Seattle 2011, part 6, the final one

I have a few leftover Seattle photos, so here they are:

Here's the hallway in our hotel, Inn at Queen Anne. Each floor had different light fixtures, and these were my favourite. Inn at Queen Anne is a pretty neat hotel. It looks like it used to be a rooming house, many many years ago. Every room has a kitchenette that's in a little alcove, and there are non-functioning doorbells at each door. You even get a real key for your room, not those goofy cards that always get demagnitized. On the downside, the parking lot is tiny and there's no guarantee you'll get a space, and there's garbage pick up or something at 4:45 that woke me up because we had the window open. There is air conditioning in each room, but I prefer fresh air. Overall though, we liked it and would definitely go back.

A crayon paste up in Capitol Hill, right outside the Blick's Art Supply store.

More paste-ups near Seattle Centre. I love these ones!

On Wednesday we went to Roq La Rue gallery, which is a great little low-brow, pop-surrealist gallery on 2nd. The art there was amazing!John Brophy is my new favourite artist - Man, I wish I could paint like that! They also have a nice selection of art books. Kirk got one about Robert Williams and I finally got Tara McPherson's second book, Lost Constellations.

We had a great time in Seattle, which is a good thing, since it's the only vacation Kirk and I are taking together this year.

Seattle 2011, part 5

THIS IS MY 100TH POST! WOOHOO!

My absolute favourite restaurant in Seattle is Roti, an Indian place in Queen Anne. The name makes it sound like a fast food joint, but that is certainly not the case! It's the most beautifully ornate restaurant I've ever eaten in (and I eat in a lot of restaurants, in case you hadn't noticed), and the food is to die for! Every time I go to Seattle I have to go there and have the Mango Jal-frezi. More about mango jal-frezi later...

All of their menus are housed in beautifully painted and embroidered covers. Each is different, and I've never gotten the same one twice.

Everything in Roti is ornately detailed, from the ceiling tiles, the walls, and every piece of furniture. There's no shortage of things to look at and admire.

I thought Kirk was taking a photo of the painting behind me. Look at the carved wood wall. Amazing!

 

The tables are carved and enameled wood. Even the dishes are beautiful. The water mugs are hammered brass, and the cutlery has copper handles. Even the glass Kirk's Coke came in was beautiful.

Oh, and the food is delicious too... We started with the vegetable pakoras because Kirk cannot resist a pakora. I love them too. They bring you three little dishes of condiments, two red and one green. I have no idea what they might be, but the green one is my favourite.

This is my plate. We had mango jal-frezi, which is a spicy mixed vegetable dish with mango and coconut milk. It might just well be the best thing I've ever eaten. We also had channa masala, which is equally amazing, with rice and garlic naan. I'm salivating just thinking about that meal. Sigh.

The portions were big and we had enough leftover for two more meals.

Tomorrow, Seattle stuff that does not involve food - imagine that!

Seattle 2011, part 4

On Wednesday morning we slept in. Well, Kirk slept in and I watched old episodes of Reba on tv and listened to him snoring. After we were both up and ready to go, we set out in search for lunch. Although Kirk had enjoyed breakfast at Sunlight Cafe, he was disappointed that there was no bacon involved. Being the wonderful wife that I am, I found LunchBox Laboratory on the internet. Their catchphrase is "Where 6 pieces of bacon is just average!", and they have a pretty good-sounding veggie burger, so I thought it was the perfect compromise.

We trudged up the hill to the South Lake Union neighbourhood, which is a pretty cool place with boutique stores and a college campus.

The restaurant is in a beautiful space with lots of light and lava lamps all over the place. The service was amazing, the waitress quick and friendly (and pretty too).

This place is condiment city! They have J&D's Malt Salt on every table (J&D are notorious for developing Bacon Salt - Malt Salt seems to be their first foray into non-bacon-based condiments), as well as a selection of their own flavoured salts and the usual Tabasco and ketchup.

Yes, there's a bite out of that pickle. I couldn't wait until after I took the photo!

I won't show you Kirk's burger, because it was truly disgusting (and he was very happy). Mine was a house made black bean patty with sauteed onions and bbq sauce, with tater tots on the side. It was big and messy and delicious. We were so stupidly full when we left that we decided to walk up to Capitol Hill and then back downtown to catch a movie (Pirates of the Caribbean 4), stopping at numerous art supply stores along the way. A good day, to be sure.

Tomorrow, my favourite Indian restaurant ever!

Seattle 2011, part 3

On Tuesday after breakfast we drove to Tacoma (why not?) and went to a motorcycle parts shop. Fun for Kirk, tolerable for me. We drove around downtown Tacoma, which is actually quite pretty and has nice looking museums. The only thing I knew of Tacoma previously was the Neko Case song:

We drove back just after noon and parked the car at the hotel, had a little nap (another big part of our vacation ritual), and went for a walk. We walked all the way through downtown, around Pioneer Square, and back. It's about a 5 mile walk (I checked on Google Maps).

On the way back we were pretty tired and hungry, so we stopped at Petra Mediterranean Bistro in Belltown.

