Why you should go: Unlike other Seattle suppers taking place here and there, Madrona’s new, cute June one-ups by offering a themed, four-course family-style meal five nights out of every week. You’ve got three more days to sample chef Vuong Loc’s Chinese-inspired menu: Peking duck, steamed buns, fresh green beans with chilies, and egg custard.
Cost: $20/person; kids under 8 eat free
Reservations: Required 24 hours in advance; 206-323-4000; groups of four or more only
Global chain restaurant Din Tai Fung set to start steaming soup dumplings this fall.
Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Aug 26, 2010 at 10:48AM0 Comments
Photo:
Jessica Voelker
The Din Tai Fung training suite. Employees train for four months before they’re speedy enough to staff the giant dumpling house. That’s a lot of training.
The Din Tai Fung training suite. Employees train for four months before they’re speedy enough to staff the giant dumpling house. That’s a lot of training.
In addition to soup dumplings, the restaurant will offer these Gzosa-shaped steamers as well as the little round parcels known as shiaomai.
I have to admit, I was kinda hoping someone would slip me a soup dumpling when I visited the construction site/training facility of Din Tai Fung yesterday. No such luck. In fact, there was no cooking happening at all.
When I arrived at dumpling class—held in a suite down the hall from where the second-floor Lincoln Square restaurant is being built—about 25 members of the 80-person staff were hovered diligently over butcher-block tables, rolling dough into identical disks. They were learning not only how to roll the dumplings, but how to roll them fast—when the restaurant opens this fall, they will be feeding 300-plus tables of hungry locals. Speed, says franchisee David Wasielewski, is essential.
Din Tai Fung originated in Taipai, Taiwan. It now has branches in six countries (its Hong Kong restaurant recently received a Michelin star) and is known especially for xiao long bao—soup dumplings—though it serves rice and noodle dishes and other sorts of dumplings too. I asked Wasielewski why he picked Bellevue. He said that Eastside execs—from Microsoft, Expedia, etc—are already familiar with Din Tai Fung from their corporate travels in Asia, as are a lot of the frequent fliers holed up in nearby Westin and Hyatt hotels.
At the same time, Wasielewski thinks he can appeal to weekenders who come to Lincoln Square for a movie or to bowl at Lucky Strike Lanes. Everything on Din Tai Fung’s menu is $10 and under, and it will be open for lunch, dinner, and late-night snacks. “We’re not in the bar business,” says Wasielewski, who is careful to point out he’s not trying to compete with Joey’s and the like for cocktail dollars. Still, the 7,000 square-foot restaurant (the kitchen takes up almost half of the total space) will have bar and lounge area, and there are plans to incorporate a happy hour drink menu.
Translucent when cooked, the skins of soup dumplings are rolled just thick enough so that the dumpling stays together. In addition to a meat or vegetable stuffing, a solid meat gelatin is wrapped inside the dumpling. When it steams, the gelatin turns to a juicy broth. The onus is on the restaurant, said Waielewski, to teach diners how to eat them without searing their tongues on the boiling-hot broth inside. (Before eating, you poke a hole in the dumpling and let the juice spill out onto your spoon.)
Din Tai Fung is set to open in late October or early November. To whet your dumpling appetite, here is a delicious segment from No Reservations, taped at a famous Shanghai restaurant.
You likah the Italian restaurant? Bene, here’s another one.
Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Aug 20, 2010 at 12:18PM2 Comments
Stylish mid-century Italy, immortalized in the 1960 movie La Dolce Vita, is the inspiration for Varro. The bar/cafe opens this October on Capitol Hill.
I had a chat the other day with Richard Troiani, one of the partners in Varro, the 1,600 square-foot Italian bar opening this fall in the Packard Building at the corner of 12th and Pine.
One of the questions I had for him was: Aren’t there already a lot of Italian restaurants on Capitol Hill?
1. Concept: Varro is modeled after Troiani’s favorite way to eat in Italy: At casual bars—he compares them to Spain’s tapas bars—that are open all day and into the night. He says such places are always full of neighborhood people who pop in for an espresso in the morning (Varro will serve Lavazza coffees) and come back later for some lunch, and then again in the evening for a beer and a snack. You can stop by for cocktails or eat a full dinner. “It’s all good,” if you will.
From a conceptual standpoint, then, Varro resembles Oddfellows more than it does Spinasse. It’s just the food is Italian.
2. Decor: In contrast to all the sparsely appointed restaurants popping up around the town, Varro will be an elaborately decorated affair with lots of color and a collage of images from 1950s-60s Italy—that highly stylized, highly decadent era immortalized in the movie La Dolce Vita.
