Nosh Pit

Restaurant Shifts and Shakeups

This week: Two new food trucks are on the road, Stowell slices are just around the corner, and more.

Posted by: Anne Larkin on Apr 13, 2012 at 10:15AM 0 Comments

The drawing of that guy pounding a slice? Soon can be you at Ballard Pizza Co.

OPENINGS
Cutters Crabhouse
Cutters Crabhouse, formally known as Cutters Bayhouse, reopened Wednesday after a lengthy two-month renovation. Cutters lead chef Simon Zatyrka also has a revamped menu to show off.

Jemil’s Big Easy
The Cajun truck opened for business this week. Find chef Jemil Aziz slinging jambalaya, etouffees, gumbo, and po’boys at various locations around town.

Scratch Deli
Former Whole Foods butcher Ian Thackaberry has opened a food truck dedicated to sandwiches crafted with locally sourced ingredients. Find Thackaberry (and his tantalizing chicken salad with hazelnut pesto aioli) at Wine World in Wallingford.

Starbucks
Out with the old, in with the Starbucks. My Ballard reports the NW Market St space that briefly housed 5 Corner Market Bar and Kitchen (and before that, Lombardi’s Neighborhood Italian for 23 years), now has all the trappings of a Starbuckian experience.

Trader Joe’s
The West Seattle store opens today, and the walls are graced with murals of neighborhood landmarks, says West Seattle Blog.

CLOSINGS
Kiki
The Pine Street restaurant and bar is closing temporarily, according to Capitol Hill Seattle. The owners have long been searching for a buyer to take over; CHS guesses the temporary shuttering means they’ve found one, but that hasn’t been confirmed.

COMING SOON

A Terrible Beauty
Seattle Weekly brings word via Facebook that the Irish pub is opening its third location this summer in South Lake Union.

Ballard Pizza Co.
Ethan Stowell slices…they’re getting closer and closer. No pizza till next week officially, but we’ve got a peek inside.

Essex Bar
That collective squeal heard throughout the city Monday was prompted by the news that Delancey owners Brandon Pettit and Molly Wizenberg are turning the neighboring umbrella store into a craft cocktail bar. Seattle Magazine has more details on the food and drink menu, but here’s a teaser: Don’t expect pizza.

Isola Bella, Sicilian Cafe
Per Eater Seattle, local chef and restaurateur Enza Sorrentino is moving into a space on First and Bell. She’s planning to dispense baked goods and coffee by day, and arancini, meatballs, and pizza by the slice at night.

Molly Moon’s and Trophy Cupcakes (…and Cupcake Royale)
The city’s sweets magnates are playing do-si-do: Cupcake Royale, which is launching an ice cream line, is taking up residency at the downtown Chocolate Box space. That means current co-occupant Molly Moon’s has to move out. Meanwhile, MM’s is partnering with Trophy Cupcakes: Starting May 12, the baked goods will be available at Molly Moon shops on 13 occasions throughout the year And pints of ice cream can be added to cupcake deliveries, and Trophy parties can be rounded out with scoops of Molly Moon’s dessert.

Narwhal
Seattle Magazine brings word that Renee Erickson and Jeremy Price of The Walrus and The Carpenter and their partners are hitting the road this summer with an oyster food truck.

The Neighbor Lady
Central District News reports the Neighbor Lady has pushed its opening date back to April 20, if not later.

Top Pot
The doughnut empire is expanding: the eighth cafe is slated to open this July in the Pacific Building on Third Avenue.

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Tags: Oysters, Cupcake Royale, Jemil's Big Easy, Ballard Pizza Co, Trophy Cupcakes, Seattle Food Trucks, Molly Moon's, Cupcakes, Ice Cream, Ethan Stowell, Top Pot, Crab, Ballard, Scratch Deli

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

Neighborhood Food News: Trophy Celebrates the Girl Scouts, Everywhere Else Celebrates St. Patrick’s Day

Plus: a romantic contest at Tulio, a new happy hour at Koral, and more.

Posted by: Anne Larkin on Mar 14, 2012 at 10:00AM 0 Comments

Scout-inspired cupcakes all week at Trophy Cupcakes. Photo courtesy of Trophy Cupcakes.

