Nosh Pit

Take the Mundane Out of Monday

Say what you will about our rough economy…it makes for some sweet Monday night restaurant specials. Check these out:

Posted by: Kathryn Robinson on Oct 03, 2011 at 08:35AM 2 Comments

Photo: Lindsay Borden

Sitka and Spruce.

Meatless Mondays at Oddfellows Café + Bar. This is owner Linda Derschang’s bid to save the planet by serving meat-free specials Monday nights. Specials like linguine with sautéed arugula, roasted tomatoes, and pine nuts in beurre blanc. (Pssst: Another Derschang bar, Smith, starts Meatless Mondays later this month.) Carnivores, don’t hyperventilate: Neither joint will abandon meat entirely Mondays.

Taco Mondays at Sitka & Spruce. From 5:30 to 9:30 every Monday, chef and owner Matt Dillon honors the cuisine of employee Alvaro Candela-Najera with traditional Mexican fare, including tacos with yellowfoot mushrooms, tacos with chorizo and flank steak, and tacos with milk-soaked beef belly. All to enjoy with tequila, cerveza, or aguas frescas.

Little Uncle at La Bete. This one’s a pop-up restaurant on La Bete’s night off; the same Thai joint that once popped up (under the name Shophouse) at the late, great Licorous. Don’t reserve, just drop in for a rotating menu of authentic Thai dishes: tonight to include mini curried catfish cakes and pungent shrimp curry with corn, kubocha squash, and chard. Here’s the Little Uncle website.

Moules Monday at Bastille. Back by popular demand, Ballard’s Frenchiest bistro offers Taylor Shellfish Mediterranean mussels every Monday from 5:30pm to 10, for just 14 clams. Ha. (Muscadet goes nicely with mussels, and is on offer Mondays for $6 a glass.)

Wagyu Steak Night at Fresh Bistro. Choose among three different cuts of America’s own Kobe-style beef, choose your side dishes, and enjoy it all (with half-priced wine!) for $15-$18 at West Seattle’s biggest crowd-pleaser.

Happy Mondays at Art of the Table. OK, so we’re not entirely sure what they call their Monday night small plate/happy hour fests, but if you’ve been you know they’re happy. (Chef and owner Dustin Ronspies was one of the first Monday promo practitioners in town.) Look for small sexy plates and wine/beer specials, from 5pm to 10ish.

Savage Street Cuisine at Volunteer Park Café. This one’s still unofficial…but word on the street says a couple of bright lights from Rover’s will colonize Volunteer Park Café’s kitchen for one Monday a month, October through January, to test drive their repertoire for a food truck they’re cooking up. Watch this space for details.

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Tags: Special Dinners, Seattle Pop-Ups, Critic's Notebook

Book It: Family Dinner at the Pantry at Delancey

The family-style feasts are selling out fast, so get on in there if you’re going.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Aug 23, 2011 at 09:29AM 0 Comments

Reserve now to experience a Moroccan feast or apple harvest dinner at the Pantry.

Photo: The Pantry at Delancey via Facebook

The Pantry at Delancey’s family dinner—it changes monthly and is held twice per lunar cycle—is sold out in September.

And one of November’s apple harvest dinners is already booked too. (The meal on November 3 has seats remaining.)

Also available: Places at the table during both of October’s Moroccan feasts. Call or email to secure your spot.

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Tags: Special Dinners, Ballard, Molly Wizenberg

The Single Most Dazzling Thing a Restaurateur Can Do

Pioneer a new cuisine? Launch a star chef? Not even close.

Posted by: Kathryn Robinson on Aug 22, 2011 at 08:08AM 0 Comments

Photo: Lindsay Borden

Thierry Rautureau of Rover’s.

The single most dazzling thing a restaurateur can do is the daily work of stewarding a business so esteemed by its customers, it measures its life not in years—but decades.

Two bits of news crossed my desk this week. First was the announcement of the upcoming 35-year anniversary party of George’s, the mom-n-pop Greek joint that’s kept Kirkland in gyros and mousakas and spanikopitas since 1976. George Mangouras died a few years back, but his son Pete—raised here, after all—assumed the reins.

Now he invites you to join his four generations of regulars in hoisting a glass to 35 good years: This Saturday, August 27, at 7pm. Greek music, door prizes, new retail line, the works.

