Bellingham is an easy stop-off for I-5 travelers, and it’s not hard to find great bites to eat. On our three recent visits, we wandered downtown for lunch, where you’ll find all of the places mentioned here.

Rocket doughnuts; artwork inside Pel’Meni Russian Dumplings; a mint espresso doughnut.

Rocket Donuts was our first stop in December (well, Eric’s, as I shopped for pretty papers at Stampadoodle). We still had donuts on the brain after we’d stopped at Countryside Donut House on our way out of Seattle and sadly found them closed for the holidays. But once we’d arrived in B’ham, we realized there was still an entire half hour before lunch. Plenty of time for second breakfast!

Eric picked up my favorite, a plain cruller, along with an apple fritter and their donut of the month, mint espresso. The fritter had more apples than any I’ve eaten, and would have been a contender in our doughnut taste-off. The cruller was eggy and delicious, but the two of us fought most over the last bite of that mint espresso doughnut. The combo worked perfectly, and it may have been the moistest cake doughnut I’ve tasted. Oh, and they serve a pretty respectable espresso here, too.

Locals hanging out inside Old World Deli; pel’meni dumplings; waiting for the dumplings to boil.

Half an hour later, we were ordering Russian dumplings for lunch at Pel’meni. The colorfully painted restaurant has exactly two choices at the counter: potato or beef dumplings. We ordered one of each then watched the owner fiddle with the vintage turntable to fix a broken needle while our dumplings boiled. It wasn’t long before the vinyl was playing again and our dumplings were done. They were finished with a healthy dusting of yellow curry powder, some sour cream, cilantro, and the critical squirts of rice vinegar and hot sauce that transform the dumplings from good into the absolute perfect lunch. The beef version was by far my favorite.

Why can’t we have this in Seattle, I thought then. But wait. Not a month after our visit, they opened a location right here in Fremont. Swing by for your dumpling fix 5 pm until late in the night.

We loved the dumplings so much that we went back on our return trip the next day for an appetizer-sized reprise of the meat pel’meni. Not knowing the future, we figured this was our last opportunity to try them again for a while. It was tempting to have more, but we still wanted to try Old World Deli across the street.

The deli imports meats and cheeses, available hand-sliced or served inside one of their deli sandwiches served on Breadfarm bread.  My parma cotta (ham and mozzarella) panino was melty and delicious, particularly with the house-made mustard. It’s a comfortable hangout for the locals, with artwork pinned to the walls and casual chairs where you might kick back and read the paper one morning. I might do that sometime, since the breakfast panini menu looked worth trying.

Pretzel sticks are one of over a dozen forms of pretzels at Ralf’s Bavarian Bakery; truffles at Chocolate Necessities; farm fresh eggs at the Bellingham Farmers Market.

It was a frigid December day outside, and ice cream should have been far from our minds, but we’d heard that Mallard Ice Cream serves up some creative flavors. While they certainly have the standards, like strawberry, chocolate, or cookies and cream, you can also choose avocado, yerba mate, or White Russian.  After waffling over the extensive list, we settled on two: vanilla black pepper, and cider cheesecake. While it’s nice that they’re always experimenting and rotating through seasonal flavors, I am sad that I’ll need to wait months for another cold winter day to have that cider cheesecake ice cream again. It was heavenly.

Chocolate Necessities was our last stop on this visit. Almost an institution in Bellingham now, they have been making handcrafted truffles and chocolates for over 20 years. The location we stopped in also serves gelato, which we eyed with interest but there was no way we could fit in another bit of ice cream. Instead, we opted for a couple of truffles. The white chocolate peppermint truffle was a creamy version my favorite holiday treat (peppermint bark, of course!), and the scotch truffle was rich and boozy.

Mulunesh serving up her Ethiopian stew; 30 flavors to choose from at Mallard Ice Cream; the Bellingham Farmers Market.