3. Price: Troiani has a Class-two commercial hood system in the kitchen. The upshot of this is that he’s making most of the food in a 1,100-degree wood-burning pizza oven. Look for rustically (and, given that oven, quickly) prepared proteins like chicken paillard and roasted prawns with peppers. His menu will include five or six pastas and a Calabrese sausage and peppers sandwich.
An all natural edge walnut bar—like a tree trunk fell on the bar floor and was perfectly sliced then polished—stretches 24 feet parallel to the 1802 Bellevue Ave entrance.
These pebble jeweled and silver-stained plywood tabletops mimic the backyard creek that co-owner-chef Aleks Dimitrijevic once splashed around in as a young boy. Mahogany church pews complement the Gothic window trim.
A fairy tale dinner wouldn’t be complete without drinks, and Gary Abst—former bartender at both Licorous and since-closed Market St Grill—is soon to be behind that mahogany bar mixing them.
When Aleks Dimitrijevic and Tyler Moritz decided to take over the cozy Bellevue corner once belonging to Chez Gaudy, they envisioned a fairy tale environment for their debut restaurant. Good work, guys; by the look of our tour on Tuesday, we’d say you nailed it—this place is anything but “the Beast,” as the French allusion would imply.
General manager Dan Rodgers expects La Bête will open Thursday. When it does, Dimitrijevic and Moritz, they of the accomplished culinary backgrounds, will showcase a locally minded menu—snacks, plates, and platters—that will rotate every week.
To tour the newest resident of Bellevue Ave and E Howell, click on the slideshow.
The oyster bar and restaurant is oh so close to opening.
Posted by: Christopher Werner on Aug 05, 2010 at 11:27AM0 Comments
An interior shot of the Walrus and the Carpenter. Photo courtesy the restaurant.
The anxious inquisitors peppering the Facebook wall of the Walrus and the Carpenter must’ve seen the tweet sent out last Thursday declaring the Ballard oyster bar would be open for business within one week.
Turns out they’ll have to sit tight a bit longer. A phone call to the restaurant reveals the new venture of Boat Street Cafe ’s Renee Erickson is not in fact opening today. Next week is looking more promising.
The “opening will unfortunately be pushed back momentarily.”
Posted by: Christopher Werner on Aug 04, 2010 at 02:00PM0 Comments
The opening of La Bête has been
La Bête, the new Capitol Hill restaurant at 1802 Bellevue Avenue, will not be opening Thursday, August 5 as originally planned.
The trio behind the venture sent out the following message Wednesday afternoon:
“Due to inevitable delays, the likes of which afflict most new restaurant start-ups, La Bête’s opening will unfortunately be pushed back momentarily. We’re sorry to get your appetites wet and not deliver when we wanted to, but trust that we are working diligently to get you through our doors and our food on your plates. Thank you for your patience and understanding.”
Posted by: Christopher Werner on Aug 03, 2010 at 12:20PM2 Comments
The doors are open at Japonessa Sushi Cocina, the restaurant occupying 1400 First Avenue, aka the former home of Union.
Co-owners Jason Koh and Billy Beach have created a Japanese-heavy menu with a tinge of Latin flair. “The fusion [is] mainly in the marinades and sauces,” Koh told Nosh Pit in June. Beach is also the chef and used to be affiliated with Umi Sake House and Kushibar.
Deal-oriented diners will be pleased to know happy hour is long and often. In the dining room it runs daily 11:30 am-6:30pm, then 6:30pm-8pm in the bar, and again 10pm-1am Thu-Sat. During this time, rolls top out at $4.50, sashimi costs $5-$10, and bites from the kitchen are $4 and $5.
Lunch is served every day 11:30am-2:30pm; dinner, Sun-Wed 2:30pm-11:30pm and Thu-Sat until 1am. Here’s a peak peek at Beach’s specialties:
For those who have been wondering: the Book Bindery isn’t happening until September.
Hunger, helmed by chef and owners Jamie Mullins and Brian Brooks, whose bragging rights include stints at Zoe and Andaluca, opens in Fremont, while Avila in Wallingford —loved by some, viewed as “meh” by others —closes.
(How amped is Seattle Met that Bellevue’s best bakery has spun off to our neighborhood?)
Posted by: Kathryn Robinson on Jul 26, 2010 at 09:00AM2 Comments
Jean-Claude Ferre and those belles pastries.
