Nosh Pit

Revel’s Grill Shack Returns

Last summer’s whole-roasted animal party fires up for the new season.

Posted by: Allecia Vermillion on May 02, 2012 at 09:00AM 0 Comments

Revel’s outdoor grill, the site of a summer’s worth of carnivorous delights. Photo via Facebook.

Pink blossoms and light-filled evenings are great and all, but here’s an unequivocal sign that summer is on its way: Revel’s outdoor grill shack has returned. In November, the maniacally adored Fremont restaurant traded its alfresco meat party for a warm wintertime hot pot. But it’s May and sous chef Mike Whisenhunt and crew have resumed their practice of roasting whole animals on Revel’s patio.

The grill shack will take on a new animal each month; owner Rachel Yang says that May is all about sustainably raised Berkshire pigs from Pure Country Farm in Ephrata. The kitchen breaks down the pigs in house, and make sure the entire animal gets used up, from simmering bones for stock to making chicharrones out of the skins, she says. Three sizes of grill shack platters, available during dinner service, let you calibrate your meat consumption.

It’s been a bittersweet few days for Yang and husband-partner Seif Chirchi. On April 29, the couple’s first restaurant, Joule, served its final dinner in its cozy Wallingford digs. The restaurant is relocating to larger quarters in Fremont this summer.

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Tags: Revel, Rachel Yang, On the Menu, Mike Whisenhunt

Seattle Is Sweet on Momofuku Milk Bar

Christina Tosi’s cerealcentric treats are inspiring some seriously tempting local desserts.

Posted by: Allecia Vermillion on Apr 17, 2012 at 11:30AM 2 Comments

The Wurst Place’s caramelized cornflake cookie with marshmallows and chocolate. Photo via Facebook.

Momofuku Milk Bar, David Chang’s sweets enterprise led by chef Christina Tosi, has a lot of fans. And while the Milk Bar’s five locations are all in Manhattan or Brooklyn, Tosi’s talents with all things sweet (and her clever cookbook) have inspired chefs and food geeks around Seattle.

Tosi is known for incorporating cereal into her desserts and enshrining in glass bottles the sweetened milk that remains after polishing off a bowl. Here are three local establishments taking inspiration from Tosi and her Milk Bar creations.

Americana
After taking over Table 219, his longtime employer, and developing a new name and menu, chef Jeffrey Wilson began creating ice cream tributes to Tosi and her empire. Wilson’s rotating milkshake selection has included Cap’n Crunch and Froot Loop versions; he recently ran a version made with Cinnamon Toast Crunch. But apparently the Capitol Hill crowd likes booze better than cereal: Wilson reports that his bourbon-maple and Vivace liqueur milkshakes are his most popular.

Full Tilt Ice Cream
Back in January, owner Justin Cline told us he was working on a new caramelized-cornflake flavor inspired by Momofuku. Since then he has expanded his cereal-focused repertoire, making batches flavored with chocolate covered Cap’n Crunch Crunch Berries, Froot Loops, and one made with Grape-Nuts that he swears has been the best one of all. These flavors are part of the rotating cast at Full Tilt’s four locations.

The Wurst Place
This relative newcomer in South Lake Union is known mostly for exotic sausages, beers, and Belgian-style frites. But even this bastion of meatiness isn’t impervious to the charms of Milk Bar recipes; the Wurst Place is now baking banana oatmeal bacon cookies, as well as another number stuffed with chocolate chips, caramelized corn flakes, and marshmallows.

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Tags: Desserts, Full Tilt, The Wurst Place, On the Menu, Americana

A Corn Dog Cameo at Brave Horse Tavern

The summertime favorite returns for one day only March 16.

Posted by: Allecia Vermillion on Mar 15, 2012 at 12:25PM 0 Comments

Tomorrow only: battered dogs on sticks. Photo via Brave Horse Tavern

It started with a note that a diner wrote to Brave Horse Tavern chef Brian Walczyk.

She started by lamenting the closing of Danny’s Wonder Freeze, “the creme de la creme of corn dogs and egg creams.” And oh, by the way, National Corn Dog Day is March 17, and this particular individual and her colleagues take food-related holidays quite seriously.

These batter-crusted sausages had themselves a moment last summer; Brave Horse Tavern and several other establishments around town served up some tasty upgraded versions of the carnival classic. But seasons change and so do menus. Is there a chance, the diner pleaded, that the beery South Lake Union gastropub could bring back its corn dog, even just for a day?

