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

Top Five Restaurant Openings of 2011

Lots of newbies…but which were best?

Posted by: Kathryn Robinson on Dec 27, 2011 at 11:00AM 2 Comments

The tidy, white-and-celery Skillet Diner is one of our new favorites.

Like 2010, this year brought spinoffs aplenty, with restaurateurs like Tom Douglas colonizing in earnest—in his case, South Lake Union (see Serious Pie, Serious Biscuit, Ting Momo, Brave Horse Tavern, and Cuoco.) Jason Stratton of Cascina Spinasse brought us his Italian aperitif masterpiece Artusi, Maria Hines of Tilth delivered her ode to the Arab Spring in the form of Golden Beetle, and Scott Staples of Quinn’s enhanced his portfolio with Uneeda Burger (even as he diminished it by Restaurant Zoe).

Mobile operations like Marination Station, A La Mode Pies, Seattle Sausage Company (which would become Dot’s Delicatessen), and Skillet Street Food went bricks-and-mortar, while Mexican food went the new-restaurant equivalent of viral. (Openings included Poquitos on Capitol Hill, Kirkland’s Milagro Cantina, Coa on Roosevelt, Fremont’s Pecado Bueno, Eastlake’s Little Water Cantina, and the jaw-dropping Queen Anne sister to La Carta de Oaxaca, Mezcaleria Oaxaca.)

But of all the openings, five stood out as superstars. In alphabetical order, they are:

Altura Shhh…open since just October, it hasn’t been operating long enough for my print review to come out. At the risk of spoiling the surprise, let’s just say this North Capitol Hill beaut fires on every cylinder and then some: creative and seasonal Italian food; a romantic space presided over by at least one member of the heavenly host; and some of the most gracious service I have encountered in Seattle.

Bar del Corso Look up “neighborhood restaurant” in the dictionary and there’s a picture of the burbling happy room that’s made Beacon Hill dwellers lose their minds. Perfect wood-oven pizza, nice bitter cocktails, Euro nibbles and salads, and all the community you could ever want—in one deafening room.

Coterie Room Thank you, Dana Tough and Brian McCracken (Spur Gastropub, Tavern Law), for opening a restaurant that’s brought a little life and beauty back to Belltown. The schtick in this elegant white fin de siècle room is timeless comfort food (grilled rib eye, buttermilk chicken) brought off to a turn, with all the modern methods chefs love to employ but hate to own up to.

Revel Sue me, it opened the tail-end of 2010. The folks who brought you Joule have trained their perfectionist eye on Asian street food, and the short rib rice bowls with kimchee and pork belly pancakes and warming morning porridge are simply the most exuberant thing to happen around here all year. A treasure.

Skillet Diner The Pike/Pine neighborhood of Capitol Hill is breathless over its clattering drop-in diner, where the fried chicken has a fennel seed crust and the grilled cheese is made with brie. It all adds up to the perfect ratio of foofy-to-fun, in a tidy white-and-celery space where the cocktails go down like Kool-Aid. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

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Tags: Seattle Restaurant Openings, Skillet, Revel, 2011 in Food, Altura, Coterie Room, Bar del Corso

Revel Turns One, Celebrates With Competitive Eating

It’s surprisingly tough to avoid inadvertent puns when talking about revelry at Revel.

Posted by: Allecia Vermillion on Dec 14, 2011 at 11:20AM 0 Comments

Revel’s transformation from this drab interior is reason enough to celebrate. Photo via Revel.

How best to celebrate the first year of a restaurant feted by Frank Bruni the New York Times and pretty much every restaurant critic in Seattle? Why, by shoving short rib dumplings in your mouth in rapid-fire succession and sharing that moment of glory on the internet.

Rachel Yang and Seif Chirchi’s second restaurant Revel, a major darling of Seattle’s restaurant realm, is celebrating its one year anniversary Sunday, December 18. Festivities include snacks, cake, celebratory bubbles, and a contest to see who can put away the most short rib dumplings in three minutes.

According to Yang, anyone interested in competitive dumpling consumption should call Revel first thing Sunday morning. The restaurant will sign up the first 14 people who call, and the winner gets a $100 gift certificate. The contest happens around 9:30pm, but if you can’t make it, Yang has promised to post the results on YouTube. Apparently Chirchi will be participating and has threatened to gorge himself to the point that Yang will have to cover all his professional duties at the restaurant the next day.

The birthday celebration runs from 9 to 11 Sunday night; Revel-ers are welcome to drop by even if they won’t be throwing back dumplings. Sidenote: Has it really been just one year since Yang and Chirchi introduced us to their pancakes, noodles and oh, those original ice cream sandwiches? Few restaurants speed their way into Seattle’s legion of classic restaurants with such rapidity.

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Tags: Revel, Rachel Yang, Seif Chirchi, Milestones

Revel Introduces Wintertime Hot Pot

Warm weather grilled meats make way for hot, spicy broth.

Posted by: Allecia Vermillion on Nov 17, 2011 at 11:10AM 0 Comments

The marrow-filled spicy beef hot pot: now warming you up at Revel. Photo courtesy of Rachel Yang.

Revel retired its popular summertime grill shack menu on October 31 (but not before sous chef Mike Whisenhunt went through a reported 18 pigs, four cows, six goats and 12 lambs). This week I happened to eat at the Frank Bruni–favored Fremont restaurant as part of a campaign to impress a friend from out of town, and noticed a new seasonal addition to the menu: Korean hot pots. So stop lamenting the departure of those tasty grilled meats; these bowls are designed to fight off winter’s encroachment with some fiery broth and a tiny ladle.

