Bloggers Night Out at Tamarind Tree

We may not have as many bloggers out here in Seattle as in the Bay Area, but the Seattle foodies sure know how to have fun! Can you guess who these lovely ladies are?

 

So, drum rolls please… For the first time in food blogging history, unveiling the beautiful faces behind these amazing blogs – Archana of Archana’s Culinary Adventures, Mythili of Vindu, KayKat of Cooking from A to Z and yours truly! Hmm…does Mythili remind you of someone, the resemblance is uncanny! Don’t we look like we had fun? That is because we did, a ton of it!

It took us just two days and about 25 e-mails to plan this get-together, one of the easiest planning sessions I’ve ever been involved in! Normally there are as many different opinions about a venue as the number of people involved, and finding a date and time convenient for everyone is a nightmare! But not for this group – we zeroed in on a date through a very efficient elimination process and when Archana suggested Tamarind Tree as the venue, everyone unanimously agreed.

As usual, I was a bit nervous about meeting a bunch of strangers, You never really know what is in store for you in such situations. But as it turned out, I was worried for nothing! We hit it off like some long lost friends within no time at all. It was so surreal, we all already knew so much about each other through our blogs, it didn’t really feel like we were meeting for the first time. We talked about everything in the world, including a great discussion about our common trait – various levels of addiction to blogging. We had some super hilarious discussions around the topic, it almost felt like an AA meeting – not that I have ever been to one .

Tamarind Tree is a Vietnamese restaurant tucked away in a little strip mall in the International District. I have been there before, but I still had to drive around a bit to find it. It really is in a dingy location, but once you are inside the restaurant, it is stylish and modern and buzzing with well dressed diners. We had the coveted table near the fireplace, the restaurant was already quite warm and crowded, so didn’t really get the idea of a fireplace there and an ugly one at that too. Anyway, the food and drinks were amazing.  The service, even though a little on the impatient side (as in – order fast and get out – attitude) was really good, friendly helpful staff. 

We didn’t really need alcohol to break the ice, we had all bonded even before these amazing drinks arrived, but a few drinks can only make a party better right? Tamarind Tree has a vast selection of cocktails and Asian inspired mixed drinks, it was way too hard to choose one. We started with the Tamarintini (Vodka, tamarind juice and fresh lime juice), Greenteani (Zen green tea liqueur, vodka, lime juice), Guava martini (Gin, guava juice, fresh lime juice) and Pomelo drop (Vodka, triple sec, fresh pomelo juice, fresh lime juice). My tamarintini was tart and sweet and delicious, and was on the lighter side as far as the alcohol content was concerned. Next I had the Greenteani, and that was a much stronger drink, and both absolutely rocked! All the cocktails were just $7 each.

We ordered a couple of appetizers to start with. Archana and I shared these amazing Quail grilled in tamarind – Grilled marinated quail in tamarind sauce served with fresh lime chili sauce and peanuts. Can you believe this was just $6.50! The quail was perfectly done, not too dry and the bones were soft enough to eat,. The sauce went so well with it, the tamarind flavor was not at all overpowering. An A+ dish, will be ordering this again for sure!

 

M & K had the Lemongrass tofu satay – tofu marinated in lemongrass, onion, garlic, peanuts and seasoning served with mixed herb soy sauce. It sure looked great, you know tofu and I don’t get along so well.

 

We all ordered individual main courses. There are way too many items in the menu, it gets quite confusing to pick a single dish. My choice was the Lily blossom halibut – Steamed halibut in whole soybean sauce, fresh shiitake, oyster, straw and black mushrooms, dried lily blossoms, green onion, and clear vermicelli noodles. The halibut was very fresh, and the ingredients on their own very nice enough, but overall I wasn’t too impressed with this dish. I guess it was the steamed fish part that I didn’t like.

 

Here are the rest of the entrees. I was so wrapped up in conversation, don’t remember what everyone else ordered. I do remember everyone getting served two plates, the main dish with a side of plate full of greens! This restaurant is very concerned about the well being of the patrons, making sure everyone got a week’s serving of greens from a single meal! Most of the food was packed and taken home, since these portions were humongous!

 
 

The night was so much fun, we lost track of time and were sort of kicked out of the restaurant. When you are the last table at a restaurant, and they start cleaning the floor around you, that is the warning bell before the actual kicking out part happens. We said goodnight with the promises of doing this again real soon! Thank you girls for the great laughs, I can’t wait to do this again! Here is a final shot of the famous 4, err… the famous one and the rest of the us!

  

www.tamarindtreerestaurant.com

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Category: Asian, International District, Vietnamese