In early April, we made a return trip to the Willows Inn, and found ourselves in Bellingham again on a Saturday morning, this time coinciding with the second week of their seasonal farmers market. What a lovely market! Larger than most in Seattle, the Bellingham Farmers Market sits under a series of permanent open-air structures, rather than tents. There’s a great mix of farmers of all sorts, crafters, and ready-to-eat food, with lots of open space, so while it’s lively, it doesn’t feel elbow-your-neighbor crowded. Street performers drew crowds, who were munching on soft pretzels from Ralf’s Bavarian Bakery and drinking homemade Chai from India Grill.

For lunch, we grabbed plates from one of the vendors, Ambo Ethiopian Cuisine. The owner, Mulunesh, was serving either chicken or lentil stew with beets, carrots, potatoes, and cabbage, along with the spongy slightly sour Injera bread to sop it all up. Delicious, and in itself worth a stop.

So what’s next on the list for Bellingham? I’d like to try La Fiamma Wood Fire Pizza, or maybe we’ll check out one of the breweries like Chuckanut or Boundary Bay. But what I’d really like to know is, what are your favorite bites in Bellingham?

Rocket Doughnuts
306 W Holly St, Bellingham
(360) 671-6111

Pel’Meni Russian Dumplings
1211 N State St, Bellingham
(360) 715-8324

3516 Fremont Place, Seattle
(206) 387-1702

Old World Deli
1228 N State St, Bellingham
(360) 738-2090

Mallard Ice Cream
1323 Railroad Ave, Bellingham
(360) 734-3884

Chocolate Necessities and Gelato
1426 Cornwall Ave, Bellingham
(360) 733-6666

Ralf’s Bavarian Bakery
207 E Maple St, Bellingham
(360) 733-3066

Ambo Ethiopian Cuisine
Bellingham Farmer’s Market
(360) 756-1627

Housemade condiments: prik nam pla (fish sauce with lime juice and Korean chilies), garlic soy ginger, sweet bean, chili sauce; restaurant interior; delicata squash, Early Grey ricotta, and pecan dumpling.

Revel is the second restaurant from husband-and-wife team Seif Chirchi and Rachel Yang.  They somehow managed to keep their highly-praised first restaurant Joule running, give birth to their child last summer, and open Revel just a few months later.

The new restaurant space is completely open, with a full view of the kitchen from every table, and a long shared bar and kitchen work area.  I really like the casual atmosphere, which makes it easy to bring along my 1-year-old and watch him devour pork belly pancakes and delicata squash dumplings.  Plus, there’s a sizeable deck in the back that I’m looking forward to hanging out on as much as possible this summer.

Clockwise from top-left: Five-spiced duck balls, lacinato kale, smoke chili noodles, with fried shallots on top; ice cream sandwiches: coconut macaroon, Kaffir lime, with cherry compote, and vanilla pound cake, coffee, with milk jam; short rib, sambal daikon, mustard green rice with egg yolk.

The menu is just the right size: the lunch/dinner offering is one page with three dishes per category, including salad, (savory) pancakes, dumplings, rice, noodles, and ice cream sandwiches.  The staff recommends that your table shares several dishes, which I’ve done on each visit, but you could easily go it alone if that’s your preference.  My favorite plates so far are the corned lamb, arugula, and nuoc cham salad (with just the right amount of spicy kick in the nuoc cham), the short rib, shallot, and scallion dumplings (perfect for dipping in some prik nom pla or other condiments), and the five-spiced duck balls with noodles and fried shallots.  You might see the menu described as offering “Korean street food,” but our Korean friend Kye assures us it is not.  You’re better off thinking of Revel as serving inventive, Korean-influenced fare.  And then there’s dessert: how can you go wrong with a place that focuses solely on ice cream sandwiches?  Dawn and I both give a thumbs-up to the coconut macaroon sandwich with cherry compote. 

Brunch is a new, welcome addition as of this past weekend.  The categories read similarly (eggs, pancakes, sandwiches, porridge, and soup) with a couple of choices for each.  The Kalbi burger (made from marinated beef short ribs) with bacon and shallot pickle is diminutive in size, but was dripping with juicy goodness and may in fact be our favorite burger in Seattle now.  We were split on other dishes.  Dawn loved the andouille, shrimp, and ginger-scallion porridge, noting that the ginger gave the dish a subtle sweetness throughout.  I preferred the kimchi ramen, pork belly, and egg soup; the ramen might have been slightly undercooked, but the spicy kimchi was the perfect contrast to the richness of the soup.

