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

Neighborhood Food News: Breakfast Pretzels and $8 Lunches

Plus: Oola happy hour at Tavern Law, Peter Canlis’s wine celebration,and more.

Posted by: Anne Larkin on Mar 28, 2012 at 11:00AM 0 Comments

Thai Curry Simple’s walk-up in Cap Hill, now open later. Photo courtesy of their Facebook.

CAPITOL HILL
Eater Seattle shared the good news that the Thai Curry Simple walk-up window has extended its hours. It’s now open Monday to Friday 11 to 8, Saturday 11 to 5.

Tavern Law will be showcasing the wares of nearby distillery Oola tonight, March 28, from 7 to 10 with a special Oola-centric happy hour. On the menu: $7 bee’s knees and Moscow mules.

Lucky 8s is launching a lunch special: patrons choose one item from each of three categories (fortune, luck, and happiness—aka starter, entrée, and side) for $8, available to dine in or take out.

Yikes: Terra Plata got burgled this weekend. Capitol Hill Seattle blog reports that more than $3,000 in tools and construction equipment was swiped from the rooftop deck.

Poquitos is putting on a fundraiser this coming Monday, April 2, for the families of three skiers, Jim Jack, Chris Rudolph. and John Brenan, who were lost in a recent avalanche. The event begins at 4, and chef Manny Arce will be roasting two whole pigs and offering $2 tacos on the patio—ski attire is suggested.

DOWNTOWN
The Icon Grill has a new facade but a historically inaccurate quote. And Hanna Raskin has something (amusing) to say about it.

GREENWOOD
King 5 reports that last weekend a grease fire erupted at Rickshaw, interrupting a night of karaoke. No one was hurt.

QUEEN ANNE
Canlis is presenting the 2009 vintage of its Peter Canlis Syrah from Buty Winery to the wine-drinking world. On Friday, March 30, the Canlis crew is having a five-course celebration of good wine and good food in the restaurant’s penthouse.

SOUTH LAKE UNION
Just a reminder that breakfast at Brave Horse starts today, March 28. Finally, those pretzel breakfast sandwiches …

MULTIPLE LOCATIONS
The hi-hat cupcake is coming back to Trophy Cupcakes next weekend. The chocolate-dipped, marshmallow-topped cupcakes are almost as elusive as the Easter bunny—they’ll surface for just two days on April 7 and 8. (Also, Hunger Games cupcakes through Sunday, April 1.)

An article on Sightline Daily kicked off a discussion of Seattle’s supposedly tragic food cart scene. We’ve got some catching up to do with our neighbors to the south for sure, but we don’t think it’s so bad up here, especially not with bellies full of crepes and beignets …

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Tags: Tavern Law, Lucky 8, Oola Distillery, Terra Plata, Brave Horse Tavern, Trophy Cupcakes, Seattle Food Trucks, Canlis, Neighborhood Food News Roundup, Food News Roundup, Thai Curry Simple

How to Look Like a Seattle Restaurant

Opening a Seattle area restaurant? Check out our handy design template!

Posted by: Kathryn Robinson on Feb 06, 2012 at 09:00AM 3 Comments

Tin Table, a Type 2 Seattle restaurant. Exposed brick wall, check.

Prospective restaurateurs, listen up: Anyone opening a restaurant in the greater Seattle area is legally bound to follow one of three design mandates, on file in the city licensing office. Doubt it? Then why does it seem as if every new Seattle restaurant looks like one of the following?

1. Cool. Stark. Minimalist. Hard-edged. (Frequently deafening.) Think Black Bottle, Spring Hill (soon to be Ma’Ono), Revel, Crush, Boom Noodle, Mistral, Madison Park Conservatory.

2. Hipster chill, mottled concrete floor to exposed ductwork ceiling. Must have at least one wall of exposed brick; extra points if faded paint from a ‘40s-era wall ad is barely discernible. Think Tavolata, Brave Horse Tavern, Staple and Fancy, Terra Plata, Tin Table.

3. Elegant Designer Living Room, upholstered in creamy neutrals. Think Art at the Four Seasons, Canlis, The Book Bindery, John Howie Steak House.

Of course there are exceptions. Think of the overwrought Old World opulence of the Georgian Room; the early-Rococo, late-exploded-flea-market Bizzarro Italian Café; the sparkling, retro-cute Skillet Diner. And don’t forget the magnificent theater pieces from restaurateurs/set designers Deming Maclise and James Weimann, whose Poquito’s is a visual feast of lush Mexican tile and wrought iron, and whose Bastille could be arrested for impersonating a Paris train station.

Maclise and Weimann will be among the panelists tomorrow night (Tuesday, February 7) at Town Hall in the Seattle Architecture Foundation forum, Restaurant Design: How Design Affects the Dining Experience. My esteemed colleague Allecia Vermillion will moderate as they, along with restaurateurs Ethan Stowell and Chad Dale, discuss and debate and digest this most under-discussed critical aspect of the dining experience.

Should be great. See you there at 7pm.

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Tags: Mistralkitchen, The Book Bindery, Spring Hill, Black Bottle, Critic's Notebook, MistralKitchen, Terra Plata

Terra Plata’s Tamara Murphy Didn’t Invent the Happy Hour…

…well okay, in this town she kind of did. We spoke about that legendary happy hour’s effect on her late, great Brasa—and its effect on Seattle.

