New Spring Menu at Shibumi Izakaya

The spring menu is coming to Shibumi Izakaya on Capital Hill in Seattle! Last week I was invited to a preview dinner of the forthcoming Japanese small plates and comfort foods. I've never been there before and wasn't sure what the evening had in store, but I was impressed.

The restaurant is beautiful and minimalist with wood accents and Japanese ceramics and clothing on display. The bar is well stocked, with a range of Japanese whiskys, sake and sochu. Always my favorite in any restaurant, the open kitchen borders on one half one the restaurant.

The bartender is super friendly. I'd never had shochu before and after chatting about how it fits into different cocktails, he brought out some samples. Quite a difference between barley and sweet potato distilled liquor. I had his take on Moscow Mule, made with his own ginger beer. He also made a vesper, substituting shochu for vodka, which was a delicious drink, too.  I recommend Shibumi on the drinks alone!

Moscow Mule with house made ginger beer

Like many Japanese restaurants, Shibumi serves beautiful sashimi. And while delicious, Shibumi has far more to offer. This eating experience showed that Japanese cuisine was more than just ginger and wasabi.

Sashimi

Once the small plates started coming, it got real.  The food ranged from vinegary and sweet shrimp and pickled cucumbers to savory cuttlefish stuffed with sausage. It was an eye opening evening; I don't think of sausage as a typical Japanese dish.

Soft boiled eggs are hard to come by in restaurants and I was pleasantly surprised by the soft egg with roe. The egg was perfectly creamy and the roe popped with the freshness of the sea. It's less salty than caviar and was a beautiful treat. I will replicate this at home for sure.

 

The chef, Eric Stapelman, came out and visited our table a few times. He shared that shibumi means always striving for perfection and it shows in his food. There was one dish that the restaurant was too dark for me to capture a picture and it was quite possibly the highlight of the evening.  A piece of poached salmon was wrapped in tofu skin, packaged up as a little gift drizzled with a savory nage. Each bite was blissful, but in a later discussion with the chef, he said he was considering swapping the salmon with his house made sausage - demonstrating how he's always trying to perfect what he does.

The evening wrapped up with black sesame ice cream, beautifully served with an edible flower. The black sesame impart a vaguely coffee flavor to the ice cream and the whole sesame give it a little crunch.

The new menu launches Wednesday April 15th and will delight your senses. Stretch your eating boundaries, try a new cuisine and enjoy some great cocktails.

Disclaimer: I was not compensated for this post, but I was given an awesome dinner and drinks. As always, the opinions are mine and I'm looking forward to coming back to this restaurant.

See's Candies in Woodinville

Woodinville now has a See's Candies! While wine tasting, you can now pop in and get one of the always free samples of their delicious candies. I was invited a media pre-opening event Thursday night, with candy samples, candy box packing races and more candy samples.

The evening started with sampling. Yes, anything we wanted from the display case. And not just the usual one free sample. This was the kind of sampling that required pacing. I had 4 samples within 10 minutes of walking in the door and that was more candy that I've eaten in a month.  It was also over the number of candies that Leanne from Rave and Review decided was the limit for her kids - good thing those kids aren't reading my blog.

See's Candies gives away 1 million pounds in free samples. After a brief break, I was back at the candies, trying things I'd never tried before and making sure that they get to that 1 million pounds this year.  I didn't get to try all of their one hundred different varieties because I was actually candied out. It was a great treat, but with all my clean eating, that was an incredible amount of sugar for me.

Look at that nicely filled candy box.

After a brief information session about the company, we were paired up for candy box filling races. We had to work for the chocolates they were going to give us to take home!  The local management team taught us how to snap out a single paper cup with one hand, while the other, tissue wielding hand would grab the chocolate and place it in the candy box.

I was hoping that it would be a "one for me, one for the box" situation, but we were too closely supervised. But with candy being so seasonal, they need workers at Christmas time and their employees can eat all they want (or can handle). I packed a box of Scotch Mallows, which unfortunately do not have any scotch in them (there is an idea, Mary See and its free)

My favorite candy from See's is the Dark Chocolate Bordeau, which happens to be the number one seller. What is your favorite candy?

See's Candies in Woodinville [store website] is located at 14013 Woodinville Duvall Rd, Woodinville, WA and opened to the public Friday, June 27th. At the time of writing, the shop hours are Mon-Thurs 10am - 6pm, Fri-Sat 10am - 7pm and Sun 12pm - 5pm.

