They offer three flavors: vanilla, chocolate, and a flavor of the day – today’s was cookies ‘n cream, and Sunday’s was egg nog.  The vanilla is pure vanilla goodness, and their proprietary chocolate custard is rich and perfectly chocolaty.  Served up in a waffle cone, waffle dish, or compostable dish with compostable spoon, you can eat it plain or with any of their long list of toppings (that’s marshmallow on chocolate above).  Um-yum.

If that’s not enough to convince you to eat frozen custard on a cold winter day, I don’t know what is.  Well, I was actually wondering, how is a new custard place going to hold their own in a floundering economy in the middle of winter in gray Seattle?  They’ve got this figured out, too.  They’re really a coffee house in disguise, using coffee to lure you in to the custard temptations.  This neighborhood has a dearth of good independent coffee places.  There’s Bus Stop, which is well, meh, the usually burnt coffee at Whole Foods across the street, or the Starbucks above that.  Starbucks is about the only place with comfy chairs where you can kick back, though, so that leaves no options for independent coffee.  Peaks is kicking up the competition, with Lighthouse coffee, a roaster out of Fremont that we love.  Not only that, but they’ve got comfy chairs and a fireplace to boot.  I expected a sterile fluorescent place, probably because it’s in a new condo building, and was pleasantly surprised when I walked in.  They’ve even got a kids nook, complete with wooden rocking horse and storybooks.

To top it all off, Theresa bakes an assortment of pastries daily.  She gets in at 5am to make cupcakes, quiche, cookies, bundt cake, brownies, and more.  We detoured past there this morning on our walk to the park and ride, and were impressed with her sherry nutmeg bundt cake which was served right out of the oven.  Above, that’s our fellow vanpooler, Ben, who we ran into inside, enjoying his own slice before we all headed off to work.

Peaks Frozen Custard
1026 NE 65th Street, Seattle
(206) 854-2351

Our impression of Vios in Capitol Hill has been that they have great food, but it’s pricey.  Either they’ve adjusted things with the new economy, or updated the prices for the new location, but everything seemed quite reasonably priced to us tonight: sandwiches for about $7, flat bread pizza for $9, salads for $5, and dinner specials for $10-14.  It was especially a good deal given how tasty the food was.

My favorite tonight was the warm pita with Kopanisti spread, which is a sheep’s milk feta with roasted red pepper and a kick.  I sopped up the extra spread with the crust of my flat bread pizza.  The flat bread came out piping hot with salty pancetta, roasted fennel, and mushrooms.  Eric enjoyed his lamb Giouvetsi with orzo pasta, and we both split a Brussels sprouts salad with walnuts.  We saved some for lunch leftovers tomorrow so that we could try the desserts.  During the entire meal, Eric was eyeing the carrot cake sitting on the counter, and the waitress told him he was the first to order it.  Not surprising, since it wasn’t listed on the menu, but people are missing out!  It was moist, not too sweet, and yuummmmy.  I stole bites of that while eating my cinnamon gelato.  That was my only (slight) disappointment of the meal: the cinnamon seemed grainy and chalky, although the gelato was intense and cinnamony.

The Pub at Third Place downstairs is serving a special Vios pub menu that’s different from upstairs, plus you can get the full restaurant menu, too.  That seems like a good option for getting together with friends over a beer, or the place to head when the restaurant is full.

Open daily, Vios Ravenna starts serving breakfast at 8am.  They have a small morning menu with baked goods, frittata, an egg sandwich, french toast, and oatmeal, along with the Illy espresso that they serve all day long.  I can visualize a weekend morning there in my future.

Vios Café at Third Place
6504 20th Ave NE, Seattle

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

Muse : We all know Gypsy is no more.  While we were there, Culinary Communion’s owner Gabriel Claycamp told us about his plans for the new dinners he’ll be starting next year, in addition to Vagabond.  Muse will be the code name for his new dinners.  They will be done Iron Chef style, where a chef will be invited to each dinner, and given a few weeks notice of the chosen ingredient.  They’ll need to compose a menu that incorporates that ingredient into each course.  It sounds like Skillet is interested, so maybe they can make more of that great pizza!

Tom Black’s restaurant classes : Tom Black made a name for himself as executive chef at Woodenville’s Barking Frog, then he did a stint at 35th Street Bistro in Fremont, before becoming an instructor at Culinary Communion in August.  I’ve been wondering what kind of classes he’s teaching there.  Apparently, he’s working on a new series where you can learn hard-core restaurant kitchen skills.  Those who have taken enough other CC classes can sign up for one of the Sunday classes, where Tom teaches you how to run a one-night bistro for paying customers, right at Culinary Communion.  There will be a menu with a handful of appetizers, entrees, and desserts, and you’re responsible for getting tasty, hot food in front of customers, stat.

The Swinery : This is Gabriel’s new venture selling cured meats: bacon, pancetta, salami and more.  He’s securing permitting right now, and already has the T-shirts printed up.  Eric wants the one that says, “Bacon is my co-pilot.”

