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 …

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 …

Finally it is summer in Seattle! I don’t think anyone else enjoys summer as much as us Seattleites. We have learned to fully appreciate the few sunny days we get every year. The streets are so lively these days, it is so much fun to go out into the city and get lost in the crowd. A friend and I had a fabulous Parisian style Sunday today. We started with brunch at Cafe Campagne, followed by a waterfront stroll and a few hours of shopping and finished with a late …

When we heard that the Harvest Vine folks opened a new restaurant in Belltown last fall, we were jumping with joy. Harvest Vine is one of our favorite restaurants in town and we love Spanish food. Then I came to know that Txori is a pintxos bar. Pintxos are the Basque version of Tapas, a culinary delight we discovered during our recent trip to Spain. When we were feasting on Pintxos in Barcelona, we kept wishing how great it will be to have such a place in Seattle. As soon …

If I have to describe Umi Sake House in one word, the word I’d choose will be BEAUTIFUL! The food is so beautifully crafted, the decor is beautiful, add the mostly eye candy Friday night Belltown crowd to the mix, and it is a place of beauty! For a person who was not too much into Sushi a month ago, Umi has sure made me a convert! I’ve been here three times in the past four weeks! First time was an accident, when my fried M and I were walking …

Another favorite neighborhood restaurant of ours is Brasa – the Mediterranean restaurant on third avenue. Frankly, the food is one of the best around! The entrées are slightly pricy ($25-$30), but with Microsoft prime card, it is one entrée free for us. We seldom order out of the dinner menu though, the lounge menu is even more fabulous, the prizes are better, and much more choices (No prime card accepted there though) and we get to share 4-5 dishes, which is how we like to dine normally.  Also, if we …

After I wrote about Mistral in my Fave Five Seattle Restaurants post, I’ve been craving Mistral food. So for an early wedding anniversary celebration, instead of going to Herbfarm as planned, we headed over to Mistral to check if the food is as good as we remembered. We had it right, the food was as good or even better! Haute cuisine at its best.
During dinner, we did a cost-to-value analysis of Mistral versus some of our other favorite restaurants in town. The seven course chef’s tasting menu at Mistral costs $75 per person. So …

I don’t believe in second chances; especially when it comes to restaurants. Once I’ve had a bad experience at a restaurant, it is very rare that I’d go back to that place again. With so many choices around, why should I? But there are exceptions to any rule, we finally had a great night at Zoe on our third try, glad I broke the rule on this one.
My first visit to Zoe was with a group of friends on a girls’ night out two years ago. About 10 of us showed …

There are so many things I love about living in Belltown. Being so close to Macrina Bakery is way up there in this list. This European style bakery and cafe is the place where Seattlites bring their out-of-town visitors to.They have the best breads in town, and the pastries are to die for! Macrina supplies bread to a bunch of restaurants in town, but there is nothing better than buying freshly made bread and pastries directly from source! 
Macrina is not just a friendly neighborhood bakery, they have one of the best breakfast/brunch menus …

Twist bar and lounge is in the heart of Belltown, in the same building as our condo. It is one of the most happening places in Belltown, packed with young dressed up eye candy on weekend nights. The decor is hip and contemporary, there is a sports bar in the front of the restaurant as soon as you enter in, but the main attraction is the lounge in the back. The lounge is painted a vibrant red, and the seating is mainly comfy couches and contemporary chairs. The disco ball …

Living in the middle of Belltown, we always get confused about which bar to pick on any given night, too many choices! But more often that not, we get back to Cascadia, just because of their mini burgers, exactly where we ended up this Friday night. The fact that they are just across the street from us is just a big bonus.
At $3 each, you can select between beef hanger steak, wild king salmon and veggie mini burgers. These are served with tomato, lettuce and pickles, but you can choose …

For valentine’s day, Siv knew I wanted to go to a place we haven’t been to before, so he made reservations at the Brasserie Margaux in Belltown, the “French” restaurant at the Warwick hotel. I have French in quotes because they have Brasserie in the name, so they are aspiring to be French, but the cuisine is very Northwest!
Anyway, let me start with the service — HORRIBLE! We had an 8:00 PM reservation, showed up at 8:00 and were told that there is a 15 minutes wait. Totally fine, it …