Disclaimer: I was not compensated for this post, but I was plied with chocolates. I liked See's Candies before coming to visit and could name all my favorites when I walked in the door. This is my honest opinion plus a few facts I learned about the company along the way.

Dinner with Chef and Story Teller Russell Lowell

Thursday night, I was invited to dinner with Chef Russell Lowell at his restaurant, Russell's.  Dinner with a great North West chef at the Best Independent Restaurant winner of the Washington Wine Awards? In a rustic, yet elegant former barn?  I'm in. You don't have to ask twice.



The restaurant is comfortable, yet elegant at the same time. Beautiful place settings and not too crowded would make it a great dinner for prom or anniversary or a nice business dinner.  I was looking forward to the dinner, because everything looked great from the New Bedford Sea Scallops in beurre blanc to the Seared Duck. I'm participating in the Whole Life Challenge and I decided that this was going to be worth the points lost.



Dinner was filled with fun conversations with Meeghan Black (yes, from Gardening with Ciscoe) and T'Chani Hill and local wine maker Kevin Lantz (and yes, his Viogner was served at dinner). I lucked out and the perfectly seared scallops were served as the appetizer and followed by a wonderful, beet salad special. Goat cheese, candied walnuts and a delightful vinaigrette topped off peppery arugula and beets. Definitely worth the cheats.



I've always been afraid to buy duck and prepare it, I think I'm fearful of messing up the investment, so when we got our choice from the menu for dinner, the seared duck was an easy choice.  The duck was served with a savory roasted shallot glace, perfectly complimenting the duck.  Heather ordered the rack of lamb, which we rarely make at home, because I think its too gamey. She shared a taste of the nicely crusted, but still red on the inside lamb, and if every lamb tasted that good, you could make a lamb believer out of me.   Chef Russell supports Washington farms and vine yards and this lamb came from Eastern Washington - far better than the Australian lamb I've had before.

Chef Russell got up and spoke during dinner. I'm beginning to really enjoy listening to chefs speak, because they always have some of the most interesting tales to tell. And Chef Russell has definitely got a personality!

I enjoy sitting at breakfast on Sundays, reading a cookbook, both for inspiration and for the beautiful photography. Chef Russell has a cookbook coming out in May and it's going to be one of those read it for the stories as well as the recipes.  I can't retell the story he told (I wouldn't do it justice) us from the book, but it involves Hollywood celebrities, pugilism close calls, road kill, funeral wakes and great white sharks.  If you've got an experience that involves all of those, you've got to put it in a book.  I look forward to getting my hands on it when it comes out.

And dessert... I cheated for sure. I was torn between the creme brulee and the chocolate gateau. Winemaker Kevin Lantz, who eats frequently at Russells' strongly recommended the gateau, so I went with that.  Rich, dark chocolate cake, still gooey and molten on the inside, was served with creme Anglaise and a berry coulis. I was in heaven.

It was a wonderful evening, with new friends, great food and excellent stories.

Special thanks go to Heather for letting me use her photographs and to Karie Engels for putting this all together. I was not compensated for this post, but I got a wonderful dinner and night out. Everything I write is, as always, my own opinion. And if you've got something great, I'd be happy to check it out and write about it too!

A new place to Frolik in downtown Seattle

Thursday night, I was able to go to a pre-opening event for Frolik: Kitchen + Cocktails at the Red Lion Hotel on Fifth Avenue.  I'm not one to hang out in hotel restaurants in my hometown, but I could easily envision a future happy hour here - great eats, excellent cocktails and some fun things to while hanging out.

For this event, the restaurant had more of a party atmosphere with passed appetizers and a DJ and lots of blue light.  But it was great, because we were able to sample so much from their menu.

There are plenty of small plates to just pop in your mouth.  The bacon wrapped dates with their savory, sweet taste and grape, goat cheese and pistachio bon-bons and little dishes of warmed, marinated olives all made for great snacks.

Executive Chef Shailu Salian came up with many other delicious dishes, for all aspects of your palate.  Roast rainbow carrots with braised greens with a honey yogurt sauce and roasted brussels sprouts with almonds were superb vegetable dishes that appealed to my paleo-ish lifestyle, but there was a lot of cheating going on this night.

The tiramisu was wonderful, with a subtle coffee taste and the lady fingers were so light and airy I almost thought that they were accidentally omitted at first.  Bacon makes everything better and then when you add to that bourbon and popcorn, you get a grown up caramel popcorn, but not one that is cloyingly sweet.

