Nosh Pit

Restaurant Shifts and Shakeups

Asian food and microbrews in lower Queen Anne, several notable shutters, and new spring menus take root.

Posted by: Brandon L. Bye on Apr 20, 2012 at 02:30PM 0 Comments

Red Papaya opens in Queen Anne.

OPENINGS
Serendipity
The Magnolia Voice reports the 21-and-over lounge, an add-on to popular neighborhood hangout Serendipity Café, is now doing business.

Potbelly Sandwich Shop
The lunchtime favorite has opened in the Bella Bottega shopping center in Redmond. This being the fourth shop to recently open in the Seattle area, one has to wonder how many more the brand plans to plant, and where.

Red Papaya Ale and Spirits
Asian food and microbrews come together under one roof in lower Queen Anne. Seattle Met’s Allecia Vermillion details the opening.

CLOSINGS
Chez Shea
After 30 years of first dates and anniversaries, Pike Place Market’s romantic stalwart Chez Shea is closing, says Seattle PI. Get your rez in before April 28.

Elemental@Gasworks/Elemental Next Door
On June 21, both Elemental@Gasworks and Elemental Next Door will shutter, reports Eater. Co-owner Laurie Riedeman says the lease is up but hints at future ventures elsewhere.

REVAMPS
35th Street Kitchen and Bar
The Fremont bistro has undergone a remodel: the private dining room has been converted into a lounge, and the bar expanded to accommodate as many as 25 patrons. New food and drink menus, too.

Fusion World
A new name for a new menu: Hanna Raskin of Seattle Weekly notes International District staple Thanh Vi has axed half its menu, replacing traditional Vietnamese dishes with a few Mexican and Italian items.

Sorrento Hotel
Chef Dan Gilmore has a few new menu items and happy hour specials, including more options for gluten intolerants, morning smoothies, lunch martinis (2 for $12), and a three-for-$15 deal on happy hour picks that lasts till 10.

COMING SOON
Urban Nomad
Bruce Pinkerton and Barry Baxter bring their show on the road with Urban Nomad, a four-wheeled extension of Urban Café.

Los Agaves
The Seattle Times takes a look at the agenda at Pike Place Market and reports a new dining spot. Los Agaves, a farmers market taco peddler, is planning a breakfast and lunch place at the former Gary’s Tex-Mex.

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Tags: Asian Food, Sorrento Hotel, Microbrew, Chez Shea

Vietnamese: the Ethnic Cuisine Seattle Does Best

We churn out fine Japanese, too.

Posted by: Christopher Werner on Nov 11, 2011 at 01:45PM 0 Comments

As part of Seattle Met’s Best Restaurants feature, we asked dozens of Seattle chefs and restaurateurs to give us their take on trends, customers, competition—pretty much everything under the restaurant sun. What we got was an earful of juicy insider insight. We’ll be posting some of the responses in the coming weeks.

Seattle boasts quite an Asian food scene (Need proof? Read about our best Asian restaurants here) so this may come as a no-brainer. When we asked chefs to name the ethnic eats Seattle does best, the top five responses were Eastern cuisines. Vietnamese proved the most common answer, followed by Japanese, Chinese, Thai, and Korean. (Non-Asian mentions included Ethiopian, Italian, Scandinavian, and “new French,” whatever that means.)

Said one respondent: “I eat more Asian food than I do any other cuisine. You can go high-end, low-end—across the board we have phenomenal Asian food.” “I’ve traveled to Vietnam, up and down the country. I find that some of the pho [here] is really, really, really authentic,” gushed another.

And to the toque who mourned, “Well certainly not Indian. I’ve yet to find any real good Indian places,” we hear you.

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Tags: Asian Food, Seattle Chefs, Seattle Restaurant Culture

Best Restaurants for Ringing in the Lunar New Year

We’ve lined up 40-odd restaurants; the celebration runs two weeks. Now go!

Posted by: Christopher Werner on Feb 03, 2011 at 01:45PM 1 Comments

Dim sum at Joy Palace is an excellent way to mark the Chinese New Year.

Perhaps you observed the Lunar New Year last weekend, but it wasn’t until 12:00am today (otherwise known as midnight) that the Year of the Rabbit officially hit.

The new year is a two-week affair, which provides you ample time to embark on an Asian eating bender with Seattle Met’s Asian Food feature as your abettor. A guide to the best this city has to offer in 14 Far East cuisines, the feature leads you to Szechuan hot pots that’ll drill your sweat glands, dim sum worth waiting hours for, internationally renowned Chinese soup dumplings, and other such new year–appropriate eats.

Now hop to it.

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Tags: Asian Food

Revel Launches Weekend Brunch

Last weekend was the new Fremont Asian street-food sensation’s inaugural morning meal…and we are hearing nothing but luuuuv.

Posted by: Kathryn Robinson on Jan 12, 2011 at 09:00AM 0 Comments

Doesn’t this look like a fine place to spend a weekend morning?

Surely you’ve heard about Revel, the new street-food little sibling to the madly esteemed Korean-Continental fusion parlor Joule on 45th in Wallingford. Everyone’s loving chefs/owners/married couple Rachel Yang’s and Seif Chirchi’s playful riffs on the street foods of Asia, from 5-spice duck meatball noodle to short rib dumplings.

Now you can love them weekend days besides, from 10am to 2pm, for $15 and under. Choose from exotics like bittersweet chocolate, kumquat, and orange syrup pancakes to Kabocha, rum raisin, and brown sugar porridge; short rib burgers to shrimp egg foo young with Thai basil.

Here as in Joule standard culinary boundaries are crossed, pushed, and cheerfully ignored, as Yang and Chirchi worship at the altar of what tastes the most vivid, even thrilling.

Maybe it’s just us, but we think that’s way better than sleeping in.

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Tags: Fremont, Brunch, Asian Food, Revel

Fascinating Eats at Huiyona

But does anyone know about them?

Posted by: Kathryn Robinson on Jun 16, 2010 at 09:00AM 0 Comments

Korean style steak and eggs at Huiyona

A tour of Asia populates the menu at the white-stucco’d basement joint called Huiyona on North Capitol Hill—Korean kim chee, Filipino adobo, Japanese udon, Chinese steamed pork buns, Vietnamese green papaya salad—but then every dish is tweaked a little sideways to provide a novel edge. So the adobo takes the form of pork shoulder sliders; the steamed buns become little pillowy tacos filled with crisped pork belly, hoisin glaze, and house made pickles.

More often than not, the food is lovely and intelligent and delectable.

Even a recent special of bouillabaisse featured all manner of fish, cooked with loving restraint, done up in a buttery broth robust with feisty Asian spices.

If only the sense of place held more appeal: It’s dark in this long narrow space, and feels awkward. No amount of warm hand towels or toothsome amuse bouches or affable servers can cure that. The place was near empty on our visit.

Here’s hoping half-priced bottles of (under $40) wine on Thursday and Friday nights can, because this is fascinating food.

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Tags: Restaurants, reviews, Asian Food