Nosh Pit

Soup’s On at Joule

Each Sunday the Wallingford eatery ladles the “Best Soup in Town.”

Posted by: Christopher Werner on Jan 28, 2011 at 09:47AM 0 Comments

Joule in Wallingford hosts weekly soup suppers. Photo courtesy Joule.

Regular readers of this blog know soup is sort of our thing right now. It appears Stranger staffers maintain similar sentiments—in this week’s paper a feature titled Soup! catalogs their favorite bowls.

One mention especially worth calling out is the soup-centric Sunday suppers at Joule. A couple weeks back the Wallingford favorite rolled out the winter series (dubbed “Best Soup in Town”, which we’re inclined to believe) happening every Day of Rest until March 27.

The supper costs $25 for adults, $10 for kids, and the menu switches weekly. Past offerings meant pork kimchi stew and cassoulet; coming up January 30 is Hungarian goulash to be followed by “red hot” chili, dungeness crab cioppino, and whole bunch of other promising globetrotters (the menu is available on Joule’s Facebook page). With the soup comes up to seven dishes served family style.

To reserve a seat, call 206-632-1913.

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Tags: Special Dinners, Wallingford, Soup, Sunday Suppers, Joule

For Your Weekend Consideration: Satay

If you’re looking for a new place to nosh, get thee to Wallingford.

Posted by: Christopher Werner on Dec 10, 2010 at 03:16PM 0 Comments

No more paper-lined windows: Satay in Wallingford is now open. Photo courtesy the restaurant.

A couple of days ago we checked in with Satay, the latest resident of 1711 North 45 Street. (RIP, Avila.) A phone call to the restaurant reveals doors are now open. Ready for you to consume is four varieties of the namesake Malaysian staple, plus other street-style food.

For menu information, what to order, prices (they’re cheap!), and the like, check out Tuesday’s post. When you go, make sure to report back.

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Tags: New Seattle Restaurants, Seattle Restaurant Openings, Wallingford

Satay in Wallingford Ready for Business

A promising new place for cheap eats is set to open this week.

Posted by: Christopher Werner on Dec 07, 2010 at 04:25PM 3 Comments

Patrick McCredie and Peter Ringold plan to open Satay in Wallingford this week. Photo courtesy the restaurant.

Patrick McCredie and Peter Ringold, the college buddies opening Satay in Wallingford, led their first production run Tuesday morning and “things went smoothly,” an ebullient McCredie told me shortly thereafter. As such, their Malaysian-inspired restaurant should open Thursday or Friday of this week, says McCredie.

Word surfaced several months ago that the first-time restaurateurs were taking over 1711 North 45 Street in Wallingford, once home to the short-lived Avila. McCredie moved here from California in January 2010, then he and Ringold, a Phinney Ridge native, spent about nine months looking for a spot to launch their virgin venture. Five potential sites fell through before “the stars just kind of aligned” and they were signing the dotted line.

Not long before McCredie’s move the duo traveled throughout Southeast Asia together, where they were taken with the the thriving street food scene. And, especially, the way in which vendors honed just one or two items “and did it really well.” McCredie and Ringold have sculpted their menu with that philosophy in mind—though it runs 10 items deep (all of them under $10), McCredie says they’ve perfected each one.

No hostess, no wait staff, Satay is the sort of casual place where you can pop in quickly without sacrificing quality, says McCredie. Ringold’s aunt is Malay and tutored the two in Malaysian cuisine.

Not surprisingly, satay—chicken, beef, lamb, or tofu—makes up the bulk of the offerings and is paired with jasmine rice and salad with chili pepper dressing. Two kinds of roti—one savory with red curry dipping sauce, the other a dessert variety topped with condensed milk and cinnamon—along with laksa, a noodle-y mee goreng, and curry puffs round out the fare. The latter, similar to samosas, are among McCredie’s favorites from the menu.

Hours are currently set for Monday-Saturday 11:30am-9pm.

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Tags: New Seattle Restaurants, Seattle Restaurant Openings, Wallingford

Which Seattle Restaurants Get the Foodie Stamp of Approval?

And is that term forever ingrained in our lexicon?

Posted by: Christopher Werner on Sep 30, 2010 at 12:50PM 3 Comments

Photo: Lindsay Borden

William Belickis. His MistralKitchen is foodie approved.

Lists, they’re freakin’ everywhere these days.