I'm not a fan of lamb chops, but the lamb with peach chipotle jam was excellently prepared.  It had just the right amount of red in the middle, still moist and tender. But I still don't like lamb, its just me.

There were still some kinks. The smoked salmon deviled eggs didn't quite deliver. I'm a sucker for anything with smoked salmon, but these ones seemed like the salmon was forgotten.  The spicy melon popsicle was flavorful, but there was no spicy.  I'm sure those will be found in the kitchen and added to their rightful places. The kitchen seemed calm and collected for a first night and I'm sure that will carry over.

He gives a nod to the locals and have charcuterie from Salumi and oysters from Taylor Shellfish Farms.  It was great to try different oysters and really savor the nuances of their flavors. I've had oysters before, but never realized the variations.  The guys shucking oysters were quite knowledgeable and made it quite an experience.  The crab mac n cheese was a gooey treat, crunchy with bread crumbs on top, sweet with crab and buttery with Beecher's Cheese, with a hint of spice in the afterbite.

The cocktail menu has twists on the classic cocktails. I'm sure they can make a fruity drink, but chartreuse and maraschino are well represented in their drinks.  I'd never had a cocktail made with scotch, but the Scotch and Tell is a winner.  The smokiness of the scotch just gives it a wonderful taste that I've never had before.

On a warm sunny Seattle afternoon, the huge patio would be a great place to sit or play.  There is shuffle board, ping pong tables and a hug fire place. The heat lamps look like giant lamps and will take the edge off of the damp Seattle air, if its not so sunny.

Anybody can find something to eat, drink or enjoy at Frolik.  Happy Hour runs daily 4 - 10pm and starting in the summer, they'll be showing movies on the patio. I'll try to catch one this summer, with a Scotch and Tell in hand and popping bourbon bacon popcorn in my mouth!

The restaurant officially opened April 19th, so go check them out!
Frolik Kitchen + Cocktails

5th floor Red Lion Hotel

1415 Fifth Avenue
Seattle, Washington 98101
(206) 971-8000

KFC ran out of chicken

Last night I went to the local Taco Bell Express/KFC to buy a bucket of chicken for dinner. My daughter and I stood in line and waited our turn. While waiting, I overheard the counter-people offering Empanadas because they were out of biscuits.

Undeterred, I still ordered the bucket of chicken we wanted. Evidently my wife has been craving fried chicken after Brittney Spears did something (non-leg spreading) with some fried chicken greasy fingers. We were warned, "We are out of extra crispy and it will be 15 minutes before it is ready."

"So, you are out of chicken right now," I inquire?

The kid at the counter said, "No. It will be 15 minutes." Not wanting to debate the finer points of out of stocks and having the product when the customer wants it, I called home to see if burritos would suffice as an alternative. While I was calling I was overheard and questioned by two people about KFC being out of chicken.

This was also the same Taco Bell that ran out of tortillas for Crunch Wraps (seriously) and asked me to buy 50 Chicken snackers (in jest).

You've got to wonder if there is an opportunity for a suuply chain professional there? Good food, good humor...

Zagat guide for Seattle

I am a big fan of the Zagat's surveys. No, it isn't about listening to the voice of the people; I think that the Zagat's survey's are good honest reviews. My opinions are similar to the that of the combined reviewer, so I must have something in common with the Zagat demographic.

One of the many things that excited me about moving to Seattle was that it had its own Zagat guidebook. I'm pretty good about reviewing restaurants that I've been too. And I'm not ashamed to admit it, I like the fact that participants in their surveys get a free copy of the guide for the area that they reviewed.

Over the years, I've gotten the San Francisco and Seattle editions. This year, they didn't publish a Seattle guide. In one way, that makes me sad, sad that there aren't enough participants or restaurants reviewed to make a full guide book. But on the other hand, they sent America's Top Restaurants instead. I'm okay with that. I've been doing some more traveling lately, so having a more encompassing guide book is attractive.

But get out there residents of the Northwest! Review restaurants on zagat.com. Even if you do it for the free book! There is such great food here in the Northwest.

Vegas, baby, Vegas

Well, the trip really wasn't like that, but I spent two and a half days in Las Vegas last week. I was there for a conference on Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID), for which I am managing our pilot at work.

