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

Hm, I’ve been slacking on the blogging front, haven’t I?  Life has gotten a bit crazy lately, but here I am again.  During crazy times, we often find ourselves digging around in our freezer on weeknights, looking for something that might make a quick and easy dinner.  Which got me to wondering, what do other people keep in their freezers?  I love it when I find a great recipe that’s perfect for making a big batch and freezing.  Here’s what you might find in our freezer:

Marcella Hazan’s Bolognese sauce – It takes hours to cook Marcella’s Bolognese sauce, but it’s the perfect thing to have on the stove on a cool weekend afternoon.  With beef and pork (optional), milk, white wine, tomatoes, and a touch of nutmeg, it leaves you looking forward to Sunday dinner.  We make plenty of extra for our freezer.  Just defrost and heat, add a dab of butter to the sauce, mix in with your favorite pasta, and grate some parmigiano on top.

Tom Douglas’ fruit crisp topping – This stuff is perfect for a super-fast dessert.  I make a triple-batch and freeze it.  Then when I’ve got some lovely fruit – apples, peaches, cherries, whatever – I just cut it up, mix in a touch of sugar, throw it into a pie dish with some crisp topping, and pop it in the oven.  A large apple is perfect for one of our individual-sized Emile Henry pie dishes, and then the two of us can share a yummy apple crisp.

Tamales – These are newcomers to our freezer.  I wrote a couple months back about making tamales at our friend Kathy’s house.  Our freezer stash of tamales has dwindled, though, so we may need to make some more.

Bruce Aidells’ chicken and apple sausage – This homemade sausage is great both for breakfast and in savory recipes.  It’s juicy and better than anything I’ve bought in grocery stores.  It’s not too hard to make, actually, unless you want to stuff it into links which takes longer.  We just form it into patties for the freezer.  Bruce Aidells has a recipe for French toast stuffed with sautéed apples and some of this sausage, which is a great Sunday breakfast.

Jerry Traunfeld’s apple black bean soup – a great winter soup, especially during the time when apples are the only fruit available at our local farmer’s markets.  Jerry’s absolutely right in his intro paragraph which says that it makes a huge pot – one recipe is plenty for several meals.

Vij’s – You’ll always find a cooler in our car on our way over the border to Vancouver, so that we can bring back cryovaced packs of our favorite Indian food for our freezer.

Soup and rolls from Dahlia Bakery – Every few weekends, we’ll stop in for a morning fried egg sandwich (the gourmet version of a McMuffin), and if we get there late enough, the lunch items are just coming out of the kitchen.  We might grab a soup or two, which comes with one of their traditional rolls, and freeze it for a weekday lunch at work.

Fu Man Dumplings – You need to call ahead 24 hours in advance to pick up a bag of Fu Man dumplings to-go.  With some of their super-garlicky sauce, the dumplings make a yummy snack.

Eat Local – We’ve mentioned this place on Queen Anne on our blog before.  Now they’ve set up tent at the U-District Farmer’s Market each Saturday, which means that you might find their dinners in our freezer a little more frequently now, or maybe one of their cracker-bread pizzas, pictured above.  Just as the name of the store implies, everything is made using local ingredients, and is quite delicious.

So, what do you keep in your freezer?  Favorite recipes?  Trader Joe finds?  Food that you’ve always got to have on hand?

When our friends Michael and Susan proposed that we make a trip up to Vancouver to celebrate the Chinese New Year, it took us about two seconds to say yes.  It had been a year since our last trip, and we’d been wanting to go back to some of our classic favorite restaurants.  The parade in Chinatown sounded like it’d be fun, too.

So we packed our bags and an empty cooler, and off we went on a Friday afternoon.  We arrived in time for a late dinner reservation at Tojo’s.  It’s been long enough since we’ve dined there that we hadn’t yet seen the new digs.  They’ve moved from a tiny second floor location, to a huge, bright ground floor restaurant.

Our meal was outstanding.  Highlights included: sablefish and sea urchin in a smoky-yummy sauce inside a sea urchin shell; a sesame albacore that reminded me of our favorite starter at Kisaku (but even better), and two kinds of amazing toro nigiri.  The food is special, but the bill at Tojo’s is steep.  Four of us spent as much that night as ten of us would the next evening.  Definitely not an everyday kind of meal.

Oyama Sausage Company; Japadog; fish at the Granville Market.

