Last weekend we flew to New York City for a foodie getaway, a birthday gift from Siv. His idea was to take me on an Iron Chef restaurant tour, but as soon as I heard that we were going to New York, I had to pick out the places. Yeah, I am kind of a control freak when it comes to food. So instead of the iron chef tour, we went through the 2010 Michelin list and picked the places from there. Even though we didn’t really plan it like …

It was a sad day for the Seattle foodie crowd when Mistral closed a year ago (or has it been two years?). So finally when chef William Belickis opened his brand new space called Mistral Kitchen on West Lake Ave last Saturday, it seemed like the culinary event of the year here.  Being a huge fan of Mistral, I was really surprised to read all the negative reviews about Mistral Kitchen that came out over the past few days.  But of course we had to form our own opinion, …

I went through a phase of blogging boredom where the frequency of posting suffered a lot. The restaurant review category especially was outright ignored during this phase. As the year is coming to an end, I’ve been doing some housecleaning of the drafts and restaurant pictures and found many many food pictures waiting for a write up. I have accumulated quite a collection over the past few months, so it was no surprise that I couldn’t remember half of those dishes or in some cases even which restaurant we had …

Everyone’s favorite Seattle eatery now has a Bellevue location. I know, its been a few months since Wild Ginger opened at the Bravern, but we didn’t make it up there till last week. Truth be told, while Wild Ginger used to be one of our favorite restaurants starting with their Western Ave location, but somehow it has completely dropped out of our radar lately. I guess with all these new restaurants with better food popping out in and around Seattle, it was one of the last choices for a night …

I don’t think I’ve had real Venezuelan food before. I am sure there might have been a few Venezuelan (most likely fusion) dishes in other Latin American restaurants we’ve been to, but the first time I actually paid any attention to the cuisine was at Meza Latin fare in Capitol Hill. Meza is a cozy little restaurant on 14th Ave serving Venezuelan, Cuban and Spanish comfort food. It is open till 3 am on weekends, so it makes the perfect place to grab a cheap bite after drinking and/or dancing …

The title of this post is not that accurate, as we didn’t cover the entire gastronomic landscape of Italy in this trip, especially the country side. Yes, it was in the original plan, but a last minute illness caused us to cut down a few precious days from our much awaited trip to the culinary capital of the world. So this post is really about our culinary experiences in Rome and Venice; thankfully these are two cities with some rich and diverse cuisines to offer, more than enough to fill …

Anchovies & Olives in Capital Hill opened early this year is yet another jewel in the crown of chef Ethan Stowell’s restaurant empire in Seattle. His restaurants Union, Tavalota and How to Cook a Wolf are among the top restaurants in Seattle and Anchovies & Olives is a nice addition to the list. It is very much like How to Cook a Wolf, except for the fact that A&O is primarily focused on seafood. In fact there is only one meat dish in the menu – a Strip Loin @ …

Last time we had dinner at Feenie’s in Vancouver, chef Robert Feenie was already out of there. I guess it was just a matter of time before they changed the name of the place. After Robert Feenie left, famous New York chef Daniel Boulud took over that restaurant as well as Lumiere and Feenie’s is now called db Bistro Moderne.
Last week I went to Vancouver with some friends for a girlie weekend getaway and we decided to try out db Bistro for the Sunday brunch.  When I called to …

I am a bit skeptical about trying out a brand new restaurant after a few disastrous experiences. With so many great places in and around Seattle, once we have a bad experience in a restaurant, the chances of us going back there is very slim. And everyone knows that most restaurants won’t have all their kinks worked out in the first few weeks. But last weekend we decided to give Bastille a try even though it had been open for just a couple of weeks. Lucky for us, we had …

You know you are going to love a restaurant when you are greeted with a complimentary glass of champagne as soon as you walk in the door. That too after you’ve announced that you are just going to wait for 45 minutes till a table at the restaurant next door frees up. Then when you are not pressured by the hovering staff to order something as you wait for the rest of your party to arrive, you really start loving the place. When you feel guilty about the free champagne …