BELLEVUE
Recently opened Koral Bar and Kitchen has a happy hour, as of last Friday. From 3 to 6 then again from 9 to midnight, small plates are half-off, draft beers are $2 off, and there’s a smattering of discounted wines by the glass and specialty cocktails.

DOWNTOWN
In celebration of its 20th birthday, Tulio is holding a romantic competition: Tell the restaurant about your first date or a date at Tulio and you could win tickets to First Date at the ACT Theatre, dinner for two at the restaurant, and an overnight stay at the Hotel Vintage Park. Enter on Facebook.

GREENWOOD
A few neighborhood pubs will be using the heavy St. Patrick’s Day bar traffic for good by serving as food donation sites on St. Patrick’s Day. Phinneywood has a list of pubs where nonperishable food items or monetary donations can be dropped off on Saturday.

QUEEN ANNE
Hanna Raskin reports LloydMartin has been approved to serve hard liquor, and will start pouring soon. The restaurant has plans for an expanded cocktail selection and in particular more bourbons.

SAND POINT
Seattle Tilth is holding an edible plant sale this Saturday, March 17, at Magnuson Park. There’ll be plant starts for a wide variety of plants—from strawberries to asparagus to edible flowers—that are all suited to our Northwest climate.

WALLINGFORD
Caffé Appassionato is expanding its offerings to include beer, wine, and dessert, starting next Wednesday, March 20, says Wallyhood. The shop will stay open till ten, except on Sundays, and the owners have plans for happy hour.

WOODINVILLE and QUEEN ANNE
The Herbfarm and Canlis were just named among the Top 100 Restaurants in America for 2012 by the Opinionated about Dining Survey —a survey that took into account some 3,000 opinionated contributors’ 70,000 reviews. Canlis came in at no. 82, while at no. 33, The Herbfarm keeps company on the top half of the list with the likes of Le Bernadin and The French Laundry.

MULTIPLE LOCATIONS
In celebration of what would be seafood impresario Ivar Haglund’s 107th birthday, all Ivar’s locations are offering a special deal Tuesday—buy one entree, shout “Happy Birthday Ivar!”, and the next entree is only $1.07.

Trophy Cupcakes is the latest local food destination to celebrate the Girl Scout’s 100th birthday. At Trophy locations through March 18: three cookie-inspired cupcakes copycatting the Tagalong, Samoa, and, of course, Thin Mint.

Metropolitan Market is really getting into the St. Patrick’s Day spirit this week. Stores will offer tastings of Kerrygold cheese, Macrina Bakery’s Irish soda bread, and corned beef on various days all the locations.

Only three days till the March 17 celebrations begin. We’ve got all your eating (…and drinking) needs covered for St. Patrick’s Day.

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Tags: Happy Hour, Ivar's Seafood Restaurant, LloydMartin, Trophy Cupcakes, Canlis, Tulio, Taste of Washington, Awards and Accolades, The Herbfarm, Koral Bar and Kitchen

St. Patrick’s Day: It’s About Food, Too

Eat responsibly on this drinking-est of holidays.

Posted by: Jessie Wesley on Mar 13, 2012 at 03:30PM 0 Comments

Irish and (loosely) Irish-inspired foods to honor the Emerald Isle’s patron saint. Photo via Pie in Fremont.

While St. Patrick’s Day has traditionally been an occasion for liver abuse here in the United States, it should be known that the Irish brought much more to our culinary palates than the taste of Jameson. And a host of local spots are celebrating the holiday with potpies, savory stews, corned beef, and some Irish-inspired riffs on things like cupcakes.

Below a round up of tasty eats in honor of the Irish.

Mulleady’s Irish Pub
While this Magnolia spot has the words ‘Irish’ and ‘pub’ in its name, Mulleady’s wants to be your spot for a sophisticated, white-tablecloth St. Patrick’s Day, including a three-course menu “riddled with Irish tradition and culinary ingenuity.” Highlights include lamb and mushroom stew, and candied ginger bread pudding. Dinner is $40 per person, reservations recommended.

Skillet
This local food truck favorite will be parked outside of Conor Byrne Pub this Saturday morning with some Irish tastes to help get you through the day…including an Irish breakfast burrito.