Saturday morning, we headed straight to Granville Island for coffee and doughnuts.  We’d had great coffee at JJ Bean on a previous trip, rivaling some of our favorite coffees in Seattle.  John and Eric waited in line, while Jacki and I walked around the corner for Lee’s Donuts.  Unfortunately, the filled doughnuts I wanted weren’t ready yet, so I decided to wait.  They said it would be only 15 minutes.  So we grabbed our coffees (which were indeed as good as I remember), and wandered off around the market.

When we arrived back at Lee’s, there they were.  The puffy, sugar-coated doughnuts were ready, with more coming out as we stood there deciding which one.  I finally settled on the lemon-filled, and Eric the chocolate Bavarian.  Oh, man, these were even better than last time.  This was the warmest, freshest doughnut I’ve ever eaten.  The lemon was oozy and sweet, but not overly, with the crunchy sugar on the exterior coating my lips as I tried not to squirt lemon everywhere (I’m sometimes a messier eater than I like to admit).  Eric made some comment about how my lips looked like a margarita glass.

Bread at the Granville Market; JJ Bean coffee; the kitchen at Vij’s.

After picking up some pork lomo and speck from Oyama Sausage Company for our trip home, along with candied fennel seeds, a few pocky sticks for snacks, and matcha tea from one of our favorite Granville stands, South China Seas Trading Company, we headed back downtown.

Eric and I were torn between Japadog or Kintaro Ramen for lunch.  With limited time in Vancouver, we could only do one, so we let our friends decide.  With a six-year-old in party, hotdogs won out.  The little stand on a street corner looked like a normal hotdog stand until you took a closer look at the menu: Terimayo, Misomayo, Okonomi, and Oroshi dogs.  The Terimayo was an all-beef hotdog with Japanese mayo, nori seaweed strips, teriyaki sauce, and fried onions.  With juice dribbling off my fingers, I managed to switch with Eric so I could try the Okonomi next.  It was a juicy Kurobuta pork sausage with okonomiyaki sauce, bonito flakes tacked down from the breeze by Japanese mayo, on top of fried cabbage.  We realized we should have ordered a third, but by this time the line was loooong, with a crowd waiting for their dogs.

Japadogs! Okonomi (top) and Terimayo (bottom).

We spent the afternoon doing a brief bit of shopping followed by a long walk from downtown to the waterfront and halfway along Stanley Park’s exterior edge, before cutting back through the duck pond and up to Denman.  It was a gloriously sunny day, and all of Vancouver seemed to be out.  We didn’t realize how lucky we were with that weather.

It was 4:30 when we headed off to dinner.  Why so early?  We had to get in line for Vij’s.  We were the first in line at quarter to five, and the queue started forming moments later behind us.  By the time the doors opened at 5:30, the line stretched two storefronts down!  It was a good thing we arrived when we did, because our party of ten would have otherwise had hours to wait.

I’ve written about Vij’s here before, and it is still my favorite Indian restaurant anywhere.  While we were deciding what to order, the wait staff served us nibbles of hot pakoras and pooris, along with complimentary chai.  We ended up ordering about a dozen dishes, all good, some outstanding.  I’d forgotten why the lamb popsicles are so popular, but quickly remembered – they were juicy and perfectly cooked, with that amazing cream curry.  I was also a big fan of one of their simplest dishes: saag paneer.  I wonder why that isn’t in their cookbook?  I will make any dish in that cookbook that has paneer – the recipe is simple and turns out great.  My favorite dessert this evening was the gulab jamun, which was the best version of this sticky fried dough I’ve had.

Dining at Vij’s; saag paneer.

We couldn’t leave without a stop next door at Rangoli to pick up some of Vij’s food to fill our cooler for the trip home.  Rangoli is a more casual cafe along with a marketplace selling Vij’s meals, spices, and their excellent cookbook.

The next morning, we all met in Chinatown for the Chinese New Year festivities.  It was a rainy, cold morning, not much different than a winter Seattle day, except for the intermittent wet snow.  After staking out a prime position on the parade route, we eventually gave it up when we all started freezing, and headed over to the Classical Chinese Garden instead, where the gardens were open and booths outside were set up with face painting and crafts for the kids.  While groups with their costumes assembled for the parade, dancers and drummers performed under a tent where everyone crowded in to stay dry.

Rain was constant during the parade, and umbrellas lined the curbs while the colorful groups paraded under the Millennium Gate.  Firecrackers, dragons, and ox helmets were everywhere.  After about 45 minutes, we left to find some dim sum to warm up with.  We headed downtown to Kirin for a change from our usual visit to Sun Sui Wah.

