Wright Eats

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 Sentis 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

Tilth has been the media darling of late, ever since New York Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni named it one of the top 10 best new restaurants in the country several weeks back.

It’s been a long while since we’ve been there.  We went a number of times within the first couple months when they opened in 2006.  We followed Maria’s progress opening the place after she left Earth and Ocean, and she’s really got a great thing going.  The food is outstanding, and almost completely organic, a direction that I hope more restaurants will take.  We like the small/large options for each item on the menu, which gives us a chance to try a number of different smaller plates.  And the food is seasonal and delicious.

You may be wondering why we’ve been away for so long.  It’s not at all about the food, which we love.  We just seemed to have a knack for not having great service whenever we dined.  One time, we went with friends.  After we sat down, the server came over and asked if we had been there before.  We said yes and we’re ready to order.  Apparently not hearing us, she proceeded to explain, “well here’s how the menu works…”  Very bubbly, and clearly excited about working at Tilth, she then went on for several minutes explaining how great the restaurant is and how lucky the staff is to work there.  Finally, she did take our order.  This strange interaction might not have been a big deal, if she hadn’t practically disappeared for most of the remaining meal.  Dishes were served without utensils, and we struggled to flag someone down to bring us forks so we could eat.  More than one experience like this left us not too excited to return.

But most people we’ve spoken with have had great service at Tilth, so I thought perhaps we were unlucky and experiencing the growing pains of a new restaurant.  After reading Bruni’s glowing review (which interestingly did allude to some similar service issues), we thought it was time to give another try.

We went earlier this month, and the food was even better than I remembered.  The duck Proscuitto was outstanding.  We also enjoyed a root vegetable salad, melt-in-your-mouth Albacore Tuna, a delicious squash risotto, and of course the Mini Duck Burgers.  I think the jury’s still out on the service, however.  There was one point in the meal where multiple servers made us feel downright uncomfortable when we asked a question about a dish.

I do want to go back for brunch.  We went three or four times when they first started serving brunch.  Usually we were the only table in an empty restaurant, since the word hadn’t gotten out yet about brunch.  Everything was amazing, although the portions were fairly small (at least in the beginning – I don’t know about now).  But when you’ve got top-notch ingredients and a chef like Maria, the quality more than makes up for it.  I hear that brunch is now just as packed as the most popular brunch spots in Seattle, so reservations are recommended.

Tilth
1411 N. 45th St, Seattle
(206) 633-0801

I’ve been sitting on this blog posting for a while now - longer than this blog has even existed.  This was the topic of conversation with Sam when the idea for this blog came about.  But I’ve been delaying posting about it because I really don’t want people other than my friends to know about it.  I decided that, well, this blog is so new that really, only my friends are reading this anyway.  And by the time anyone else finds our blog, I’m sure the cat will be out of the bag already.

My secret is about brunch at Sitka and Spruce on Eastlake.  I have been obsessing about this for months now, since we first discovered that they started serving brunch.  Some of you may be aware of this restaurant, since they are, in my opinion, one of the best restaurants in Seattle.  Chef-owner Matt Dillon opened this place in 2006, and cooks with the seasons, using local ingredients, and creates outstanding dishes.  The restaurant is tiny, however, and they are now hugely popular, plus they don’t take reservations, so the wait for a seat at dinner has basically kept us from going here very frequently.  Sadly.

When they started serving weekend brunch, we knew we had to try it.  And we found it to be a completely different experience than dinner.  Brunch is totally laid back.  This morning, a mother was reading her pre-toddler a book; other mornings, there’s usually at least one person reading the paper.  And oddly (given the crowds of people at dinnertime), we found only half the tables occupied, so it’s pretty quiet.  The perfect way to wake up and settle into the day.  This is why the secrecy :), as I am certain these quiet mornings will be short-lived.  Especially since Sundays have started to get busy, and when we tried to go with Sam and his wife, it turned out to be a 45 minute wait so we headed to Smith instead.  I recommend either getting there right when they open at 10 (when you’ll find us there sometimes), or going on a Saturday.

You’re probably wondering, what’s so great about their brunch?  You can get good eggs, pancakes, etc. all around Seattle, right?  That’s the thing… this isn’t a traditional brunch.  Here’s how it works.  They have one fixed price for brunch, $17.  This gets you as much as you’d like from the small buffet, and a choice of one of two ever-changing items on the chalkboard.  This morning, I had a goat cheese blintz with a tiny salad and a fried egg.  Eric had one of the most traditional options I’ve seen there: a pile of (the best tasting) sauteed mushrooms on toast, with scrambled eggs on top.  In past, we’ve enjoyed skillet cakes (an eggy pancake baked and served in a small skillet), and pork belly served with sauteed greens and a poached egg.  Apparently, we missed out a couple weeks ago on the Southern fried chicken with waffles.  Eric is really hoping they bring this back again.

But then there’s the buffet.  It’s a small spread of cold items, all made in house using well-sourced ingredients.  There are usually three or four salads, like potato-chicken salad, or chickpeas with octopus, or fennel and beets.  Next to that is their homemade yogurt that they make each Friday.  Drizzle on some honey, or sprinkle in some walnuts.  My favorite yogurt add-in is the candied squash with lemon peel.  Try that on the rustic bread, too, or have the bread with their chicken liver pate.  Then you might find a plate of simply-sliced oranges.  Sometimes while you’re eating, a plate of something hot might show up on the counter, like potato latkes (served during Hanukkah last year), or crepes.

As if that’s not enough, the brunch hostess is none other than Bronwen Serna, the 2004 U.S. Barista Champion.  We think that she makes some of the best espresso drinks in Seattle.  But she wasn’t there this morning.  Turns out, she’s in South Africa for the next several weeks, so you may have to wait a while to see what we mean.

Sitka & Spruce
2238 Eastlake Ave. E, Seattle
(206) 324-0662
Brunch served Saturdays and Sundays, 10-2