All the Buzz in Seattle

All the Buzz in Seattle

October 2008

Our merry band moved north to the city center of Seattle and surrounding vineyards. The city has distinct little neighborhoods with their own styles and cultures. The first thing that comes to my mind when I think about the city is the flying fish market at Pike's Market. But the market has so many more layers with vendors selling homemade huckleberry honey, amazing macaroni and cheese, tiny doughnuts and of course-- the original Starbucks Coffee.

And what goes best with coffee? Doughnuts. Hey, it's your birthday, live a little.

Downtown we shopped and enjoyed observing the "rugged chic" inhabitants. In DC a casually nice restaurant calls for a black dress and kitten heels. In Seattle it is apparently alright to roll out in cargo pants and an under armor tee. Cool. Break dancing and flannel are still abundant here too, giving a fun rebellious streak to the city. One of the trendy spots we visited was the Dahlia Lounge. They have locally famous doughnuts that come paired with fresh huckleberry jam and a whipped marscarpone-vanilla creme.

Dahlia Lounge Doughnuts (apparently doughnuts are a thing in Seattle?!)

We grabbed a great breakfast at the Portage Bay Cafe. This cafe is organic, locally grow, and yummy, living up to their slogan "Eat Like You Mean It". However, when the weather is nice in Seattle it is important to take advantage of the vitamin D boost. So we headed north to the vineyards. (Did I just pin that decision on weather?! Yeah, weather.)

The most picturesque, Chateau Ste. Michelle, was the perfect place for a mellow afternoon picnic of wine and cheese.

Irene insisted that we make one more high-caloric stop at Molly Moos Homemade Ice Cream. (Serious arm-twisting ensued.) This neighborhood joint scoops up flavors like lavender honey, green tea, salted caramel, and Ba'rocky road. Being from DC I tried to distill a greater political platform in the chunks of fudge and, homemade marshmallow. But I couldn't come up with anything. Maybe I should have stayed for another bowl to ponder it some more...

The landfill friendly non-plastic spoon and paper bowl did not escape my eye. The really do care about the environment. It was a discernible leap from the "maybe we will recycle that one glass bottle we sell" attitude of east coast establishments. Plastic spoon or not, this ice cream was indulgent. Yet another reason to move to the left coast.

Hello, Tacoma!

Hello, Tacoma!

October 2008

I'm thinking about moving from DC to Washington State. Wow, what a place! This last trip out to Tacoma and Seattle was a whirlwind of friends, food, and fabulous weather. I have been told that the Seattle area is not always 74 degrees and sunny, but my research says it is. My research also indicates that is a region of GOOD EATS. My tour guides Melanie, Anssel, and Irene know where to go, and my travel companions Erin and Laura take their eating very seriously. I was really taken by how fresh the food is in the Pacific Northwest. Restaurants talk about locally grown or organic, not because it is trendy marketing, but because they really believe in sourcing the best ingredients.


This philosophy of "best" surely factored into the deliciousness found at Hello, Cupcake. This Tacoma cupcakery is nestled on a campus of UW and has a comfy Donna Reed's kitchen aesthetic.




The towers of vanilla, chocolate, red velvet, and mocha are irresistible. The chocolate on chocolate has a thick, dense, not-overly-sweet frosting that is the best I've ever tasted. However, when I think of Seattle, I think of my other love--- COFFEE. So I had to go for the mocha with coffee frosting, topped with a chocolate coffee bean.

Yum. Definitely worth the trip.

After getting hyper and sugared up, we thought we should go somewhere quiet, with lots of breakable stuff, where we could be inconspicuous. Luckily the Museum of Glass is across the street. The giant aqua columns on the bridge kinda reminded me of rock candy. Guess that sugar-buzz was still in effect.

A few rolls of candid photos and an injury or two, and we had thouroughly experienced the Chihuly glass exhibits and the gift shop. Who says our generation doesn't appreciate culture?

We ended the day by enjoying local salmon with huckleberry puree at a great resyuraunt near the water (CJ Shenanigans). Since we were celebrating double birthdays (Mel and Laura) the waitress brought us a rack of cake shots. Yup, cake shots.

Someone brilliant found a way to serve EIGHT types of cake at once. Ours included (left to right- to the best of my memory...) banana bread pudding, chocolate mouse cake, oreo parfait, something coconut (?), strawberry shortcake, something else choclate, mudpie, and tiramisu. Happy birthday indeed.

SE Asia Treats: Singapore & KL

SE Asian Treats:

Singapore & KL

August 2007

I just returned from a wonderful vacation travelling through SE Asia. The dessert of choice in Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam is defintiely fruit. However, I managed to find a few treats along the way.

SINGAPORE

* Sweet Corn / Yam Ice Cream - I tried this treat at the botanical garden and I blame my judgement on jet lag. It was like mixed veggie gelato, not an experience I'd like to repeat. No, it would be unfair to say I didn't enjoy the yam for the first several bites. But the corn, well, it was more like sucking on mashed up frozen corn... Not sure why I don't have a picture. My camera batteries were on the fritz.

* Chinese Egg Custard Tarts - Delicious little tarts with warm custard in the middle that we enjoyed at a Cantonese dim sum resturaunt. Much better than American fortune cookies. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egg_tart)

* Cookie Cake Bars - Yes, this is what the man in Little India called them. And since he baked them- he wins the right to call them whatever he wants. The yellow one with the mysterious green seeds was delicious. The top was smooth and sweet and the cookie bottom was crunchy and light. Amazing. The pink one I only bought because it was A) Bright Pink and B) Sparkly Silver. It tasted like coconut though which I don't care too much for.