Chinese New Year parade; dim sum at Kirin.

Instead of carts wheeling past, at Kirin you order from a menu and everything comes out made-to-order.  Everything we ordered was good – definitely better than anything we can get in Seattle.  My favorite was the savory radish pudding, a Chinese New Year specialty.  After finishing up with some red bean and sesame desserts, we were on our way home.  Short weekends like that always leave me wanting more, but fortunately Vancouver’s just a short drive away.  Any tips about where we should go next time?

To see more photos from our weekend, go to our photo gallery.

Tojo’s, 1133 W Broadway, Vancouver, BC

JJ Bean, 1689 Johnston Street, Vancouver, BC

Lee’s Donuts, 1689 Johnston Street, Vancouver, BC

Japadog, 899 Burrard Street, Vancouver, BC

Vij’s, 1480 W 11th Avenue, Vancouver, BC

Rangoli, 1488 W 11th Avenue, Vancouver, BC

Kirin, 1166 Alberni St, Vancouver, BC

As the evening was winding down and we rolled out of our chairs, I had the extra treat of being the first customer of Queso y Vino’s wine delivery service!  Catherine is set up to deliver wines around Seattle, and she brought the case that I had ordered on the day she got her liquor permit.  We often asked Catherine for Spanish and Portuguese wine recommendations when she was the wine manager at The Spanish Table, so it’s like old times again – we can all ask her for new and interesting wine recommendations, or to track down old favorites we’ve been missing.  For my first order, I went the omakase route and let Catherine put together a mixed case.  And what a tasty result!  I sampled a Valdespino Delicioso Manzanilla dry sherry after dinner a few nights ago, and have my eye on the Viña Ardanza Reserva wine from the Rioja Alta region next.  Give her a call or drop her a mail if you’d like to put together your own case.

Queso y Vino
Catherine Reynolds, Owner
(206) 518-1166
quesoyvino@gmail.com

Art of the Table
1054 N 39th St, Seattle
(206) 282-0942

Pal-Do is actually not a restaurant, but a large Korean grocery store with a food court inside.  Eric V ordered for all of us, while Kye went off in search of her favorite blood sausage (Soondae, 순대 – thanks for the translations, Eric and Kye!) in another part of the store.  When she got back, our basket of Chicky Pub sauced fried chicken (Yang Nyum Chicken, 양념 치킨) had arrived, with a can of Coca-Cola included.  There weren’t nearly enough napkins for the sticky sauce, but no one cared – we just licked our fingers and went in for seconds.

Then the rest of the food arrived.  Along with the kimchee, my favorite was the seafood soft tofu stew (Hae Mool Soon Dubu Chigae, 해물 순두부 찌게), which we ate on rice.  We also enjoyed grilled short ribs (Kalbi, 갈비) and squid stir-fry (Oh Jing Ah Chigae, 오징어 볶음), and washed it all down with roasted corn tea (Oksusu cha, 옥수수茶).

We were nearly stuffed, had plenty for leftovers, and left there paying less than 10 bucks a person – a steal!  I say “nearly” because we all saved room for the fish waffles (Boong Ah Bang, 붕어 빵).  We wandered to the back corner of the store where a guy runs a very cool machine that cranks out small fish-shaped waffles stuffed with red bean paste (no, there are no fish involved).  They came out piping hot and we all stood there shivering in the freezer aisle munching on our fish waffles.  Those alone are worth the trip.

Pal-Do World
17424 Highway 99, Lynnwood
(425) 742-2237

Eric’s f/1 photography group met for a weekend in San Francisco at the end of September.  The two of us flew down a few days early to do some eating, and then my friend Jacki and I toured around and shopped while the guys were doing their photography thing.  Here’s where we went:

• Jardiniere – This is a classy, upscale, expensive place near the symphony.  The food was good, but not out of this world.  We had an excellent pinot recommendation – George Vintage IV, which we really loved.  And when we reached the end of the meal, we regretted having had (awesome) cocktails and drinking most of that bottle of pinot, since we had to miss out on the dessert tasting flights of name-your-drink.  They had a good two dozen different flights: armagnacs, tawnies, scotches, everything.
• Boulette’s Larder – Eric and I went here for weekday brunch in the Ferry Building.  We sat outside on a brilliant beautiful day (as it was for our entire visit), overlooking the Bay Bridge.  They had a limited menu of impeccable simple ingredients.  We enjoyed poached eggs with beans and a beautiful slice of tomato, with a dusting of Parmigiano, along with a huge plate of toast from Acme Bread Company, a great bakery also in the building.