McCormick’s Fish House and Bar
The downtown location of this Irish-monikered seafood chain is adding Guinness steamed mussels to its already extensive happy hour and will offer several dinner and lunch specials. If you need a nighttime nip to keep you going through the week, the bar has $1 Irish coffee toasts at 10pm to help count down the days until March 17.

Luc
Sure, it’s technically a French bistro, but Thierry Rautureau’s Madison Valley restaurant will sport a special three-course St. Paddy’s Day menu Friday through Sunday for $32; guests can also order beer pairings, $6 Irish whiskeys, and cocktail specials. A special morning-after brunch on Sunday can soak up your system’s misdeeds from the night before.

Pie and High 5 Pie
Make a meal out of Pie in Fremont, which has baked up a a corn beef and cabbage pie for dinner and an Irish cream pie for dessert, among other specials. If you prefer to travel outside the center of the universe, High 5 Pie in Capitol Hill boasts a slew of festive bites including a Scottish beef and onion flipside, and grasshopper pie.

Bill the Butcher
Bring a taste of Ireland home. Grab some of Bill’s carefully crafted grass-fed corned beef for St. Patrick’s Day while you can; it’s anticipated to sell out before the weekend is over.

Trophy Cupcakes and Cupcake Royale
Have beer for dessert at Trophy Cupcakes with a Guinness chocolate stout spiked cake. If you need something a little stronger, Cupcake Royale will be offering an Irish Cake Bomb, “dusted with gold” that pairs Elliot Bay Brewing’s organic No Doubt Stout cake with Jameson butter cream frosting.

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Tags: Luc, Bill the Butcher, McCormick and Schmick's, St. Patrick's Day, Cupcake Royale, Mulleadys, Trophy Cupcakes, Pie, High 5 Pie, St. Patrick's Day 2012

Trophy’s Pacific Place Pop-Up Is Back

Avoid the Valentine’s Day doghouse with a last-minute cupcake run.

Posted by: Allecia Vermillion on Feb 14, 2012 at 02:30PM 0 Comments

Trophy’s dark chocolate raspberry flavor is available at Pacific Place. Photo courtesy of Trophy Cupcakes.

Seriously, people: Food folk wouldn’t continue bombarding you with news of last-minute Valentines options if you’d just make those reservations and purchase that teddy bear holding a heart a little further in advance. If you’re in need of some sweets for your sweet, Trophy Cupcakes has reopened its Pacific Place pop-up shop through the end of February.

The shop is on the mall’s third floor, next to the bridge to Nordstrom, and offers packs of favorite seasonal flavors, including salted caramel, red velvet, and dark chocolate raspberry. The temporary digs are open until 8pm, but stop by early for the best selection. Today is also the last day to score the infamously decadent Deathcake over at Cupcake Royale. And if cupcakes don’t get you out of procrastinator purgatory, there’s always drinking.

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Tags: Valentine's Day, Cupcakes, Trophy Cupcakes, Valentine's Day 2012

Neighborhood Food News: Full Tilt Gains an Ice Cream Lab, Trophy Cupcakes Delivers

Plus: Met Market gets in the Valentine’s spirit, Tom Douglas Wants to Send You to Hawaii, Wild Ginger riffs on the Gauguin exhibit, and more.

Posted by: Anne Larkin on Feb 08, 2012 at 10:30AM 0 Comments

Trophy Cupcakes now delivers. Photo courtesy their website.

BELLEVUE
John Howie is getting in on the Sunday supper trend. These new weekly meals will be sized for four and, of course, centered on a shared steak.

CAPITOL HILL
Eater Seattle reports that tonight at Bako there will be both free snacks and fashion. It’s a Wednesday night grab-bag of an event: a DJ, a fashion show, vodka drinks, and $5 Bako gift cards.

DOWNTOWN
Another downtown restaurant is finding menu inspiration at the Seattle Art Museum. Wild Ginger is creating a menu inspired by Gauguin’s Polynesia, on exhibit at SAM through April 29. The menu will be available tomorrow, but here’s a teaser: twice-cooked Indonesian wings, first simmered in a myriad of Southeast Asian spices, then fried and coated in hoisin barbeque sauce. Even better, these dishes are accompanied by a new tropical cocktail.

