definitely go back.

[skyflyer3]

I hope I didn't insinuate the green tea macarons were bad-I've never had a green tea dessert that I DID like, so that's just my own taste. The chocolate macarons were particularly good-they had an oozy ganache filling that was delicious.

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Just tried those chocolate macarons, and they are good! Very chewy but light, and wonderful ganache filling.

[miulang]

I hope I didn't insinuate the green tea macarons were bad-I've never had a green tea dessert that I DID like, so that's just my own taste. The chocolate macarons were particularly good-they had an oozy ganache filling that was delicious.

←

Stopped by Fresh Flours around noon today after a short bike ride. Not much left in the display cases by then (the late Sunday breakfasters probably grabbed most of the goodies). The creampuff was OK (real custard filling; the puff itself was neither tender nor crisp (probably the result of sitting in the case all morning) but the Basque Cake was a definite winner. It has this intriguing flavor and texture: after the first bite I thought the cake was dry, but as I ate more of it, the buttery flavor and dry/crunchy texure of the cake and the cream filling were a delicious mix. I'll have to go back and try some of their other pastry...and I'll remember to go earlier during the day for a better selection!

Miulang

[pupcart]

is 94 Stewart Cafe new or have I just never noticed it? Just west of 1st on Stewart before you get down into the market.

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We had dinner there in June when my family from St.Louis was here, so there were 6 of us and we had several items from the menu. My mother selected it because they were staying at the Inn at the Market and the waiter was on the sidewalk in front of her hotel handing out flyers earlier in the day and he promised her a fine dining experience. In other words, he charmed her socks off

Turned out he was our waiter that night, but the service was surprisingly terrible. We waited a very long time for the menu, even longer for water, and longest of all for the inital round of drinkis and wine. Food was served in long staggers - some folks were half finished with their meals before others had been served.

We were seated at a table in an alcove in the furthest reaches of the restaurant, and it was rather close quarters to put six in that spot. The food was palatable but not memorable, perhaps overshadowed by the poor service, and my daughter commented that it was rather dungeon like in atmosphere (no windows except at the front door).

I can only guess that the lunch experience is better and the service was just off that night, or that place won't be able to stand up to the many vastly favorable alternative dining spots in the Market.

[dandelion]

Not closed or out of business, but...

The Alibi Room in the market is no longer serving lunch. I'm really going to miss this, since it was a great place to slip away from the office for an extra long break. Their lunches were mostly sandwiches served with a big green salad and chips for around $7 -- a great price for the quality and the amount of food. Along with a glass of wine or a Hoegaarden, it was just about perfect.

Sadly, the manager said they just weren't making enough money to justify opening before 4pm... I wish they would have considered raising the prices instead -- that $7 lunch would have been a good value even at $10.

[elswinger]

I passed by the Stone Way location of Tutta Bella. They have more stuff in the window for passerbys, saying what kind of restaurant they will be, but there doesn't appear to be any new construction. Perhaps they are still waiting for the oven to arrive from Naples.

[Eden]

And after all that- well, it's the guy who brought the short lived Romantica, now Matador to Market and Ballard Ave. Dull interiors with weird free-standing fireplace in the middle, scent of cleaner in the air. I never ate at the other place, and few did. If anyone here did, was the food any good?

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That sounds exactly like the description of Romantica, down to the weird free-standing fireplace in the middle. Paul and I ate there once and hated it. IIRC, it was because of the ambiance as much as the food.

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well we tried "Il Forno, wine & dishes" tonight. Bill wanted something Italian, but that he hadn't tried already, and the other places I called were booked, so we decided to be adventurous. It wasn't horrible, just very underwhelming.

The ambience is just totally wrong in daylight hours (which last until about 9pm right now). Color & decor wise, the place is designed to be a little bit dim & intimate - pumpkin colored walls with lots of dark wood, and the ceiling painted a light brownish color to bring it down closer to you... but it has this entire front wall of floor to ceiling windows, that lets in a ton of light which just kills it & makes the whole effect washed out & dull until it gets pretty dark out when it starts to be at least plausible. For a friday night it was really empty. when we arrived at 7:30 we were the 3rd table in the place. It filled up maybe 2/3 by the time we left, but never all the way.

Foodwise it's a very "harmless" menu about on -par with say the menu at Stellas: chicken veal or pork in piccata, marsala, pesto or wine sauce, some standard pastas; arrabbiata, sorrentino, alfredo etc., salad, salumi or formaggi for antipasti, and the usual sorbet in a fruit shell type prefabbed desserts shipped in from italy (the company name is Bindi, but it could just as well have been Carta d'Oro). It just didn't seem like anybody put any energy into the menu. And the funny thing about all that is there were definately Italians on the staff. I suspect our waitress was 2nd generation, and the nice lady refreshing water & lighting candles was clearly someone's Italian mamma

Oh and the Wine list!!! It told you what type of wine it was (chianti, salentino, vernaccia etc), and the year, but not the winery.

We ordered the salumi antipasto, which had a salami, a nice sopressata? and a prosciutto, along with 2 small slices of fresh mozzarella on some sadly pink tomatos (Bill said thay had some flavor, but I didn't even try they were just too pale) there was also one, count it one, crostini type cracker (from a bag?) covered with roasted red and yellow peppers. They piled up a ton of peppers on this, and nothing else on the plate felt skimpy so would it have killed their budget to put a second cracker under the peppers so we could each have one?

In some weird synchronicity (because we're both wanting "comfort food") we both had the Linguini Carbonara, which was OK except that instead of just garnishing with parsley they mixed the parsley into the dish which I really didn't care for. (Carbonara is all about the eggs & bacon, and IMO parsley is an excess flavor that doesn't belong there) I picked mine out & had enough for a good side dish by the time I was done, so it was NOT just me being a princess! Aside from that they did a good job with it - not too runny, enough pepper, etc.

For dessert Bill had the "coffee tartufo", a ball of coffee ice-cream with a sweet espress syrup center & "coffee pralines" on the outside. It was actually very nice. I had the "Cassata" ice cream which they translated as "Spumone". It was fine, though not exciting, and I think that that translation is going to give them problems with customers expecting ye olde green pink & brown ice-cream...

Bill, being less fussy, had a much better time than I did, but this place just feels awkward - like it still needs to sort itself out. If they put down red checkered tablecloths & repainted it would make a lot more sense but the ambience says they want to be more than the menu lives up to...

[chuck]

Finally, finally, finally, that BBQ place on Lake City Way has opened. It's been 'Coming Soon' for about six months. About 83rd or so, on the left side of the street heading north, past Cooper's Ale House by a few blocks. It's called Willie's, but I'm not sure if it's connected to Willie's Taste of Soul on Beacon Hill. Open 'til midnight during the week, then, oh man, 3AM on Friday and Saturday nights.

[chefturnedbum]

OK chuck you have just been appointed the guy to do the taste test. They have been putting that place together forever. It seems like over a year. I have this feeling it is not related to Taste of Soul. I may be wrong but I saw a guy unlocking the door and he was a young lawyer looking whitebread guy. If they have good stuff they may do pretty well over there.