The decor was beautiful and it was full of nice looking, well-dressed people in their fifties, so we figured it must be pretty good. I had a glass of French white wine, and the red lentil soup to start.

Now, the red lentil soup at Nuba is my favourite and a lot to live up to. It's the kind of soup I dream about at night. This soup was really good, but not quite Nuba-worthy. Still, I enjoyed it all the same.

As an entree I had the Veggie Combo, which was piled high with Spanish rice, falafels, dolmathes, hummus and baba ganouje. Other than the rice, which was pretty dry, it was fantastic! I pretty well licked every morsel of the baba ganouje off the plate it was so good. Kirk had the spanakopita plate, which was disappointing. It had three small spanakopitas and he said it tasted like they had been previously frozen and they were dry. I felt a little bad eating mine with such gusto, and I did offer to share.

One of my favourite past times in the U.S. is to look at the selection of alcoholic beverages they sell in grocery stores (gasp!). After dinner we went browsing and I found this single bottle of organic ale at the Metropolitan Market near our hotel. The beer lived up to it's gorgeously irresistible label.

Tomorrow: Another burger bar post. Seriously, wasn't one enough? Apparently not...

Seattle 2011, part 2

Day 2 in Seattle: We didn't have parking at the hotel for the first night so we had to get up early and move the car. Luckily we got a space for the second night and didn't have to get up early again - Who wants that on a vacation?!

But it did give us a chance to explore a bit and go for breakfast. I found Sunlight Cafe on the internet while looking for places where I could eat breakfast. It's a cute little vegetarian cafe in the Roosevelt district.

We got there at 8:30, and they don't serve breakfast until 9, so we got a table and had a coffee while we waited. Well, Kirk had coffee and I had yogi tea, which is like chai and delicious.

For breakfast I had Sunlight Huevos Rancheros with tofu and avocado. Deelish! The tofu was marinaded in something yummy, and served with black beans, salsa, guacamole and potatoes. Pretty well exactly what I'd pick for breakfast if I could choose anything in the world...

We didn't just eat in Seattle. We walked all over the place too. Here's the fountain in the middle of Seattle Center.

And here's Kirk at the fountain.

Tomorrow, Neko Case, falafels and beer.

Seattle 2011, part 1

Kirk and I decided to get out of town for a few days (good timing too, what with all the rioting in Vancouver) so we drove down to Seattle last Monday. Now, when Kirk and I go on vacation, we generally enjoy walking around and eating a lot. This was no exception!

We took our time driving down (depending on the traffic and border waits it takes about 3 hours to drive from Vancouver to Seattle), stopping in Everett where we marveled at the giant battleship in the harbour. We checked into our hotel (Inn at Queen Anne - awesome) and had a little nap, then headed out for dinner. The Queen Anne district in Seattle is full of great food, so we stepped across the street to The Signature Restaurant, a nice Vietnamese place on 1st. We hadn't been there before, and were suitably impressed. It's not terribly authentic, but definitely yummy.

 I started with a beer I'd never tried before - Maui Brewing Co's CoCoNut Porter. Heavenly! Nice and dark and caramelly, with just a hint of coconut. And the can is attractive too, a big plus in my books.

As it was happy hour, we had the Salt & Pepper Fried Tofu. My terrible photo does not do it justice at all - It was lightly breaded, crispy and delicious. I've had salt & pepper tofu at a tonne of places, and this was definitely top 5.

I was thrilled to see that they had vegetarian phở on the menu. Not beef broth with no meat chunks, but actual animal-free soupy goodness. It was amazing, with a depth of flavour that I haven't yet been able to achieve at home and a tonne of crisp veggies. Love love love!

We spent the rest of the evening watching tv in the hotel room. With no tv at home, that was kind of a treat for us.

More Seattle posts to come. Not all about food, but mostly :)

Vegan Mofo Day 12: Portland 7

Voodoo Doughnut

What's a trip to Portland without a visit to Voodoo Doughnut? This time we went to the second location at 1501 NE Davis, which is in a freestanding building and a lot bigger inside than the downtown location (very nice when it's raining!). There was only one couple in line ahead of us and we got to order without much delay at all. We got a half dozen so I could bring some home to Kirk, his only request for this trip. Mum picked out a buttermilk bar, and I picked out five vegan doughnuts (thank you, Voodoo Doughnut for spelling doughnut correctly!)

Clockwise from top right: Voodoo Doll, McMinnville Cream, Chocolate Coconut,

Triple Chocolate Penetration, Maple Blazer Blunt

Food Fight! Vegan Grocery

After leaving Voodoo Doughnut, we stopped by Food Fight! Vegan Grocery, which is fairly close by, but because of one-way streets it took us a while to get there... I was hoping to find some Secret Aardvark Habanero Hot Sauce, but they were sold out :(  But I still managed to find some different local Portland hot sauces, along with a few other things that were priced significantly less than at home.