Kushibar is a much needed addition to the Belltown food scene serving Japanese street food.  Kushi means stick in Japanese, and just as the name suggests you can order pretty much anything edible on a stick here (Kushiyaki)- vegetables, seafood and meat including almost every part of a chicken- liver, heart, gizzards, feet, balls (ok, not chicken balls, I meant chicken meatballs) are served as skewers. Even though the restaurant is named Kushibar, it is not their Kushiyaki which made us fans, in fact I think the Kushiyaki here is just …

I haven’t been doing many restaurant reviews lately, there is no other excuse than just my laziness. Sometimes I forget my camera, sometimes I forget to click pictures but most times the pictures just sit there on my camera forever!  Anyway, as I was doing some PC housecleaning today, I found a few pictures from List, the not-so-new-anymore Belltown bar. It is one of our favorite places in town, so I want to get as many people in there as I can before another good place goes bust!
List is …

It’s been a while since a restaurant has really knocked my socks off, but this cozy little French/Spanish restaurant in Capitol Hill has managed to do just that! Olivar is owned by chef Philippe Thomelin who has worked at some notable local restaurants like Cascadia and Harvest Vine before. The interior is quite charming, though the Russian Murals on the wall really confused us. Apparently it is a historic building which was decorated by renowned Russian artist in 1931 so they kept the original decor on.
Though it is a tapas …

A gastropub is a pub that also serves gourmet fare, a few notches above your regular pub grub. Recently two new gastropubs opened in the Seattle area, I hope it is the start of a new fad. Great drinks and gourmet food served in a cool hip space is just my kind of fun!
Spur is in Belltown at the same location where Mistral used to be. They have completely revamped the space. The decor is very urban, it’s got that cool New York city bar vibe. Cocktails at Spur are …

Joule is a French Korean fusion restaurant owned by Rachel Yang and Seif Chirchi of Coupage, a terrific restaurant that went to the restaurant heaven along with several other Seattle eateries this year. I was pretty impressed with Coupage, as weird as it may sound the French Korean fusion really was a winning combo, so when I heard that the same owners started another restaurant with the same theme in Wallingford, we just had to try it.
It is a really small bistro kind of restaurant which had a good crowd, …

I have so many restaurants reviews in draft, I am using the Thanksgiving holidays to get as many of these reviews out before I completely forget about the experience, so this is going to be a restaurant review week here. We are going away on a short trip for a couple of days, so I won’t be able to reply to your comments, but I will be back with a recipe next week.
The reason why you haven’t seen many Indian restaurant reviews in this space is very simple – we …

Even though there is no shortage of fine food or shops in Seattle, we often drive to Canada to enjoy the range of food and shopping that Vancouver BC has to offer. There are a few favorite restaurants that we frequent, but we also try a new place every now and then. Bin 941 is not exactly a new restaurant, we’ve been there years ago, but somehow forgot about it over time. This time I was browsing through the complementary Vancouver magazine in our hotel room and saw that Bin …

When I heard that Herbfarm ex-chef Jerry Traunfeld started his own restaurant in Seattle, that got added to my must-try-restaurants list. Then I got to know that Jerry got his inspiration for Poppy’s menu from the Indian Thali, that took Poppy right up to the top of that list! An Indian thali is a variety of dishes usually served in small bowls on a round tray. Poppy is not an Indian restaurant, they say that the menu borrows the idea of the thali to present Jerry’s own style of cooking, …

We didn’t do many grand scale dinners this time in Vegas. Instead we decided to check out some casual fare by some of our favorite chefs. We don’t normally venture out much in Vegas. Whichever casino we chose to stay at is where we end up eating and playing at. Who wants to waste all those precious Las Vegas hours sitting in traffic! So even though we loved our stay at the Bellagio last time, we decided to try out the Venetian this time, since the dining options there included …

Looks like Tapas are the latest trend in Seattle! I remember a time when we had only a couple of good Tapas places, but looks like there are quite a few restaurants popping out around the area. I am not complaining though, I have professed my love for Spanish food in this blog many times. I’d just say more the merrier!
One of the latest hotspot in town is Ocho, looks like entire Seattle is talking about this place lately, and of course we had to find out what the excitement …