We were getting ready to head down into Ballard last night to check out the Willie Nelson Tribute at Conor Byrne when we had the bright idea of taking our wife out for a dinner date on the way. The short and sweet note asking her out to the singularly lovely Madame K's put a smile on her down-in-the-dumps face almost as big as the one the Madame's orgasm dessert would soon put on ours.......

We were introduced to In the Bowl: Vegetarian Noodle Bistro on Capitol Hill a few days ago and have been planning our return ever since. New (to us anyway, apparently it's been around since at least February), In the Bowl is a welcome addition to the quick, cheap Asian-fare genre on The Hill. A bonus: It's all-veggie and every meal comes with Black Rice Pudding for dessert. The restaurant is small, with an atmosphere reminiscent......

Just because it's a modest storefront doesn't mean it's a hole in the wall. Au contraire, mes amis. Two new spots in Belltown--both French--forgo pomp in favor of hospitality. At Entre Nous, it's the sprigs of thyme in a pitcher on the counter and Brigitte Bardot on the sound system. At Le Petit Café (no website), it's a slice of lemon in the water glass, seedless grapes on the plate. Little things that enliven lunch.......

A year ago, under the headline "Eatin' Good Outside the Hood," we wrote about dinner at Union Bay Café in Laurelhurst. Couple of months later, owner-chef Mark Manley announced he's closing down: "After 21 years, it's time to move on." Gulp. Fortunately, the concept of an enlightened yet unpretentious neighborhood restaurant is alive and well in other nabes and hoods. In Fremont, that self-described Center of the Universe, for example, we have a perfect example:......

Our land, this inlet on the western coast of the North American continent, is a fortunate one, endowed with natural riches and settled by people who do not confuse prosperity with moral superiority. Modesty becomes us; we do not flaunt our advantages. With pleasure, then, we open Kurt Dammeier's new book, Pure Flavor, which celebrates our region's bounty and offers some suggestions for simple preparations that enhance the pleasure this fare brings to our senses.......

Donna Giordano, a 25-year veteran of the of the grocery wars, has a lot to say about what's for dinner. As president of QFC, she runs 77 supermarkets in Washington and Oregon. But QFC is part of the giant Kroger Corp, and only a tiny part at that, so she has to convince the bean counters back in Cincinnati that Seattle shoppers care about quality. The newest QFC, which opened this week at 5th and......

Our treasure known as Pike Place Market serves as the setting for an ideal progressive eating party by day. Work from one end to the other, and you can enjoy salmon, fruits, vegetables, nuts, candies, cheese, tea and more – and that’s without even opening your wallet! Spend some money and your feast continues. So we applied a similar concept and started at the Market for a progressive dinner at some of the area......

Bill Virgin, writing in last Thursday's P-I Business section, shed light on memo sent out by Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz (courtesy here of Starbucks Gossip). Since then, news of the memo has traveled the internet a few times over. On the one hand, the wiseacre in us says, "you made decisions to expand from 1,000 to 13,000 stores and nobody thought about the dilution and commoditization of the experience???" Please. Even at 1,000 stores,......

There was a time in our lives when the Sunlight Cafe’s steamed vegetables and tofu over brown rice was our idea of a great meal. Good, wholesome, vegetarian food. Then we lived in Paris for a while. Then we went to culinary school. And suddenly, wholesome was out of the picture. These days we’re not even capable of making a salad without destroying its virtue through tasty animal product-type additions. Enter: Frisée aux Lardons. Frisée......

We couldn't help but notice that maitre d' Mikel Kanter from Vancouver's Elixir bistro is telling tourists an awfully familiar story: He also offered that the term "Skid Row" was coined just outside the window for the logging skids that led to the water in earlier times. Skid Row, of course, became a term for the down and out, and there's nothing down and out about Vancouver these days. Wait a minute. Skid Row? Doesn't......

To your roster of historic and colorful rhizomes (Russets, White Rose, Blue Victor, Yukon Gold, Yellow Finn, Red Ruby...Cascade, Nooksack, Ontario, Seminole) you can now add the Ozette. It's a fingerling grown for centuries in the gardens of Makah Indians on Washington's most western coastline, brought there, it's believed, by Spanish conquistadors who had discovered all manner of edible tubers in the South American Andes. Thus the humble Ozette was in all likelihood the first......

Rains have stopped, mostly. Dems have won, mostly. And Whole Foods has finally opened in Allentown (Westlake & Denny). Nearly 50,000 square feet of groceries. Plenty of free samples. Three sit-down eating stations (seafood grill, Asian bistro, market café). About 200 employees. Makes Trader Joe up on Queen Anne look like a miner's shack. Whole Paycheck? Not if you shop carefully, not if you're willing to spend more for "organic." Lotta Birkenstocks in evidence. "That's......

So, somehow it escaped our attention until yesterday that in the last issue of Seattle Weekly, Adriana Grant, the editorial assistant, was dispatched to do a hatchet-job on one of our favorite U-District Bars, Kai's Bistro....

"I don’t venture north of even the cut, unless provoked." So said one Seattlest contributor when we asked what inspires us to turn our backs on downtown and drive north. Wimp. What counts as northern Seattle? We don't mean "North Seattle" -- the U District, Ballard, Fremont. We mean northern Seattle -- north of 85th, city limits until 1954. We fudged a bit, including a few places between the city limits and King-Sno county line.......