Also this weekend comes a quiet farewell from another old friend. Rare is the Seattleite who hasn’t at least once enjoyed the charms of Madison Park Café’s leafy courtyard for brunch, or twilit interior for French bistro food. Karen Binder opened the café in 1979 first as a coffee and tea-room, then as a breakfast and lunch stop, and ultimately as a dinner and brunch house.

Partners came and went, chefs were hired and replaced, concepts shifted and evolved—but through it all Binder kept the charming house restaurant humming: loving up the regulars, welcoming newcomers, keeping chefs in line, stepping in when someone called in sick. The long, thankless, buck-stops-here toil of the committed restaurateur.

On my last meal there, over a moist organic chicken breast with roasted fennel and the same silken French onion soup I’d enjoyed there for years, I wrote this: “The sort of wee neighborhood restaurant, with such a humane understanding of personal service, that restores my faith in the intimate dining room.”

Binder sold the place to the folks who shuttered 94 Stewart in the Pike Place Market; it will re-emerge in coming months as an Italian place, Café Parco. For her part, Binder will stay in the culinary biz, as a caterer and wine-seller. Reportedly, she is pleased with the transition.

Me, I’m wistful. I remember the same feeling of nostalgia and admiration when Adriatica closed, and Saleh al Lago, and Labuznik: longtime culinary standard-bearers that bore the strong imprint of deeply engaged owners and the recognizable mark of careful daily stewardship.

Ask any longtime owner—the Canlises, Tom Douglas of the Dahlia Lounge (and others), Jackie Roberts of the Pink Door, Carmine Smeraldo of Il Terrazzo Carmine, Thierry Rautureau of Rover’s, and more—and they’ll tell you how grueling it is. And how great.

Time for us to tell ’em back. So cheers, Mangouras family. As for Karen Binder, who serves her last Sunday brunch this Sunday the 28th: Merci and well done!

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Tags: Special Dinners, Seattle Restaurant Closings, Critic's Notebook

Spinasse’s Anniversary Menus: Four Course for $50

Here’s the deal.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Aug 08, 2011 at 10:56AM 0 Comments

Photo: Lucas Anderson

Spinasse features special anniversary menus in August.

There are a lot of dinner deals and special events and so forth, and not all of them are super-exciting or blogworthy.

But four courses for $50 at Spinasse merits a mention.

Here’s the deal: All August, the newly remodel Italian restaurant on Capitol Hill is resurrecting dishes from its first year in business. The occasion? The restaurant is celebrating its third year in business.

A little playing around on Opentable reveals that people who like to eat around 6 or 7 (and let’s face it Seattle, that’s all of you) should make a reservation a week or two in advance. If you’re willing to go early or late, however, or if you like dining out on Monday, you can procrastinate some.

Also, you should probably know that the menu starting August 21 includes a risotto dish with shigoku oysters. Humunuh.

Here is a link to the anniversary menus.

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Tags: Capitol Hill, Special Dinners, Special Menus

Hey, It’s Tako Truk!

A street food favorite from the summer of ’09 pops up at Madison Park Conservatory.

Posted by: Christopher Werner on Jun 17, 2011 at 04:58PM 0 Comments

Photo: Nick Feldman

Mahoney (left) and Jarr in front of Tako Truk in the summer of ’09.

More pop-ups!

The long dormant Tako Truk, the food stall Cormac Mahoney and Bryan Jarr used to operate outside Eastlake Zoo Tavern in the warmer months of 2009, is due to resurface during Summer Sunday Socials at Mahoney’s new restaurant, Madison Park Conservatory.

The first one happens June 26 and gets underway at 4. Tako’s signature “green drink” is now spiked (booze was a no-no before, remember?), and on the food front the Conservatory’s website lists guiso and tacos, plus “fried things,” “raw things,” and popcorn (naturally).

Follow @takotruk for updates.

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Tags: Special Dinners, Street Food, Food Trends in Seattle

Grubwithus to Launch in Seattle Market

The networking site “builds friendships over food.”

Posted by: Christopher Werner on Jun 10, 2011 at 09:14AM 0 Comments

Holy hand gestures. Grubwithus launches in Seattle.

The gist of Grubwithus is a group of strangers, generally no more than 10, sign up to eat a prix fixe family style meal in the hope of forging new friendships. The restaurants rotate often, and the sooner you reserve a spot the cheaper the dinner. Worried about creepers? Book last and see who your table mates are.

