Wright Eats

Crack buns.  Need I say more?  Nicknamed by Harvest Vine customers who are as enamored as I am with “Carolin’s Sweet Buns,” these buttery pastries truly are addictive.  They go fast, too.  The first time we visited the Harvest Vine for their new brunch, our server had to check with the kitchen to make sure there were any left for us.  Fortunately for us, we got the last two.  Fortunately for the people who walked in the door behind us, more were on their way into the oven.

 
Caracolillos: Carolin’s sweet buns with vanilla bean sugar

Made with hand-rolled croissant dough and crusted with vanilla bean sugar, they were a happy accident that came about while owner and pastry chef Carolin Messier was recipe testing this spring.  She was about to bake a batch of sweet buns and ran out of space on the baking sheet.  The only thing handy was a stack of ramekins, so she nestled the extra spirals of dough inside the ramekins and popped them into the oven.  It turns out these were the best croissant dough pastries she’d made yet.  The ramekin walls leave them slightly chewy around the edges, yet shatteringly flaky.

During her spring testing, Carolin also perfected her recipe for Mallorcan bread served with spaghetti squash preserves, and features it alongside other savory and sweet items on the new brunch menu.  Although the Harvest Vine has been open for more than a decade, this is the first brunch offering they’ve had.

With a baby now in tow, brunch was welcome news to us since it gives us a chance to go more often to a restaurant we love.  Carolin said we’re not the first parents to mention this – patrons she hasn’t seen in months, or even years, are bringing their young families in on Saturdays and Sundays.

Txistorra: Navarran style pork sausage

Piquillos Rellanos de Morcilla: Blood sausage inside Piquillo peppers

Huevos Flamencos: Baked eggs with asparagus, peas, chorizo, jamon, and fried tomato sauce.

Much of the menu is familiar from the dinner hour, including a favorite of ours, the txistorra sausage, bright red from the paprika inside and served with grilled bread alongside.  And while we usually enjoy the morcilla blood sausage at dinner, it was under seasoned on both of our brunch visits.  A plate full of dry-cured Serrano ham made up for that shortcoming, though.  The same jamon is featured inside one of their three bocadillos, which are Spanish-style sandwiches.

The highlight from the savory half of the menu is head chef Joey Serquinia’s creation, Huevos Flamencos.  These eggs are baked with peas and asparagus in the Harvest Vine’s famous (well, I think it should be famous) fried tomato sauce.  As you dig in you uncover the bits of jamon and tangy chorizo below.

Pork belly and peppers topped the other baked egg dish we liked.  While pork may be a more likely mainstay on the menu than the asparagus and peas, the entire menu changes with the seasonality of ingredients and the whim of the chef.  Still, with their popularity, I expect that the crack buns will stick around for a while.

The Harvest Vine
2701 East Madison, Seattle
(206) 320-9771

One of our favorite Seattle restaurants closed at the end of last year, leaving an open space sandwiched between a Subway shop and a teriyaki place in a strip mall on Eastlake.  Sitka & Spruce will be reopening elsewhere, and its old space has been filled with Nettletown, a restaurant opened this month by Christina Choi and her partner Matt Dillon.

Years ago, Christina co-founded Foraged and Found Edibles, which is a frequent stop of ours at the U-District market for wild mushrooms, miner’s lettuce, nettles, fiddleheads, and especially huckleberries.  She is using these ingredients in her restaurant, making comfort food influenced by our local area and her Chinese and Swiss culinary heritage.  Nettletown is open for lunch and brunch only, although Christina plans to extend service to dinner in the future.

The interior hasn’t changed dramatically, but there have been a few updates.  Sitka’s yellow walls have been painted blue now, with a lovely mural depicting the forest floor, morel mushrooms and all.  And there is now seating at a new low-slung surface added to the formerly standing-room-only counter.

Old habits die hard.  When we walked in, it still had that familiar aura of Sitka & Spruce, so we waited politely to find out where they wanted us to sit, only to be reminded that they offer counter service at the front, and we could sit wherever we like.  I love this kind of casual way of serving “yummy food” (as the sub-title on their web site says).  It makes it feel easy to stop in for a bite.  I only wish service were a little speedier; the food took longer to reach the table than many full-service restaurants, in spite of the place being only half-full.

For weekend brunch, they have a few additional offerings beyond their “always available” menu.  We wanted to try the elk meatballs (also available in a sandwich), so ordered them as an add-on to eggs, potato onion cakes, and miner’s lettuce salad.  The greens were nicely dressed and a good complement to the potato cakes and perfectly poached eggs.  Lemongrass brightened the flavorful meatballs, and it was a generous portion for $4 additional.

Noodles catch my eye on any menu.  The Nettletown noodles looked exactly like the comfort food I was craving.  The egg noodles are served with pork ribs, wild mushrooms, scallions, and a tea egg, and reminded me of my favorite ramen dish at Samurai Noodle, sans broth.  But drawing the parallel led me to disappointment, since the noodles were bland, and the tea egg was nothing like the flavored egg served at Samurai.  Fortunately, the five spice ribs were marbled and delicious.  With a few tweaks, I think this would be an excellent dish.

The huckleberry cardamom bread pudding with yogurt whipped cream was a sweet finale to our brunch.  Warm and full of berries, it was my favorite item.

Dishes I want to try on my next visit include the Nettletown knoepfli (Swiss egg noodle dumplings), and the fried rice, which is only offered for weekend brunch and changes daily.

