Restaurant Review: 94 Stewart

Saturday, September 22nd, 2007

Filed Under American, Downtown, Mediterranian

One of the after-effects of maintaining a restaurant review blog is that your friends start treating you like an expert in the area, and sometimes call on you to get restaurant recommendations. This is an easy task when you are not part of the guest list, send them to one of your favorite restaurants. But when you are also a member of the dinner party, there is a huge dilemma. Should you recommend a tried and tested restaurant that you know is good, or should you go with one from your wishlist so that you have a subject for yet another post? The first one is the right choice, what a good friend should do, but then what will you write about?

So, last Friday night when my selfish side won the argument and I suggested 94 Stewart for a long due dinner outing with some dear friends, I was keeping all my fingers and toes crossed. It was going to be a hit or miss situation, and lucky for me it wasn’t a total disaster, the friendship is going to survive for some more time!

94 Stewart, what a clever way to name a restaurant! If you know the name, you will know where it is., no need to search for the address. My biggest apprehension about the place was that this is situated right on top of Pike Place Market, and the introduction in their web site is addressed to the tourists! You know how most tourist centric restaurants are, over-prized and the quality is sub par. Well, the prizes are on the higher side (~$25-$30 per entree), but that is the same as most similar restaurants in Seattle. And the food quality was really good, freshest ingredients and the right flavors. The menu has only eight entrees, but there is still good variety, out of the six of us in the group, there was only one repeat order!

We started with the Nosh platter with home made pates, toast, artisan cheeses, olives, cured meats and pickles. This was really a treat, there was not one thing in this platter that I’d change. The plate was polished off immediately.

On the drink front, I ordered a cocktail called Black Pear- espresso beans stirred with pearl vodka layered with Sambuca. Wow, this was one strong drink, and there was no way I could have it. So I asked for a beer instead, and we were not charged us for this drink. That was really nice of them. We all stuck with beer and wine that night. Since the four of us who had beer ordered the same ale, they kept running out of cold beer, and we had to wait a while to get the seconds and thirds. Guess they are not used to serving so many beers in one night!

The appetizer section didn’t have much choice other than some salads, so we decided to just get some soup for the table. The soup of the day was a Manila Clam Chowder, and they had an option for a cup or a bowl. We specifically told the server we are all going to share when we ordered two bowls. They brought out two bowls of soup, and when we asked for some cups to share, they weren’t too happy about it! It looked like we were the first customers to ever ask for extra cups. Anyway after a while some cereal bowl looking cups appeared but by then we were almost done with the soup. (The bowls were passed around the table and were shared along with all our germs). The soup was delicious, but this was a strange experience. After coming home I checked their web site and saw this line:

Dishes are served as they are intended to appear. Not split among several plates removing any visual appeal.

Well, that could be the reason for the strange looks from the otherwise friendly wait staff!

Moving on to the entrees, I ordered the Mustard Braised Halibut which was served on a bed of sauteed cabbage, apple smoked bacon and baby red potatoes. Well, I hadn’t read the cabbage part in the description before I placed the order, otherwise I’d have never ordered it. But surprisingly the cabbage wasn’t bad at all. The halibut was so fresh and cooked so perfectly, moist and flaky, and paired nicely with the cabbage-bacon salad, which were flavored with some mild spices.

Siv ordered the Berkshire Pork Loin - pan seared pork loin served over creamy mashed potato and grilled squash. The meat was tender and succulent, and the vanilla flavored sauce/glaze was so amazing, one of the best pork I’ve tasted.

Su and H ordered the Seared Sea Scallops and the pan seared Black Cod, I got to taste both the dishes, and were delicious.

The cod was served with amazingly flavorful truffled rice. S also had ordered the same cod, but they messed up the order and brought out the salmon for him instead. The salmon was sent back and S had to wait for about twenty minutes before his cod was brought out! Also, they had ran out of the truffled rice by then, so they gave him two cod pieces instead. S was not very happy about the whole incident, and he was still hungry after the meal possibly due to the lack of carbs.

