Fall is here!

Fall is here! After a few days of overcast skies and steady rain (uncharacteristic of Seattle), it cleared up enough for me to take a little walk around our neighborhood lake. Unfortunately, the clouds and sun weren't cooperating so it was hard to get good light to take a picture with my cell phone, so this was the best I could do.

I love summer, but I'm looking forward to soups and stews, wearing sweaters and evenings by the fire!

Oyster Fest in the Olympics

Way & Kevin came up for a visit two weekends ago so we decided to visit the Olympic Peninsula. We started the trip by taking the ferry across to Bainbridge island and ventured through the town of Poulsbo (apparently it translates into "Paul's Place" in viking tongue). After some tasty danishes and a stop by the bottle shop, May was giddy to get back on the road and explore the Oyster Fest in Shelton. We arrived towards the end of the fest so oysters were a little scarce. The oyster shooters were a little warm for me, but the BBQ oysters were surprisingly delicious.

We spent the night at Alderwood resort in the city of Union and I think we were all a little surprised how nice it was. It's set right on the Hood canal with fantastic views of the Olympic mountains and crystal clear water. Standing on the boat dock you could look down and see crabs, fish, starfish and tons of oysters all over. We had high hopes for one of the few restaurants in town, Robin Hood Restaurant. Although the painting of Mr. Hood was lovely the food left a little to be desired, but the local ale (Dick Danger's Ale) was brilliant.

This is some SERIOUS pie

I've said it before that Seattle is a pizza town. There are a ton of pizza joints in this city, and one of the more famous ones is called Serious Pie. It's a Tom Douglas outpost, but those have been hit-or-miss with us so we weren't expecting too much.

Since the restaurant was recently featured on a show on the food channel, after we picked Way and Kevin from the airport, we headed over for a late night dinner. Even though we got there at 9:30, the place was packed and we had to wait half an hour for a table. And by table, I mean we got 4 spots at one of the several communal tables. Cozying up next to our neighbors ended up being fun though. The guys to our right told us they were visiting from DC and thought this was the best pizza they have EVER had, and had already had lunch there this afternoon. The couple to our left ordered around the same time as us and we all compared tasting notes.

And the tasting notes were:
Roasted Chanterelle and Truffle Cheese: So yummy! Earthy but delicate, and swooning with truffle-ness. I might have to say that this is MY favorite pizza ever.
Penn Cove Clams, House Pancetta and Lemon Thyme: Nice clam flavor, with just a bit of salt from the pancetta to even out the seafood, but I think I'm not a fan of clam pizza.
Wild Boar Sausage, Walla Walla Onions, Sole de Sardegna: Good, but not great pizza. Of all the three we tried, this was the "safest" of the bunch.

Overall, I think the pizza was one of the best I've ever had! It's frou-frou pizza though, so not something that you'd have on a weeknight, watching a football game with your beer buds though. I think what makes it so good is the top notch ingredients and then really good pizza dough. The dough reminded me a bit of naan - really light and airy and crisped just right. Way thought it was a bit too sweet so we think they may brush on a bit of honey, but for me, that was alright and it rounded out some of the flavors.

Mt. Ranier Hike

Last weekend was an action-packed weekend, there was so much to blog about that we couldn't fit it all in. On Sunday May and I decided to take advantage of the last summer-sunny-day and hike Mt. Ranier... well not the actual mountain, but a mountain inside the national park that had a great view.

We left pretty early in the morning to beat the crowds, and boy was it cold on the drive up. The car said at one point that it was 40 degrees! And it was a long drive...not so much on the freeway, but on the 20 miles of dirt forest fire roads. What a bumpy terrible drive - mental note to buy an SUV.

When we arrived at the trail head there was a pretty cool little campsite, and it was already packed with cars from day-hikers. Our hike began at the campsite as we walked around the west side of Mowich lake. Let me tell you this lake was something else, with Mt. Rainier in the background, huge forests all around and bright blue crystal clear water it was a site to see. May looked frustrated in our pictures as I kept asking her to stop and be my subject for innumerable photos. Our hike continued over the mountains over a ridge to Eunice lake at the foot of a fire lookout station. The wildflowers were nearing there end, but there were still a few pretty meadows left. After resting at Eunice lake, we decided to make the 1,200 foot climb to the lookout station and we were rewarded with breathtaking views of Ranier and all the surrounding mountain ranges. Unfortunately we weren't alone, dozens of hikers also joined for a quick snack at the top. Next year I want to reserve one of the fire lookout forts and spend the night... I can't imagine how clear the sky would be.