We noticed a number of people popping in to pick up take-out orders.  We are certainly going to take advantage of that in future, especially once they’re open for weeknight dinners.

Nettletown
2238 Eastlake Ave E, Seattle
(206) 588-3607

As you walk through the glass-paneled wood doors, you pass below an ornate sign resembling the one hung over sister restaurant Peso’s Kitchen & Lounge next door. This sign, however, is laced with the curves of New Orleans style wrought iron, and reads “Toulouse.”

Inspired by the French Quarter, Toulouse Petit opened in lower Queen Anne in November and has been packing in crowds ever since.

On a recent spring-like January morning, sunlight streamed in through the wall of paneled windows, reflecting a warm glow off the mottled walls inside. The mosaic tile floor, blown-glass amber lamps hung from above, and wrought iron fixtures made it seem like we’d just walked into a Bourbon Street bar. Although the upholstered, tall-back chairs and velvet booths were all occupied, the open space on this bright Seattle day made it seem lightly busy and gave it a casual laid-back feel.

Another mom and I were there with babies in tow for Toulouse Petit’s Breakfast Happy Hour. On weekday mornings through the end of January, almost everything on the menu is $5 (with only a couple exceptions, like the Rib Eye Steak and Eggs, which is $10). In February, the price goes up to $6 an item.

They offer an ambitious menu, whether you’re there for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Even the happy hour menu (4:30-6 p.m. and 10 p.m.-1 a.m.) lists dozens of items, many for around $5. The breakfast menu includes beignets, crawfish etouffee with corn grits, red beans and andouille with eggs, bananas foster pancakes, and more than a handful of different eggs benedicts.

Portion sizes are not huge. I was hungry that morning, and with the lure of $5 price tags, I ordered two plates and ate nearly all of both.

Biscuits and spicy Creole sausage gravy came with two eggs any style. Biscuits and gravy is often a heavy, dense dish, but these biscuits were small and the gravy, while tasty, was applied with a light touch. The breakfast potatoes served alongside were crispy and nicely seasoned.

The crème caramel pain perdu is served with pecan butter, maple syrup, and strawberries.  The bread was thick and custardy with a crisp coating, and as insanely sweet as it sounds.

With such extensive offerings, you’d have to live down the block to make any kind of appreciable dent in the menu. But for the happy hour price, breakfast is more than worthwhile, so I expect I’ll be back soon to explore the menu further.

Toulouse Petit
601 Queen Anne Avenue N, Seattle
(206) 432-9069

It’s the time of year when many of us are hosting out of town visitors and family.  With the holidays, you may be planning a brunch, perhaps for Christmas morning, or maybe for New Year’s Day.  I’m curious: what are your favorite things to make for brunch?

I like to look for make-ahead recipes, so that I don’t have to wake at the crack of dawn, and can relax with my guests over a cup of coffee.  I’m a big fan of these cheese-filled blintzes from Chef Robin Leventhal.  Make them the night before, and all you have to do is fry them up, pop them in the oven, and set the table.

Or how about a granola parfait?  I’m so addicted to Molly’s homemade granola recipe that it’s an every-morning kind of thing for me to layer granola and yogurt together for breakfast.  But add some layers of fruit and serve in a trifle bowl, and it would make a lovely addition to a brunch buffet.

For something savory, an egg soufflé is a great dish to make the night before.  I’ve enjoyed this Greg Atkinson recipe, published in the Seattle Times a few years ago.  Made like a bread pudding, it was the centerpiece of our Christmas breakfast last year.

Citrus fruits are like jewels on the holiday table.  My favorite make-ahead side dish is a bowl of vanilla citrus fruits.  The fruit infuses overnight with vanilla bean and a touch of honey which mellows the tang, and it is beautiful served in glass goblets or a pretty holiday bowl.

I’m always looking for new brunch ideas.  Feel free to add your suggestions and links to the comments below.

Vanilla Bean Infused Citrus Fruit
Serves 8

5 oranges
4 ruby grapefruit
1 vanilla bean
Honey

Segment the fruit:  Slice off the top and bottom of the fruit, exposing the flesh inside.  Set the fruit on a cutting board, and slice off the skin and white pith in strips, by following the curve of the fruit with your knife.  When all the skin is gone, hold the fruit in your hand over a bowl and gently slide your knife between the membrane walls to release the segments.

Before discarding, squeeze any remaining juice out of the membrane and into the bowl of fruit.

Cut open a vanilla bean and extract the seeds with a knife.  Stir the seeds into the juice to evenly distribute them.  Place the vanilla pod into the bowl, too.

Stir in a few spoonfuls of honey, to taste.  Refrigerate overnight.  Serve chilled.

Six of us met up in Portland for three days this past weekend for the sole purpose of eating our way around the city.  Our friends Kye and Eric initially proposed the idea so that we could all try their favorite Portland restaurant, Tanuki, and we were immediately on board along with friends Michael and Robin.  All six of us like to fully research our food stops before we travel, so soon we collectively had a list that would take us at least two weeks to tackle.  We somehow managed to whittle it down to these:

Making vacuum pot coffee at Barista; macaroni and cheese at Laurelhurst Market; drinks at Beaker & Flask.

