Results tagged “restaurants”

  

One of Seattle's off-beat pleasures has long been a celebratory meal at Palisade, the fancy restaurant facing Downtown Seattle from the Elliott Bay Marina at the base of Magnolia bluff. The Restaurants Unlimited property gets dinged for being stodgy and overdecorated, but its Sunday brunch, at 30 bucks, was a deal, the service is elegant without being stuffy, and the view as good as anything from West Seattle.

Burp! We know times are tough in the restaurant biz, but Maggiano's Little Italy, the chain outlet across from Bellevue Square, has escalated the bargain-basement super-size wars. Obesity-inducing, Bucca-di-Beppo portions are no longer big enough; Maggiano's is now giving you (yes, included in the price) an entire second meal to take home. The promotion is called "Today & Tomorrow," even though, says the VP who thought it up, "No one who eats at Maggiano's has ever gone home hungry." Is this a great country, or what?

Yesterday, as the mercury went from "uncomfortable" to "unbearable," the search was on for a patio that could serve up the required survival items at a time like this: chips, salsa, and stiff margaritas. Fortunately we found ourselves near El Camino, one of Seattle’s most overlooked outdoor sanctuaries.

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.

      

There's a Place Balard (one "l") in southwest Paris, about 20 minutes from the Bastille, the one-time prison at the figurative center of the French Revolution. These days (a week ahead of Bastille Day) the Place de la Bastille is a hub of music and nightlife, much like Seattle's Ballard Avenue on these warm July nights. At the brand new Bastille Café & Bar, a bustling crew of 60 tends to the needs of swarming drinkers and diners. Owners James Weimann (Peso's, Triangle) and Deming Maclise (Caffè Fiorè) recruited industry veterans Shannon Galusha (Veil) to run the kitchen, James Lechner (Café Campagne) to run the dining room and Armin Moloudzadeh (Black Bottle) to run the bar.

A note to our city's bar owners and restaurateurs: Are you aware that Seattle has a major league baseball team? It's true! They're called the Mariners, and each of their games are televised for the pleasure of your dining and drinking clientele.

Fridays at lunch, once upon a time, Skillet parked mere steps from our office door. Awesome! Then they were asked to move, so they started parking about a half mile from our office door. Doable. But apparently they need to move again. Blatant self-interest compels us to ask: Won't someone in Lower Queen Anne or on the edge of Belltown give Skillet a new Friday lunch home? The sculpture park, perhaps? Email eat@skilletstreetfood.com if you've got an idea. (In better news, they're going to be at Mariner games, and their West Seattle debut was their busiest opening day ever. Step it up, Columbia City!)

Recent trend that we're not fond of: Nearby restaurants calling the cops on Skillet, the silver-clad rolling kitchen that serves the food of the gods. First 13 Coins forced them to move their Wednesday South Lake Union spot. More recently, managers at the Elliott West Cafe uprooted them from their Friday Elliott Ave location. (That latter one especially hurts, as they used to be a 20-foot walk for us.) Legalities, schmegalities: It's totally bogus to involve the SPD in petty business disputes. 13 Coins and Elliott West? No more of our lunch money for you. Even if you start serving poutine. UPDATE: Now we've heard that it was the building management that called about Skillet (and the hapless hot dog cart that was there for a couple of Wednesdays). Regardless, the Elliott West Cafe staff are all very nice and are not the ones to blame. Unsurprisingly, however, some manager in this chain is being annoying and petty.

• Seattle Transit Blog is mad as hell about the legislature backing out on I-90 light rail funding and they don't think you should take it anymore. East side! West side! Let's make a light rail rumble!
• Will fancy eats joint Sitka & Spruce really move from Eastlake to Capitol Hill? CHS polls readers, fans flames of rumor.
• Publicola's Morning Fizz abandoned links and announced that a "dynamic woman" had joined the Mayoral race. April Fools!

    

Best-tasting thing in this cool, springtime desert: the broth of butter, white wine, leeks, lemon, thyme, and rosemary in which Zinc Bistro poaches its mussels. A highlight in a brief visit to see family and drop in on some well-established local eateries. Nothing to do with golf, spring break, or spring training.

      

Hope springs eternal, and a good thing, too. Over on Slog, Bethany Jean Clement takes attendance in the cemetery, counting off the headstones of restaurants dead or mortally wounded. Familiar names; we bow our heads and shed a tear. And then, our moment of silence over, Life Goes On.

MvB is going to get his pound of opening night hors d'oeuvres after seeing the The Merchant of Venice at the Seattle Shakespeare Company tonight. Saturday, if rainy, may involve an all-day LOTR-athon at a friend's in LQA.

Lots going on atop Cap Hill, not the least of which is Ethan Stowell's latest, Anchovies & Olives, opening tonight. We'll get there soon enough. It's the most recent example of awkward timing: restaurants opening in the teeth of the downturn. Chew well.

