We don’t go bonkers for brunch. Why pay ten, fifteen bucks for someone else’s spin on eggs or bubbling of batter when we can easily cook that stuff at home? But friends recently came to visit from Japan and wanted to take us out for a meal before dashing off to their next destination. Time was short, so we needed a quiet, comfortable place in walking distance of our Queen Anne location. The 5 Spot:......

It’s a new month, and that means a new dining promotion around town. Returning is New Urban Eats, featuring some of the relative newbie restaurants in and around the Seattle area. For $30, you’ll enjoy three courses—a choice of appetizer, entrée, and dessert from a fixed-price menu. Participating restaurants: 94 Stewart, Beato Food & Wine, Betty, Coupage, Cremant, Crush, Cucina De-Ra, Divine, Enotria, Iris Grill, Kurrent, Lucia, Moxie, 0/8 Seafood Grill, Opal, Portage, Qube,......

Thank God, we didn't know what we were going to do with ourselves. Now that weather is nicening up a bit (we just made that word up), don't we all just want to sit at home with the shades drawn and get caught up on Grey's!? Uh, yeah, totally. According to a fansite called Grey's Anatomy Insider: The current plan is to shoot four or five new Grey’s Anatomy episodes to complete Season 4.......

The L Word's coming back on Sunday, 9pm on Showtime! This means weekly installments of nothing but gloriously bad decisions, lesbian sex both complicated and primal, stylishly coiffed men, women, and those who have yet to make up their minds, and -- possibly our favorite part--endless cups of coffee, gossip, and star guest performances at (all-purpose meeting point) The Planet. If you haven't been watching, get thee to the video store and rent thee......

Back when Seattlest lived in Wallingford, we went to the Fremont branch of the library once a week. We got to know the staff there very well -- hi, Carl! Hi, Joan! Hi, Betty! We served as one of two citizens on the committee that picked the architectural firm that handled the branch's remodel. While Fremont was closed for construction, we switched our regular patronage to the University branch. It's bigger than Fremont, and worked......

Laser Rocket Arms hates it when we call them "the new Husker Don't." Then again, they keep winning, so our motivation to stop doing so is minimal. 16 teams played the quiz, and the mighty Arms overcame a second-place finish at halftime to take the lead in the end. The loudest groan of the night came during the Nudity category, when Seattlest asked this question: Janet Jackson had a famous breast-exposing wardrobe malfunction during......

Betty by josue.blanco. On display in the Seattlest Flickr group, which you shutterbugs should join immediately. Thanks for sharing!......

Seattlest Trivia Night knows that tomorrow you’ll either be cursing those receiving flowers or cursing Hallmark for making you spend money on forced jesters of love. So before all of the cursing begins come on down to The Old Pequliar in Ballard for an evening of enjoyment. Seattlest David is back to ask the questions, make up answers, get flustered, and ultimately award every team a point. He will be assisted by Seattlest Courtney and......

This week -- after literally years of telling ourselves we'd go -- we finally made it to one of the Paramount's silent movie showings. Now we're kinda kicking ourselves for the delay. Next Monday is the last in this January's series of German Expressionist films: Asphalt. It may not be long on plot. IMDB sums it up like so: Asphalt is set in Berlin. A well-dressed woman (Betty Amann) steals a precious stone from......

It'd been awhile since we'd last been to the Tractor Tavern and, well, we found that we'd missed the place -- the faded old cowboy boots hanging from the ceiling, the curious glory-hole in the men's crapper, the huge oil painting of the bright red tractor, and then the other one of the majestic horse with all the lightning in the background. Okay, that one's kind of weird, but it fits somehow with the country......

We remain convinced that the design of 3rd Ave is more responsible for the death of Betty Jean Simon than the bicycle guy who reportedly bumped her. Actually, who knows what he really did - Reports vary, even within the same newspaper account. The Seattle Times said he bumped her and then later that, "the man rode by on the sidewalk and caused her to lose her balance," and in the P-I today, "witnesses reported......

This website about Modernism in Seattle bubbled up via Del.icio.us and after checking it out it struck us that the website is a lot like Modernism itself: Nice skeleton, but where's the meat? It's TheModernList.com covering Seattle and Manhattan and they describe the site thusly: This is a modernist guide to Seattle. It is intended for the design concious interested in experiencing modern architecture, design, art, food and culture. The guide is data focused......

Seattlest's favorite cooking show doesn't star Rachael Ray or Iron Chef Morimoto. No, we're partial to America's Test Kitchen, the public television sibling of our favorite cooking magazine, Cook's Illustrated. Host Christopher Kimball doesnot make up words such as "jambalika" or forcefully oppose the rigid culinary doctrines of the Ota Faction. America's Test Kitchen is less about charming the audience and more like Highlander: there can be only one best recipe for Denver omelettes, and......

Unless you count the grillers at Teddy Bear BBQ in Monroe, the Seattle Storm are the only local team with a world championship. The Storm will celebrate their 2005 WNBA championship at the Key on Saturday afternoon, with a ring ceremony and flag-raising before their game vs. Los Angeles. Then they will commence defending that title, once again relying on the frontcourt presence of 6'5" Lauren Jackson, arguably the best female basketball player in......

Local company SmallTownPapers (yes, one word) has launched a website that promises to digitally protect the very root of everything we hold true--that is, America's small town newspapers. The company's goal is to create a searchable database--in some cases, going back to the 1800s--of these papers, as well as preserving the papers' actual looks. As Seattlest is a longstanding fan of the police logs of small-town papers, this could well be a treasure trove.......

What's better than comic books? Why, free comic books, of course! Tell your action figures to make way on that shelf, cause the Fourth Annual Free Comic Book Day takes place this Saturday, May 7. What does that mean? It means you and all your Seth Cohen -wannabe friends can choose from among 30 different special edition comic books, absolutely gratis. Go old school and nab a G.I. Joe or be light years ahead......

Betty MacDonald's The Egg and I, published in the mid-twentieth century, tells the tale of her decision, along with her husband, to quit their suburban Seattle lives and rough it on a farm out on the Olympic Peninsula. We love the book because it's real, and funny, and because the lust for a simpler life (and the realization, as David Lee Roth once said, that "the simple life ain't so simple") hasn't changed to this......

Usually, when we're sick we like to curl up at home and watch reruns of The Golden Girls. Something about Betty White's cheery disposition makes us feel better, even when we can't keep down solid food. Sure, we'll whine and complain a lot, but usually in a day or two feel feel better. Recently, we read John M. Barry's The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History which has put......