Laurelhurst Market – This is a new restaurant and butcher shop owned by the same folks as Simpatica Dining Hall, where we had an awesome brunch a few years back.  We checked into the hotel and headed straight here for dinner.  Some of the highlights were the pork chop sandwich with tomato sauce and arugula, the cod fritters, their super-tasty fries with herbs and the perfect amount of salt (though not crispy enough), and sweetbreads with gnocchi.  We heard the boudin blanc sandwiches were great, but the menu changes weekly and these were weeks-gone by our visit.  But you can buy the boudin blanc and other amazing-looking charcuterie from their cold case in the front of the store.

Beaker & Flask – We stopped at this month-old bar for cocktails after dinner.  They offer a tasty-sounding dinner and happy hour menu, but we were pretty stuffed already from dinner and so we stuck with drinks.  The vibe here is great, while we found the cocktails hit and miss.  Eric liked his Philo Bione, while the Coltrane! Coltrane! Coltrane! was too medicinal for everyone’s taste.

Barista – First stop on Friday morning was this vacuum pot coffee brewer in the Pearl District.  Not only is the brewing fun to watch as the heat pushes the water into the upper vessel, but the bitterness of the coffee is completely removed, making it smooth to drink.  Even one of the non-coffee drinkers in our group was impressed with the coffee and loved how smooth it was.

Broder – For a taste of Sweden in Portland, we headed to Broder to try their aebleskiver pancakes and Swedish meatballs.  The aebleskiver are round eggy pancakes served with lemon curd (my favorite), lingonberry jam, and maple syrup.  The meatballs come in a lovely sherry cream sauce.

Slathering lemon curd on aebleskiver at Broder Cafe; Nong, of Nong’s Khao Man Gai street food cart; sour cherry tartlette with vanilla bean whipped cream and aged balsamic caramel at Beast.

Next, we moved straight on to lunch, a tour around Portland’s street carts.  Seattle has been all abuzz with the new street carts opening recently in our fair city, but we’ve got nothing on Portland.  Really, I had no idea there could be such a variety of carts scattered all over a single city.  On their own, or more commonly, in clusters together taking up an entire parking lot (Skillet is working on starting Seattle’s first such street food market later this year), there is every possible variety of food to be found on the streets of Portland.  There are so many carts that there’s an entire site devoted to reviewing them:  Food Carts Portland.  Get yourself down to Portland.  Now.  There is nothing to match the experience of a sunny summer day sitting on a curb eating street cart food.

Koi Fusion – Only a few months old, this is Portland’s Korean taco truck.  Kogi is the famous Korean taco truck in L.A., and Seattle has our own Hawaiian-Korean truck, Marination Mobile.  At Koi, Eric and I tried a kimchee quesadilla and beef bulgogi taco.  The kimchee here definitely beats Marination’s.  Bo is the owner and face of the truck, while his mom is the cook behind the cart, making the marinated meat, kimchee, and tortillas by hand.  Many of the carts in Portland have fixed locations, but Koi is a cart on the move.  You can keep up with their location by following them on twitter @koifusionpdx.

Nong’s Khao Man Gai – Following suit with the style of the traditional street carts in Thailand, this cart only offers one dish, unlike most of the other Portland carts.  At first, the steamed chicken (gai) and rice (khao) dish looks simple and perhaps bland, but the secret to its addictive goodness is in Nong’s garlicky sauce, with flavors of ginger, chili, and galangal in perfect balance.  Served with a clear broth to slurp between bites, you have yourself some seriously good Thai street food.  You can add an option of chicken liver, but she ran out by the time we got here at 1:30.  In fact, as soon as we placed our order, a sign went up telling people they were completely out of food for the day.

Spella Caffe – On our walk to our next stop, we grabbed chai teas from the Spella Caffe cart at SW 9th and Alder.  Normally served hot, we got ours over ice, since there’s no other way to drink it with the 90 degree heat.  Milky with a nice blend of spices, this was a good thirst-quencher.

BrunchBox Food Cart – Our street food guide joining us for lunch today, Patrick Coleman (writer for the Portland Mercury), steered us to BrunchBox to satisfy our grilled cheese sandwich burger cravings.  Initially, we were planning to head to The Grilled Cheese Grill to try this monstrosity of a burger, but he said the version at BrunchBox was less greasy, plus it was a convenient short walk away from Nong’s.  The Youcanhascheeseburger! is a burger served between two Texas-toast grilled cheese sandwich buns.  The burger was initially a joke written on the menu, but it has become a regular menu item since people actually ordered it!  The latest joke at BrunchBox is the Redonkadonk: a burger with egg, ham, spam, bacon, and American cheese between two Texas-toast grilled cheese sandwich buns for $9.  People are ordering that, too, so they’re now offering a double Redonkadonk.

Discussing the merits of the Pine State Biscuit breakfast plates; talking with Bo at Koi Fusion PDX; soppressata pizza at Ken’s Artisan Pizza.

Rogue Distillery – The heat was getting to us by this point, so we looked for a place to hang out indoors and rest our feet.  Rogue was a great place to try a sampling of beers, along with the Rogue root beer.  As we were sitting there, we saw a stout ice cream float delivered to the neighboring table – that would’ve been ideal for a day like this!

Beast – Dinner this evening was six courses at Beast with wine pairings.  We’d all tried Beast for brunch previously, but this was our first dinner there.  The chilled cauliflower velouté was a tasty start to the meal.  The was followed by a charcuterie plate, where the highlight was the foie gras bon-bon: a melt-in-your-mouth dome of foie on a tiny shortbread cookie, and topped with Sauternes geleé.  The duck leg for the main course was very nicely balanced with a green tomato confiture, and this was followed by a lovely shaved fennel salad with Parmesan crisps, then a cheese plate, and a tiny cherry tartlette.