Last night, the former Ace Hardware store (limit one free Oreo-like cookie with each purchase, strictly enforced) on Queen Anne began its official transformation to a real food-serving spot: the Sezoni signs are up. While the recession is ruining many restaurants around town, there seems to be no end to new pizzeria places; Sezoni claims to be cooking up the "gourmet" variety. They filed for their liquor license a month ago, so an opening seems imminent.

Here's a resolution Seattlest hopes we can all get behind: let's go out more in 2009. More dinners at family-run restaurants, more happy hour cocktails at locally owned bars, more weekend getaways to nearby B&Bs.

  

End of year, thus time for the annual Belltown Bravo Awards. Yes, we'll add other neighborhoods in due course, we promise. In the meantime, don't get too excited; we're not. Hasn't been a particularly good year for restaurants in this nabe, in Seattlest's view. We lost some good ones (Cascadia, Qube, Marjorie), got some interesting new ones (Branzino, Kushibar, Tilikum Place, Spur) and the very promising Taberna del Alabardero, but overall, it hasn't been mouthwatering. Best promotions are still coming from the shoebox-sized Txori (the Tamborada, the San Firmin festival, the monthly Txoco dinners). For consistency and value, previous winners Steelhead Diner and Black Bottle continue to lead the pack. The real restaurant action these days is in Ballard, Capitol Hill, and (gulp) Bellevue.

The styrofoam ban date is approaching rapidly (Jan. 1), and it looks like it's really going to happen. Yesterday, the City of Seattle held an open house to help educate the restaurant industry about recyclable and compostable alternatives. Some of the options: "wheat-based clamshells" and "corn-based plastic cups." We noticed last week that Taco Del Mar has switched to recyclable plastic bags for take-out. The bags are translucent, with green ink and a large "recycle" symbol. Have you seen any other restaurants changing their materials yet?

Last night, Seattlest and friends—up for a light dinner and a few glasses of wine—discovered that West Seattle’s cozy, just-down-the-street Blackbird Bistro is, as of this week, shuttered. (No more half-price-bottle Tuesdays!) A note on the door and papered windows cited a sale of the curvy space and promised the new owners will not disappoint. (As usual, West Seattle Blog knew this was coming and we didn’t.) Of some consolation: The Bohemian, new on the California strip a few blocks south, offers decent $15 bottles of cab and merlot. Every day.

COME ON AND SAFARI WITH ME: Seattlest's first concert of note was the Beach Boys at the Brevard County Fair in Central Florida. We walked into a trash can, and somehow that's the part of the night we most remember. John Stamos was there playing the bongos. Otherwise, we couldn't really tell you much about the show. That was 20 years ago. So, we have to kind of Salute the Boys (sans Brian Wilson) for still playing shows. Tonight's performance will benefit Children's Hospital. So you can get your "Kokomo" on and support a good cause at the same time.

It took us almost four years to get the nerve up to dine at Fisher Plaza’s Sport restaurant. Any bar that close to Steve Pool and Fox Radio gives us pause. The fact that ABC has random video cameras hanging from the ceiling didn’t help either.

A while back, we mentioned that Trace Lofts on 12th Ave would soon be home to the unfortunately named "Mexican-inspired" restaurant Barrio. Well, don't worry Eastside, you're getting a ghetto too! Purple Cafe and Wine Bar owners Larry and Tabitha Kurofsky have announced that they'll be opening a second Barrio in downtown Bellevue sometime next year.

We do love us some bar food. French fries, burgers (veggie ones anyway), fish 'n' chips. Man, we could live on that stuff and often think of the Albert Brooks comedy Defending Your Life when we allow ourselves to indulge, because he’s told that, while waiting to defend his life, he can do whatever he wants and not worry about the health consequences. We're pretty sure that’s the reason we're hoping the afterlife mirrors that movie.

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.

For two days earlier this week, over 10,000 restaurateurs swarmed into the Convention Center, where some 500 exhibitors at the Northwest Foodservice Show were offering samples (deep-fried churros, prepackaged burgers, imported desserts), showing off new equipment and point-of-sale systems, offering consulting services. Keynote address from Anthony Anton, CEO of the Washington Restaurant Association, who took us on a quick tour to show off ecologically correct green packaging (forks made of cornstarch). "We have to get ahead of the regulators," he maintained.

Damn you, Cafe Stellina. In the year and a half the restaurant's been open in its new space (the Piston & Ring Building, the same as La Spiga, on 12th Ave just before Union), their business hours have thwarted our attempts to eat there on at least five occasions.

First there was the 25 for $25. That became 30 for $30. (Okay, it’s actually called Dine Around Seattle, and you can cash in on it through the end of this month.) Then came another 30 for $30 called New Urban Eats, featuring newly opened restaurants. That will return in May.

It was recently brought to our attention that Top Chef Zoi—one half of this season's lesbian couple, both of whom made it on the show—is the daughter of one of our former roommate's friends. We don't know her, but we recall her mom as being super cool.