Revel
403 N 36th St, Seattle, WA
(206) 547-2040

The marina and reef net salmon fishing area; rocks we collected on the beach.

Lummi Island, Washington is one of these places that brings your mind to wander.  A five minute ride on a tiny county-owned ferry takes you away from Bellingham to a rural island.  From the east side of the island are breathtaking views of Mt. Baker, and the west side has views of the sun setting behind the rest of the San Juan archipelago.  It’s the perfect stage for meditation and daydreaming.  And at only two hours from Seattle, it’s possibly the most accessible of the San Juan islands, making it an ideal location for a quick getaway.

We did just that last week, taking advantage of the weekday dinner package offered from Labor Day to Memorial Day at the Willows Inn.  A discounted rate offers a gourmet breakfast and multi-course dinner with an overnight stay. And this was a dinner we were particularly curious about.

The buzz about the dining room started this summer, just before we headed out on our trip to Copenhagen and dinner at Noma.  Noma was voted best restaurant in the world last spring, and everyone was atwitter with the news that a sous chef from such an extraordinary restaurant would come to little Lummi Island.  Blaine Wetzel arrived fresh from an 18 month stint working with Noma’s famed chef René Redzepi to head up the kitchen at the Willows Inn.  Chef Redzepi himself introduced 24-year old Blaine as an “unusual and rare talent” at a Seattle reception we attended last fall.

Blaine was drawn to Lummi by inn proprietor Wiley Starks, who has established a reputation for his commitment to the Slow Food movement and serving local, sustainable foods at his inn.  Wiley himself is a commercial reef net fisherman, providing all of the salmon served at the restaurant.  And he owns, operates, and lives on nearby Nettles Farm, which provides fresh eggs and produce to the kitchen.  Blaine has two full-time farmers at his disposal.

Slow roasted beef cheek with grilled onions.

We arrived three days before the kitchen was to close for a six-week remodel.  Blaine excitedly told us that when they reopen in February, it will be a completely new experience, with a reinvented menu, updated dining room, and a modernized kitchen behind it all.  Since his arrival in August, he has been getting to know the foods of the area, working within the existing format of the restaurant, and visualizing next steps.

So the five-course one-seating menu we enjoyed exists no longer and may be only a hint of what’s around the corner.  While this is certainly no Noma, it is inventive food more than worth the short journey.

While everyone settled in at their tables, the kitchen sent out a couple small amuses, or “snacks” as they call them at Noma.  My favorite was the toast with turkey liver pate, house made capers, and dill, but I also savored the potato chip with house made sauerkraut and smoked black cod.

A round loaf of whole wheat bread still hot from the Wood Stone oven arrived with a simple slab of butter.  The bread was cut in wedges, exactly like the loaf served at Noma, but in a country bread basket from the inn.

In our first course, deliciously sweet Totten Inlet mussels were dotted on a plate with small rounds of potatoes and thick, vibrant green circles that turned out to be cucumbers.  Fluffy horseradish granita made the flavors pop.  Dots of green dill oil floated in a shallow broth, a visually engaging presentation.  I only wish the lighting at the tables was brighter than a single candle, since much of the visual appeal was lost in the darkness.  Hopefully lighting will improve in the remodel.

Then the decidedly not local Weathervane scallops arrived.  In a row down the plate, with cooked cabbages washing over them and mussel foam sauce lapping on one side, this dish looked and tasted like the sea, and was one of my favorites of the night.

The third course looked a lot like the first (more green dots), but flavor-wise was reminiscent of a dish I loved at Noma: potatoes, lovage, and whey.  Here, it was Nettles Farm potatoes with melted Havarti and buttermilk whey.  Every table around us was talking about how much they liked the flavors.

Crème brulée with toasted walnuts and homemade marshmallows; reading by a cozy fire in the inn’s common room.

