Seattle Gourmet Food Tour

On Saturday after we were finished at the Aquarium, Anni and I went on a food tour while the boys went on a harbor cruise. I love food tours because I get to try food from restaurants I otherwise wouldn't have the chance to go to, at least not all in one day, and I get to try foods that I probably wouldn't have ordered on my own.

 

The tour began at The Yellow Leaf Cupcake Company and we had a few minutes to look around before the tour started and one of the first things that caught my eye was a bag of bacon brittle. You know, like peanut brittle but with bacon instead of peanuts. I was hoping that it'd be part of our sample or that I'd have a chance to come back later and try it, but neither happened.

We tried their famous pancakes n' bacon cupcake and a depression era style tomato soup spice cupcake with a chocolate ganache frosting. They were both really good, but the normal price of $3.25 per cupcake ($35-$45 per dozen) seems kind of steep to me.

Next we went to Serious Pie, pie as in pizza pie. The place was so busy that our tour couldn't even get a table inside. We had to stand outside and eat our food.

We tried the Margherita pizza and another with roasted mushrooms and truffle cheese. Both were good, but I preferred the Margherita.

Then we went to a new Korean place called Chan.

They served a beef short rib with fingerling potato and a rice cake along with a spicy pork slider on a brioche bun. Yum! I'm pretty sure this was my favorite spot on the tour.

Oh yeah and the Korean rice beer was ultra refreshing.

After the Korean place we went to my least favorite shop on the tour: La Buona Tavola.

We had a potato and leek soup with truffle oil mixed in and then tried some truffle salt and a few other truffle infused condiments. I was happy I had the opportunity to try the stuff, but it wasn't something I'd be interested in buying in the future.

Next we went to Il Bistro, a 30 year old Italian restaurant right next to Pike Place Market.

We had a saffron and seafood risotto paired with a Sangiovese wine. Good stuff!

Then we went to The Pike Brewing Company and learned all about how their beers are made.

We went upstairs to the pub and tried two different cheese and beer pairings along with a yummy beer bread roll.

First we sampled the Pike Kilt Lifter, a Scotch style ruby ale paired with a goat cheese. Then we sampled the India Pale Ale with a stronger piece of blue cheese. We were in a bit of a rush to chug down the beer in order to stay on schedule which wasn't so nice, but I did end up liking the Kilt Lifter. Not bad....for a beer.

Next we stopped at Von's Gusto Bistro

We tried the Salmon cake with a sambal aioli on top of dressed greens. So good!

Lastly we stopped at Gelatiamo, an Italian ice cream place.

Crème Brulee gelato and Raspberry sorbet. The perfect way to end the food tour. Yum!

Seattle: Day 1

Seattle Aquarium

 

Seattle Great Wheel

 

Seattle: Day 2

Woodland Park Zoo

 

Chilhuly Garden and Glass

Space Needle

Surprise Trip to Seattle

I woke up Friday morning to find Rick at home in the living room working on his laptop. He's usually at work at that time, so I asked him why he was home and he said, "I'm not going to work today, we're going to Seattle". What! Why? Then he tells me vaguely that we were going to have fun. It didn't make any sense to me and all he would say is that I needed to pack a dress.

 

I complained the whole time, but I did end packing my bags and a dress too even though nobody else was packing equivalently fancy clothes. Then on the way to Seattle he tells me that he bought the City Pass, which meant that we were going to places like the zoo and Pacific Science Center. He also gave me a restaurant menu to look over and told me we had a reservation for 5:30. Okay, so I needed a fancy dress to go to a restaurant?

We got to the hotel a little after 4:00 and Rick started rushing us to get ready. He wanted to make sure we left with enough time to search for parking and make it to the restaurant in time for our reservation.

So I put on a nice dress while the boys remained in their jeans and crocs. For the life of me I couldn't think of a situation where I would be the only one who needed to dress up. Why did the boys get to stay in their casual wear, but not me?

We drove past the restaurant right around 5:40, but then we couldn't find any parking and accidentally got on a freeway on ramp that took us miles away in the opposite direction. I didn't think it was a huge deal, but Rick started freaking out about how seriously late we were going to be. Who cared, I thought. I was sure we would still be able to get a table. Anyway, 60 minutes later we finally made it to the restaurant. The Metropole? This is what I needed a dress for?

 

Then the surprise was revealed. Anni was in the restaurant waiting for us. She was going to be spending the whole weekend with us. No way! That was so cool! It wasn't until we were eating our food that they told me the rest of the surprise: Anni and I were going to see The Lion King!

What!? I started to laugh and then I started to cry....it was all too much. The Lion King? With Anni? In Seattle? Wow! So that's why I needed a dress and why Rick was so crazy about being on schedule. It finally made sense.

I had such a great time!  The show was fantastic! I loved everything about it, I just wish I would have been able to take pictures. Oh well, it was still the best surprise ever!

Humphrey the Hamster

This week Tyler got to bring home the classroom pet, Humphrey the Hamster. It's not a real animal, it's just a small stuffed toy, but the kids still love taking turns bringing him home. It's not so much the activity of caring for an animal, as it is a writing exercise. Along with Humphrey comes his journal and the kids are required to write about all the fun things that happen during the visit, which can be completely made up and ridiculous. I suppose that's what makes it so much fun.

 

The best part about Humphrey being a stuffed toy is that we don't have to worry about anything bad happening to him, especially considering my own track record of caring for classroom pets when I was a child.

There was the time in 3rd grade when I brought home the class pet for the weekend. It was a bird and I'm pretty sure it was a cockatiel and it's name was Hector. The teacher told me that the bird's wings were clipped and that it couldn't fly. So like an absolute genius, I took it out in the backyard on my finger (since it couldn't fly and all) and watched as it took off and disappeared into the trees. This happened probably within an hour of getting him home on Friday afternoon. I spent the entire weekend searching in vain for the bird in the trees with our telescope. Then on Sunday afternoon I heard squawking coming from the front yard and went outside to find Hector standing right there on the walkway to our house. I scooped him up, brought him in the house, put him in his cage and brought him back to school on Monday morning like nothing had happened.

Then there was the time we had the pet turtle for the weekend. I took the turtle out in the backyard to roam around in the garden and everything was going fine until my mom called out that she was going to the store and did I want to go with her. I remember asking myself...should I bring the turtle back inside or just let it hang out here in the garden. So I left the turtle in the garden and went with my mom to the store. That was the last I ever saw of the turtle. The biggest problem was that only two sides of the backyard were fenced and the other was edged with wild blackberry bushes and other thick brush. It was a mistake to leave him outside.

Nothing bad like that was going to happen to Humphrey.

And Kyle was doing so well watching him while Tyler was at school.

Yikes! Or so I thought! Oh my gosh...Humphrey are you okay?