Bacon! Just today, I received an email saying that before they can secure the permitting, they’ll need to move 1,000 pounds of bacon.  Fast.  So they’re selling all of it for $10/lb.  You can even pick it up until noon on Thanksgiving, or call them and they’ll try to get it to you if you can’t pick it up.  Made from organically-raised Berkshire heirloom pork, it sounds very tempting.

Our first visit was memorable, and not just because of the food.  We went for lunch one weekend, and after parking in the back and walking past a bar in the same building, we found the entrance to the restaurant.  The space can fit about two dozen people, and we were quickly seated at one of the small, vinyl-covered tables.  The owner, Ming Tzou, took our order of green onion pancake, hot-and-sour soup, and boiled dumplings, then walked to the table behind us to take their order.  Their exchange was slightly reminiscent of the Soup Nazi episode on Seinfeld.  Diner: “We’d like the potstickers.”  Tzou: “You know this is a dumpling house, right?”  Diner: “Um, yes?”  Tzou: “When you’re in a dumpling house, you order dumplings.”  And so they got the dumplings.  (Makes you wonder why the menu offers potstickers, no?)  Feeling thankful that our order was accepted without incident, our meal arrived and we enjoyed it all.  The pancake was flavorful and crisp, the soup was plenty spicy, and the pork-and-vegetable dumplings were served with an intense garlic sauce.  I loved the sauce, while Dawn was less a fan of its lingering aftertaste long after the meal ended.  We were stuffed, and when we asked for our check, Tzou took a look at our bowls and said, “You need to finish your soup.”  I smiled, thinking that he couldn’t be serious, but he took everything except the soup and left.  Dawn gave me the “I can’t eat another bite” look, so I picked up my spoon and somehow managed to finish the remaining soup.  Tzou returned, smiling, and said, “See?  I knew you could finish it.”

Boiled Fu Man dumplings at home.

We tried to order frozen dumplings to go at the end of our first visit, but no dice: they’re made-to-order, so you have to call ahead at least a day.  We picked some up recently, and love having dumplings (with little containers of garlic sauce) in the freezer, ready for a quick snack or weeknight meal.

Fu Man Dumpling House
14314 Greenwood Ave N, Seattle
(206) 364-0681

I had no idea this beer was right there under my nose at my parents’ small-town grocery store.  Although, it’s not really that surprising, because the Wisconsinites I know love sweet wine, and many wines made in Wisconsin are not just made with grapes.  They’ve got raspberry wine, cherry wine, apple wine, and my grandfather even used to make his own dandelion wine.

Door County (the “thumb” of the hand-shaped state) is known for its cherries, and that’s what New Glarus Brewing Company puts into their Wisconsin Belgian Red.  In fact, there’s a whole pound of the Montmorency cherries in every bottle.  It’s not very hoppy, but more like a cherry sparkling wine that tastes like beer.  We managed to carry back a few bubble-wrapped bottles in our luggage.  They don’t make it easy nowadays with the luggage, weight, and liquid restrictions!

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

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

Her interest in coffee was piqued when she discovered office coffee clubs popping up in companies around the country.  After writing about the trend for the Washington Post, she was inspired to dive deeper to learn more about the young guys driving this coffee culture, and write about it in her book.  She followed coffee-obsessed buyers around the world, to coffee farms in Nicaragua, Ethiopia, and Panama, and along the way, she became coffee-obsessed herself.

In our conversation, she talked about the strange disconnect between foodies and coffee.  She herself was one of those foodies who didn’t understand coffee, until her epiphany one day with a perfect cup of cappuccino.  She finds it fascinating that high end restaurants everywhere focus on sourcing the highest quality food yet neglect that cup of coffee that ends the meal.  She recounted stories that Eric and I could easily relate to, where the coffee can be downright awful at some restaurants.  Why is that, when there are so many great roasters out there?  It seems like the shift toward better restaurant coffee is coming, particularly here on the West Coast where more and more restaurants are pairing up with their local roasters.

Joining us was Brent Martin, owner of Muse, who had insights on our local coffee community.  When Michaele pointed out that every coffee house owes their livelihood to Starbucks, since they carved out the market, Brent nodded.  He said he’d actually be happy if Starbucks moved in across the street, because it drives business to places like his, where people seek out quality.  This was our first time visiting Muse Coffee Company, and it won’t be our last.  Brent opened the shop in December after 11 years in the coffee business, and this place holds its own with the serious cafés in town.

Michaele is pondering her next book idea.  She wants to know, what’s the next thing that people would find to be an interesting book topic?  Drop her a line to let her know your thoughts.

And if you’re interested in meeting her yourself, she will be at Caffé Vita for a One Pot / Kim Rickett’s dinner this Tuesday.  Email hebbory@gmail.com to reserve your seat.

Muse Coffee Company
1907 10th Ave W, Seattle
(206) 282-2711