Walczyk is apparently an obliging guy. And so, for one glorious day on March 16, corn dogs return to the menu at Brave Horse Tavern—the 17th is reserved for St. Patrick’s Day revelry. Get these dogs from 11am till close. And please don’t take advantage of the chef’s good nature by bombarding him with requests about National Zucchini Day (August 8), National Lobster Day (June 15), or National Yorkshire Pudding Day (October 13). National Soft Pretzel Month, which happens in April, is presumably fair game.

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Tags: Brave Horse Tavern, On the Menu, Corn Dogs, Brian Walczyk

The MacGregor from Honest Biscuits

Waiting for you at the West Seattle Farmers Market: one giant biscuit, filled with bacon, cheese, and caramelized onions.

Posted by: Allecia Vermillion on Feb 23, 2012 at 01:45PM 1 Comments

Crunchy and crumbly on the outside, soft and buttery inside.

At the start of the year, Honest Biscuits set up shop at the West Seattle Farmers Market, where owner Art Stone tempts chard-shoppers with oversize, buttery packets.

Stone, who described his biscuits to Hanna Raskin as “crunchy on the outside, fluffy on the inside,” offers rotating flavors. On one recent visit, Honest Biscuits offered a standard version, another made with Beecher’s cheese, and an especially tempting-looking number with a big chunk of Theo chocolate baked in the middle.

But the $5 MacGregor might be the perfect introduction to Stone and his biscuits. This version is studded with Hempler’s bacon and caramelized onions, as well as Beecher’s cheese. Heat it up as a market-wandering snack, or take it home and make that bad boy into a sandwich.

You can track Honest Biscuits’ menu on its website, and keep an eye out for Stone to expand to other farmers markets in the future. There’s also talk of a Mexican-inspired biscuit recipe for Cinco de Mayo.

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Tags: Biscuits, Biscuits, On the Menu, Honest Biscuits

Beecher’s Launches Gluten-Free Mac and Cheese

Gluten intolerants rejoice, after months of recipe tinkering, the “World’s Best” mac and cheese is now made with rice pasta.

Posted by: Anne Larkin on Feb 22, 2012 at 11:35AM 1 Comments

Bringing delicious mac and cheese to the gluten-free masses.

Seeing as it says “World’s Best” right on the box, the folks at Beecher’s aren’t messing around when it comes to mac and cheese. The Pike Place cheesemaker’s original mac and cheese, made with a creamy blend of Beecher’s original Flagship cheese and the tangier “Just Jack,” sells all over the country, fulfilling America’s baked mac and cheese needs. Until now, those who are gluten-free have simply had to look on, hungry and mac-less.

No more. Last week, Beecher’s launched its “World’s Best Gluten-Free Mac and Cheese” after years of discussion and testing and tinkering. Founder Kurt Dammeier and Julie Riendl, marketing manager of parent company Sugar Mountain, tried over 30 kinds of gluten-free pastas, from corn to quinoa, finally settling on a rice pasta imported from Italy. They found it holds up best in the rich sauce and doesn’t have the intrusive flavor of some of the other wheatless versions.

The test kitchen has been a busy place over the last few months as the crew fine-tuned the recipe, creating the roux for the sauce with a variety of different gluten-free flours and sorting out how to combine the par-cooked pasta and sauce just so for the perfect final product.

And the tinkering goes on: the mac and cheese comes frozen, and can either be microwaved or baked—or a combination of both—every method resulting in a different sort of mac. The gluten-free noodles are a little more temperamental than regular noodles, and if they’re cooked for too long (or too short) they can get gummy. Dammeier likes to microwave then finish in the oven to get that crucial crispy crust. (And you can pop the frozen mac into your own dish for that just-whipped-this-up effect.)

However you wind up cooking it, it doesn’t taste like just an approximation of the famous Beecher’s mac—it really tastes like good ol’ mac and cheese, deserving of the lofty claims on the package. The noodles absorb the rich sauce that thickens as the dish rests, steaming, just pulled out of the oven. It certainly is a bit different from the regular version, the pasta is softer, lacking the familiar bite of traditional pastas. But really, anything smothered in nearly a pound of some of the best cheese out there is going to be good.

A tray of the new mac will run you $14, $2 more than the regular version, and is available at Beecher’s Pike Place shop or at sibling enterprise Pasta & Co. in Bellevue and at U Village. Gluten eaters will stick with the traditional version, but this is without doubt a cheese-laden blessing for those that can’t.

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Tags: Cheese, Gluten Free, On the Menu, Beecher's

Australian Wagyu Arrives at the Metropolitan Grill

Just four restaurants in the country carry this premium beef.

Posted by: Anne Larkin on Feb 10, 2012 at 02:15PM 1 Comments

The rich cut of meat is served rare at The Met.