Ken’s Artisan Pizza – We were stuffed after Beast, but with so little time in Portland, we couldn’t pause on food.  Several of us have previously been to Apizza Scholls and consider it the best pizza Portland has to offer.  But none of us had been to Ken’s, another highly acclaimed Portland pizza.  The two aren’t exactly comparable apples for apples – Apizza is aiming more for NY-style, while Ken’s is inspired by Italy.  We ordered one Margherita pizza for the six of us, figuring we’d each get a taste.  The waitress gave us a funny look and started to tell us that one pizza may not be enough, until we explained how this was dessert after our six-course meal, and we had to try it before we went back to Seattle.  After realizing we were serious, she steered us toward the soppressata instead, since we were only going to have one.  This was a great recommendation: crunchy around the edges of the thin-sliced soppresata, and the right ratio of toppings.  However, everyone agreed the crust at Apizza is better.  The best part was when the waitress comped our meal after we provided her a list of our favorite restaurants in Seattle for her upcoming trip north.

Whiffies Fried Pie Cart – We had one last stop to make before heading to bed.  Opened two months ago, Whiffies’ street cart specialty is fried pies.  I had trouble picturing what a fried pie would be like until they described it to us as shaped like an empanada.  It’s really a gourmet version of the Hostess fruit pies from your childhood.  We hear the savory pies are great, such as the BBQ brisket, but just thinking about one of those or a Beans & Franks fried pie after our food rampage made us all groan in pain.  Instead we split two sweet pies among the six of us: a guava and a strawberry pie.  Everyone besides me preferred the guava, but I loved the strawberry.  The pies have a super-flaky crust that I could tell would be perfect with a savory flavor.  On the corner of SE 12th and Hawthorne, the cart is open evenings until 3am.  The lot draws a crowd of people until the wee hours of the night.

Radishes at Portland Farmers Market; a fried Whiffie pie; eating a Ruby Jewel ice cream sandwich.

Portland Farmer’s Market – The next morning, we took the street car down to the Saturday market.  First stop was waiting in the long line for Pine State Biscuits.  We tried the Reggie deluxe (fried chicken, bacon, cheese, and a fried egg topped with sausage or mushroom gravy – we ordered two to taste both gravies), the McIsley (fried chicken with pickles, mustard, and honey), and a biscuit with Marionberry jam.  All were great.  Many were fans of the McIsley, while I preferred the Reggie with sausage gravy.  Then we wandered around the stalls, purchasing Marionberries to eat out of (purple) hand, pimientos de padrón which we broiled with oil and salt Sunday night, and fresh squeezed mint lemonade.  We also split a baker’s dozen of Two Tarts’ tiny little bakery treats.

Navarre – This was our stop for lunch, a small restaurant serving food inspired by Spain, France, and Italy.  You order by filling out a sheet with your choices of small or large items from the ever-changing menu.  Our favorites here were the boudin blanc, the kohl rabi with sheep’s cheese and blueberries, and the pile of artisan bread, toasted and served with fresh butter and cherry preserves.

Portland International Beerfest – After a stop at Powell’s, the guys walked over to the Beerfest, where they tried a number of draft and bottled beers of all styles.  Eric enjoyed the wheat beers he sampled but was disappointed that the cask-aged beers he was looking forward to were already gone.

Our lunch order at Navarre; upside-down peach cake at Navarre; a couple enjoying dinner at Tanuki.

Tanuki – Finally, the meal that we had planned the entire trip around: an omakase dinner at Eric and Kye’s favorite place, Tanuki.  The two of them travel down to Portland about once a month for Chef Janis’ izakaya food, and have been spreading the word ever since their first visit at the New Year.  Matthew Amster-Burton tried it on their recommendation and was impressed enough to do a write-up for Gourmet.  He made a special trip down to Portland to meet us for the dinner, since Janis promised to source some special items not offered on the menu.  Janis kept the food coming for hours, and even after we were stuffed enough to roll home, we wanted to keep tasting all of the amazing plates she set before us: 20 courses in all!  Her food is very traditional in the flavors of Japan and Korea, and her repertoire is vast.  Highlights included oysters with kimchee granita, albacore hand rolls assembled by us at the table, skate in cinnamon-tea sauce, and spicy tantan udon.  We couldn’t believe that she only charged us $50 a person, including all the incredible sakes!  This hole-in-the-wall is a must for your next visit to Portland.  But get there this summer, because Janis is planning some changes very soon.

Dishes at Tanuki: oysters with shaved kimchi granita; albacore tuna, cucumber, and nori; cabbage and vegetables with wasabi.

Clyde Common – Since it was only a couple blocks from our hotel, we stopped off here on the way back.  Everyone enjoyed their cocktails, and felt that the drinks here are well-balanced, making this one of the top places in the city for cocktails.

Bakery Bar – Matthew persuaded us to meet here in the morning, to try Bakery Bar’s house-made English muffin breakfast sandwiches.  We wanted to see how they compared to Dahlia Bakery’s egg sandwiches.  They definitely have some creative flavors here – I enjoyed my fried egg sandwich with cheddar and bacon-apple-caramelized onion jam, although I think Dahlia still has the edge on the muffins.  Our group was pretty divided on this, though.  The scones were the perfect combination of crusty edges and fluffy insides, and I gobbled up mine made with blue cheese, caramelized onions, and apples.  We all split a banana chocolate mousse cake to take home.  The cakes are beautifully decorated, reasonably priced, and tasty, too.