Posted by: Kathryn Robinson on Jan 30, 2012 at 09:00AM 0 Comments

Murphy at work in Terra Plate. Photo courtesy of the Terra Plate Facebook page.

On the phone with Terra Plata owner and chef Tamara Murphy last week, I asked her about her former restaurant, Brasa —the Belltown Iberian restaurant that held down the 2100 block of Third Avenue from 1999 to 2010—and the happy hour that set off a city-wide frenzy.

“We survived WTO, we survived 9/11,” Murphy reflected. “Brasa was a big restaurant; it was difficult. I’d periodically thought about selling, but I wanted to get to the end of my ten-year lease. Right after 9/11, we started happy hour. I’m not the inventor of the happy hour, but I think Brasa was the first that took its menu and said, ‘We’re gonna do it with food.’”

Here the restaurant critic interjects: Do you remember that food? In what was then a brazen move, Murphy slashed her bar menu prices in half between the weekday hours of 5pm and 7pm, luring in half the city for big $7 preparations of steak-frites and chorizo clams and Spanish pork sandwiches called bocadillos…and more. These careful preparations not only represented the dinnertime steal of the century, they lit a fire across the city. Now every joint from Barolo to Japonessa makes happy hour food deals a major part of their draw, having learned well the lesson of Brasa: Lure ‘em with food, lube ‘em with drink—and watch ‘em stay for dinner.

Er…sometimes. “Yes we wanted bodies, and people did drink,” recalls Murphy. “But it became a bit of a Catch-22. We’d get so many people in for happy hour we’d have to seat them in the dining room. Sometimes it was hard for diners to get a seat for dinner.”

She shuttered Brasa and now can be seen lunch, dinner, and brunch at Terra Plata. Which has, as of this writing, no happy hour menu.

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Tags: Happy Hour, Critic's Notebook, Terra Plata

Restaurants with Cushions

If your tushy could talk, where would it beg you to take it for dinner?

Posted by: Kathryn Robinson on Jan 23, 2012 at 09:00AM 0 Comments

RN74’s cushy booths and chairs.

I get loads of requests for restaurant recommendations, but here was a first:

“I have a ‘bony butt’ which means it’s painful to sit on chair with little or no padding. I carry a cushion in my car so that if I end up in a place with hard chairs I can use it. However, I don’t want to carry my chair pad into a restaurant with my colleagues.”

(Not to mention the prospective job candidate she was seeking to impress.)

“I was hoping you could suggest a few restaurants that have excellent food, are not too loud, and have comfortable, somewhat cushy seating. I know I am not the only one with this issue; it might make a good post!”

Indeed. As I stopped to reflect, however, I realized that this was not going to be an easy question to answer. I had recently dined at Terra Plata, which has hard wood chairs, and Altura, in which my seat was hard as a church pew (indeed, it probably had once been a church pew)—but neither bothered me overmuch, owing probably to a posterior which I’m fairly sure has no bones at all.

I reflected on a few super pillowy places—-the Moroccan belly-dancing haunt Kasbah; the lay-down-if-you-want-to Thai joint in Madrona, Naam neither belly dancing nor full-body reclining seemed particularly right for a client dinner. A few casual places have struck me as comfortable over the years; namely Madison Valley’s casual French bistro Luc; Fisher Plaza’s TV-and-burger emporium Sport; and the sceney, singlesy Sip downtown. All are ‘third places’ of a sort, encouraging the kind of lubricated lingering my friend wasn’t talking about. The Herbfarm in Woodinville also has notably cushiony chairs; but then they’d better have when dinner comes in nine courses over four hours.

What she was talking about was a place like the elegant and comfortable Book Bindery, whose lightly cushiony chairs I remembered as very comfortable. Or RN74 downtown, whose booths and chairs both allow a nice friendly sink.

In fact she chose the latter, and had a wonderful time.

If your derriere has any favorite restaurants, won’t you please invite it to share them here?

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Tags: The Book Bindery, RN74, Critic's Notebook, Terra Plata, Altura

Terra Plata Begins Brunch Service

Tamara Murphy’s Melrose Market restaurant breaks out the biscuits, gravy, and Bloody Marys this weekend.

Posted by: Allecia Vermillion on Dec 07, 2011 at 03:25PM 0 Comments

Starting this weekend, Terra Plata’s open kitchen will be bestowing brunch on Capitol Hill’s hungry and hungover masses. Photo via Facebook.

Terra Plata has joined the brunch ranks. Tamara Murphy’s long-awaited and newly open Melrose Market restaurant reports that it will begin brunch service this weekend, from 10 to 3 on Saturday and Sunday.

Murphy is carrying her “earth to plate” concept into the morning time; the brunch menu includes a green chile pork with a fried farm egg and housemade tortillas, and manchego biscuits with chorizo gravy, also made in house. Also: Greek-style baked eggs with tomato and feta. The oysters Rock-a-Terra (a play on oysters Rockefeller; you got that, right?) consists of a large Pacific oyster topped with creamed winter greens, housemade chorizo and fontina cheese, baked and served with a Bloody Mary shot.

On the libations front, brunchers can quaff blood orange and ginger mimosas, or a Bloody Mary with tomato juice made in house, as well as house-pickled vegetables.

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Tags: Brunch, Terra Plata, Tamara Murphy