The convention was at the MGM Grand. This was convenient because the hotel has a check in desk at the airport and will include the cost of the shuttle on my hotel bill. I also discovered that they'll have a bellman take my bags to the shuttle for me (expects a tip), who will take me to the hotel (expects a tip) and have baggage handlers bring the bag to my room for me (expects a tip). I'm cheap and not too keen on the expected tips. I can drag my bag around and I don't need someone to carrry it for me. There are times when I want that to happen and I'll ask someone to do it for me. So, for those who are wondering, I tipped the bellman, didn't tip the driver and snatched my own bag before the baggage handlers could bring it up to my room.

My room was in the West Tower which was pretty trendy. The hallway was super long (unfortunately, no picture) and the room was totally bad-ass. All muted grays and reds, lots of glass (the desks, the sink, shower and bathroom door), TV built into bathroom miror and more. The bed's headboard was a cool red leather and you can seee the light on the side of the bed (there is only one, just mirrors on the corner there). It was swank and modern.

The opening speaker was Monday night and I went down early to check in and orient myself to the convention center. The convention center is all the way on the other end of the hotel and it took my about 20 minutes to walk there. It wasn't until the second day that I found a shortcut, avoiding most of the casino floor. Before the speaker started, they were playing music in the convention hall. I thought it was strange and actually use my note pad to write down what songs were playing.

1. Naked Eye - Luscious Jackson
2. Song 2 - Blur
3. Odelay - Beck
   

I enjoyed the music, but I thought that this was pretty strange music for a convention targeted at mid-level and executive supply chain managers and technology companies. But hey, I guess they wanted to recognize the youthfulness of the RFID industry.

The first evening kicked off with appetizers and cocktails in the exhibtion hall and that is always fun when you don't have to pay for alcohol. I decided that I didn't want any of the beer or wine that they had and asked the bartender to make me the cocktail he likes to make. He offered up a Tequila Sunrise and that was what I drank. I would have imagined that there was something else, more interesting that a bartender would like to make, but who am I. I just like cocktails (and I like to make them too, so I supposed I am qualified to ask for something like that).

On the second night, I went to L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon. It's a cool French restaurant with bar seating around an open kitchen. It would take the sous-chefs about 5 minutes just to garnish the plates. It was beautiful watching them prepare the food. And oh my god is the food good. It sucked being there alone, because I had no one to share with. I had a smoked salmon appetizer, several nice pieces of lox with dilled creme fraiche and for dinner, a filet of John Dorry with chorizo and fava beans. It was so good. I chatted some with a journalist who works with John Dvorak (at the RFID conference) and a doctor who was at some other convention with her husband.

The MGM Grand has a large pen with several lions. I guess it makes sense, being that they have that lion roar at the beginning of the MGM movies. On the last day, I decided to run by with my camera. I got there right after feeding, so there was quite a crowd, but the big lion was right up at the front of the pen. So, I did the journalist thing and held my camera over my head and snapped some photos. It looks like he is sizing me up for dessert, doesn't it?

The convention was really informative and I didn't just stop at every vendor (I learned my lesson from last time, I don't want all the "follow up" calls). On top of that, I found it to be re-energizing. I've got some ideas to take back to our steering committee so that we can decided upon some options on how to continue to explore RFID (and spend money). This is what I think I liked best about this conference.

I flew out of McCarran International airport, on my way back to Seattle, but I had a few hours to kill in the airport. That airport offers free wi-fi access! How great is that. So, I posted my pictures to my flickr account, responded to some work email, and exchanged a few emails with my friend Laura. My battery started to die, so I didn't get to start writing this post.

So, hopefully this is a better travel-blog - not so painful for me to write and not so long for you to read.

The Week in Review

There have been several things that I've wanted to post about during the week, but I was spent from my gigantor travel blog. I didn't expect it to become the monstrosity that it was.

So, I'll catch up with a Week in Review.

Monday
iTunes had a 4 track + video She Wants Revenge live album and since I really like the band, I purchased it. Let me just say, save your $4.99 and go buy lunch at Taco Bell. It's not that the music was bad, it was just identical to the studio version. It was recorded live someplace in LA, but it didn't have any of the live feel, no sounds of the crowd, no "You rock, LA," none of that. Great band, but if you already have these songs, there is no need to get this.

Tuesday
The kids are on spring break, so I stopped work early to go with my family to the DoubleTake exhibit at the Experience Music Project. I always enjoy going to art museums and have gone to several with the kids. The art work is from the personal collection of Paul Allen and the art is paired (or grouped) in a way that asks the viewer to compare and contrast the artwork. It was a really neat exhibit and made you think about different works of art.