1. Secret Aardvark Drunken Jerk Sauce

2. Aunt Patty's Raw Organic Agave Syrup

3. Dandies Classic Vanilla Flavor Marshmallows

4. Flameboy XXX Hot Sauce

5. Flameboy Hot Mango Sauce

We'll see if Flameboy is as good as Secret Aardvark - I'm especially looking forward to trying the Hot Mango Sauce. And I think some rice cereal treats are in my future - I've never had vegan marshmallows before!

Vegan Mofo Day 11: Portland 6

There was a Chevy's Restaurant right beside our hotel, and being a slave to my love of Mexican and Tex-Mex food, of course we had dinner there one night! Chevy's is a chain restaurant, and I've eaten there before, in San Francisco and somewhere else that I can't recall at the moment. Every single time I eat way too much because their portions are obscenely large and I have no self-control. But it's so good!

While you wait for your order they serve you fresh salsa and chips. The salsa is delicious, and I think must be made with roasted tomatoes, judging by the colour and the slightly sweet undertones. And the thin, white corn tortilla chips come warm and lightly salted. I love them!

Chevy's makes their own Smokin' Hot Habanero Hot Sauce. It's no Secret Aardvark, but it is good.

I had the veggie burrito - which as far as I can tell is one of the only veganizable items on the menu - with no sour cream or cheese and with black beans. It was tasty and gigantic and I ate just over half and left with a bit of a tummy ache. I need to learn to ask for a doggy bag when my food comes and package up half right away. Maybe next time...

Vegan Mofo Day 10: Portland 5

I love finding funky local restaurants a little off the beaten path in cities I'm visiting. Hungry Tiger Too is one of those places. Half bar and half pub/restaurant, it seems like a hang out for twenty-somethings and college students, with crazy murals on the walls and mismatched cutlery and dishes. We walked right in and sat ourselves in a booth and got prompt and attentive service. I really liked the place, and although we didn't quite fit in with the hipster vibe, our tattoos acted as a good cover.

Hungry Tiger Too is located at 207 SE 12th Ave. As far as I can tell from the internet, there was an original Hungry Tiger, but it's no longer open.

 They definitely cater to us veggies, as they have two menus, a classic menu and a vegan menu. Both menus feature classic pub fare, including burgers, nachos and sandwiches.

A very respectable selection of condiments on the table, including Secret Aardvark Habanero Hot Sauce (see below).

Secret Aardvark Trading Co is a local Portland company that makes a couple of sauces and marinades. I can say from experience that the Aardvark Habanero Hot Sauce is great. It's not kick-in-the-pants hot, but a nice combination of rich spiciness and a bit of smoky tomato flavour. I'm going to see if I can find some to take home before we leave Portland, because I would put it on anything!

I had never before in my life eaten a corn dog, so when I saw vegan corndogs on the menu I pounced! And anything that comes with a side of tater tots is alright in my books... Verdict: I love corn dogs! I topped them with yellow mustard and habanero hot sauce, and they were delicious - crispy on the outside and moist on the inside. Not something I'd eat every day (notice that there is no colour other than brown in my meal, save the mustard), but a great treat. I washed the dogs n' tots down with a pint of Rogue Dead Guy Ale, a nice, slightly hoppy brew from the famous Portland Brewery, also brown.

I really want to try Hungry Tiger Too again - I need to try their Mac n' Cheeze and Biscuits n' Gravy! Guess another trip to Portland is necessary...

Vegan Mofo Day 9: Portland 4

So who among you, my American readers, wants to sponsor me to come live in the States, because I want to move to Portland!

My newest interesting Portland discovery is NE Alberta Street (aka Alberta Arts District), a funky, artsy neighbourhood with myriad cafes, art supply stores, bookstores, boutiques... and Tin Shed Garden Cafe. We had breakfast there, and despite the long wait for a table and super-slow service, it was fantastic!

The Tin Shed is at 1438 NE Alberta Street. You can't miss it - it's covered in corrugated tin and there's probably always a line up outside. We got there at 8:15 on Sunday morning and there was already a 20 minute wait for a table!

They have a serve-yourself coffee bar with their own Tin Shed blend and decaf for us wussies, which you're welcome to use even when you're waiting for a table. That makes the wait a little more bearable, although it also means if you want a refill after you're seated, chances are you're going to have to get up and get it yourself.

 An okay selection of condiments on the table, and a super-cool drink menu with hand-decorated wooden covers. Each one was unique.

I had the "Tim Curry" and this photo absolutely does not do it justice! It was tofu, yam, zucchini, mushroom & onion in a coconut-curry sauce, served over a bed of spinach & topped with roasted peanuts & avocado, with potato patties on the side. It also comes with raisins, but I had it without. It was sooo delicious!

Mum had a half order of the "Belly Pleaser" - rice pudding made with jasmine rice, coconut milk, ginger & vanilla and topped with fresh mango & cinnamon - and a fruit salad. Although the fruit salad was good, she wishes she got the full order of "Belly Pleaser", as it was heavenly. She has a lower tolerance for slow service than I do, and even she thought it was worth the wait!

All in all, NE Alberta Street is a cool neighbourhood, and Tin Shed is a great place to eat. Check it out next time you're in Portland.