Another bad experience of the night was that D’s Roasted Duck Breast was served cold. When he complained they immediately took it back, heated it in the microwave and brought back the same plate. The duck tasted great, but guess they need to learn how to manage the orders better so that everyone on the table gets the order hot.

But all in all, we were all happy with the service, except for the minor mishaps. The portion sizes were pretty small, I love it that way, but I think all the guys in the group were still a bit hungry after the meal. We are all used to stuffing us with some appetizers before the main course, which we didn’t do this time, that could be the reason for it. So we decided to fill us up with some desserts.

Here is their dessert menu. Isn’t that fun? They bring out a sample of all the desserts for the night on a platter right to your table. So you can see what you are ordering beforehand.

They don’t have any soft and cuddly fluffy desserts , a fact they proudly state on their web site. The chef’s daily creations of handmade tarts, silks, cobblers and cakes are published on the 94 Stewart blog every day. We went for the Walnut and fig cake and two of the peach crisp, with sides of vanilla ice cream. And wow, these were such a treat!

All in all, we had a great meal, though I don’t recommend 94 Stewart for tourists, there are too many better restaurants in Seattle. But if you live around here, this is definitely worth a visit, you won’t be disappointed by the food. Even with all the small problems we had, the service was not bad. The staff were really friendly and accommodating. Also, the place is not very pretentious, the decor is quite charming, but you feel like you could walk in your jeans. Another thing to note is the fact that this is a kid friendly place. All the tables have crayons and paper, and there was a couple sitting at the bar with a small baby in a stroller, a sight you don’t normally see in downtown restaurants that late. Is that even legal?

http://www.94stewart.com

http://www.94stewart.com/b2blog/index.php

Technorati tags: Seattle Restaurants

Comments

9 Responses to “Restaurant Review: 94 Stewart”

Sharmi on September 22nd, 2007 7:54 pm

loved the dessert menu:)) can settle down with that.
musical on September 22nd, 2007 10:18 pm

And i second Sharmi :-D. I know the situation you talked about in the beginning (regarding recommending a restaurant and being a guest) :). But it can get nerve racking sometimes, especially if you recommend something totally new!
Nags on September 23rd, 2007 5:04 am

the food looks very interesting. the dessert doesn’t look neatly cut.. but sure looks yummy!
Anonymous on September 23rd, 2007 4:54 pm

Nice blog. Enjoy reading it.

ref: your blogpost on nosy desis (your coworkers). I so identity with your experience ! I live in the Silicon Valley, lol. Tons of desis…I love my India but these people (silicon valley desis) are something else…uncouth , and what’s worse, proud of it. Don’t think I ever came across such weirdos in India.

-Sonia
Kiriel du Papillon on September 24th, 2007 12:51 am

I like the look of the food; no pretentious towers, just good tasty food. Hope one day to get there!
Cynthia on September 24th, 2007 1:11 am

I’m with Kiriel, the food was not presented in a pretentious manner - that alone says the focus is on taste (I know that in some situations it can mean the opposit too).
Raaga on September 24th, 2007 8:58 am

I love that dessert platter… now you know why I am as big as I am… or is huge the right word?
skn on September 25th, 2007 8:18 pm

Wasn’t that a typo when you wrote “serial bowl looking cup”? Did you mean “cereal bowl”?
Sig on September 26th, 2007 5:52 am

Sharmi, thanks…. those were quite filling

musie, yep, it is such a tough job to be a foodie these days u know

Nags, guess that adds to the rustic charm

Sonia, yeah… I am learning to ignore the noise… welcome to my blog

kiriel, yep, that is a great observation… it was all about the taste here

Cyn, yeah it sometimes mean that they just don’t care, but in this case, it was great…

Raaga, lol you crack me up girl…. huge, have you seen yourself?

skn, thanks thats what I meant… corrected now… it is a word i always mess up, and no spellchecker there for my resuce