This also was the first exhibit that I've been to with an audio commentary. At times, I wasn't sure what I thought of it. Basically, in the exhibition room, there were all these people with a thingy stuck to their ear and hardly any whispered discussions of the art. In the end, I think it was nice, because there were so many different pieces of art that the commentary helped bring focus and attention to the things to compare and contrast.

Afterwards, we ate at a nice Vietnamese restaurant, Huong Bihn, in the International District in Seattle. It was really good. I think it was the first Vietnamese place I've been too.

Thursday
Google Calendar was released. I've been waiting for this for a while. I am a huge fan of the company Google. They make some of the greatest most flexible tools available. I imported my Outlook Calendar into it and have been using it side-by-side (because sync'ing isn't available yet).
Heather has wanted to be able to see my calendar and now we've got a good tool to do that. I also created a calendar for each of the kids to better keep track of their boatload of events.

I totally recommend Google Desktop Search, Gmail, Google Earth, Google via SMS and Google Calendar. Heck, Blogger is even a Google tool. Leave me a comment if you'd like me to share my calendar with you.

Friday
The end of the week is here. We got a lot of work done, but at the same time it was a frustrating week. I tire very quickly of people who are out of the loop and don't follow their own project's progress and then say how they are going to run to various Executive VPs because their isn't enough capacity when they change the scope of the project at the last minute.

Today was a rough day because Heather wasn't feeling well and Chase threw up more times that I can remember during the day. Three times in our bed. Not in a bowl on our bed, but on the bed itself. Sucks.

The day ended on a high note, when Alec went out to get the mail. The first issues of Maxim, Stuff and Blender that Heather got for me. Woo-hoo! It's gonna be a fine weekend!

Sunday in Vancouver

Forecast: I don’t know, but it is raining.

Everybody woke up this morning around 8:30, which was surprising considering how late the kids stayed up. I went across the way to Starbucks again (can you figure out my morning routine while traveling?) and then we had a lazy morning in the hotel room, getting ready to go out.

We checked out of the hotel at about 11:30 pm (only 30 minutes before the check out time) and headed to Dim Sum. Heather found what was reviewed as the Best Dim Sum place in Vancouver, but it was also not in a very good neighborhood. Several of the reviewers made comments about their car getting broken into. Luckily, but not for us, this restaurant had a parking garage. Not for us, because our Expedition is 6' 5-3/4" tall and the garage was listed as 6' 6". We found some street parking, after driving around the block a few times.

The Dim Sum was good, though there were more fried entrees than steamed entrees. It was really good, but we didn't get as many steamed dishes as we wanted.

The rain stopped before we left Dim Sum and headed to Gastown to check out a dinosaur exhibit and a live history of British Columbia, BC Live. Both exhibits were interesting and it was funny how they portrayed the Americans (both gold rush miners -drunken - and the president - buffoon) and the Queen of England (ditzy). It was humorous and informative on the history of BC.

I fed the meter a few times so that we could check out the sights in Gas Town. For the first time in a long time, I was hit up by panhandlers and some dude lit up a spliff while walking down the street. Gas Town is home to a Steam powered clock, which is kind of interesting. Gas Town is also home to many tourist shops. I had been quite pleased with us not buying any touristy crap, but that was shot down in the streets of Gas Town. I think we stopped at three tourist trap stores and bought stuff. It was good to try (note the use of try) to use up our Canadian dollars (I think I've got $12 CA in my pocket now and only $2 US - what is up with that?).

It was about 4:30 when we finally left Gas Town and decided we would do one last thing in Vancouver - eat - before we headed home. Heather found a really cool restaurant, Feenies, whose chef was an Iron Chef winner. I'll start by saying that it was a very cool restaurant and worthy of it's own separate posting (especially if I blogged about the Stanwood Grill).

Feenies was a hip and trendy bistro. All the staff was young and cool and there was a birthday party party for a bunch of 20 or 30 somethings. The decor was colorful and modern and the wine rack built into the wall had a clear glass back, so you could see through from the bar to the dining room. It must be a popular place, we walked in at about 4:50 and they had to check their reservations pretty hard to be able to squeeze us into a restuarant that had only one other party in it. We were told we could have the table until 6:30 - we took the table knowing we weren't going to be that long.

Prior to 5:30, they still serve from the afternoon menu. They are pretty adamant about it, there was another party, who got there about 5:10 and really wanted to be served from the dinner menu. They ultimately stalled until 5:30.

