Nosh Pit

Nosh Pit Weekly Planner

This weekend: Artisan cheese and Easter brunches abound.

Posted by: Anne Larkin on Apr 02, 2012 at 12:00PM 0 Comments

Beer and cheese, lots of cheese, at the Artisan Cheese Fest this Saturday. We’ve got pairings to get excited about. Photo: Olivia Brent

MONDAY April 2
Jiro Dreams of Sushi
If the trailer is any indication, this is the most beautiful ode to sushi ever created. The documentary follows sushi chef Jiro Ono and his three Michelin–starred restaurant, and it’s playing for one week only at the Landmark Egyptian. There are multiple showings every day through Friday, April 6.

WEDNESDAY April 4
Think and Drink
Greenwood’s Naked City Brewery and Taphouse is hosting a night of intellectual discussion and beer; a classic pairing. The coordinators of the Happiness Initiative will lead a discussion about consumerism and happiness in post-war America at 7 pm.

THURSDAY April 5
The Saint’s Fourth Birthday
The tequila-obsessed Capitol Hill bar is celebrating its fourth year with special tequilas, drink specials, and a mariachi band. Happy hour starts at 5, the party really kicks off at 7, and reservations can be made by calling The Saint.

Lamb Dinner
The Corson Building is shifting into spring mode with a lamb dinner from 6 to 10. Reservations are recommended for the $35 meal.

SATURDAY April 7
Washington Artisan Cheese Festival
Cheesemongers and makers from all over the state will convene at the Seattle Design Center to bring Seattle a huge variety of cheeses to taste alongside other local foods and beverages. The event runs from noon to 6, and tickets are $35.

SUNDAY April 8
Easter Brunches
It’s Easter, national day of brunch. There are tons of restaurants around town putting on special meals—Sunday holds everything from turducken to pit-smoked ham. We’ve got tons of options for you.

TUESDAY April 10
Coyote Cooks Pop Up
The downtown center for adolescents has been putting on a monthly pop-up dinner helmed by notable local chefs (Tamara Murphy of Terra Plata most recently) the second Tuesday of every month. This month’s dinner from Ocho is sold out, but maybe there’s hope on the waitlist. On the docket for May: a Caribbean meal created by Island Soul, get your tickets quick.

BEYOND

September 20-23 Farm-to-Table Photography Workshop
Local photographer Clare Barboza will lead a three-day workshop on Whidbey Island for aspiring food photographers. Students will learn how to use natural light and effectively document stories about food through photography. The $1,250 price includes lodging, transportation, instruction, and wine.

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Tags: Cheese, Matt Dillon, Terra Plata, Weekly Planner, Weekly Food Planner, Movies, Ice Cream, Sushi, Free Food, Easter , Island Soul

Top Seattle Sushi Chefs Collaborate On a Feast to Benefit Japan

Sushi Chef Dream Team sounds like the meal of a lifetime. Seriously.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Apr 07, 2011 at 12:18PM 1 Comments

Photo: Paul Kooiman

Sushi Chef Dream Team brings together seven Seattle sushi stars for a benefit to raise funds for Japan.

With aftershocks still rocking Japan nearly a month after the devastating quake and tsunami this March, benefits continue to pop up around Seattle.

And this one—it must be said—sounds incredible. Seven of our best sushi chefs are collaborating on a feast to be served with wine and sake at Bell Harbor Pier 66 on Thursday, May 5. It’s called Sushi Chef Dream Team, and it really is just that.

Behold who is participating:
Taichi Kitamura (Sushi Kappo Tamura), Hiro Kirita (Chiso), Shiro Kashiba (Shiro’s Sushi Restaurant), Ryuichi Nakano (Kisaku), Hideaki Taneda (I Love Sushi in Lake Union), Billy Beach (Japonessa), and Yoshiaki Nishizawa (Shūn).

Oh and then, Hiroki Inoue from Setsuko Pastry and Fumie’s Gold is doing dessert.

