There's so much going on at Toulouse Petit, a New Orleans-themed brasserie that opened last night at Queen Anne & Mercer, you don't know quite where to start. A year in the building, you can see the effort on the walls, the floors, the tabletops, in the platoons of staff and the extensive menus (food, wine, cocktails, happy hour, with breakfast and lunch still to come). There's something for every wallet here, starting with a fatcat's $42 steak (filet with foie gras, veal-cognac-shallot reduction, white truffle oil). For the frugal, the happy hour menu offers boudin blanc ($4), spicy fried alligator ($5), lamb's tongue en remoulade ($6); for the spendthrift, a blackened USDA prime rib eye ($18).
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Restaurant newshound Nancy Leson of the Seattle Times broke the surprising news yesterday that The Oceanaire Seafood Room has shut its doors for good. It turns out their parent company--which has already removed Seattle from its website and closed down its blog, Facebook, and Twitter feed on June 30--filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Monday, revealing that their new restructuring plan included shutting down four of the sixteen chain seafood restaurants across the U.S. While we typically don't profess our love for chain restaurants, we do have to admire and appreciate Oceanaire for bringing the talented former executive chefs Kevin Davis, 2001-06 (Steelhead Diner), Eric Donnelly, 2006-08 (Toulouse), and Aaron Valimont, 2008-09, into the Seattle food community.

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