Eddy Lu and Daishin Sugano launched the site last year after relocating to Chicago and discovering post college, “it’s super hard meeting people you want to be friends with!” Fair enough, but considering the notoriously stranger-averse attitude of Seattleites it will be interesting to see how Grub fares here. But, given this city’s fanatical, eager-to-break-bread foodies, maybe it will take off?

The online service is already in place in New York, Washington DC, LA, Chicago, and San Francisco, and has plans to tap the Atlanta market. The Seattle launch is slated for June 21.

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Tags: Special Dinners

Volunteer Park Cafe Latest to Embrace Pop-Up Trend

Bimonthly dinners will feature Cuoco toque Erik Jackson.

Posted by: Christopher Werner on Jun 09, 2011 at 11:47AM 0 Comments

Erik Jackson’s pop-up dinners at Volunteer Park Cafe are planned to run through mid-September.

Pop-ups, long a retail trend and a burgeoning culinary one in other cities, have been slow to gain footing here in Seattle, but that’s not to say we haven’t seen some evidence of the come-cook-in-my-kitchen philosophy.

There was Dumpling Dojo last year on Broadway. Skillet tested out the menu for its now-open diner during several dinners around town. Before opening Emmer and Rye, Seth Caswell clocked in at Art of the Table. And of course there’s the popular Shophouse at Licorous, helmed by Lark sous Wiley Frank and happening every Monday.

Which now has competition. Volunteer Park Cafe sends word Erik Jackson, toque at new Tom Douglas joint Cuoco, will cook in the northern Capitol Hill restaurant every other Monday starting June 20.

Per press materials, A Square Meal is inspired by Jackson’s tenure at Dog Mountain Farm in Carnation, “where he crafted multi-course meals created from the farms bounty.” His VPC dinners cost $65, begin at 6pm, and are BYOB (wine or beer only. Speaking of trends Seattle should adopt…) Give 206-328-3155 a jingle to make a reservation.

Don’t forget to snag a cookie on your way out.

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Tags: Special Dinners, Restaurant Trends, Food Trends in Seattle

SAM Teams Up with More Food Trucks for Party in the Park

Six vendors are on tap for the gala.

Posted by: Christopher Werner on Jun 08, 2011 at 09:35AM 0 Comments

Photo: Lindsay Borden

Veraci will haul its oven to Belltown for SAM’s Party in the Park.

Another day, another bit of street food news.

Seattle Art Museum is corralling a cluster of mobile vendors for Party in the Park (not to be confused with its Picnic at the Park series, which gets underway in July and also will feature several four-wheelers). Maximus Minimus, Dante’s Inferno Dogs, Skillet, Veraci, Street Treats, and Molly Moon’s are all tapped to cater the fundraiser on June 17 at Olympic Sculpture Park. The $75 fee ($100 at the door) gets you as much of their goodies as you’d like, and the same goes for beer and wine. The fete also will feature music from Hey Marseilles, local quintet Curtains for You, and Dave Hernandez of The Shins. He’s a DJ now, apparently.

You can purchase tickets for Party in the Park here.

Keep tabs on more food and restaurant news. Friend Nosh Pit on Facebook.

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Tags: Special Dinners, Street Food

Seattle Beer Week: Best of the Beer Dinners

Some of Seattle’s top restaurants have paired up with brewers for multi-course feasts in honor of SBW. Reserve now.

Posted by: Katie Ormsby on May 20, 2011 at 09:34AM 0 Comments

Hope you are hungry: During Beer Week, Seattle restaurants pair up with craft brewers for multi-course pairing feasts.

We’ve been covering the drinking events over on Sauced, but our city’s restaurants are also playing host to a ton of beer-pairing dinners in honor of Seattle Beer Week—here are the five that sounded most promising to us.

Most of the meals are comprised of five courses, each course paired with a different beer. We called around to get as many menu details as possible, but some of the restaurants had yet to finalize their food.

This Saturday, May 21 Stone Brewing will be at Elemental at Gasworks for a five-course beer pairing dinner from 6 to 8pm. It costs $75 per person and reservations are recommended. The menu hasn’t been set.

On Monday, May 23: Crow hosts Pike Brewing for a five-course meal from 6 to 8pm, which runs $50 per person. The menu includes housemade pretzels, carved porchetta, and spring carrot cake for dessert.