OpenTable just came out with one ranking the country’s top 50 restaurants Most Fit for Foodies. The index—parsed from more than 7 million reviews of diners who are “informed, adventurous and, above all, appreciate unique dining experiences”—includes local favorites Spinasse, MistralKitchen, and Tilth.

Any other locals you’d like to see listed? The comment box is calling your name.

P.S. I’m guilty of using it too, but is that old chestnut of a label, “foodie,” ever going away?

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Tags: South Lake Union, Restaurant News, Capitol Hill, Wallingford, Rankings

A Cantinetta Clone Comes to Bellevue

Wallingford’s popular Italian eatery will have an Eastside outpost by the end of summer.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Apr 28, 2010 at 03:21PM 1 Comments

Cantinetta

Brian Cartenuto, executive chef of hugely popular but very small Italian eatery Cantinetta, confirms that he and owner Trevor Greenwood will be opening a second Cantinetta at 10038 Main Street in Bellevue, right up the street from Monsoon East.

Unlike the Eastside outposts of many a Seattle restaurant, Cantinetta II will not be a massive version of its parent eatery. “It’s the same size, same concept” as the Wallingford restaurant, says Cartenuto. “We always talked about expanding, and the market is great in terms of asking for what you need.” And while Cartenuto says he has nothing against the corporate-style mega-restaurants that dominate the Eastside, he aims to “draw a line in the sand” by bringing a small mom-and-pop Italian restaurant to downtown Bellevue.

Of course, Cartenuto and Greenwood also hope to draw that well-heeled Redmond-Kirkland crowd, the one that regularly shows its affinity for high-end Italian eating at Holly Smith’s Cafe Juanita.

Cartenuto will be head chef at both restaurants; he says he and Greenwood hope to open their Bellevue branch by late July or early August.

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Tags: Bellevue, Seattle Restaurant Openings, Wallingford

This Weekend: Two Very Seattle Food Events

Vegfest and Cook the Books

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Apr 09, 2010 at 12:42PM 0 Comments

Pride and Prejudice, as interpreted by a past contestant of Cook the Books.

Some stereotypes are awesome and should be not only lived up to, but celebrated. Seattle’s much-noted penchant for hippie food, along with its frequently expressed devotion to literature, can be honored in two ways this weekend. Behold:

April 10 and 11 is Vegfest, held at the Exhibition Hall at Seattle Center. “There are over 500,000 free food samples from over 200 companies for you to taste,” reads the website “with foods such as Italian baked tofu, garbanzo bean curry and even Chocolate Silk soy milk.” Even chocolate soy milk! Love it. The fest runs from 10am to 6pm on both days, and costs just $8. Kids under 12 get in free.

The there is the 5th Annual Seattle Edible Book Festival—AKA Cook the Books—at the Good Shepherd Center in Wallingford. Here, contestants create edible interpretations of their favorite works of literature. It starts at noon on the 10th, admission is $10. Prizes (“most pun-derfull,” “most booklike in structure”) are awarded at 1:30pm. After that everyone eats the art and talks about how they don’t have cable—how they don’t even know what this Jersey Shore even is.

I can’t think of two better ways to teach your kids to be good Seattleites.

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Tags: Wallingford, Food Events and Festivals, Vegetarian/Vegan Whatnot

What Are you Doing for Sunday Dinner?

If the answer is something depressing, break bread at one of these restaurants instead.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Feb 05, 2010 at 11:27AM 0 Comments

This time of year, when the days are 10 minutes long and all your good leather shoes have water stains, the tendency is to imagine life somewhere other than Seattle.

But then our very community-oriented and creative restaurant people come up with something that makes you love living here again. Witness winter Sunday dinners at Joule and Oddfellows. The idea is to eat some down-home cooking with some friends and some friendly strangers and relax a little before going back to the trenches on Monday morning.

Now, the February 7 meal at Joule sold out in advance. Here’s what we are missing: pissaladiere, casoulet, and tarte tatin. Damn it. Call the restaurant to reserve future spots at Sunday dinners.

And fear not, there are still openings at Oddfellows, where this week you can chow down on a salad of chopped romaine with housemade ricotta and pancetta, maple and dijon glazed pork leg with collared greens and cranberry beans, and red velvet cake. It’s starts at 6:30pm, costs $35 and includes—uh-oh—all the wine you can drink. I’m told the food at the Sunday Suppers is very good. Call 206-325-0807 to reserve.

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Tags: Capitol Hill, Special Dinners, Wallingford