Kenny & Zuke’s SandwichWorks – Last stop before hitting the road was to the new branch of Kenny & Zuke’s, SandwichWorks.  We grabbed sandwiches to-go and said our good-byes before heading back to Seattle.

For more photos from our Portland trip, check out our flickr stream.  And here are some of our other Portland recommendations from last year.

I’ve been waiting for The Corson Building to start brunch for what seems like for-e-ver.  At around the time that The Corson Building opened last year, my favorite brunch in Seattle, the one at sister-restaurant Sitka and Spruce, closed.  It was a sad day when we walked up on a Sunday morning, only to find that brunch was gone.

So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that we were at the Corson Building today on their first day of Sunday brunch service.  This time around, they take reservations along with walk-ins, unlike Sitka which was walk-in only.  We were happy to find brunch just as we remembered (although here with grapefruit juice! – my morning drink of choice).  There’s the buffet full of cold salads made with local produce, homemade yogurt with local honey and nuts, pâté with kumquats, and fresh baked almond macaroons.  And then you have your choice of one of the two hot dishes made-to-order – today I ordered the poached egg with locally-foraged boletes and a touch of creme.  A simple, delicious dish, which I finished by dredging my bread through the runny yolk and creme mixture.

One thing that’s sadly missing from brunch at The Corson Building is U.S. barista champion Bronwen Serna’s espresso drinks.  That was one of the things we looked forward to most at Sitka, but The Corson Building has no espresso machine and therefore no Bronwen.  Anyone know where she might be serving espresso nowadays?

Although tasty, I don’t know if we’ll be going back as much as we frequented Sitka for brunch.  Eastlake is a quick jog down the road, but Georgetown just isn’t as convenient for us.  But we chatted briefly with Chef Emily Crawford afterwards, and she remembered how Eric wanted to try the fried chicken and waffles, which they once had on the menu last year.  She thought they might try that later this month.  I hope we don’t miss it again!

The Corson Building
5609 Corson Ave, Seattle
(206) 762-3330

I had requested beautiful weather for my birthday, and woke up to the warmest day yet this spring.  The sun was streaming through the arboretum as we headed to Rover’s this morning for their first ever brunch.  We were even the first to arrive.  (After seeing our photos in A Day at elBulli last month, whenever we’re the first to show up anywhere, we importantly declare to each other, “The first guests arrive.”  Flip to page 19:45 if you have the book.)

They offer two- and three-course fixed price menus ($25 and $35, respectively), but we designed our own two course brunches from the à la carte menu.  Eric’s braised pork belly with poached eggs and harissa hollandaise was out of this world, and my arugula, mushroom, and herbed goat cheese omelette was light and fresh tasting – perfect for a spring morning.  We finished with selections from the “Sweets” section: the most gourmet coffee cake ever for Eric, and beignets for me.  We were stuffed and happy as we rolled ourselves out into the sunshine.

Now I’m planning to curl up with my new book, Clotilde’s Edible Adventures in Paris, to decide what we should do on our vacation there this year.  And maybe I’ll try out my new game, Foodie Fight, with Eric.  If only the weekend could last another day…

Rover’s
2808 E Madison St, Seattle
(206) 325-7442

Crémant is one of my favorite restaurants in town.  We don’t get over to Madrona often, but I’m always happy to take an excursion for steak frites or roasted marrow bones.  When I heard last week that Crémant was going to start serving brunch on the weekend, I felt like Jules in Pulp Fiction when he first hears about Amsterdam: “I’m going, that’s all there is to it, I’m going.” 

Before we arrived on Sunday morning, Dawn already knew what she wanted to order (having seen a snippet of the menu online): Bacon and Egg Pasta.  We arrived hungry, and I studied the menu ravenously, hemming and hawing, considering ordering one of everything, but I had this feeling that might be just a little too much food.  With a little nudging from our waitress, I finally settled on the Scrambled Eggs with Pork Belly, and a French press of Caffe Vita.

Eager anticipation turned into persistent hunger as I sipped my coffee for a long, long while, tasting it getting colder and colder.  Finally, our dishes arrived, and my first thought was, “Uh-oh, I’m going to be really hungry after this.”  Our dishes were beautifully presented and tasted as good as we hoped, but there just wasn’t a lot of food on our $10 plates.  Perhaps we should have asked our waitress if we had ordered enough food, but it would have been nice if she had helped steer us in the right direction.  (Friends of ours who also had brunch at Crémant that morning said their waitress suggested they order some side dishes to complement their egg dishes.)  We asked for some bread to sop up the eggs, which helped fill a little space.

Fortunately, they offer breakfast dessert (!) featuring Claudio Corallo chocolate.  We shared a chocolate cognac drink and a chocolate chip cookie.  (Hey, it was practically noon by this time, so cognac was fair game.)  We had fond memories of the chocolate cognac drink from a dinner at Crémant earlier this year, and it lived up to our expectations.

Will we go back for brunch?  Yes – we enjoyed our dishes, there are more things we want to try, and we’ve read that they will feature different farm eggs on the menu each month.  (This month is hen eggs from Morgan’s Roost on Vashon Island.  Duck, quail, and goose eggs will all make their appearance.)  However, Crémant won’t win the “best brunch value” award, and we hope they’re able to turn around orders a little faster as they figure out their game.