The food was excellent. Heather had a red and gold beet salad with lobster. It was really, really good. I didn't know that she was such a fan of beets - I'll have to make them more often. I had cured salmon with pickled shallots, creme fraiche and brioche. It was really good. We were warned when we ordered that they were appetizer sized (remember the Byte Bar and Cafe, Erik?), but we ordered anyway, knowing we had a long drive in front of us. The kids had a sausage dog and a nice angus burger.

This place (and probably its big sister), Lumiere, are places to visit again. If I end up in Vancouver again or pass through, I'm stopping there. Five stars. Two thumbs up. Little man jumping out of his chair. Totally bad ass restaurant. Eat here.

We headed out of Vancouver about 6 pm and headed home. The drive south was uneventful. We had about a 15 minute wait at the border. All my documents (recall, I had birth certificates for all, Heather's passport and my expired official passport) were in an envelope ready to hand to the border guard. We got up to the crossing and she extended her rubber gloved hand and asked for ids. I handed her the envelope and she pulled back her hand like I was giving her a poisonous snake. She wanted them out of the envelope, with which I complied.

She wanted to know where we went, if we were all US citizens and where we lived. Easy questions. She asked if we bought anything in Canada. Duh, of course we did. "Touristy souvenirs," I said.

"Any alcohol, tobacco, tylenol or codeine?"

I stalled out there. Heather had some flu-like symptons and I bought Sudafed - the wrong stuff for her symptoms - at the Safeway across the street. "I bought Sudafed."

It seemed like she was thinking for a while, making me sweat it out. "Your okay," and handed back my packet of ids.

We made it back!

About 9:00 we got back into our neck of the woods and decided to stop for dessert at Claim Jumpers in Redmond. I've never been to a Claim Jumpers before, but I had been told that the food and desserts were "good and huge portions." Our service sucked - we waited a long time to be asked what we wanted, when the waiter got to us, he was all excited that he had an easy dessert only table. Chase, Parker and I got our desserts so long before Heather and Alec got theirs, that the kids were able to eat half of their brownie. When Alec's ice cream pie finally came, it was half melted and the waiter said something about losing Heathers pie, so they upsized hers to the larger on. Except, they only offered one size.

My carrot cake and Heather's deep dish apple pie were disappointing. The apples had no flavor and the carrot cake was bland and so-so. The kids brownie was really good, though. And even better on Monday night.

Claim Jumper's did not impress me. I probably won't go back.

About 10:20 pm we got home. Overall, it was a great vacation and enjoyable. I saw lots of MINI Coopers, people watching was great, the break from work was needed and we had fun. I posted a bunch of pictures on my flickr account (I actually used up my free uploading space this month - I might have to upgrade), so check them out, too.

I hope you enjoyed this travel blog - it turned out to be much longer than I intended!

Saturday in Vancouver

Today's Forecast:
High 55
Low 42
Precipitation: 90%

Saturday started off being a mostly cloudy but nice day. While Heather and the kids were getting dressed, Alec and I headed across the street to one of the local Starbucks to bring back coffee (I won’t drink hotel room coffee). I paid cash, and when I exclaimed, “Oh, cool. The two dollar coin,” I probably displayed some of my tourist-ness.

We headed out a little before 10 am (we are on vacation) and went to Sophie’s Cosmic Cafe for Breakfast. We easily found parking a block away, used my $2 coin to pay for parking and walked up the street to the restaurant. There were people clustering in and out the door, so we felt okay about where we were.

It turns out that they don’t take names, but just form a line. The girl at the door told us it would be about 15 minutes for my (home) Party of Five. We hung out on the sidewalk waiting our turn; smaller parties were seated quickly. About 10 minutes into our wait, another party with five people in it came. As our kids would range on the sidewalk, when the ?manager? came out, he looked at the other group and asked them if they were the group of five that was next. We spoke up that it was actually us and were seated shortly there after. I’m not so sure about this line thing instead of names.

Sophie’s is a funky little breakfast spot with an outdoor patio. The walls are covered with old records, baseball pennants, metal lunchboxes and toys. It as the typical breakfast menu of eggs, pancakes, waffles, eggs benedict (my choice), but no kids menu. It was recommended as a good place to take kids, but I think that was due to the funky décor. They did give us crayons to color with, though.

Heather ordered French Toast, Parker and Chase, waffles, Alec, Kit’s breakfast with bacon, eggs and two pancakes and I got Eggs Benedict. The food came quickly but wasn’t notable. The sausage that came with Heather’s French Toast was a very fine grind and had a different flavor. Neither of us found it very pleasant.

