When traveling the country and trying to avoid the Cheesecake Factories, Cracker Barrels and Claim Jumpers that clog the arteries, we get excited whenever we see a Martin Luther King street exit. The same can be said for exit 157 off I-5 in Seattle, where, just to the north, you’ll find a diversity of delicious restaurants. But things are changing there before our eyes. We headed down recently for some bahn beo chen at Huong......

As if The Terrorists haven't already been winning by employing their agents, the American Indian, to poo-poo on our Thanksgiving parade of turkey, football, and/or explaining your deviant behaviors to your meddlesome aunts and uncles whom you only see once a year. This time, worst of all, our very own government is getting in on the act. Are you flying this holiday and wondering if you can bring aboard your grandmother's delicious jelly or......

Chicken broth-based soups are some of the ultimate comfort foods, and are especially good when sick. We love them all, from matzo ball soup (a.k.a. “Jewish penicillin”) to tortilla soup to good ol’ Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup (or, better yet, Chicken & Stars – our childhood favorite, though we shudder to think about the sodium content). Last week, Dishin’ lamented the lack of good xiao long bao in Seattle. This week, we decided to go......

Yes, technically it’s spring, but here in Seattle temperatures are still bouncing from arctic to downright balmy and almost everyone we know (including yours truly) is sick, so we’re going out on a limb and declaring Seattle safely inside the Chicken Soup Zone. Enough has been said about chicken soup’s use as a tonic for what ails you, so we don’t feel the need to rehash it here. Chicken soup makes you feel better.......

Sometimes it seems like every Seattle street corner has teriyaki, Tully’s, or a Thai restaurant. Everyone’s got a favorite place for Thai food (ours are actually in Issaquah and Tukwila), though we prefer to cook and eat it at home. Thai cooking is fairly easy once you get the hang of it. One of the staples—used in soups, curries, stir-fries, drinks and desserts—is coconut milk. Sure, it’s simple to make on your own, as Mark......

We stopped into the new Volunteer Park Cafe & Marketplace on our way to Interlaken Park this weekend, and found a gourmet but friendly cafe doing hopping business. Their website describes things nicely: We’ll be serving breakfast and lunch starting at 7 a.m. every day except Monday. We’ll focus on simple cuisine using quality fresh local and regional ingredients. Most items will be made in-house—pastries, dressings, quiche, sauces and soups. There will be a......

Imagine a delicious food that, if not picked in time, could later show up as part of your WELCOME mat, shoulder pads, dish scrubber, or marine steam engine filter. Meet the loofah squash. Scientifically speaking, the one we usually eat is called luffa acutangula (whereas the related luffa cylindrica has fibrous networks better suited to making the aforementioned products), but it’s known by many names, including Chinese okra, silk squash, vegetable sponge, sponge gourd, and......

We don't like dining in Queen Anne. We love the neighborhood, but for eating, it's just not gritty enough. Such was our experience at Chinoise. According to their website, chinoise means Asian-like, and is French for feminine. But we think of the kitchen tool, which Wikipedia defines as "an extremely fine meshed conical sieve used for straining soups and sauces to produce a very smooth texture." That's a perfect metaphor for the restaurant! Chinoise may......

The original name was Biofournil, which made us think the haz-mat squad might show up at any moment. In fact, it was the first US venture of an extremely successful organic bakery in France, based in Seattle's French sister city of Nantes. And with that combination of innocence, confidence and arrogance that characterizes entrepreneurs of all nationalities, Biofounil shipped its French bread ovens, French bakers, even a supply of its own sourdough starter to Belltown.......