Crémant
1423 34th Ave, Seattle
(206) 322-4600

Now we can have our favorite crêpes for dinner, too.  Anita opened her restaurant in Ballard this week, serving crêpes just like her popular farmer’s market locations.  In addition to some of the market-favorites, like my “usual,” the spinach, feta, mozzarella, and cracked black pepper crêpe, she has some new crêpes that you can only find on her restaurant menu.  And at dinnertime, when we went, there is a small dinner menu alongside the crêpe menu, with choices like chicken liver pâté, pumpkin soup, steamed mussels, and lamp chops with Mission figs.  The menu changes every few days.

Lamb chop with Mission figs and potatoes.
Photo by guest blog photographer, John Gossman.

The interior has a comfy-cozy neighborhood feel, perfect for tucking into on a cool fall evening.  With its large windows and warm yellow decor, I imagine that it’ll be a great hangout for breakfast, too.

Anita looked happy for opening week to have arrived, and weary, too.  It was her third day open, and she said evening business has been good already, but that weekday breakfasts have been pretty slow.  With the popularity of neighboring Ballard brunch spots, like Dish, I’m sure she’ll be more than busy for weekend brunch.  And word will get out soon enough.

Remember how I said a couple months ago that there was no need to fret about her market stands closing?  I was wrong.  While some stands, like her stalwart Ballard market location, will indeed remain open, it looks like the U-District location we’ve come to love has only a few short weeks left.  Anita says that her U-District market stand has not had much business.  In fact, she received more business at the U-District market last winter than this summer.  That seems counterintuitive unless you remember how they moved the food stands, including her crêpes, outside the main market and over near the University Heights building.  With that move, she stopped getting the market foot traffic.

It’s too bad they can’t figure out a way to better integrate the food stands with the farmers at this market.  I know how important the farmers are, and I certainly don’t want them to get displaced by the food stands, but there must be some way to open up the market a bit more to the back area and encourage more foot traffic.  There’s a good symbiotic relationship there – Anita buys her ingredients from the farmers each morning, and she even attracts people to the market.  With the inundation of produce from our CSA delivery this summer, there are plenty of weeks where we wouldn’t even have gone to the market.  But sometimes nothing seems better on a Saturday morning than Anita’s crêpes, so we’d walk down there anyway.  And once we’re there, we always buy a few things from the farmers that catch our eye.  It looks like we’ll be making more trips to Ballard, to wait in the long line at her Sunday market stand, or dine in at her restaurant.

Anita’s Crêpes
4350 Leary Way NW, Seattle
(206) 838-9997

It had been almost two years since we’d been down to Portland, Oregon.  Portland has become quite a dining destination in recent years, with skilled chefs opening innovative restaurants constantly.  We spent two nights there this weekend, hoping to whittle down the list of restaurants we’ve been compiling.  While it was one of our more memorable foodie weekends in recent memory, we’re left with a list that has only grown longer.

The first reservation we made was for Le Pigeon, since we weren’t able to dine there on our last trip.  Then, a month ago, my coworker foodie friend Kurt came back from Portland with a glowing review of his meal at Sel Gris, a fine dining restaurant that opened there last fall.  We were torn.  We’d be there only Saturday through Monday, and neither restaurant is open on Sundays.  Should we wait yet another trip to try Le Pigeon, or should we miss out on Sel Gris?  In the end, we canceled our reservation at Le Pigeon and made a new reservation for Sel Gris at 5:30 pm.  A little earlier than we desired, but it was the only time still available for the 6-seat chef’s counter (where Kurt said we had to sit).

We arrived in Portland during lunchtime.  Since we didn’t want to eat much before dinner, we opted for lunch at Escape from New York Pizza.  Eric misses the NY pizza from his childhood and is always on a quest to find good NY pizza.  He likes Seattle’s A New York Pizza Place, but the crust and sauce there are a little blander than I like.  Escape from NY Pizza pleased us both, with tasty sauce, plain cheese pizza for Eric (which he says is the way it’s meant to be eaten), and a New York vibe inside the place.

We did some shopping, checked into our hotel, and then caught a cab to Sel Gris.  We were the first to arrive when it opened and sat in the center two seats at the glowing amber counter.  It was really tough to order, because so many items sounded good.  My eyes kept landing on the pasta dish.  I knew it was the token vegetarian dish, and I felt that I should order a meat dish to really see what the chef could do.  But I love pasta when it’s done well, and I just couldn’t pass up the artichokes, peas, ramps, mushrooms, and goat cheese, which may as well be a list of all of my favorite things.  So I ordered it anyway.  Eric chose the lamb.  We heard a number of other lamb orders fired after his, and I don’t think we had been sitting there for more than 15 minutes when we heard the chef tell the wait staff that there was only one lamb dish left for the night – apparently they’d had an early run on lamb.  I guess our early reservation was fortuitous!

We started with the foie gras done two ways.  This was the first dish out of the kitchen that evening, and so our first opportunity to see what beautiful plates Chef Daniel Mondock constructs.  The chef’s counter directly overlooks Chef Mondock’s station, where he effortlessly drew a pattern onto our plate with molasses.  The plate was warm, so the molasses melted and then thickened as it cooled, sealing in the blood orange sauce alongside.  We know this because we were so intrigued by its consistency as we ate it that we had to ask our waitress Mary why it wasn’t fluid as we’d expected.  Both foie preparations, one cold and one seared hot, were flawlessly seasoned and we instantly knew what Kurt, and the subsequent reviews we’d read, had been fussing about.  This was only the first in a series of spot-on dishes, brilliantly presented and incredibly flavored.