Overall Review: Sophie’s is a funky breakfast spot, popular with the locals, but the food isn’t so great. Eat there for the funky décor, but that is about it.

After breakfast we drove to Stanley Park – kind of like the Golden Gate Park of Vancouver. It was a nice park, lots of people biking, running and roller blading. We didn’t stop and drove through the park. People in Vancouver seem pretty fit and fashionable.

You could see across the water to the shipping docks in North Vancouver. There were brilliant colored piles of sulfer and shipping containers. We didn’t stop, so I didn’t get any photographs, with the exception the one I took while driving.

From the park, we headed to Granville Island, basically a giant public market. We wandered through there, ate a snack and I was able to take lots of photos of the foods on display. Every time we’d walk through the vegetable markets, I’d get waylaid by the colorful displays.
Parking was free, albeit harder to find.

We took a roundtrip on an aquabus. These cute little boats take people all over False Creek. It is a pretty neat little public transit system.

Overall Review: The market was just another public market – lots of stuff to buy but nothing unique. It was great for people watching, a bite to eat and photography. The aquabus was a neat way to see the waterfront and not too expensive. The micro tour was worth it.

We went to the Capilano Suspension bridge after that. We didn’t have any coin of the realm left, so Heather went to try to get change. Parking would have cost us $3 CA, but I found a parking receipt with time still left on it, so parking was free there too! Admission was steep and as I charged $60 CA, I was asking myself what exactly am I paying for? Sixty bucks to walk across a gorge on a suspension bridge? I’m cheap, so I wasn’t so thrilled. The park ended up being pretty nice and very well done. There were boardwalk trails through out the park, photo spots and all kinds of catwalks and suspension bridges through the trees. There were very nice displays of the history in the area. Heather doesn’t do well with heights and especially heights near our kids, but she did well with them.

Overall Review: Expensive, but worth it. Nicely done park and display of history.

We left the park at about 5:45 or so and decided to head to Shannon Falls in Squamish. A quick check on the GPS showed that sunset was around 6:58 pm, so we’d be able to get there before dark. The drive to the park was on the Sea to Sky Highway. It has an incredible view of the sound and the mountains and the road was very curvy. It made me miss my MINI. It would be fun for a long, international rally.

We drove in about 6:30 and the park closed (the sign said they locked the gate) at 7 pm. Heather checked the map and saw that the falls were pretty close to the parking area, so we decided that we would stay. Again, we had to pay for parking, but this time it was only $1 CA for an hours parking. You’ve got to pay for parking everywhere here!

The falls were very scenic and I was able to get photos before the sunset. I didn’t see how high the falls were, but I’d guess that they were in same area as some of the falls in Yosemite. This particular park had lots of trails too for day hiking.

Overall Review: Pretty nice place. Cheaper parking and it seems like a great place for a day hike.

It was just before 7 as we left Shannon Falls and decided that we needed to look for someplace for dinner. The navigation system showed that the Howe Sound Brewery was pretty close. That was the choice for dinner.

As we drove through the little town, towards the sound, we drove past lots of closed restaurants. There was hardly anybody out and we got worried that the brewery might have been closed. The Brewery is also home to a nice hotel. The pub was off limits to people under the age of 19, so we headed into the restaurant to eat. It was nicely decorated and the menu looked pretty nice.
We were seated and very promptly the kids were brought plates of vegetables – pretty nice thing for them – and a packet of things to color. Points for being kid friendly.

Heather ordered the warm seafood salad from the specials and iced tea and I ordered a Santa Fe Chicken sandwich with a side of ale and cheddar soup and ale. At the last minute, we added an appetizer of yammer jammers, yam french fries. They were probably the best part of the meal.
Heather didn’t really like her salad, some of the shrimp were canned and her iced tea was a fruity tea, which she doesn’t like at all. We ended up trading beverages, so I got to drive the curvy road back (which is enjoyable). My sandwich was bland – pretty far from Santa Fe, I should have guessed and my soup was forgotten.

Overall Review: The food wasn’t worth the trip from Vancouver, though the scenic views of the mountains around the sound make up for it. The food was surprisingly inexpensive.

As we left the restaurant, it started to rain (remember the forecast), and it rained all the way back to the hotel. We got back at about 9:30 and got ready for bed. Heather and the kids watched TV until it was quite late and I read some. I ended up forgetting to take out my contacts and when I did, I dropped one (but I didn’t realize it until the next morning).

