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Blackbird serves tasty northwest cuisine prepared with as many local ingredients as possible. Although the knock on local and/or organic ingredients is their expense, Blackbird serves delicious...
Blackbird serves tasty northwest cuisine prepared with as many local ingredients as possible. Although the knock on local and/or organic ingredients is their expense, Blackbird serves delicious food at a reasonable price. My wife and I have eaten at Blackbird twice and our bill has averaged roughly $20 to $25 per person for 3 courses. There is a wide range of selections availalble from pasta to fish to pork chops. Desserts are excellent, as are the selection of cheeses presented on the cheese plate appetizer.
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Malay Satay Hut is one of my favorite restaurants in Seattle. I can have old standbys or try something radically new off the menu and I am always extremely pleased with the dishes. When trying...
Malay Satay Hut is one of my favorite restaurants in Seattle. I can have old standbys or try something radically new off the menu and I am always extremely pleased with the dishes. When trying something radically new, this is a pretty literal statement; the Satay Hut prepares very authentic Malaysian cuisine, much of which can be very strange to the foreign palate. But get over your fears, it's all delicious. To get started without getting ridicuolously adventurous, try the roti, mango chicken/tofu/shrimp (served in actual mangoes!), the salt and pepper baby squid, or my personal favorite, the Buddhist Yam Pot. The BYP is a bowl made of fried taro filled with a delectable mixture of chicken, shrimp, and vegetables in a light sauce (also available vegetarian). Eggplant in basil sauce is also amazing. Portions are substantial and its best to eat family style. The waitstaff is attentive and friendly, but may have trouble explaining what something is in English. But fear not as there are lots of great pictures in the menu! The place will look completely sketchy from the outside to most people as it is in a dingy strip mall on the outskirts of the International District. Don't worry, it's plenty clean and pleasant once you're on the inside.
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Admittedly not the most authentic of Thai cuisines, Racha is still a fantastic meal and a fairly good value. The restaurant is beautifully decorated to look like a Thai pagoda with light woods and...
Admittedly not the most authentic of Thai cuisines, Racha is still a fantastic meal and a fairly good value. The restaurant is beautifully decorated to look like a Thai pagoda with light woods and artful carvings. The colorfully dressed waitstaff are friendly, responsive, and efficient. Having had many meals at Racha with friends over several years, I can happily report that not once has anyone not been extremely satisfied with their dish. This runs the full range of Racha's creative curries, to the cashew chicken, to my personal favorite, the Racha Special Noodles. I'm still trying to convince the waitstaff that I can handle true Thai spice; once I get my noodles as hot as I like them, I'll change my rating to perfect (I believe one should sweat from the spice when eating Thai food). Parking can be a tremendous pain on Lower Queen Anne which is Racha's only major drawback.
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This comes from a man who has contemplated stabbing someone in the hand to get the last piece of steak at Peter Luger's in New York. El Gaucho is the premier steakhouse in Seattle: service, food,...
This comes from a man who has contemplated stabbing someone in the hand to get the last piece of steak at Peter Luger's in New York. El Gaucho is the premier steakhouse in Seattle: service, food, and decor unite in a fusion of culinary brilliance. El Gaucho is one of the very few places in Seattle where I would feel awkward dressed casually and that's a good thing. The place looks like an upscale swank 50s supper club. You could just imagine Sinatra crooning by the piano. Service is par excellence, quick, attentive, unobtrusive, knowledgable, friendly. The steaks are magnificient, excellently marbled and aged, and perfectly cooked as directed. The tableside caesar service is an impressive show and produces a magnificent flavorful salad, everything a caesar is supposed to be, unlike the drivel served everywhere these days. Save room for dessert because the bananas foster is a much better show than the caesar, prepared en flambe tableside. And it tastes as good as it looks. The side dishes are all spectacular, but save them for when you have a big crew to share them with, otherwise there's way too much food. If you like steak and you like class, this is the place for you and you will not be disappointed.
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The staff and chefs take an irreverent approach to sushi (female sushi chefs!? It's about time!) to delectable heights. The old favorites are all there, but the maki creations that the Mashiko...
The staff and chefs take an irreverent approach to sushi (female sushi chefs!? It's about time!) to delectable heights. The old favorites are all there, but the maki creations that the Mashiko chefs have put together are absolutely outstanding. While I'm an old hand at sushi, Mashiko makes a difficult from many angles (figuring out what it is, getting over aversions once you know what it is) cuisine accessible to all but the most frigid of palates (and who wants to hang out with those unadventurous jerks anyhow?). Servers are friendly, knowledgeable, and patient. Prices are in line for excellent sushi in the region, but it won't be a bargain meal if you're not there for a light snack.
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Harried and Hungry has a short, but awesome menu of sandwiches and smoothies. My favorites are the tomato mozzarella caprese and the reuben with a peach banana non-fat yogurt smoothie. The staff...