Our salads were next.  Mine was fun to eat: a salade composée, where the components of the salad were artfully arranged on a plate.  Rabbit paté with a tiny cornichon and mustard on the left, grilled onions cradling olives, figs, crispy pork, and almonds in the middle, and then diced strawberries with cheese on the right.  Eric enjoyed the Lyonnaise salad with warmed frisee, lardon, bacon vinaigrette, and a poached duck egg.  His only complaint of the night was that while the salad was nicely seasoned, the egg was not, so he had to add some of the sel gris they had provided on the side.  Perhaps this was intentional, in homage to the restaurant moniker?  It did seem out of place in the salad.

I could tell that our main courses were coming when I saw vivid green English pea puree being spread in a rectangle across a dark plate.  The pasta with peas was piled into a cylinder on one side and the vegetables were arranged on the other.  One bite and I was happy.  Creamy and sweet with the goat cheese sauce and perfectly al dente hand-cut noodles, it was exactly what I was hoping for.  But I couldn’t help eyeing Eric’s lamb.  He shared a few bites and I now understood why everyone was ordering it.  Neither of us had eaten such a tender, flavorful lamb loin before.  And then there was the spherical round of spiced lamb balanced on top.  What was this?  Yellow egg yolk burst from the center when Eric cut into it – an egg had been wrapped in lamb!  The pepper crust went perfectly and we agreed this was the best part of the dish, even with that amazing loin.

Over dessert, we chatted a bit with our waitress and one of the waiters.  They wanted to know where we’d recommend they eat when they visit Seattle this summer.  In exchange, they gave us a few tips on places to try in Portland.  We hadn’t even eaten at two restaurants yet and already our list was growing again: Nicholas (Lebanese), Good Taste Restaurant (Chinese), and Restaurant Murata (Japanese).

Mary also told us how she’d lived in Barcelona recently, which piqued our interest, since we love that city.  She told us not to miss Cinq Sentits next time we visit, which is an up-and-coming restaurant that she thinks is outstanding.  She said that it’s only a matter of time before it becomes more widely known.

While we were talking about Portland, she mentioned that Le Pigeon is great, too.  We heard this at least twice more during our visit, but even so we didn’t regret missing it.  Sel Gris far exceeded our expectations, and we’re glad that we had the chance to dine at this creative Portland restaurant.

We headed back to our hotel, but it was still early – daylight, in fact.  Michelle Magidow, from Licorous/Lark, had mentioned that there is an innovative new cocktail bar in the Pearl called Teardrop Lounge.  We weren’t really in the mood for cocktails after that meal, but we wanted to go somewhere and this was another place not open on Sundays so it was our only chance to try it.  So we walked over from our hotel.  These people are passionate about drinks!  My cocktail was interesting, with forbidden black rice horchata and chipotle-chocolate bitters.  They make their bitters in house.  Eric ordered from their extensive sake menu.  It was a “small” sake but I was lucky that it was really quite large, because I stole more than a couple sips – it was amazing.

We stopped at Powell’s and stayed until close, lost in the photography section.  The only reason I mention Powell’s is for one food-related find that we purchased with our books: an Envirosax.  Everyone seems to be catching on to using reusable bags as part of their regular routine at the grocery store, including us, but sometimes we forget to bring our bag.  There’s no excuse with Envirosax, because it’s a lightweight eco-friendly polyester bag that rolls up to a tiny size that fits in your palm.  Stash one in your glove box or your purse and you’ll never be without a bag again.

Onto day two… we are not yet done eating.  We had chatted with John Sundstrom before we left for Portland, and he recommended brunch at Beast, so this is where we headed on a sunny Sunday morning.  We’d enjoyed clarklewis last time we were in town, and Beast is Naomi Pomeroy’s newest venture.

The restaurant is small.  There is one small communal table, seating eight, and another about twice as big.  We were seated facing the open kitchen, which occupies about a third of the room.  We enjoyed Stumptown coffee and fresh squeezed juice while watching them prepare the first of four courses.  The menu called it “brioche and baguette french toast” but it was really a bread pudding (thinking about it, are they really much different?).  Topped with a strip of candied bacon, maple bourbon sauce, and whipped cream, it was like starting brunch with dessert.  Just my kind of brunch!

Between courses, we had fun reading the wall-sized chalkboard covered with cooking tips, quotes, and random info.  There was a small list on the side listing their favorite restaurants.  In case you are looking for more recommendations:

Second course was a poached egg perched on a hash of morels, crispy potatoes, spring peas, ramps, and a medallion of venison.  Hollandaise paired perfectly.  It reminded us of the lovely seasonal dishes we enjoy at our favorite Seattle brunch spot.  This was followed by a selection of Steve’s cheese and a wild gathered salad.  This wasn’t the only time we noticed Steve’s cheeses while we were in Portland.

Finally, there was dessert (or was it second dessert?).  A tiny scoop of buttermilk ice cream with poached rhubarb and a dollop of caramel ended the meal sweetly.

That afternoon, we headed to the Portland Indie Wine Festival.  It was a juried event featuring small independent wineries from the state.  It was fun meeting the winemakers and learning about wines we had never heard of before.  We particularly enjoyed the 2006 Pinot Noir wines from Johan Vineyards and Capitello Wines.  We also tried an interesting cranberry wine from Hawks View Winery.  We’ve tasted cranberry wines before in Door County, Wisconsin, and haven’t been big fans, but this one was nicely refined and not too sweet or tart.  It would be a fun wine to serve at Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner.