Lazy Saturday

This weekend is going great! Saturday morning had a very nice start to it and the weather was great. So, while Chase was at swim practice, Heather, Alec, Parker and I went for a walk in downtown Issaquah.

We walked down a trail from the pool and community center down to Front Street. Along the way, we saw some modern art and a whole lot of pregnant ladies, which are art themselves.

There is an inactive rail line in Issaquah and it looks like they've made a small train museum out of it and Alec and Parker enjoyed playing on the train tracks. Hopefully, they know the difference between real tracks and old tracks.

As we walked back to the pool, to pick up Chase, we stopped at the Fisher Brothers Butcher and bought some beef jerky and German hunter's sausage. Again, that place is so cool.

We headed to lunch at Su Casa, which has been recommended to us as the best Mexican restaurant in Issaquah. It was pretty good. It is a family run place - we were seated by the daughter, who really knew her stuff. They were out of the kids menu, but she was able to tell us what was on it and make recommendations for our kids. As to the grown ups, the food was very good and the plates very large. I'd have to agree the restaurant was very good.

We headed home and were trying to figure out how to spend the rest of the afternoon. With the great weather we've been having, the peaks in the Cascades have been calling to me. They must have been calling to Heather too because she said that she wanted to go to a road that we can see on a mountain side.

The road is pretty distinctive and I'd found it on some topo maps I had bought, so we headed out for a Saturday drive. It was great, we took some small backroads (202, Tolt Hill Road, 203) which took us to Highway 2. We headed down Highway 2 towards Skykomish and then to some National Forest Roads. Very quickly we got into thick trees and one lane dirt roads. It was great to get off the pavement onto dirt. Since it is still wintertime, the road soon became a trail (really ruts in the snow). As we got to the intersection where the road started heading up the hillside to where we can see it from our house, it hadn't been traveled enough to have ruts, I decided that we should turn around. The map did show that it probably wasn't passable too far, because it was shown as a seasonal road (and the winter season was "winter activities/snowmachines").

At the turnaround point, there were several cars parked. We had arrived as one guy was putting his cross country skis on top of his car to head home and another guy (in running shorts) came running down the trail we had wanted to drive up. Definite hard core winter people.

It was ironic, because the kids had come straight from swim practice, still wearing flip-flops. Parker was wearing shorts. But I wasn't going to do anything stupid and get us stuck - I've been stuck enough in Alaska.

We turned around and instead of heading home, we went to Steven's Pass, hoping to see sunset. The mountains are high enough around the road that there wasn't much sunset to see, so we stopped at the ski area for dinner. Again, funny looks from the skiers in their snow gear and my kids in shorts and flip-flops.

After dinner we headed back, through the small towns and back roads of Washington. All in all, it was a great drive - about 4 hours and 159 miles. I'm so happy Heather got the "let's go there" bug. I really like being so close to the outdoors here in Washington, it is a great place.

Dinner with Friends

On Friday night, we got a baby sitter and my wife and I went to dinner with some friends who were in Seattle selling a house. It had been almost 5 years since we had seen Erik and Kelly, so we had some catching up to do.

We went to Union on First Street in Seattle and it was quite an enjoyable dinner. While we were definitely there to eat dinner, we were really there to spend some time and catch up with Erik and Kelly. I was quite happy with the lack of presssure to keep dinner moving and how informative they were.

We got a five course sampler and each course, as it was presented to us, was described to each person. A very nice touch.
So, we had:

• Steak Tartare with pumpernickle crostini
• Sweet Corn Soup with a seared Sea Scallop
• Duck Muscovit with roasted figs
• Sea Bass with Chantarelle mushrooms
  
• Huckleberry Crisp

All of it was excellent and I was pleased to find that they had 3 different Cabernet Francs to choose from. Cab Francs are hard to find, even in restaurants with large wine lists. We enjoyed one from Domaine des Corbillieres of the 2002 vintage.
Dinner was delicious, but the chatting was better. I got to show off pictures of our kids that, to my wife's surprise, I had on my phone and saw pictures of their baby, their dog Ronin (a totally bad ass name).

I also learned that I can fit four grown adults in my MINI - I gave them a ride to their hotel, instead of making them walk the six (or nine) blocks. I also learned something - all the people that have said that they think a MINI is cute, that is just their way of saying "badass."

I am still impressed with how quickly we can get from our house to downtown Seattle. On a Friday night, it took us less than 40 minutes to get all the way to the restaurant, including finding parking. There is no way we could have done that in the Bay Area.