I was excited to spend some time in the Pacific Northwest - I was in the Seattle/Bellevue area for work to visit the West team and then I tacked on a few extra days to hang out with Neera. Shockingly, I had never been to Seattle before and I had heard the food scene it pretty good there, so I was excited to see what it was all about.
I took the first flight out and needed some lunch before heading to the office. I figured the fish and hence sushi should be pretty good, I looked for a place that was near the office/hotel I was staying at. This place popped up as a 5 min walk from my hotel and it looked to be a popular lunch time spot for the Bellevue crowd. It's a walk-up counter sushi place, so it's very informal and casual. You order and pick up your food and then take it to a table. They got a a pretty extensive line up of rolls and poke bowls. I decided to try out the ichi roll ($7) and a creamy poke bowl ($14). The ichi roll was a tuna, spicy tuna, avocado and cucumber roll. It was huge and way to big to eat in one bite. The tuna was also too mashed up so I kind of left like I was eating bad tuna - even though it tasted totally fine. The poke bowl was pretty tasty and had all of my favorite things to put in a poke bowl - tuna, salmon, crabmeat, seaweed salad, cucumber, avocado, scallion, ginger and masago. The "creamy" sauce was ponzu sauce, spicy mayo and sesame oil, but it was a bit too heavy on the mayo part for my taste. It was on a bed of salad and rice.
Looking back, I would have been fine without the roll for lunch but I felt like I had to try it out. It was definitely full by lunch time - there were people from Expedia, Microsoft and other tech companies in the area. It definitely felt like a mini-SF scene with everyone looking like they walked off the set of "Silicon Valley". Total bill: $21 with tip and tax
Photo Credit: Yelp
Elliott's Oyster House 1201 Alaskan Way Ste 100, Seattle, WA 98101 4 Forks
Everyone has been asking me how I like my new job so far and the answer is that I like it! One of the reasons is because of the great people there. It's always fun to be surrounded by like-minded folks who share your interests and luckily the one thing we all love is food! The West team took me out to the Pier in Seattle and we all gorged on pretty delicious seafood (I mean, when in Rome right?).
We started with a bunch of fantastic West Coast oysters and the celebration platter (chilled dungeness crab, more oysters, snow crab claws, and a variety of sauce - $90) while I got the white clam chowder ($5) to start as well. I got suckered into also getting the crab cakes because it was made with dungeness crab ($18) but to be honest, it wasn't that great as it had too much filler (when will I learn?!?!). For my main, I had the seafood salad ($26) which I know is a bit unusual for me but I remember last time I was at a team dinner in NYC and I really wanted the seafood salad but got a lame steak sandwich instead and I really regretted that decision. I figured if I was going to get seafood salad anywhere, it should be Seattle. And you know what? It was pretty damn good. It was a huge portion, so I definitely felt full and it was full of shrimp, scallop, crab corn relish, avocado, heirloom tomatoes, cucumber, mixed greens and a dijon-shallot vinaigrette sauce. Not only did I enjoy it but it was pretty healthy too.
The one negative to our meal was that the service was beyond painful. It was so slow and we had to wave people down constantly. I know it's a busy restaurant in a pretty touristy spot, but it really was ridiculous. Someone else picked up the bill so I'm not sure how much the total bill was but I thought the prices were fairly reasonable for the quality and amount of seafood.
Photo Credit: Yelp
Din Tai Fung 700 Bellevue Way NE #280, Bellevue, WA 98004 4 Forks
Din Tai Fung has a pretty huge cult following and I know that in the past I kind of poo-poo'd it when I was in Taiwan but the truth is that it's pretty damn good. I'm not sure it deserves the insane devotion that most people give it but if you're looking for a consistently solid, tasty Chinese food place, this is a winner. Luckily for the Bellevue team, there is a location right across the street from them and it gets super packed at lunch time.
We had to lie and say we had a smaller group of people just so we could get a booth and squeeze in about 8 people into it. We pretty much ordered the entire menu: every kind of soup dumpling, delicious green beans (I know it sounds lame to love green beans but there were amazing), spinach, shrimp shu mai, fried rice with pork, spicy wontons, and steam buns. It looked like we had never eaten before judging by the amount of food we ordered. But we devoured all of it. The best part of the whole meal is that nothing is really that expensive - I think the most expensive thing on the menu is $12 or $13. The joys of Chinese food.
I'll admit that I really love the meal and wished that there was one in NYC but I can only imagine the shitshow it would be if there was one. There aren't that many locations in the US and they are all on the West Coast, so for that reason alone, it's definitely worth a visit unless you'll be in Asia anytime soon.
Photo Credit: Yelp
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