On top of that, three other local chefs will be making dishes: Campagne’s Daisley Gordon, Tamara Murphy of Elliott Bay Café, and Seth Caswell from Emmer and Rye.

Proceeds will go to Peace Winds America and Peace Winds Japan, organizations providing humanitarian relief in Japan.

If you want to meet all the chefs and get a photo with them, opt for the the $200 early-admission ticket and show up at 5pm. GA tickets are $175 and let you in beginning at 6:30. Purchase here.

For additional information about many of the chefs serving up supper, check out our Asian Food feature.

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Tags: Fundraiser, Sushi, Seattle Japanese Food, Japan Relief Efforts

Sushi and San Fran Jam: Two Very Cool Cooking Classes

There are lots of cooking classes in Seattle. These two look especially enticing.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Sep 16, 2010 at 06:19AM 0 Comments

Jam on it with Rachel Saunders at Dish it Up.

1. Did you know that sushi chef Hajime Sato, a guy we consider to be one of the most fascinating food people in Seattle, teaches classes on sushi-making at Diane’s Market Kitchen in Post Alley Downtown? It’s true. The next class is on Sunday, September 26 and costs $125; the price includes sake samples as well as the box of sushi you go home with. Register here.

2. Seattle foodies are crazy for jam. Making jam. Talking about making jam. Jam. So it’s a bit of a big deal that Kim Ricketts Book Events has invited jammer extraordinaire Rachel Saunders, author of The Blue Chair Jam Cookbook, to come up from San Francisco and give us a demo. The event takes place at Dish it Up on Tuesday, September 28 at 6:30pm. You pay $65, a price that includes the demo, wine and apps, a jar of jam, and a signed copy of the cookbook. Get your ticket here.

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Tags: Downtown, Sushi, Canning and pickling,

Sayonara Union, Buenos Dias Japonessa

A Sushi bar with Latino flair will replace Ethan Stowell’s iconic Downtown eatery.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Jun 09, 2010 at 04:29PM 3 Comments

No more.

“Japonesa” means “Japanese lady” in Spanish. I know this because when I lived in Madrid, men would always call out to a beautiful friend of mine using that word. She is Chinese.

Japonesa is also the name of the new restaurant taking over the Union space downtown at the corner of 1st and Union.

Well, actually, the restaurant will be called Japonessa. “We added one more ‘S’ just because is looks better,” says part-owner Jason Koh. He was one of the original Wasabi Bistro partners, and he opened iSushi in Issaquah. The last time you saw him, Jason Koh may have been suggesting a mouth guard to help with your teeth-grinding issues. Jason Koh has a dental practice in Renton.

The hope is to open Japonessa Sushi Cucina in mid-July. “I would say our food is 90 percent Japanese and about 10 percent Latino fusion,” says Koh. "The fusion [is] mainly in the marinades and sauces that will be made by Chef/owner Billy Beach.”

Billy Beach, once of Umi Sake House, was one of the original owners of Belltown’s Kushibar. He has since left that venture.

Asked to point out one dish to represent the concept, Koh offers camarones Japonessa: grilled prawns marinated in cilantro-lime marinade and spread atop a sushi roll, garnised with black-corn tortilla, cilantro, and a touch of pico de gallo.

Japonessa will pipe in Latin-themed music, and the decor is, per Koh, “modern-Japanese-contemporary-with-stone-finishes meets black-iron-chandeliers-with-organic curves.” With long hours and deep discounts, says Koh, Japonessa’s happy hour will “kick butt.”

That’s what I know.

[ Photo Source]

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Tags: New Seattle Restaurants, Seattle Restaurant Openings, Sushi

Earth Day Dinner Picks

Five last-minute choices for celebrating your favorite planet.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Apr 22, 2010 at 02:25PM 0 Comments

Mac and yease at Plum Bistro

You have until 3:30pm to get to lunch-only Nettletown for an Earth Day lunch served up by forager extraordinaire Christina Choi. If you can’t swing that, make a reservation for dinner tonight at any of the five eco-friendly picks.