* Moon Cakes- In many areas we saw chinese mooncakes since the Moon Festival is right around the corner in August.

* Singapore Sling- While not exclusively a dessert item, this sugary cocktail was certainly a treat. The original was concocted right here in the Raffles Hotel.

KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA

* Donut Factory- It is well worth a trip to the website to see the flavor list(http://donutfactory.com.sg/) that icludes orange cream, hazlenut, spicy cheese, wait... WHAT?! The lines stretch out for over an hour at some locations though there is an express line for lunch sandwhiches. Think about that ham and cheese with a little lettuce and mustard on a chocolate glazed donut. Here's your first stop.

* Breakfast Muffins- The buffet at the KL Hilton is unbelievable. Frim dum sum, noodle soup, fresh fruit, assorted cheeses, and of course some tasty muffins and puff pasteries full of nuts, guava, or red bean paste. Dessert at breakfast? Yes please!

SE Asian Treats: Vietnamese Pastries

SE Asian Treats:
Vietnamese Pastries

August 2007

The bulk of our trip took us through the northern half of Vietnam. These are still fruit-fanatics (for good reason), but the area was also heavily influenced by the french so the bread and pastries are wonderful.

HANOI, VIETNAM

* Ginger Creme Brulee- The Tamarind Cafe is a tea house / travel agency that became a sort of base camp for backpackers. They have vegetarian fusian plates as well as western style desserts like this ginger creme brulee using fresh grated ginger.

* Chocolate Wontons- Resturaunt Bobby Chin is not exactly a hangout for locals, but I am not complaining about anyplace I can get sake-steamed crab and filet mignon for $20. It is worth stopping by just to read the menu, which is witty and creative. We we so full that we ordered the "On a diet dessert" which is a big plate with a tiny (delicious) chocolate wonton. Dark chocolate dough wrapped around a truffle-like chocolate center. Decadent.

HOI AN, VIETNAM

* Vietnamese Coffee- Coffee is a dessert in itself since sweetened condensed milk is added to the dark brew to thicken and sweeten it up. It arrives in a little percolator which fills the cup. Then you pour in the milk from the dish until it is "of good quality for you".

* Many Pastries- Hoi An is home to the Cargo Club Resturaunt and Patisserie. This largely ex-pat hangout is a great place to end the day with a cup of coffee or ginger tea and a fresh cake or mouse. My favorites include the passionfruit and chocolate mousse cake and the pistachio mouse cake.

Here is the Patesserie and the pastry case:

Here is the pistachio mousse cake and the mango cheesecake (or maybe passionfruit mousse... not sure):

This one I am sure about. It's the passionfruit mousse on top of the chocolate mousse:

For a change of pace I also enjoyed some mango sorbet. (I love the pretty green swirled wafer cookie too.):

Greetings from Vietnam

Greetings from Vietnam

August 2007

I am taking a baking hiatus to vacation in SE Asia. Although I have enjoyed some fabulous cakes and cookies here, the best dessert is fresh tropical fruit. There is nothing more refreshing in hot sticky weather than ripe pineapple, guava, papaya, or even a juicy peach. There are lots of fruits I have never tried before. My new favorite is Rambutan, with its alien like tentacles. It looks more like a clown nose than a fruit, but has a juicy lychee-like center. I also enjoy dragonfruit and mangosteen. We just picked up a "custard apple" from the market, so I will let you know how that goes.

RAMBUTAN

This is a close-up of the inside of the Rambutan. I already ate the fruit in the middle, so it is not shown here.

Check out http://www.ranbutan.com/ for a complete guide to growing and eatting this fruit.

DURIAN

Durian. Also known locally as Dodol, this is the fruit that smells like dirty gym socks wrapped around really smelly cheese. It actually smelled worse in person than I expected after hearing about it on Anthony Bourdain. But surprisingly, I liked foods flavored with it. Except the beer with durian juice.... that was just gross.

What I love most about the durian are the signs at hotel, train stations and airports that you may not bring durian into the building (because of the smell). Yet there are tons of durian flavored candies, potato chips and other snacks if you can't keep a slice on hand. Sometimes I had trouble telling the difference between durian and the the much nicer tasting Jackfruit, because they look kind of similar.

ORANGES

This guide is showing us an orange. What makes this fruit different than oranges in the US? It's green. This is a ripe juicy orange.

(The slightly larger orange-colored citrus are actually pomelos, which are asian grapefruits.)

Just to the left of her hip you can see the bright pink and spikey dragonfruit. The inside is white with lots of little black seeds. At my first breakfast buffet I actually ate the rind because it looked more appetizing than the fruit. I won't make that mistake again. (It was bitter like eatting too far down on a slice of watermelon.)

MANGOSTEEN

From top to bottom of this picture you see the pomelos, then pears, cherries in bags, grapes in bags (very expensive), rambutan, and then mangosteen at the bottom.

When you peel the slightly spongy mangosteen skin you find the fruit which has sections like an orange, but a totally different flavor.

There are much better pictures here: http://www.xango.com/learn/mangosteen.html

MARKETS

This is pretty typical of a fruit stand in hanoi. Although you can also get cheap and convienient snacks from the ladies that sell fruit out of hanging baskets. They will slice up pineapple, cut you a branch of longan, or haggle over anything else in season.

FLOATING SNACKSHOP

There are also some very entreprenurial women who will approach on boats in case you might like some fruit, a beer or a can of Pringles while swimming.

Hoi An has a little more room than the city for fruit and vegetable markets.

ART

In Ha Long Bay we saw some amazing fruit sculptures.