The Metropolitan Grill prides itself on being old school. Green plush booths, dark wood counters, white-jacketed bartenders, chop salad and steak old school. But there’s a notable new addition to the steak display case that greets you at the door—Australian Wagyu, the ultra-marbled and highly prized beef that comes from full-blooded Wagyu cows whose ancestors just happened to be dispatched from Japan to Australia in the 1990s. This beef rings in at $85 for a five-ounce cut.

The Met was chosen by producer Mayura Station as one of four restaurants in the States (along with two locations of Wolfgang Puck’s Cut and the Wynn Encore Resort in Las Vegas) to carry its limited-quantity luxe beef imported from the southeast coast of Australia. According to the Puget Sound Business Journal, it’s the first time full-blooded Wagyu has appeared on the Met’s menu since hoof-and-mouth disease halted beef exports from Japan in 2010. Back then the restaurant was one of about a dozen nationally that offered the particularly prized Ohmi Wagyu, which cost $100 for six ounces.

Wagyu has attained designer beef status thanks to its generous marbling—the way the fat exists within the meat, infusing it with tenderness and taste. And not only is the marbling exceptional in the meat of these ancestrally Japanese cows, they have entirely different kinds of fats, fats that melt at a lower temperature. That old adage about something melting in your mouth as you eat it? That actually happens with this fat.

This is not a steak to serve charred, like a big New York or a ribeye. It’s a delicate thing—the product of a carefully raised cow, a cow fed tiny sips of beer before each meal. Met chef Eric Hellner says each precious steak is pan seared, finished in the oven, and served rare. The first easy cut into the succulent steak reveals a dark pink interior, the first taste a far richer-than-average, earthy, intense flavor.

“This is much more like something of a foie gras or a delicacy…you’d only eat it once in a while,” said Hellner. “You can’t eat it every day, it’s super rich.” Well you can, if you’re super rich.

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Tags: Beef, Metropolitan Grill, On the Menu, Eric Hellner

Raclette Returns at Cafe Presse

The cheesy French dish is the ultimate winter warmer.

Posted by: Christopher Werner on Jan 26, 2012 at 10:30AM 3 Comments

It doesn’t get much better than this. Photo courtesy Jim Drohman.

Raclette is a cheese you eat in the winter. It is cultivated in the French Alps in late summer, when the cows’ milk is at its best (read: fattiest), then matures four to six months before it’s ripe, right around the holidays. Consume the “chalet cheese” elsewhere in the year and you’re either having stale goods or something improperly aged. For these reasons, raclette surfaces only seasonally at Cafe Presse.

To be clear, we’re not talking about some cheese plate on the starter menu. Raclette also refers to a traditional French Savoie meal in which the eponymous dairy is melted then scraped onto cuts of meat and warmed potatoes. Often this happens with a table-side grill (like this) where diners cook the ingredients at their leisure using individual trays. It makes for a most fun dining experience—and a most pleasing winter splurge.

But at Presse that set-up is logistically not possible, so the chefs lay the cheese in a cast-iron skillet, cook it in the oven for four or five minutes, then finish it under the broiler. The result: a perfectly melty spread for the accompanying hams—two kinds—steamed spuds, and salami.

Though raclette is one of owner Jim Drohman’s most requested plates (thanks in part to some TV crushing), he won’t budge on the matter of freshness. “The heart of the dish is the quality of the ingredients.”

Raclette resurfaced at Presse earlier this month as a special, but as of the 24th it’s on the menu daily. A five ounce serving of cheese, plus the proteins, will cost you $16. (Downtowners, find a similar preparation at Drohman’s other restaurant, Le Pichet.) Vegetarians can sub the meats for winter fruits and walnuts. Order both versions and you’ve got quite the nice combo, suggests Drohman.

Right now there’s plenty of cheese to go around—Drohman guesses the raclette will be on the menu through early spring—but once it’s gone, you won’t see it for many moons. Act accordingly.

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Tags: Cheese, Comfort Food, Cafe Presse, On the Menu, Jim Drohman

King Cake at Where Ya At Matt

This cinnamon-laced treat means carnival season has arrived.

Posted by: Allecia Vermillion on Jan 19, 2012 at 12:30PM 0 Comments

Find the tiny plastic baby and the next king cake is on you. Photo via Where Ya At Matt.

This is only the second Mardi Gras season for food truck Where Ya At Matt, but already his (highly enthusiastic) fan base knows that January and February mean house-made king cake.

A New Orleans native who roams the streets dispensing Creole classics like gumbo and po’boys, Lewis is offering this traditional pre-Lenten treat right up to Mardi Gras, February 21. The Louisiana version of king cake, he says, is “basically a braided cinnamon roll” iced in the colors of Mardi Gras. The purple stands for justice, green for faith, and gold for power, and the braid is meant to look like a king’s crown.