All in all a great hike, if we had an SUV I'd do it again in a heart-beat. 4 miles round trip, only 1,500 feet of elevation gain.

Greek and SAM

We're a bit surprised by how many greek restaurants we have within walking distance to our house. We can think of at least 4, and that doesn't count Pete's Eggnest, which is a breakfast joint owned by a Greek family. In any case, they all have flyers in their windows advertising the annual Greek Festival so, of course, we head over to check it out.

First of all, we were taken aback by the size of the event. It's held at a Greek Church, but I guess the grounds of it are huge because they had an outdoor food tent set up that was as big as a gymansium. Merry greek tunes were being played onstage while we walked around and got a gyro, dolmas, and some greek pastries - baklava (yum!), pastelli (a sesame honey candy that was terrific) and Melomakarona (an orange-flavored biscuit that was ok). It was fun walking around, and made us want to go back to visit the Greek islands!

After stuffing ourselves, we headed downtown to the Seattle Art Museum since Saturday was nationwide free museum day (put on by the Smithsonian). We shouldn't have been shocked to see how long the line to get in was since everyone loves a free entrance fee, but still, we were impressed with how busy the museum was.

Sad to say though, the museum was really not very good. It is 2 big floors of all different kinds of art (paintings, photography, porcelain, scultpures, installation etc) and it covered the gamut of art history (ancient greek, european, modern, native american). But, I think because it tries to cover so much, it didn't really do any particular segment all that well. Oh well, at least we can say been there, done that... for free!

Wurst Festival!

You just have to say "Bratwurst" to see Scott's eyes light up. Add "Festival" to that and he gets giddy. So, he didn't need much prompting when I said I wanted to check out the Wallingford Wurst Festival.

Turns out, it wasn't so much of a festival as it was a school fundraising fair. In it's 26th year, the festival is put on by this Catholic school in Wallingford and when we got there, it was like the PTC picnic gone wild. The playground had bouncy castles galore, a stage with a band set up, a handful of booths selling food, and then a carnival games area.

Inside the main school building, one of the classrooms was cleared out to hold the used-book sale. We browsed for a while and came away with a bunch of books. At $0.50 for paperback and $1.00 for hardback, we couldn't pass up buying a Northwest Hiking Guide and a SPY book that Scott had wanted to get at Costco. Down the hall in the upstairs auditorium/gym area was the biergarten and dinner area. $4 for brews from Maritime and $12 for a Wurst dinner. We shared a meal (it was ok) and hung out for a bit.

Downstairs, the cafeteria was turned into the mother of all bake-sales. A table ran the length of two walls selling home-made treats like pie, cupcakes, cookies and every other baked goodie you can think of. I opted for a ginormous spice cupcake with cream cheese frosting and a molasses cookie while Scott got a lemon bar. All for $2.50!

In the end, we didn't have as much Wurst as we would have liked, but we had fun feeling like a part of the community. It was neat that there were a TON of children there and you could tell that it's the big event the school puts on and alumni come back for it.

Camp'n in Washington

Earlier this week my dad came up to visit us while mom hung out in Oregon with her high school girl friends. We decided to make it a boys camping trip so we took off on Monday afternoon and drove about an hour north to Deception Pass State Park (right at the tip of Whidbey Island).

Talk about perfect weather, it was a crystal clear gorgeous day. After pitching our tent and unpacking we build a fire and grilled our steak and vegi dinner. The steak turned out a little tough, but the steamed-in-foil veggies turned out perfect. I forgot to mention that we found out pretty quick about the nearby Navy air base. At first the jets were cool, then it got old after a few hours...these suckers are LOUD screaming over the tree tops. Apparently the jets practice a lot. The dense woods and beautiful bay certainly made up for it though. Quite possibly one of the prettiest places on the west coast. Perfect spot for kayaks, crabbing on the pier, and tons of hiking trails. Must go back again, maybe next time we can reserve the park's cabin on a nearby island.