The Ferry Building; a farmer selling grapes; rotisserie chicken at the farmer’s market.

• Slanted Door – This is a modern Vietnamese place in the Ferry Building.  We went here for a light lunch.  It was good, but I doubt I’d go back, since nothing we ordered impressed me hugely.  The size of the place and type of food vaguely reminded me of Wild Ginger in Seattle.
• Chez Panisse – We hadn’t been here before, and were really impressed by the execution of a simple menu.  We went for a weeknight dinner and were offered one small tasting menu.  Just four courses seemed tiny compared to most restaurants’ lengthy tasting menus nowadays, but it was perfect – I hate the overstuffed feeling at the end of a huge meal, and this just made us feel satisfied and happy.  The food initially seemed like fairly standard local fare when reading the menu (tomato salad, lamb three ways), but the seasoning was spot on and little touches of simple things made the standard become inspired (such as tangy-salted handmade ricotta and warmed Nicoise with the tomato salad).
• La Taqueria – Great tacos in the Mission District.  They charge for extras like cheese and sour cream, which make it a little pricey, but worth it.  I couldn’t get over the fact that they would charge $1.20 to remove the beans from the tacos.

Bi-Rite ice cream cone; choosing flavors at Bi-Rite; a Ritual Coffee Roasters cappuccino.

• Ritual Coffee Roasters – We stopped here for our caffeine fix in the Mission.  You can watch them roast the beans right there in the store.
• Tartine Bakery – The line was out the door and inching slowly at this popular bakery.  I rested my feet at an outdoor table while Eric stood in line to get a slice of lemon meringue cake.  It was moist, yummy, and super-rich (I could barely eat more than a few bites).
• Bi-Rite Creamery – Awesome ice cream.  Beats our Molly Moon, particularly the salted caramel ice cream, which is very close to my all-time favorite homemade ice cream (Bi-Rite’s is missing the yummy caramel praline bits).  I was really bummed when I found out that David Lebovitz would be visiting from Paris and signing cookbooks here only a week later.

Lemon meringue cake from Tartine; pop rocks dark chocolate bar enjoyed with peanut butter hot chocolate at Christopher Elbow; sole with corn chowder at Range.

• Range – A one-Michelin-star restaurant tucked into a corner of the Mission District.  We had a reservation but chose to sit at a table in the bar, which had a better vibe than the rooms in the back.  We were all guessing what Eric’s “sole with corn and potato chowder” would be – chowder with sole in it, or sole with some chowder on the side?  Turned out it was neither.  The sole was served in a bowl with a shallow pool of chowder at the bottom and lots of chunky vegetables.  Don’t miss the homemade butterscotch pudding for dessert!
• Ferry Building Farmer’s Market – The ferry building has lots of interesting food shops open every day of the week, but the place comes alive on Tuesdays and Saturdays when the farmers set up tables all around the building, and everyone in San Francisco comes out shopping.
• Yank Sing – I didn’t go here, but Eric did with the guys for dim sum and said it was great.

Peppers at the Ferry Building Farmer’s Market; a mural in the Mission; the f/1 guys enjoying dim sum.

• Rye – On the recommendation of Michelle and Kelly at Licorous, Jacki and I stopped here for pre-dinner cocktails.  The space is really cool.  Dark, brick walls, high ceilings except a lowered wood ceiling over the bar, a pool table near the bar, and a lounge on the other side of the room.  It looks like it would be a fun place to go late at night.
• Zuni Café – This was my second time here and it was just as amazing as I remembered.  Last time, we could tell there were a number of nooks and crannies behind the main dining loft, but I had no idea just how many there are.  The second floor dining rooms are tucked away everywhere, each with railings overlooking the first floor.  Loved the Caesar salad, and had a nibble of Jacki’s starved tomato salad – those were the best, sweetest tomatoes I’ve ever eaten.  The roast guinea hen was super-flavorful and juicy.  Yum.

The wood stove at Zuni Café; a tea shop in Chinatown; the starved tomato salad at Zuni Café.

