My wife and I just took a short trip to Seattle with our two small children, and managed to pair good eats with kid touristy stuff.
Thursday night: we went to the last 2019 pop-up of Three Sacks Full, a pop-up our friends, including the former co-chef at Oakland’s Camino, run at Pork Chop and Company. The starter and main dish featured vegetables from their 1/2 acre farm (fresh, preserved, etc.), and there were also two side dishes (a play on Lion’s Head Meatballs with North African spicing, and a duo of mushrooms with salsify) and a dessert option.
Friday morning we walked to Pike Market from our Capital Hill AirBNB, arriving at 7:45 and managed to beat the crowds before leaving around 10:15. Crumpet Shop, free samples of smoked salmon, some delicious dried prunes, and Piroshky Piroshky before 9am.
By 10:15, we had amassed picnic foods from Beecher (cheese curds),pickled herring from the place at the main entrance, and French stuff at La Panier, and walked bumpy sidewalks to Seattle Center for the Children’s museum and Artist’s playground. The museum is located underneath the Armory food court, and we’re glad we got stuff at Pike Market—-the offerings looked as lackluster as @sck’s indicated and the Cinnabon-ish smell from the roasted nut place doubled down the mall vibe.
For dinner, Stateside, with its mix of Vietnamese and Chinese inspired foods, was excellent and different enough from analogous restaurants in the Bay Area. My favorite dishes were an appetizer, a stack alternating yuba with thin slices of butternut squash; and a master sauce cooked chicken, that was fried to finish.
Saturday morning we walked to General Porpoise, which has doughnuts filled with house made jams (plum) and pastry creams. Best doughnuts I’ve had in years.
After the Ballard Locks, we ate at La Carta de Oaxaca for dinner. Excellent mole and molotes. Other stuff was fine— I wouldn’t make this a destination.
Sunday morning we had good coffee at Victrola, which has a sad looking pastry selection, and head to Dacha Diner for Eastern European food. No queue at 9am, yet sold out of some stuff that got replenished by 10am, this was such a great stop.
Kachapuri had a flavorful bread to soak up the mix of hot egg yolk, farmer’s cheese, and butter.
The striated herring under fur coat was a lovely balance of acidic and more pungent flavors.
They nailed the chicken broth that accompanied the farmer’s cheese Vareniky—- it evoked my memories of matzoh ball soup so much I expected a hidden matzoh ball to emerge.
Crumble and Flake is next door to Dacha Diner and we got pastries at 9am for the plane ride home (They apparently sell out early). A smoked paprika and cheese croissant miraculously retained its flaky exterior and the air pockets reinflated after each bite. A black sesame kouign amman’ construction didn’t survive well, which was our bad, but it lacked any sesame flavor.
