Seattlest started the New Year with a strong dose of reality. Hot Mama's, supposedly the best pizza on Cap Hill, doesn't cut it for this eater. Crust soggy, toppings bland. more ›

Maybe it's the recession like it was in the early 90s, but as a city, we're recycling more than ever before. more ›

Seattlest got a Sony Walkman for our 15th birthday, and bought our first couple of cassette tapes with saved allowance: Dire Straits’ Brothers in Arms and Eazy-E’s Eazy-Duz-It. As any self-respecting male teen would be, we were offended thrilled by the latter’s raw language and humor. So within a few weeks, we’d procured N.W.A.’s tape, Straight Outta Compton. That’s how we knew what we were hearing Sunday night when we were put on hold after calling Mad Pizza: more ›

Seattlest got our first chance to stick our fingers in the Viaduct's wounds this weekend courtesy of a WSDOT walking tour. Unless you're the type to sign up for a St Patrick's Day 15,000 K fun run or something like that opportunities to walk around on the Viaduct's road bed are few and far between, so this tour was greatly appreciated. On Saturday morning we met at the 1st and Columbia onramp to collect our hard hat, safety vest and donuts. Maybe ten or fifteen of us formed a group and WSDOT guy Ali Amiri marched us out onto the roadway. When we took Ali's picture he said, "Oh, no. This isn't for some website is it?" The world can read Seattlest like a book. more ›

Seattlest and Mrs. Seattlest have been getting take out on Friday nights at Chantanee Family Thai Restaurant in Bellevue for almost 3 years and have found no better Thai restaurant on the Eastside. From time to time, we eschew the styrofoam containers and eat our meal in the gold and purple themed interior. The service? Efficient and friendly. more ›

Valentine’s day is complicated. So Seattlest likes to celebrate with something simple, something unobtrusive, something like shortbread. Shortbread is plain enough to please everyone, and when lovingly prepared, delicious enough to impress them too. Chummy coworkers? Shortbread. Been on a few dates, but not official? Shortbread. Shortbread says: I like you, but in a noncommittal sort of way. more ›

Tattooed guy, Larry (we think it was Larry) Conner (we think he said Conner), headphones, cigarette, ignores Monday night's snowstorm under makeshift tarp and jury-rigged work lights to complete tattoo-themed mural outside Wann Izakaya on Second Avenue. Hey, if Hasselbeck and Alexander can work in the snow, let alone artists like Conner (or did he say Cotter?), then the rest of us ought to as well, right? On the other hand, too cold & windy to actually take out trusty reporter's notebook. Easy name to remember, though. Potter? Porter? more ›

That was the greeting we received when we rounded the corner to the front lobby of said market. That and a giant, bland sign listing the coffee drinks this new "café" will be selling. "Are you fucking kidding me?" is what we wanted to say to the lady behind the counter, wearing a sparkling clean apron and Lisa Loeb glasses. Instead, we rolled our glazed eyes from her face up to the strips of brown butcher paper covering most of the logo of our favorite Seattle coffee establishment. "We'd better still be asleep," we said, not really under our breath. "And this'd better be a nightmare." more ›

White Gold took to the stage and went right into it, playing their high energy dance punk to a low energy audience of not much more than fifty, most of which stayed seated in the blocked off bar area. Crowd banter was NOT going to work for them, with silence as the only response to calls for claps or the jokingly posed, "Anyone have a shaker?" The annoyance was obvious from the lead singer, who treated the show like a practice session, playing with very little passion, following the previous query with a monotone, "I want to die. Anyone have a noose?" We have to admit it has to be hard for a band that thrives on feedback from the crowd to perform to an empty house, but really, there's no reason to take out your frustrations on the people that did show up. That's just bad P.R.. Seattlest thinks White Gold could be a very fun band to see in a packed space and we'll give them another chance, but based on Sunday alone, we'd have to write them off as well...whiny bitches. (Later, the band gave away free copies of their CD as consolation. Nice move, but a more motivated performance would have been better.) more ›

Truly, Seattlest walked into the opening of 9 Parts of Desire at the Rep with trepidation, well-founded in experience, about tremendously topical one-person shows. And when it began with a woman at a river telling us about dumping shoes with "worn out soles" in the water (say it to yourself, "worn out soles," savor the homonymity), we slouched a bit in our seat. more ›

There's probably no other restaurant in town that Seattlest eats at as much as Crave. Given how much we enjoying dining out, this is saying a lot. We frequently spend our weekends brunching at Crave, we take out-of-town guests there for dinner, and occasionally we play hooky just to have their mid-day lunch. It doesn't hurt that we live nearby, but it's the friendliness of the servers and the quality of the food that keeps on bringing us back. Sure, the wait can be a bitch, but that's something you should be prepared for (tip: for Saturday/Sunday brunch, put your name on the list 30 minutes - 1 hour before you actually want to be seated). more ›

Pssst. Hate Mexicans? Whoa, whoa, whoa. Not here, Buddy. Come inside. We're looking for a few patiriots like yourself to help man the wall in Washington state. No, no, see, Washington is on the northern border. With Canada. See, if we do a vigil up here it makes it seem like we don't hate the Mexicans. We'll be like equal opportunity haters, get it? No, we don't hate the Canadians we hate the Mexicanos, but- Oh. Oh you do? Oh, wow, we got a live one here. Hey Frank, we got a live one over here. Well, alright, yeah, you can keep the Canadians out if you want to. You can even bring weapons. So, yeah, you can keep an eye out for Canadians coming down illegally, but try not to shoot anyone and make us look bad. Ok, show up in Blaine on October third and be prepared to stay the month. Here's a training manual. No you can't go home early if you bag a Canuck the first day. Don't bag any Canucks. What if you take out a Mexican? Well, then we'll talk about it. more ›

Seattlest's bus ride to work lasts about twelve minutes. That's just long enough for us to find a seat, sit in it, open our bag, take out our laptop and boot it up, Start, Shutdown, Yes we would like the computer to shut down, put it away and get off the bus. Ah, another productive commute! You didn't notice it, but during the minute our computer was on it attempted and failed to find any available wireless networks. Our email rants to the editor were unable to fly out into the either. more ›