Harried and Hungry has a short, but awesome menu of sandwiches and smoothies. My favorites are the tomato mozzarella caprese and the reuben with a peach banana non-fat yogurt smoothie. The staff moves quite quickly (but still courteously and friendly) and I've never seen any kind of tremendous back-up at lunch hour even though there are clearly many people coming through. Prices are fairly reasonable, particularly given that you will be getting a substantial sandwich. If you choose to eat there, the place has high ceilings and is well-lit. Definitely one of my favorite lunch places downtown.
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I am quite sure that I have eaten at Nasai more than any place else since I first came to Seattle 8 years ago. The teryaki is juicy and well-cooked. The sauce is sweet and thick, but not too sweet...
I am quite sure that I have eaten at Nasai more than any place else since I first came to Seattle 8 years ago. The teryaki is juicy and well-cooked. The sauce is sweet and thick, but not too sweet or goopy. Service is quick and the food is cheap for an immense portion that could easily be two meals for many people. With your teryaki, you get a salad with a highly addictive dressing and a heaping mound of white rice. The special has remained the same for many years, chicken teryaki and four gyoza with salad and rice, still under $6. How can you beat that?! The spicy chicken and pork are also delicious, and I would happily vouch for the pork teryaki as well. However, only the Nasai location on University Way (The Ave) qualifies for this review. The location on 25th across from University Village is utterly terrible and nothing like the Ave location.
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Salty's is a pricey and fancy meal out, certainly an event restaurant, but does not manage to deliver on what this type of restaurant should be. If I wanted a view with poor service and mediocre...
Salty's is a pricey and fancy meal out, certainly an event restaurant, but does not manage to deliver on what this type of restaurant should be. If I wanted a view with poor service and mediocre food, I'd hit one of the tourist salmon and chowder places on Alaskan Way downtown. Once a meal starts to hit the $100 range, a different level of service and quality is expected.
Just to give you a little perspective, I was raised in NY and I've been a waiter. I'm not shy about tipping, even way over 20%, especially here in Seattle because I'm so infrequently wowed by service that when I am blown away, I just empty my wallet. When Duke's had an Italian restaurant on lower Queen Anne, I left a $40 tip on an $80 Valentine's Day meal because the food was way underpriced (apps, several drinks, dessert, coffee, some more drinks which would be good but not great in NY for Italian), the service was unbelieveably good, and I had planned on spending at least that much anyway.
Back to the matter at hand. My wife and I are likely seen as a poor table, low tip because we don't typically drink out at restaurants. Not frequently, but often enough, we see a correlation of this to bad service, as we did at Salty's. We came in early on a weekday, well before dinner rush (4:30 or so)
Our waitress did not discuss specials or make any special attempt to work the menu (as we watched several other waiters do). She did not check on us at all during the wait or meal ( I prefer minimal unobstrusive checking, even better is when things are refilled or show up without you asking, neither of these happened).
The chowder was decent, but my wife's salad was awful. 75 minutes later (yes you read right), after several tables came and went, our entrees arrived. The waitress blamed it on the kitchen, but the well melted fray of freshly shredded parmesan on my seafood pasta clearly indicated that it had been sitting under a heat lamp for quite some time (parmesan isn't a particularly easy to melt cheese), so it was at least partially her fault. The seafood pasta had 2-3 each of a clam, small shrimp, mussel, and calamari. The heat lamp worked wonders on the seafood as well. Not the bounty of the sea I was expectig. My wife's $40 medium rare steak was grey in the middle (should be pink, juicy, and warm, not hot). Now, I will be the absolute first to tell you that Salty's is not a place to get steak, it's not what they do. However, a $40 steak in an event restaurant should still be competently prepared.
We were offered dessert on the house for the wait, which we took to go. Dessert was excellent, as it always is there, too bad it wasn't preceded by a decent meal.
If you have something to celebrate, celebrate elsewhere.
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Sazerac
Category:
Restaurants
1101 4th Ave
Seattle, Washington 98101
(206) 624-7755
Sazerac is an upscale restaurant with a southern menu heavily influenced by its Seattle location, both in terms of ingredients and the Seattle fusion flair that pervades most area restaurants. The...
Sazerac is an upscale restaurant with a southern menu heavily influenced by its Seattle location, both in terms of ingredients and the Seattle fusion flair that pervades most area restaurants. The food ends up generally quite good. My favorites are the crawfish, duck, and andouille sausage gumbo and the catfish, but most things I've tried on the menu have been delicious. If you're a barbecue connoisseur, stay away from the pulled pork as you're bound to be disappointed. A little pricier than most places of its quality for lunch, but still a good buy given the portion size and delectable food. Service is competent, but nothing to rave or rant about. The Happy Hour specials are excellent, both drink and food-wise, especially the pate.
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The Henry Art Gallery is located on the western edge of the University of Washington campus and easily accessible by public transportation (decent on-campus parking generally available on the...
The Henry Art Gallery is located on the western edge of the University of Washington campus and easily accessible by public transportation (decent on-campus parking generally available on the weekends). The Henry's exhibitions are constantly changing, so it is fairly pointless to comment on any one particular collection. However, I have never been disappointed on any of my many visits. The curators put together amazing shows and utilize the beautiful space in creative ways. Admission (under $10) is still a pretty good deal in our highly overpriced town.
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