Salted Sea

The hunt of good seafood never ends in Seattle.

This time, we travelled to Columbia City to try Salted Sea.

We went on a Thursday evening, and it was pretty quiet in the restaurant.

The menu was not big; and with a party of six, we ordered many of the small dishes to share and enjoy the variety Salted Sea had to offer.

Crab cakes were the best with sweet, soft lumps of crabs, and a decently dried crisp crust.

Fish and chips was ok, the coating on the fish was light, but we did not love its flavor.

The octopus had mix review from our table.

I got a meaty chunk and it was excellent — soft, nicely grilled with a little charred flavor.

However, the smaller pieces that other folks in my party had was completely burnt and tough.

The side salad was amazing with smaller pieces of soft octopus meat, crunchy fennel and apple, refreshing and delightful.

L: fried oysters R: grilled octopus

Fried oysters were good: sweet, fresh, with a flavorful cornmeal crust.

The ceviche was a little weird with serving of toasts.

It was extremely sour with very little fish.

Seafood stew was fairly good with generous portion of black cod, mussels and clams.

It had shiso and green onion flavors, interesting combination, and seafood was cooked perfectly.

Clams in sambal broth was addictive with salty Chinese sausage, the spiciness of sambal, and lots of garlic.

We got brussels sprouts for fiber allotment, and they were undercooked, but with decent flavor of red peppers.

The meal was good but not wow; it is a little hard to justify driving a long way for it.

Heartwood Provisions

On a Sunday night, we celebrated a girlfriend’s birthday at the chef’s table in Heartwood Provisions, to experience first hand, their chef’s tasting menu.

A view of the kitchen

It was a quiet night, and it made this already big restaurant seemed even more cavernous.

My friend really loved one of their unique cocktail drinks made with whiskey and a slice of prosciutto in it, she said it was one of the best cocktail she had for a while.

The meal started off with the ends of some nice, fatty, cured ham.

Followed by their famous Wagyu beef jerky, and they were excellent!

L: Wagyu beef jerky, R: prosciutto, oysters and anchovies

Nicely salted, sweet soy, garlicky flavor in semi-dry beef, reminded me of the beef jerky we used to get at home in Hong Kong.

Second plate was a small appetizers mixer with sweet, crunchy oysters, which was a contrast with the chewy fatty ham; and anchovies that were pickled and lean.

Beet salad was a mix of fresh, sweet beets, with gingery pickled beets.

With a buttery, whipped Chevre, a little gamey, a little spice and sweetness, this dish was a burst of flavors.

There was pistachio in it, and something minty as well — it was like a little treasure pot, there was more when you kept digging!

Top: beet salad, Bottom: tomato salad

Sweet heirloom tomato salad was served with Burrata cheese, paired classically with balsamic vinegar, some microgreens and some small fried nuts for texture and nutty flavor, very tasty.

We did not have room for entrée, and resorted to having a bite of each and taking the rest home.

Although the trout with succotash looked a little messy, it was exceptionally delicious.

Perfectly fried, fresh, tender trout with the bright flavours predominantly of corn and red onions.

The succotash was spicy with smoky ham bits.

Second entrée was beef.

Lean, grass-fed, and full of flavours, it came with crisp, small potatoes, and delightful thin-sliced, pickled mushrooms.

The beef texture was nice, with a light cilantro garlic dressing.

My friend had requested the dessert to be their smoked panna cotta.

We devoured it without taking a picture =(, and it really was quite special.

Smoky creaminess, with a perfect sweetness caramel and nuts, simple elegance but with a smoky twist that elevated an already wonderful dessert.

Paired with toffee ice cream, it was a pot of milky sweet goodness.

We even received some fun cocktails on the house!

The 5-course meal was $140 for 2 people, it was a great find!

Eating Out in Queen Anne

How does a friendly Northwest neighborhood business street look like?

One can experience that when you step on the Upper Queen Anne stretch of Queen Anne Avenue North.

Quiet, friendly, prosperous with many eateries and shops.

Starts off with southern-most Cederberg Tea House to Chocolopolis, I found myself at Susahi Samurai next.

Happy Hour starts at 4pm, with sushi set at great price, small varieties of rolls, and discounted drinks.