• Citizen Cake – We stopped here for brunch while shopping on Hayes Street.  I’m always a sucker for Dutch baby pancakes, and theirs was great.
• Christopher Elbow Chocolates – Lots of yummy gourmet truffles here (you can get some of them at Chocolopolis in Seattle), and interesting inclusion bars, too.  Jacki bought a dark chocolate bar with pop rocks, which fizzled on your tongue as you let it melt in your mouth.  They had a dozen different drinking chocolates – I liked drinking my peanut butter chocolate in the chocolate lounge.
• Blue Bottle Coffee Company – We stopped to pick up espresso beans from the Hayes Valley location.  It was mid-afternoon and there was still a long line crossing the alleyway in front.  We didn’t get any drinks since we had had Blue Bottle mochas (made with Recchiuti chocolate!) just that morning from one of the two Blue Bottle stands at the market.
• Canteen – We all went here for Sunday brunch.  It’s a tiny, tiny place, like a small diner, so we had to split into two tables.  Breakfast was satisfying and tasty – I’d go back, and would like to try dinner here.

Take a look at our previous blog posting about Chocolopolis to learn more about Lauren Adler and her new store.

Lauren started her company Chocolopolis last year to help others learn about artisan chocolate.  I met her last summer when she was testing her chocolate tasting classes.  Eric worked with her a number of years ago, and we jumped at the opportunity to taste test chocolate at her home together with mutual friends.

We learned about single-estate chocolate bars, where the chocolate in the bar comes from one estate, just like a single-vineyard wine.  We also discovered vintage chocolate – I had no idea that you could obtain chocolate bars made from beans grown in just one particular harvest.

She has been hosting tasting events and selling fine chocolates through her web site for a year now.  Since then, Lauren has been looking for the ideal space for her Chocolopolis retail business, where people can come to experience and learn about chocolate.  She finally found a spot atop Queen Anne hill, right next to Bricco wine bar.  Construction is nearly completed, and late this month she plans to open what she anticipates will become one of Seattle’s premiere chocolate shops.

Lauren has relationships with some of the finest chocolatiers in the world.  Chocolopolis will sell over 200 different chocolates, including rare vintage chocolates that can’t be found anywhere else in Seattle, and coveted chocolate from producers like Amedei.

We got together with her last week and had the opportunity to try chocolate samples from one of the new chocolatiers in the U.S., Patric Chocolate.  I recently read about this tiny chocolate producer on David Lebovitz’s blog, so I was excited to get a chance to try the 70% and 67% Madagascar bars.  I honestly think these were among the best chocolates I’ve ever tasted!  They were incredibly complex, and even Lauren, who clearly has tasted much more chocolate than I have, was amazed at how there was no bitter aftertaste, as there is with most dark chocolate.

Lauren talked with Patric founder Alan McClure last month.  He was so interested to hear about Chocolopolis that he will be sending some of his autumn batch of chocolate to Lauren to sell in her store.  He said that he hasn’t heard of anyone out there doing quite the same thing as her, with the educational aspect of her business.  I will be among the first to purchase Patric Chocolate when it arrives!  Lauren, maybe you need to start a newsletter to announce new arrivals!

Lauren doesn’t want Chocolopolis to be intimidating and hopes the store will appeal to Seattlites of all ages.  During the grand opening in mid-July, she’ll have an entire week of events for both kids and adults to come celebrate and discover chocolate.  Stay tuned to the Chocolopolis web site for details.

UPDATE 7/6:  Chocolopolis is now open!  For photos of the new store, check out our latest blog posting.

Chocolopolis
1527 Queen Anne Ave N, Seattle

Sweet or savory crêpes, it’s a difficult choice.  I started out hooked on the nutella and banana crêpe for a while, but it’s been at least a month since I’ve deviated from the spinach, mozzarella, and feta crêpe.  What makes it so addictive is the generous sprinkling of cracked black pepper on top, which goes nicely against the feta.  This week, I paid $1 more to add Wooly Pig ham to my crêpe – yum.  Eric went for the ham paired with Mt. Townsend Creamery cheese, which he said was awesome.

Anita wasn’t there this week when we bought our crêpes.  Apparently, she was off taking advantage of the sunshine and planting flowers at her soon-to-open restaurant in Ballard.  It will be a tiny place with only nine tables, and in addition to crêpes, she’ll be using her CIA and French Laundry training to develop some interesting dinner menus.  Anticipated opening is next month.

But no need to fret as I initially did – fortunately, her crêpes will still be available each week at the markets.

What’s not to love about this decadent chocolate bar?  It’s milk chocolate, with bits of applewood smoked bacon and Alder wood smoked salt.  Each bite is a complex array of flavors – I like that you can taste the individual components, and yet there’s an overall unique flavor.  And it builds brilliantly on the premise that everything tastes better with bacon – chocolate with gray salt is good, and this is great.

Now I need to try some of their other chocolate bars, like macha green tea, or ginger-wasabi-sesame.