Blaine and his sous chef were in and out of the dining room throughout the evening, delivering dishes from the kitchen alongside the wait staff.  This is trademark at Noma, where chefs, including Redzepi himself, visit tables.  Blaine says it’s important for the chefs to connect with diners, and they’re the ones best able to answer questions about what’s on the plate.

He delivered our main course, which was a medallion of slow roasted Skagit River Ranch beef cheek with grilled and pickled onions.  And just when we thought we were moving on to dessert, they brought out a bonus course of the tail braised and served with julienned kohlrabi.

Dessert, as read on the menu, was a puzzle to me: “crème brulée with toasted walnuts and homemade marshmallows.”  Why would an inventive chef serve crème brulée, a dessert that’s so standard on American menus?  And marshmallow doesn’t at all seem like something that should be paired with crème brulée.  Instead of a ramekin, it arrived in a tall glass, more crème than brulée.  And as soon as I took my first bite, I understood.  This was Girl Scout camp in a glass: marshmallow, campfire, and even hints of chocolate.  Delicious.

Overlooking the Rosario Strait at sunset.

We definitely plan to return, perhaps after they’ve had a few months to get into a rhythm after the kitchen reopens.  Dinner will certainly be more magical when the earth tilts back and puts the sunset back into the dinner hour, since the dining room has a spectacular 180 degree view of the Rosario Strait.

And if we can’t make it in the spring, perhaps in the the summer, when they will continue the inn’s Sunday tradition of cooking up live spot prawns on the deck, served with margaritas and a sunset like none other.

The Willows Inn
Lummi Island, Washington
(888) 294-2620

 
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

As it turns out, I didn’t miss it at all.  Don’t get me wrong – I love Delancey’s pizza.  In fact, it’s my favorite in Seattle.  But that dinner was pretty darn amazing.  I don’t know which I liked more: the wood-fired mussels with crusty bread or the braised rabbit.  Mussels aren’t my favorite thing around, but wood-fired mussels from Delancey’s oven are a whole different story.  And that rabbit was the best I’ve ever eaten.  I wasn’t the only person that night who said so.

So I jumped at the opportunity to attend Delancey’s Seattle Beer Week event last week: a Chuckanut Brewery dinner.  And this time, there was even pizza!  It wasn’t hard to convince our friends Michael and Robin, ardent beer-lovers, to join in, despite their already-full week of planned beer events.  I will admit to being more of a wine than a beer person, so you’re better off jumping over to their recount of the dinner for info on the beers from the evening.

Chuckanut Brewery co-owner Mari Kemper (yes, the name behind Thomas Kemper sodas) and brewer Kevin Davey greeted us at the door handing out glasses of Kölsch, which we drank while slurping Kumomotos at the counter.  We sat down to family-style platters of burrata and prosciutto, along with braised fennel paired with a Pilsner, which was the favorite beer of the evening.  An entire platter of burrata?  Really?  It took all my willpower to take only one and pass the platter along.  I absolutely love the stuff.

A pile of glistening duck fat roasted potatoes arrived next, and I have to say, this was my favorite dish of the night.  And that’s saying something, coming from an avowed potato-phobe like me.  Finished with beer-vinegar, the potatoes were rich and a teeny bit tangy.

Asparagus soup followed.  This dish epitomizes the food served alongside the pizza each day at Delancey.  Local, seasonal, simple, and delicious.

We had the pleasure of sitting next to Ashley of Not Without Salt and her husband Gabe, along with Allecia and Seth, newly relocated to Seattle from Chicago (with a pause in San Francisco for a year).  Ashley told me what she was planning for her upcoming cooking classes, and left me wondering why I haven’t signed up for one yet.  Soon.

Allecia’s is a blog to watch.  As a former food writer for the Chicago Sun-Times, she already has the pulse on the Seattle food scene.  I’m definitely bookmarking her blog for my next Chicago and San Francisco trips.