King cake makes first appears on Epiphany, usually January 6. Whether you find it in a French Quarter bakery, or a Seattle food truck in an Interbay parking lot, the sweet’s arrival means it’s officially carnival season, says Lewis. Slices are $3 and you can preorder a whole cake on his website for $35.

It’s tempting to consume your slice quickly, as it does indeed taste like an enormous cinnamon roll. Just bite with care: Each cake has a tiny plastic baby hidden within. Traditionally, says Lewis, “Whoever finds it throws the next party.” It also has a few other meanings.

All this revelry leads up to Mardi Gras, one final blowout before Ash Wednesday puts an end to all the overindulgence and ushers in Lent.

“In New Orleans we have a way of turning anything into a party, including religion,” says Lewis. “Anything you do during Mardi Gras up until February 21 is forgiven by the church. I promise.” Including consuming gluttonous amounts of king cake.

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Tags: Seattle Food Trucks, On the Menu, Where Ya At Matt, Matthew Lewis

Flying Squirrel’s New Meatball Pizza

At last, a pizza worthy of occupying the no. 7 spot absent from the menu for three years.

Posted by: Allecia Vermillion on Jan 12, 2012 at 02:00PM 0 Comments

Flying Squirrel’s new #7. Photo: Brian Vescovi.

If you’ve ever partaken of the fabulous pizzas at Flying Squirrel Pizza Co., you may have noticed the menu of numbered pies lacks a no. 7. Much like some superstitious building owners eliminate the 13th floor, the menu skips from pizza no. 6 (potato and blue cheese, my personal favorite) to no. 8 (mozzarella, arugula and runny egg).

No more. The three-location Seattle pizzeria has introduced a meatball pie to fill the seven-spot that has lain dormant for three years. When Flying Squirrel opened its Seward Park location in 2008, a vegan pizza occupied no. 7, says manager Brian Vescovi. But animal-eschewing patrons preferred to design their own vegetable combo pies, and so one day the vegan pie just quietly slipped off the menu, along with its assigned number.

“The no. 7 just ceased to exist and the reputation became like that of Sasquatch or something,” says Vescovi. “People swore they had seen it on the menu again sometimes,” though such sightings were never confirmed.

About a month ago, chef/owner Bill Coury and cook Cody Perez brainstormed a meatball pizza recipe, something Flying Squirrel had never done before. Taste testers deemed the pie worthy of occupying the mythical no. 7 slot. Let’s hope they also enjoyed the irony of a meatball pie replacing a vegan one.

The meatballs are made in house with veal and grass-fed beef, and keep company with fresh mozzarella, basil, parmigiano-reggiano and the Squirrel’s tomato sauce. Since the kitchen can only make so many meatballs, usually fewer than a dozen of these pizzas are available each night. They aren’t nearly as rare as a Sasquatch sighting, but rare enough that the suckers kept selling out rapidly night after night before Vescovi had a chance to take a photo for me.

The new no. 7 is available at all three locations and will run you $19.50. Also, hooray, Flying Squirrel will let you order a half-meatball pie.

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Tags: Pizza, Flying Squirrel Pizza Co, On the Menu

Full Tilt’s New Flavor: Cornflakes

Consider it an ice cream homage to New York City’s Milk Bar.

Posted by: Stephanie Rubesh on Jan 10, 2012 at 11:45AM 0 Comments

Tastes like sweet milk, smells like sweet milk—it is sweet milk. Just in frozen form.

Full Tilt Ice Cream is taking a page from Milk Bar, Christina Tosi’s much-loved dessert offshoot of David Chang’s restaurant empire. Owner Justin Cline, already known for his unconventionally awesome flavors, has been finalizing a new addition. Behold, cornflakes ice cream: the taste of sugary bottom-of-the-bowl cereal milk now in dessert form. Cline says the flavor, a play on Milk Bar’s famed cereal milk and its attendant ice cream, has been a hit thus far.

The ice creamery’s initial batch—complete with caramelized cornflakes—is going fast. But we’re in luck. Another batch is being churned and will be available at all Full Tilt locations this weekend (including the new Ballard shop). “From the small test batches we’ve done, I think this is going to be a summer favorite,” says Cline. Black sesame and chocolate tarragon are also in the works.

“But it’s January,” whines my practical side. Hush. This flavor promises to be as exciting in the 40-degree present as it will be in the theoretical 75-degree future.

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Tags: Ice Cream, Special Menus, Food Trends in Seattle, Full Tilt, Justin Cline, On the Menu