Top: Samurai roll — Bottom: Happy Hour sushi set

The 12-piece sushi set was only $12, and came with the salmon, smoked salmon, tuna, escolar, shrimp and albacore.

Fish slices were on the thin end with ok freshness.

I wanted to try the Samurai roll even though it was not on the Happy Hour menu.

Flavor was good overall with baked seafood on top of salmon roll, unfortunately the top baked seafood was burnt.

The seafood poke had good chili sauce/soy/sesame flavor, tossed with salad greens, seafood was mostly tuna and squid.

Tuna was very sloppily chopped and tendinous.

The tendon was very hard to chew; it looked like there was an attempt to cut them but it was not successful at the end.

I liked the crunchy salmon rolls.

Chopped salmon roll with tempura bits on the outside, topped with spicy mayo.

Perfect amount of mayo, fish and crunch.

The negitan roll looked interesting on paper.

A yellow tail and green onion roll, fried, and topped with eel sauce.

Unfortunately, I could not say I was a fan of it.

The rolls were soggy and not crunchy, and the fish flavor was drowned by rice.

I would much rather go back to my usual spot, Ginza, for sushi.

Continue North on Queen Anne Avenue North, there is Trader Joe’s, Cupcake Royale, Menchie’s and my favorite coffee place, Storyville.

Right besides Storyville, is Bounty Kitchen.

A simple, airy restaurant serving breakfast, lunch and dinner, with simple, healthy, local and organic food.

Bounty Kitchen offers toasts, soups, salads, sandwiches, and “great bowl of goodness”!!

We had a soba bowl and their Havana Libre bowl, both were delicious, and truly lived up to the name of “great bowl of goodness”.

Bounty kitchen did a fantastic job with textures: the raw vegetables, such as spinach and arugula gave the crunchy texture in my Libre bowl while the sweet potatoes and avocado were soft, and black rice provided the chewiness.

Full of flavors such as citrus and cilantro, garlic, onion, tomatoes from the sofrito, each bite was packed with texture and strong addictive flavors.

Soba noodle in the soba bowl was cooked perfected, tossed with carrot, napa cabbage, lettuce, bean sprouts, sesame seeds and pumpkin seeds, finished off with a miso dressing.

The chicken was Draper Valley’s all natural salt and pepper roasted chicken, tender and tasty.

Their menu consists of plenty vegan/vegetarian options as well.

There are still so many places I want to check out around the neighborhood — Grappa, a Mediterranean restaurant, and Eden Hill, a fancy set course dinner spot, to name a few.

More trips to Queen Anne to come!

Seafood Versus

Every time we had out-of-town visitors, was when I madly researched for seafood eateries.

I wanted to show case the best seafood we had to offer in Greater Seattle.

This past months we tried Highliner Public House and 100 pound clam, and the 2 spots cannot be more different.

Tucked quietly in Ballard’s Fisherman’s Terminal, away from the Ballard’s hipster main street, Highliner Public House is a pub, with their menu consists of plenty of fried seafood.

Fried clams at the back, fish and chips in front

We tried the fried clams, and it was certainly one of the best I had.

Usually I do not enjoy fried clams because the clams are generally very small, and the pieces are mostly batter; these fried clams, however, stood out with its generous and big meaty clam meat inside a fluffy batter.

Fish and chips with salmon was unique; batter was not as good as Nosh’s, and the fresh fish made up for it.

Crab cakes were not very big, and had very good flavors, and lots of crab meat.

The star of our whole meal was the simple steamed clams with butter, garlic and white wine.

Each flavor was distinctive, and complimented the super fresh and huge clams extremely well.

Some mentioned that Highliner sold seafood to other Seattle restaurants, no wonder their seafood is so fresh!

When compared to the traditional, no-frill Highliner, 100 pound clams was very different.

One can find the shack of 100 pound clam by Daniel’s Broiler at Lake Union waterfront, one of the development hot spot in recent Seattle history.

I went on a chilly late summer day to find that they only have outdoor seating; made me wonder how the dining experience would be in the rainy months.

We had seafood chowder, fried avocado and white prawns, salmon BLT, and steamed clams.

The chowder was hearty with unfortunately mostly potatoes and some fish.

The fish was fresh and of good quality, and the broth was tasty enough.

Steamed clams were small, and DH did not like the fennel and Lil’ mama’s peppers flavor combination; I did not care for it either.