GREEN LAKE
Free babysitting at Café Bonjour on Valentine’s Day. Parents eat, kids play under supervision. (But if you have scored a sitter, boy have we got Valentine’s dinner ideas for you. Here and here.)

QUEEN ANNE
Metropolitan Market is going all out for Valentine’s: from 5-7 on Thursday there will be a champagne tasting, crab cakes, oysters, and chocolate covered strawberries at the Mercer Street location. And from 4-7 that same day, sample Cupcake Royale’s Deathcake and Macrina Bakery’s chocolate cherry heart loaf. Both pastries will be at the Queen Anne Ave location for sample and for sale on Saturday.

WEST SEATTLE
Full Tilt Ice Cream is expanding, though not with a new retail location this time (yet.) According to the West Seattle blog, the ice creamery is taking over a 6,061 square-foot space to use for manufacturing, storage, and as a laboratory, with tentative plans for retail space and perhaps a gallery in the future. The new space will allow Full Tilt to crank out more goodness, as well as give kids mouthwatering tours.

MULTIPLE LOCATIONS

Tom Douglas wants to send you to Hawaii. Two tickets to Kona, three nights at a swanky hotel, and a big seafood dinner are up for grabs. Drop by any of his restaurants to pick up the contest questions, or download it here and drop it off.

Dangerous: Trophy Cupcakes are now available by delivery. A day’s notice and a minimum order of a dozen cupcakes (maybe a batch of February’s special dark chocolate raspberry cupcakes…) will get you delivery for $15 in Seattle, $20 in Bellevue.

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Tags: Tom Douglas, Full Tilt, Neighborhood Food News Roundup, Cupcakes, Food News Roundup, Wild Ginger, Sunday Suppers, Free Food, Contests, Trophy Cupcakes

Trophy Cupcakes Setting Up (Temporary) Shop in Pacific Place

Get your cupcake fix downtown through the end of the year.

Posted by: Allecia Vermillion on Nov 08, 2011 at 10:15AM 0 Comments

Trophy’s now-traditional candied yam cupcake with toasted marshmallow. Now available to downtown denizens. Photo courtesy of Trophy Cupcakes and Party.

If someone invented a machine that auto-generated random combinations of food buzzwords, you’d only have to press the button a few times before the term “cupcake pop-up” would emerge. However local party phenom Trophy Cupcakes is making this phrase a reality by opening a shop on the third floor of Pacific Place for the holiday season. The temporary store pops up Monday, November 14, and runs through December 31.

The shop will sell party supplies and boxed cupcakes in groupings of four or a dozen, a boon to the holiday party-throwing and gift-giving masses. Boxes come filled with classics, party flavors or seasonals, starting with Trophy’s candied yam cupcake and moving on to chocolate candy cane come November 28. Sharing-averse patrons can buy individual cupcakes in a few of Trophy’s most popular flavors, namely neapolitan, salted caramel, vanilla and red velvet.

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Tags: Cupcakes, Seattle Pop-Ups, Trophy Cupcakes

Trophy Cupcakes Open NOW at U Village

Sorry, can’t talk right now, my mouth’s full

Posted by: Kathryn Robinson on Jun 11, 2009 at 11:00AM 5 Comments

Mmmmh muhmuhhhhhh, mmmmmh. Mmmmmmm MMMMMHHH.

Ahem. Sorry. It’s just that Trophy Cupcake and Party just opened its new U Village outpost. Lots of good stuff.

(Vanilla’s the best.)

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Tags: Bakery, U Village, Trophy Cupcakes

Cupcake Love

Trophy Cupcakes honors Wallingford’s favorite award-winning chef

Posted by: Kathryn Robinson on May 08, 2009 at 01:00PM 4 Comments

In honor of her James Beard award this week for Best Chef in the Northwest, Trophy Cupcake and Party has declared this Maria Hines Day.

Hines’ Tilth Restaurant is Trophy’s Wallingford neighbor, and Hines a frequent customer.

(She told me once she’d go to Trophy every single day…if she let herself.)

“She looooves her peanut butter and strawberry,” says a Hines spokesperson. So Trophy will be serving up lemon strawberry minis and chocolate peanut butter minis in her honor ($1.25 each).

Today only. So…what’re you still reading for?

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Tags: Maria Hines, James Beard Awards, Trophy Cupcakes