The spicy beef hot pot contains brisket aplenty, but what you notice first when the bowl arrives at the table are the four caveman-sized discs of bone marrow. According to chef-owner Rachel Yang, each serving comes with four of the behemoth bones. Spooning out the tasty marrow innards is highly encouraged. The hot pot runs $30 and contains Swiss chard and king oyster mushrooms. Two people can share it, but ladling the contents out between three our four people means more room for pancakes, noodles, and dumplings.

The hot and sour shrimp version is $26 and contains the titular shellfish, as well as glass noodles, tofu, daikon, napa cabbage, zucchini and shrimp chips. Vegetarians, don’t be shy: Just ask and Revel will do a vegetarian version.

Yang says the beef hot pot sold out on Tuesday night, its maiden voyage on the menu.

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Tags: Menus, Revel, Rachel Yang

Catch Frank Bruni Praising Revel on The Food Network

The Best Thing I Ever Ate episode airs on Monday.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Sep 22, 2011 at 01:13PM 0 Comments

A rice bowl at Revel, the best thing Frank Bruni ever ate.

Photo: Jackie Baisa

On Monday, September 26, the Food Network will air the episode of The Best Thing I Ever Ate in which once anonymous now ubiquitous New York Times writer Frank Bruni reveals his crush on the rice bowls at Revel, Rachel Yang and Seif Chirchi’s Korean street food-inspired restaurant in Fremont.

The show—the theme this time is “messy,” among the selections are dishes from Rye in Brooklyn and a bakery in the Berkshires—begins at 9pm. Andrew Zimmern, Alton Brown, and Duff are also contributing favorite dishes. Wait, Duff. Does that mean Duff McKagan, former Guns N’ Roses bassist and current Seattleite? Or Karen “Duff” Duffy, the MTV VJ whose puffy lips and adorably boyish haircut you may remember if you are between 27 and 40 years of age?

Also, wow. Frank Bruni really, really digs on Seattle food. Remember this love letter? It’s all so flattering.

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Tags: Fremont, Television, Revel

Are Revel’s Dessert Sandwiches Gone for Good?

Maybe not!

Posted by: Christopher Werner on Aug 12, 2011 at 09:48AM 0 Comments

Revel’s dessert sandwiches.

Just a couple weeks ago Rachel Yang, chef and co-owner of Revel, was chatting up Nosh videographer Abby Tracy about the restaurant’s coveted dessert sandwiches. Originally they were plumped with ice cream, then the frozen confection got swapped for fillings like cardamom buttercream or chili marshmallow—the drippy dairy didn’t win over the “variety of clientele” (i.e. older folks), Yang explained to Tracy.

Still, the ‘wiches—originals and reboots—boasted a fervent fan base (in her review of Revel Kathryn Robinson wrote, what “might seem a throwaway dessert [is] exacting and eye-opening”). So it was sad-face surprising to hear they’re no longer on offer. Apparently Yang and husband/co-chef/co-owner Seif Chirchi felt it time to “to change it up,” and have introduced a new monthly sweets menu revolving around a different theme. The bill for August features chocolate semifreddo, watermelon granita, and peach ice cream with almond streusel. Next month: “topped off” items, including cobblers, crumbles, and a brown betty.

As for the sandwiches, are they gone for good? A rep for Revel says they “may be back,” but didn’t offer any more specifics. Let’s hope!

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Tags: Desserts, Revel

Critic Watch: Revel Rousers

Seattle critics heap praise on the Korean street-food spot in Fremont

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on May 10, 2011 at 03:47PM 0 Comments

Critics’ Darlings Seif Chirchi and Rachel Yang of Revel have a lot to smile about.

Photo Courtesy Jackie Baisa

(New series! When all of our local critics jump on one restaurant and review it, we compare what they say.)

Wow, but Seattle’s food critics enjoy their Revel. Let’s have a look.

I didn’t encounter any dish I wouldn’t happily have again.

That’s the Seattle Times’ Providence Cicero in her review back in March.

In an article with a dek that refers to the restaurant as a “spectacular winner,” Seattle Magazine’s Allison Austin Scheff speaks of the joys of thumbing her nose at other cities via Revel:

Sometimes, it’s easy to fall into ‘other city’ envy…. But when a restaurant like Revel comes along right here at home, it’s one more notch in our belt, and the competitive food nerd inside me can’t help herself: Eat your heart out, suckers.

Bethany Jean Clement at The Stranger was a bit more mellow in her assessment, but she had good things to say nonetheless.

Revel feels like a grown-up dining hall—loud, crowded, fun. But, you know, with tasty updated Korean food.

Surly Gourmand, writing for Seattle Weekly’s Voracious blog, had this to say:

There’s nothing quite like Revel in Fremont. For years the region was devoid of fine dining, sandwiched between Wallingford and Ballard, both bastions of high-end neighborhood restaurants. Previously, diners in Fremont had to settle for a seemingly endless parade of Thai restaurants, or Cuban sandwich shops that keep unicorn’s hours, or shitty overpriced Mexican food that was really just a front for a 24-hour frat party. Now, with Revel, Fremont finally has a real contender. May their competitors die in a raging fiery lava flow!

This magazine’s Kathryn Robinson came to her own enthusiastic conclusions:

Here’s the thing: Street food—comfort food—has no business being technically flawless, even less being groundbreaking. Revel’s is both.

And finally, the new girl. Seattle Weekly’s Hanna Raskin chose Revel for her first-ever Seattle review. She had a few finger wags—not enough servers, for one—but in the end she joined the other happy critics.

When I think about returning to Revel, my mind fixates on the corned-lamb salad…I suspect what I liked best about the salad was what I like best about Revel: It was gutsy, unexpected, and nonchalantly delicious.

And there you have it: total consensus.

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Tags: New Seattle Restaurants, Restaurants, Fremont, Revel, Critic Watch

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