After a long pause, the pizza (yes, pizza!) was up next.  The oven at Delancey can only handle a few pizzas at a time, so they trickle out slowly for dinners like these.  First, the cremini with house-made sausage, then the Brooklyn, a simple yet perfect three-cheese pizza, and finally the Pissaladiere, covered with beer-braised shallots plus salty anchovies and olives.  I devoured every slice and loved the Brooklyn the most.

I haven’t been to Delancey since Brandi Henderson, formerly of Tartine Bakery, started working as Delancey’s pastry chef.  This is regrettable because the chocolate stout cake for dessert this evening was memorable.  A year ago, you would not have found me espousing the merits of chocolate.  I’ve always been a fruit dessert kind of person, always passing over the token chocolate dessert on every menu.  I don’t understand why – after-baby hormones? too many samples of the quality stuff from Chocolopolis? – but something has converted me into a chocolate-lover.  And then there’s the whole thing about salt in desserts.  Lately, I’ve been buying chocolate bars with salt (LOVE the Fran’s Gray Salt Thins) and doubling the salt in my cookie recipes.  So Brandi’s cake, warm and gooey in the center, with a surprise sprinkling of salt hidden inside, all underneath a layer of stout anglaise, was just about perfect paired with a malty Alt beer.

Delancey
1415 NW 70th Street, Seattle
(206) 838-1960

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

So I give props to chefs who are committed to using local foods year round and, in the middle of winter, still come up with diverse, interesting menus – especially a menu like Seth Caswell’s at the newly opened emmer&rye on Queen Anne hill.  During my visit there this past weekend, I was ready to order one of everything.  Lucky for me, the menu is designed so you can choose half or full sizes of nearly every plate (including dessert!), so with several friends, you really could order everything.

It’s a given that you will order the farro fries, which is destined to become the restaurant’s signature dish.  Farro is another name for emmer, and the namesake starter is crisp outside and creamy, cheesy goodness inside.  I’m now inspired to try making the farro fries recipe I came across in the most recent Edible Seattle, to see if I can come close to the same thing at home.

Highlights from the “small dishes” section of the menu were the roasted sunchokes and potatoes with truffle aioli, along with the cauliflower, mushroom, and greens salad.  These dishes were all about the ingredients, cooked simply to emphasize the best flavors of each vegetable.  On the other hand, the sausage on our crostini was dry, and the pork belly, while flavorful, fell a bit flat.  Our former-chef friend at the table commented that the dish needed some acid, and no, he had not read Seattle Magazine’s assessment of the same dish.

Our table’s universal favorite from the “large dishes” section was the orrechiette bolognese, which had the perfect ratio of pasta to flavorful beef sauce.  And every aspect of the goat crepinette dish was outstanding, from the herby goat, to the butternut gratin, to the trumpet mushrooms we were fighting over at the end.  My least favorite dish was the rabbit pappardelle, which just needs a few tweaks to make it great.  In our case, the rabbit was tasty, but the noodles were thick and undercooked, and the dish was swimming in too much liquid.

The best desserts we tried are the only two that aren’t available in a half size. But order both anyway.  The chocolate bourbon bread pudding is dense and perfect.  One person at our table who doesn’t even like bread pudding declared it delicious.  My favorite, though, was Gramma’s cheesecake with huckleberry sauce.  Light and tangy, it was lovely with the huckleberries, and all four spoons at our table made it disappear in a matter of minutes.  If you can only get one dessert, Get. The. Cheesecake.

Chef Seth Caswell opened emmer&rye quickly once he secured a lease on the former Julia’s restaurant.  I doubt anyone believed him when he said at the beginning of January that he’d be open by February 1 – you know how those things tend to go.  But he was better than his word, and the place is already packed each evening.  Reservations are recommended.

And it looks like there is more good stuff in store.  The Victorian building housing the restaurant has a lovely patio in front, which promises to be the perfect place for a summer meal on the hill.