Every downtown office has its go-to lunchtime commissary; the neighborhood joint that’s convenient serving food that’s edible. Some of them are even worth going to. For years, ours here at Seattle Met…well…wasn’t. All right sandwiches, okay soup, ho-hum pastries, you know the drill.
When it closed we all breathed a sigh of apathy and waited for a new tenant to arrive.
So imagine our delight to discover that the new tenant was to be Belle Pastry, Bellevue’s Main Street mainstay for croissants and tarts and other French pastries. Under skilled pastry chef Jean-Claude Ferre (whom I have it on good authority counts Thierry Rautureau of Rover’s and Luc among his fans), the popular Old Bellevue branch of the bakery became a beloved hub of that neighborhood, eventually branching out to a Ballard outpost, since closed.
Lucky for us…because now the Seattle beachhead is serving its meringues and chocolate chip shortbread cookies and black forest cakes and Caffe Vita coffee—and mighty delectable chicken salads, I might add, in addition to baguette sandwiches and soups—at the corner of Western and Spring.
Making it official: New sushi restaurants are taking over Seattle.
Posted by: Christopher Werner on Jul 20, 2010 at 09:03AM1 Comments
The new restaurant Tamura Sushi Kappo is located in the Ruby Condominiums complex in Eastlake.
A couple of Tweets and a phone call in confirms it: Tamura Sushi Kappo is now dishing drool-worthy Japanese cuisine to the Eastlake Ave crowd.
When I last spoke with Steve Tamura about his new venture with Taichi Kitamura, he was hoping it would be opening July 2. He didn’t hit that goal—this past Sunday, July 18, was the restaurant’s first day.
If the name Taichi Kitamura sounds familiar, it’s because he’s the James Beard semi-finalist who cheffed former Fremont favorite Kappo, which was situated above his Chiso and featured an omakase-only menu. Seattle Met restaurant critic Kathryn Robinson said of the spendy, toque’s choice dinner: “Placing yourself in the hands of a chef like this is a dream.”
The open-kitchen Eastlake eatery is located in the Ruby condo complex and serves dinner daily 5-10pm.
On the other side of I-5, two other sushi restaurants, just blocks from each other, have made their debut on Capitol Hill: Broadway’s Genki Sushi and Octo Sushi, which takes over former home of Robin Leventhal’s Crave. This is the second Seattle storefront for conveyor-belt connoisseurs Genki (a third is located in Renton at Renton Village Shopping Center), which is reported to operate 150 outlets throughout Hawaii and Japan.
Finally, according to Capitol Hill Seattle, Pinto Thai Bistro and Sushi Bar, where Thai meets Japanese cuisine (yeah, I’m curious too), is expected to open sometime this month at 408 Broadway.
Two openings in two days for the Capitol Hill food center.
Posted by: Christopher Werner on Jul 13, 2010 at 12:04PM1 Comments
Matthew Dillon, whose Bar Ferd’nand is now open in the Capitol Hill food hub Melrose Market.
Just one day after Homegrown officially set up shop comes another Melrose Market debut: Bar Ferd’nand opens tonight at 6pm.
In April Nosh Pit first surfaced the news Matthew Dillon, he of the Corson Building and the newly relocated Sitka and Spruce (situated a hop and a skip from Ferd’nand) would be pairing with Corson Building sommelier Marc Papineau and friend Jared Baily to launch the wine and snack bar.
Surely it will make a great waiting spot for those who fail to reserve at S & S.
Can’t wait to try TD’s new place? Staple and Fancy Mercantile? Tide yourself over with these newbies.
Posted by: Christopher Werner on Jul 07, 2010 at 11:00AM0 Comments
An early look at Tom Douglas’s new venture, Roto Fish, located next to Etta’s.
Any Noshee keeping tabs on restaurant openings knows the number of new eateries is multiplying faster than rabbits on a spring day. One’s head they make spin, these openings.
To make sense of it all, we’ve mapped out 10 buzzed-about new restaurants, plus 10 others set to debut soon—the ones we’ve really got our eyes on.
And of course fill us in when you give them a try. We’re always eager to hear what you think.
Kathryn Robinson has reviewed restaurants in Seattle for over 25 years. Food and drink editor Jessica Voelker and web editor Chris Werner head up a team of hungry contributors who dish on the latest openings and closings, can’t-miss culinary events, and food and recipes from our vibrant farm-fresh scene.
To stay up on the hottest new restaurants, happy hours, and top chefs, sign up to receive Seattle Met’s weekly Nosh Pit News via email.
Email the editor »
Nosh Pit is your minimum daily requirement for all the tasty stuff that puts the “eat” in Seattle.
0 Comments