A while ago we were pumping taking the train to Portland. Now that we've just gotten back from a weekend rail adventure, we have some updates and clarifications to make. We still think it's a good option, but here are a few tips to help you manage your expectations. 1) That 3.5 hour trip time is an estimate only. Each way, our train was delayed about 45 minutes. We started to complain to someone......

The other day we were perusing Citysearch’s lists because we had nothing better to do and about 20 minutes in which to do it. Every now and again we hit upon a morsel of an interesting suggestion, but mostly we just disagreed with everything. Our biggest pet peeve is most definitely their Best Sushi list. How can Hiroshi’s (on Eastlake), with its generous slabs of buttery fresh fish, and interesting and creative rolls not make......

Crisis. Opportunity. We don't need self-help myths about Chinese characters to draw connections between the two. Last week's debacle at our regular trivia venue? A great opportunity to wander from local pub to local pub, trying out their quizzes and telling you which ones are worth your while. First stop: The Jones Bistro, recommended by Fred in our earlier post's comments. We played their quiz last night. Here's the rundown. Quiz: 40 questions, grouped into......

Joint called 520 Bar & Grill, opened last week in Old Bellevue (nothing to do with the bridge) has already perfected the art of removing flavor from food. Used to be, only low-end places like Olive Garden had figured this out. Bistro Romain chain in France, too, where you stuff yourself silly because your brain doesn't get any signals of satisfaction. 520's menu talks about big-flavored "social plates" and fresh, hearty neighborhood favorites made for......

Food Lust: a catchy name for a zesty cause: closer connections between farmers and chefs. Farmers and fishers turned out: Willie Green's Organic Farm, Taylor Shellfish, Lopez Island Farm, Skagit River Ranch, Full Circle Farm, Whistling Train Farm,, Fall City Farms Restaurant and catering chefs turned out: Herban Feast Catering, Kaspar's, 35th Street Bistro, Bon Appetit Management Co., Flying Fish. Serious foodies turned out, too, most notably author and farmer Michael Ableman, who read from......

The Melody Unit's Kevin Kelly On a Life Spent in SeattleMusic, Why the Band Never Made It, and Why He's So Ambivalent AboutTheir Latest (Greatest) Album We were getting a little antsy sitting around Kai's Bistro in the U-District, because our interview subject, Kevin Kelly, the leader of the band The Melody Unit, seemed to be running late. Finally, a little confused, we stood up and held a copy of the band's last album, Songs......

Axiom of food blogging: don't just write about the ham sandwich you had for lunch. So before we get started, it was a blackened herb chicken sandwich with roasted red peppers, arugula, havarti and cilantro mayonnaise on focaccia. Moist, tender & delicious. Besides, this isn't about our lunch. Sure, the pizza joint delivers. The corner deli might deliver, and you can sometimes persuade the neighborhood bistro to send over an idle waiter with a to-go......

Seattlest gets around. Sometimes we eat in Ballard, and sometimes we make it all the way down to West Seattle. Thursday night, we were at the opening of Blackbird Bistro, a new restaurant right by the Admiral Theatre (unlike an identically named venue in Chicago, this Admiral shows movies, rather than naked ladies). For the time being, Blackbird will be serving lunch and dinner, with weekend brunch debuting sometime next month. They're trying to promote......

As you may or may not have heard by now, Seattle is again running one of its bi-annual x-neighborhoods, x-restaurants, x-$ deals. As in: Dinner at 8. We'd like to point out that the name is not very descriptive; it should be something like Dinner at 26 (restaurants), or Dinner in 8 (neighborhoods), or $20 for 3 (courses), but we weren’t consulted, so we’ll keep it to ourselves. However, yesterday, Seattlest and four dinner companions......

Seattlest has been hitting the cheap eats lately (mostly due to lack of funds), but we decided it was time for a splurge. While there are many new restaurants on our try-out list, XO Bistro bubbled to the top because we've been longtime fans of Cassis and we wanted to try out its similar-styled replacement. On first glance, it looked as though there hadn't been a change in ownership. The walls were still painted in......

At long last, Central Cinema is now open. Though they've hosted some pre-grand opening events last month, Wednesday was their official opening night. And while Seattlest was not in attendance, we are certainly planning on going there sometime soon, especially after taking a gander at their menu. Mmmm...we're thinking that popcorn and roasted asparagus and a salmon burger and the quattro formaggi or sienna or pescara pizza, followed by some crème brulee and a nice......

Who are the 11:30pm girls? What: Kimchi Bistro When: Wed, April 13, 8pm Kimchi Bistro is so good that we wanted to keep it to ourselves forever. But after going there for the umpteenth time earlier this week, we knew it was wrong to be so selfish. The bistro is hidden in the back of the Broadway Alley, on Broadway at John (the mall where Hana Sushi is). They don’t serve any alcohol or dessert......

Yes, Seattle, here it is: your most ridiculous billboard. Where to begin? Let's go for a cruse [sic] to Belltown. Let's take our mysteriously right-side drive convertible. Let's drive it across...eastern Washington? Montana? The Great Plains?...you know, on the way to Belltown. While we're driving, let's make sure that the passenger in the front seat has a case of Pilsner Urquell photoshopped onto his arm. Maybe while we are out drinkin' and "crusin'" we......

Belltown nightlife tends to fall into two categories: happy hour and beyond. We're committed to happy hour, mostly because we work in the neighborhood. After 7 or 8 we'd rather be anywhere than doing the First Avenue crawl. Herewith, our latest findings... It was a random set of circumstances that led Seattlest to happy hour at The Apartment Friday night. Crowds elsewhere and general laziness, we suppose, led us to the trendy new bistro.......