On our way back we drove through Whidbey island and took the ferry across to Everett. We took a slight detour so that I could check out Scuttlebutt Brewery in Everett which was fun to experience, but not a lot of personality inside - right on the waterfront in the marina, but no view!

For dinner we swung by home to pick up May and then went to Elliot's Oyster House on the Seattle waterfront. Of course we had to get a sample platter of the raw oysters and boy were they slurpy-good! All Washington variety, but only one was native to the region. I have to say, May ate one that was almost the size of her hand. It was huge! Kudos May for tackling it.

West Seattle exploration

After a lazy day of sleeping-in and reading, May and I decided to venture outdoors on this beautiful-sunny-brisk-day. We went over to the Fremont Octoberfest event, but after hunting for parking for 20 minutes we decided to bail after seeing the relatively small turn out and annoyingly high entrance price ($40 for 1 beer drinker and 1 DD).

May hadn't seen West Seattle yet so we decided to take advantage of the weather and head over. Along the coast it reminded us both of Southern California beach towns - flat terrain, limited parking, and tons of people walking along the boardwalk. The Seattle skyline was awesome from Alki beach. We decided to have an appetizer at Salty's restaurant (right on the water). The view was awesome, but the food, music and chilly temperature were all miserable. I'd go back to show out-of-towners the view, but not worth another visit otherwise.

Makes me want a boat on such a nicy lazy day. Commence operation boat planning.

Tigerbait Tigerbait!

I am happy to report that Scott and I are Husky Stadium virgins no more! Kin and Meredith flew up this weekend and treated us to the first college football game of the season, UW vs LSU's Tigers. Since Meredith is a LSU alum, we decked ourselves out in purple and gold and then took the bus (free ride when you show your game ticket!) over to campus for some tailgating with the LSU Alumni Association. We settled onto the lawn with some oyster shooters, jambalaya and beers and watched as everyone around us chanted "tigerbait! tigerbait!" whenever Husky fans walked by. Then we headed over to the stadium where, thankfully, we were seated in a mostly LSU section. There were some Husky fans among us though and they embarrassed themselves (and Seattle really) by being really crude - within five minutes of the game, 2 fans got into a fight right next to us and got thrown out, and the big dude behind us was obnoxious as heck, yelling obscenities left and right while spitting tobacco onto the floor. We ended up leaving the game early because LSU was winning and because we couldn't stand the guy behind us anymore. The tobacco spitter aside, the weather stayed good the entire night and we had a really great time cheering for the Tigers. Geaux Tigers!

Pok Pok is my version of heaven

Portland is a great eating town because it has lots of restaurants that aren't too hard on the wallet. As we were driving back from the Ranch last week, it was such a coincidence (heh) that we passed through Portland right around dinner time...! I directed us to Pok Pok Whisky Soda Lounge, a cozy Thai restaurant in the SE section of Portland that holds the honor of having their Fish Sauce Wings named as one of Food & Wine magazine's Top 10 Dishes of 2007. Normally, I am skeptical of any asian restaurant that has a full bar, but since Way recommended it, I tried not to let my prejudice get the best of me.

And oh boy! This stuff was g-o-o-d. We ordered the famous wings, which Scott tore into like a little kid in a candy store. They were salty (a little too much I think), but tempered with some sticky sweetness and a little smokiness from being on a grill. We also got the Boar Collar Meat - the meat was a bit chewy, but was intense with chili-lime-garlic flavor. Lastly, we got a Pork Belly salad since we are suckers for pork belly and I love most any Thai salad. This one didn't disappoint - it was fiery hot and limey.

We left with happy tummies and a vow to return. The restaurant reminded me a lot of Lotus of Siam, the Vegas Thai place that I rate all Thai restaurants against. The menu was different and interesting and it certainly didn't dumb down the heat and flavors of the food. The bar, I thought, actually added to menu with interesting drinks (Thai bloody mary using Thai chilis anyone?) and atmosphere to boot. This place, along with those delectable oysters we had at Jake's and the killer tapas at Toro Bravo, cements my opinion that Portland is a chowhound's dream!