Also on the 23rd: SoDo’s Epic Ales heads to Tilikum Place Cafe for a meal that begins at 6:30pm. That’s $70 per person.

Another meal with Cali’s Stone Brewing: Stone co-hosts a dinner at Volunteer Park Cafe that will take place starting at 7pm on Thursday, May 26 and costs $85 per person.

Here are the pairings: citrus seafood ceviche and Stone Levitation Ale; potato gnocchi, truffle fonduta, and shiitake mushrooms and Stone Pale Ale; sea bass in curried beer broth and Stone IPA; spicy braised pork spareribs and Stone Sublimely Self-Righteous Ale; braised oxtail with bone marrow mashed potatoes and Green Flash/Pizza Port Carlsbad/Stone Highway 78 Scotch Ale; toffee browned butter brownies with vanilla ice cream and brûléed banana and Stone Old Guardian BELGO Barley Wine.

On Friday May 27, Portland’s Hopworks Urban Brewery pairs up with Trellis in Kirkland for a multi-course pork-centric dinner that begins at 6:30pm (expect to wrap up around 9:30pm).

It’s $65 per person and the dessert course is an ice cream float with a Hopworks stout as an accompaniment. Not a bad way to end an evening.

Check SBW’s website for a complete list of events.

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Tags: Beer, Special Dinners, Beer and Food Pairing, Pork, Volunteer Park Cafe, Special Menu,

Outstanding in the Field Returns!

The bus rolls into Carnation on July 6 and 7. This is not something you want to miss.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on May 04, 2011 at 09:02AM 0 Comments

Photo: Lindsay Borden

Carrots and beets at 2010’s Outstanding in the Field dinner at Full Circle Farm.

Last year, photographer Lindsay Borden and I had the opportunity to do a photo essay (this one) on an Outstanding in the Field dinner that took place at Full Circle Farm in Carnation.

Cooking that night was Elemental chef Laurie Riedeman. Her food was fantastic and everyone made tons of friends while picking berries off bushes, sipping Washington wine, and just sort of basking in the quintessential Northwest summerness of it all.

This year, the roving outdoor dinner company comes back to Full Circle on July 6. Emmer and Rye’s Seth Caswell will be cooking. Tickets are $180 (wine pairings included) and the events starts at 4—there’s a little party in the garden and a farm tour before dinner.

On July 7, Outstanding will head over to Dog Mountain Farm, also in Carnation. The chef that night will be Dan Gilmore from Urbane. Tickets are, once again, $180, and it also starts at 4pm.

Note from mom: if the weather is favorable, please bring sunscreen or a big floppy hat. You’ll be spending a lot of hours in direct sunlight.

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Tags: Special Dinners, Summer Plans, Full Circle Farm, Farms

The Pantry at Delancey Releases Family Dinners Lineup

The first one happens July 8.

Posted by: Christopher Werner on May 03, 2011 at 07:00AM 0 Comments

Pickled watermelon rind is on the menu for the September 4 dinner at the Pantry at Delancey. Photo courtesy Whole Foods.

More proof the Pantry at Delancey is shaping up to become ground zero for gourmands: The forthcoming kitchen behind the Ballard pizza joint just revealed dates and menus for three family-style meals. The first one taking place July 8 is already sold out (though there is a wait list), but spots remain for the Italian Summer Feast on August 13 and September 4’s Down South Dinner. The former is $85, the second $65.

The Pantry also beefed up its filling-up-fast roster of cooking classes. Good Fish author Becky Selengut and local drink slinger Rocky Yeh are tapped to lead new sessions.

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Tags: Special Dinners

Dinner Deal of the Week: Monsoon’s Crab Feast

An excellent excuse to dine out early in the week.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Mar 17, 2011 at 10:39AM 0 Comments

The deal on Dungeness happens Sundays and Mondays at Monsoon.

I’m just mentioning this to make sure you’re aware of it: Every Sunday and Monday at Monsoon, a crab dinner for two is $28. Included: a two-pound Saigon pepper Dungeness crab prepared in the wok, plus a mango and papaya salad.

Sweetening the situation: bottles of wine are 30 percent off.

Update: This happens only at the Monsoon on Capitol Hill, not at the much bigger one in Bellevue.

Thought you should know.

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Tags: Bellevue, Capitol Hill, Special Dinners, Seattle Restaurants, Special Menu