And the emmer&rye web site hints at a forthcoming brunch.  I’m excited to see what Caswell has planned for the menu.  Anyone know when brunch service will begin?

emmer&rye
1825 Queen Anne Avenue North, Seattle
(206) 282-0680

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

Trotter fritters with truffle salt

Anyway, yes, we managed to go out for our first long multi-course dinner with Ian earlier this month. We’ve found it helps to go out with baby-loving friends who are more than happy to hold him while we eat. Portable babies are a good thing. It also helps that Kelly, Michelle, Johnathan, and everyone else at Lark are more than understanding of having kids around. In fact, John’s young son Owen provided comic relief during John’s introduction of the meal, reminding his dad in a loud entire-restaurant-audible whisper of everything John forgot to mention to the dining crowd. So if you ever thought that Lark is not a kid-friendly place, consider again, any of you folks out there with babes in arms or youngsters who are willing to sit through a meal.

Lark has been hosting their Whole Beast dinner for four years now, and it has become an annual tradition that we look forward to ever since we attended their second dinner. Each year, they have a number of whole animals that they cook in as many different ways as they can, using all the different parts of the animals. The meal is composed of “waves” of courses served family style, with about four dishes in each of the four waves.

Boudin noir with barley and fried eggs

This year, they had a new twist on the event and decided to go with a “wild beast” theme. We loved this new take on the meal, where they served pheasant, squab, elk, bison, wild boar, venison, and more. The pheasant was one of my favorite dishes of the night. Before the meal started, John walked around to the tables, showing off the beautiful pheasant pie with bacon and foie gras. Served with cranberries, it was a great start to the meal.

Glazed duck feet with dried scallops, ginger and scallion

I loved the pork snout Milanese, a throwback to the first Whole Beast dinner we attended, where Morgan Brownlow contributed a similar recipe. Other highlights included wild boar prepared Polish-style with cabbage, tender charred bison heart with salsa verde, and boudin noir made with barley. Glazed duck feet were fun to eat (John encouraged everyone to eat as much as they dared, but particularly the webbing) and served with in-house dried scallops.

I think this was my favorite beast dinner yet. It was well paced (unlike previous years where diners were groaning for mercy about halfway through the meal, with waves of food still coming), and the wild game was something that I hope they continue doing in future years. Sign up for Lark’s newsletter if you’d like to get updates about next year’s dinner.

Venison civet with glazed baby vegetables

We’ve started dining out easy by venturing to restaurants in our neighborhood for quick meals.  Fortunately, one of our favorite neighborhood places, Shun, just reopened last Thursday after a summer hiatus, so that’s where we headed last night.  During their closure, they were busy moving the whole restaurant across the street, to one of the newly built mixed-use buildings.

We missed Shun because they serve the best Japanese food in our neighborhood.  Their sushi is decent, although not the primary reason we go there (Kisaku has better sushi and is only slightly further from our house).  What they excel at is the hot dishes.  The menu is the same as their old location, so we can still order our familiar favorites.

Their tempura undo noodle soup hits the spot on a blustery fall evening like tonight.  The broth has a slight sweetness, and with the optional red pepper mixed in, it’s perfectly balanced against the heat.  We also enjoy the black cod kasuzuke, a slightly caramelized fish prepared in a sake marinade.

One of my favorite sakes to order at Shun is the unfiltered Momokawa Pearl.  Poured to overflowing in a masu, a lacquered box, it has a creamy body and sweet flavor.

Last night’s specials menu listed two matsutake dishes, and we ordered both.  If you’re not familiar with this pine-scented mushroom, now is the season to try it, and Shun has some simple preparations that really bring out the flavor of this wild-foraged mushroom.  One dish featured the matsutake simply tempuraed.  Piping hot, they were delicious dipped in the traditional tempura sauce.  Our favorite preparation, however, was the scented Matsutake Dobinmushi.  After pouring the soup from a small teapot, we inhaled the scent of the forest from our tiny soup cups.  Inside the teapot were slices of the mushroom which we picked out with chopsticks, savoring the pine flavor.

We were surprised to see that Shun was already busy, with nearly every table full.  Word has apparently gotten out about the reopening, and it’s clear that we’re not the only ones who missed them!

Shun
5101 25th Ave NE, #11, Seattle
(206) 522-2200