Kushi are Japanese skewers, bamboo or metal. Threaded with a sardine, a prawn, peppers, pork belly or chicken hearts, they're grilled over makeshift charcoal braziers and served up to passersby in Tokyo. In Belltown, you get to sit. In fact, you'll be served on the new open-air deck along Second, a 40-seat expanse at sidewalk level, while executive chef Billy Beach grills your mushrooms or gizzards (over imported coals) inside. This is Kushibar, from......

OPERATION BRIGHT PINK FLAMINGO: If you were at Myrtle Edwards Park last weekend, you may have noticed a city-approved flock of plastic flamingos hanging out on the lawns. Lest you prematurely begin the spiral into "WTF, can't we just have normal public art," let us inform you that the flamingos were only visiting to remind everyone that real Chilean flamingos are available as of tomorrow to gawk at over in the Woodland Park Zoo.......

We’ve been big fans of Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid since reading Hot Sour Salty Sweet: A Culinary Journey Through Southeast Asia (James Beard Foundation’s Cookbook of the Year for 2000). This coffee table-worthy book completely captured us with great recipes, gorgeous photos, and even its glossary. We immediately dug deep into their earlier work, including the aptly named Seductions of Rice, which is also as much travelogue as it is cookbook. There have......