I checked for you, there are still availabilities at all of them.

1. Overfishing. That’s some scary stuff. Good thing you live in Seattle, home to Mashiko, the third sushi bar in the country to go 100 percent sustainable.

2. Phinney Ridge stalwart Stumbling Goat may have changed owners in 2009, but it remains a restaurant committed to sourcing proteins and veg from local farms. If it is sustainable meat treats you’re after, this is your spot. And you can wash down all that grass-fed goodness with a biodynamic NW wine.

3. Eat lower down the food chain but higher up the tasty ladder at Seattle’s number one destination for classy hippies: Cafe Flora. Make sure to order the pate platter appetizer, whose centerpiece is a beguiling lentil-pecan pate.

4. If you’re a vegetarian anyway, you might want to ratchet things up a little for the occasion. Plum Bistro on Capitol Hill is the 100-percent organic vegan eatery where Tobey Maguire gets his tempeh on when he’s in town. I hear great things about the mac and yease (really), but I’m partial to the quinua sliders. Trust me, it’s all better than it sounds.

5. Every day is pretty much Earth Day at Seth Caswell’s Emmer and Rye. Emmer’s motto is “seasonally inspired, locally derived,” for crying out loud, and Caswell is not joking around. The Chef’s Collaborative president can be counted on to use the best ingredients plucked by local foragers and raised on farms nearby. As I write this, there are currently three reservations available at E and R tonight—you’ll be eating at 4:30, 9, or 9:30pm. The choice is yours.

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Tags: Special Dinners, Vegetarian/Vegan Whatnot, Earth Day, Sushi

Sustainable Sushi: Mashiko says “Sayonara, unagi.”

Plus three fish you should never order at the sushi bar, and what to eat instead.

Posted by: Karen Quinn on Aug 19, 2009 at 12:00PM 0 Comments

The whole genius of sushi is that it’s simple, no? No. For responsible noshers, devouring sweet, succulent slices of fish over rice is more complicated than it seems.

The problem is, as sushi restaurants have sprung up around the country, so have countless unsustainable fisheries all over the world (and badly-behaving fish farms right in our back yards). This is a bad thing.

But there’s hope. Casson Trenor, sushi connoisseur and author of Sustainable Sushi: A Guide to Saving the Oceans One Bite at a Time is here to help you go green, just like he did with Seattle sushi chef Hajime Sato. With Trenor’s help, Sato worked to rev up the responsibility factor on his menu and on August 15th it happened: Mashiko became Seattle’s first (and the country’s third) totally sustainable sushi restaurant.

When at Mashiko, then, order what you like. But what happens when you’re at other sushi spots? Here three sorts of sealife Trenor says you should never order off a sushi menu, and three others you should eat instead.

Bluefin Tuna Meat for “toro” comes from the belly of a Bluefin Tuna, a valuable fish that will soon be completely depleted unless we curb consumption. For the “fatty, supple, orgasmic experience” of Bluefin, Trenor suggests trying domestic, pole-caught albacore tuna, which is sustainable and “equally, if not more, delicious.”

Eel Unagi, that slightly sweet, flakey delicacy that lies innocently on top of your sushi roll is actually captured in the wild, transported to over-crowded farms in China, fattened, and pumped with antibiotics before being slaughtered and shipped overseas. According to Trenor, eel stocks have declined by 95—99% in the last 30 years. “This is a textbook example of how to destroy a species,” he warns. To replace that perfect eel texture, try Canadian sablefish or domestic catfish instead.

Farmed Salmon Salmon farms in the Pacific Northwest poison the native populations in the region by breeding parasites that escape into the open ocean and attack defenseless young salmon just after they hatch. Seattleites should shun salmon farming by always demanding wild salmon when it’s in season, or replacing it with Arctic char when the salmon season ends.

Thanks to Becky Selengut, whose sustainable sushi tweets inspired the assignment of this story.

[Photo Sustainablesushi.net]

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Tags: Sushi, Sustainability, Mashiko