The clams just felt greasy.

The salmon BLT had a good soft bun, tasty bacon, with a nice piece of salmon cooked perfectly.

There was too much mayo and masked the flavor of the salmon.

L: salmon BLT, R: fried avocado and prawns

I enjoyed the perfectly fried avocado and the super fresh, crunchy white prawns.

The coarse texture of the cornmeal coating was great, but overall, it was far too salty.

Between the 2 seafood places, I am much more excited finding Highliner Public House than the much raved 100 pound clam.

Higherliner was great fresh quality seafood with simple preparations, where as 100 pound clam had ok seafood that was drowned out by other non seafood components.

Vegan Versus

Compare to many places in the country, the Seattle area is a great place for being vegetarians and vegans.

Vegetarian options are widely available in most of the restaurants; full vegan options, aside from salads, occasional soups, or flatbreads, maybe a little harder to find in most restaurants, but most establishments are willing to customize their offers for vegans or vegetarians.

With a few friends and relatives came to town who were vegans, we ventured out to vegan restaurants in Seattle, and picked Wayward Vegan Café and Plum Bistro.

First up, Wayward Vegan Café in Ravenna.

This vegan restaurant menu seemed to be based on using fake meats.

Menu was very big: breakfast with waffles, pancakes, omelets, biscuits and etc., and lunch offers were sandwiches and subs, and dinner with salads and entrees such as pasta and “meat” platters.

Some dishes are made with just vegetables or tofu, and plenty meat substitutes such as seitan or tempeh, and meat substitute called “chiggen” were used, and there was also fake ground beef.

I had the seitan BBQ ribs sandwich, and honestly, it was quite bad.

seitan BBQ rib in the front, Buffalo “chiggen” sandwich at the back

Thick and dense, and very difficult to digest, a slab of seitan dressed with BBQ sauce in a cold, unfluffy nor crunchy bread.

I was quite disappointed.

DH’s Country fried steak breakfast on the other hand, was so much better.

The scrambled eggs was made with tofu and flavored with curry.

Soft, delicious and flavorful.

Tender “ground beef” was the ingredient for the chicken fried steak, much more digestible, with a delicious mushroom gravy.

My cousin’s buffalo “chiggen” sandwich was good too, spicy hot with tender “chiggen”.

The bread was still sub-par, but at least the filling was a better option than my seitan.

Compare to the heavy usage of fake meats, Plum Bistro, on the other hand, just focused on real food ingredients.

On my first visit, we had the sautéed maitake mushrooms, avocado rolls, and their famous spicy cajun mac n’ yease.

The mac n’ yease was out of this world!

Back: Mac n’ Yease, L: sautéed Maitake, R: avocado roll

It was amazingly creamy delicious without the greasy feeling.

Now, the flavors were different, since it was not the usual cheese flavors, but a small hint of cheesiness and lots of nuttiness from the usage of nutritional yeast; little smoky on top of all the flavors sealed the deal.

Lovely fresh, simple garlic stir-fried fresh maitake mushrooms, and the avocado roll was soft and flavorful.

For entrée, I had the lasagna, and boy was it good!

The filling of spinach and portabello mushrooms gave chewy texture, the creamy cashew ricotta cheese with an awesome addictive red wine marinara sauce.

Plum Bistro used fake cheese in their lasagna and mac n’ yease, not in a huge amount.

Lentil burger had generous lentil patties which was moist, soft, and delicious.

My cousin’s Cuban Black Beauty looked good too, with cumin spiced grilled tofu, black bean puree, bok choy and fried avocado.

The food was so great that I went back for a second visit!

The Buffalo portabello burger was on my to-try list from my first visit, and the burger did not disappoint!

Coated and fried as a whole, the portabello mushroom had great texture and juicy; delicious spicy Buffalo sauce, with the mushroom rested on an excellent soft yet crisp toasted bun.

Plum Bistro had several dishes with tempeh as well, but the menu did not center around fake meat.

The Plum Bistro visits sparked my interest in cooking vegan!

I checked out Plum Bistro’s cookbook at my local library, and it contained many tasty-looking recipes — a great way to expand my culinary horizon.

Two vegan restaurants, two vastly different approach to vegan cooking, Plum Bistro is the winner in my heart.