Dinner on Sunday was at Toro Bravo, another sibling of a restaurant we’d enjoyed on a previous trip, Simpatica Dining Hall.  We sat at the bar, continuing the weekend theme of observing the kitchen while we ate.  The kitchen was surrounded by the bar seats, but unless you’re along the back corner as we were, you can’t really see the cooking.  It was controlled chaos as the kitchen was slammed that night.  Everything was delicious.  We particularly liked the oxtail croquettes, which were hot and creamy inside.

We had noticed that the cook on the far end of the line looked familiar.  During a break near the end of our meal, she came over and wanted to know if we were from Seattle because she recognized us, too.  Turns out, we knew her from Lark where she previously worked.  Rachel has just moved down to Portland and is loving it.

Ok, just Monday left (are you still with us?). For lunch, we were headed to Pok Pok, which I’ve been dying to go to since Matthew Amster-Burton wrote about it in 2006.  He’s mentioned it regularly since and each time I wonder why I haven’t tried it yet.  This was really the entire motivation for our trip.

But wait, I forgot breakfast.  We knew we had to eat light, so we headed over to Stumptown Coffee for cappuccini (orrr, cappuccinos – they went out of their way to point out that they prepare them traditionally, but then go and call them cappuccinos   We also grabbed a doughnut (just one) from Voodoo Doughnuts up the street.  Only one because it was the most massive doughnut I’ve ever seen: their Memphis Mafia doughnut.  The two of us could only eat about a third of it.

We hung out until lunchtime and then headed over to Pok Pok.  This place was incredible.  The dishes we tried were definitely distinct from any other Thai restaurant we’ve been to.  Andy Ricker, the owner, is on a constant quest to recreate the best food in Thailand, along with Vietnam and China.  He regularly travels there and brings back new ideas, and is constantly evolving the menu.  We loved the Vietnamese Fish Sauce Wings, which were sweetly caramelized, garlicky, and left our mouths tingling.  Our favorite dish was the Khao Man Som Tam, which was shredded green papaya salad served with coconut rice and sweet shredded pork, along with fried shallots and cilantro.  The waitress suggested that we mix everything together to get the best combination of flavors and textures.  What an amazing dish.  The coconut rice alone was enough to make me happy.  We finished with the Pok Pok Affogato – condensed milk ice cream drowned in Vietnamese coffee, served with fried donuts for dunking.  If we had a place like this in Seattle, I would eat there regularly.

Initially, we thought that two days wouldn’t be enough, but with that much food packed into one weekend, we were ready to go home and detox.  However, we’ve vowed to return to Portland again before the end of the year.  Two years was too long.

Escape from New York Pizza
622 NW 23rd Ave, Portland
(503) 227-5423

Sel Gris
1852 SE Hawthorne, Portland
(503) 517-7770

Teardrop Cocktail Lounge
1015 NW Everett St, Portland
(503) 445-8109

Beast
5425 NE 30th St, Portland
(503) 841-6968

Toro Bravo
120 NE Russell St, Portland
(503) 281-4464

Pok Pok
3226 SE Division, Portland
(503) 232-1387

Stumptown Coffee
128 SW 3rd Ave, Portland
(503) 295-6144

Voodoo Doughnuts
22 SW 3rd Ave, Portland
(503) 241-4704

We decided to try something new for brunch on Sunday, and had read that Veil started serving brunch late last year, so we headed to lower Queen Anne.  During the day, Veil’s interior is diffuse and glowing, giving it a bit of a dreamy feel – perfect for waking up while waiting for your food.

A number of options on the menu looked good, and Dawn was torn between ricotta pancakes with blueberry compote or malted Belgian waffles with bananas and nutella.  She eventually settled on the pancakes with a side of apple chicken sausage, while I got biscuits and gravy with poached eggs.  We each started off with a cappuccino, and they were pretty weak; it was more like drinking steamed milk (at least the foam had good structure).  Grapefruit and orange juices were fresh-squeezed and tasty.  When our food arrived, the plates were very elegantly arranged, as one might expect at a chic place like Veil.  My dish was better than expected (the gravy had a wonderful flavor, and the poached eggs were perfect), but Dawn’s pancakes and sausage were both dry.  She wished she had gone for the waffles instead!

Given that things were hit-or-miss, I doubt that we’ll go back for brunch anytime soon, especially since there are so many good brunch places in Seattle.

Veil
555 Aloha St, Seattle
(206) 216-0600

We went for brunch today at Lola which is one of our favorite brunch spots.  We haven’t been downtown for brunch in a while, but we were walking by and decided to change plans so we could stop in.

I was seriously torn about what to order, because I love their house made pork-maple sausage which comes with the pancakes, but the spring pea, mint, and feta omelette with bacon sounded too good to pass up.  Then I noticed the people next to us enjoying the made-to-order doughnuts, which came with rhubarb as the seasonal jam.  Rhubarb, peas, I didn’t know what to do!  I finally settled on the omelette, which comes with toast, and convinced the waitress to bring a side of the rhubarb jam for my toast (I nearly tried subbing the sausage for the bacon, too).  She was happy to comply.

Eric’s choice was easy.  He loves octopus, so he ordered Tom’s Big Breakfast with an over easy egg.

On the way out, I grabbed one of the Krinos Ouzo licorice-flavored candies by the door.  Lola is almost worth a visit just for these candies.

Lola
2000 4th Ave, Seattle
(206) 441-1430