Last Night
Last Afternoon: Seatown
It's my birthday week, which means I'm being taken out for lunches and dinners at places to which I would never ordinarily treat myself.
For lunch yesterday, my colleagues and I went to Seatown, the New York Times-hyped Tom Douglas restaurant a block away from Pike Place Market. (The Times called Seatown an "enticing new restaurant" and hyped an entree of Dungeness crab with tobiko and avocado and an "unconventional" BLT with crab and pickled green tomatoes.)
For late summer, Seatown has updated the BLT to include fresh heirloom tomatoes, but the basic premise was the same: Thick ciabatta bread, spicy aioli, Romaine lettuce, Dungeness crab, and thick-cut bacon. The sandwich---like a wholly uninspired "Rub Shack" sandwich with dry, thick-cut turkey (the "Rub Shack," another Douglas spinoff where you can buy any number of Douglas' spice blends, AKA "Rub With Love")---was less than the sum of its parts. Although every individual element was excellent on its own---thick, crisp slices of bacon, a gorgeous slab of yellow tomato, aioli with serious kick---all were overwhelmed by the too-thick bread, which dominated the sandwich so much that I ate the second half breadless. (That half was excellent). A thin-sliced sourdough would have been far more appropriate.
Seatown's Caesar salad had the opposite problem: It arrived underdressed for the occasion. Two big Romaine hearts arrived with only a kiss of Caesar dressing, too anchovy-heavy for even this anchovy-lover (seriously; I'll eat them right out of the can) to enjoy. And both Jonah and Josh ordered Shandys, which turned out to be pre-bottled (!) and made of weird-tasting near-beer.
Providence Cicero at the Seattle Times may have put it best when she described Seatown as "The restaurant equivalent of the Made in Washington store."
For what it cost---more than $50---I'd recommend going to Cafe Campagne.
For lunch yesterday, my colleagues and I went to Seatown, the New York Times-hyped Tom Douglas restaurant a block away from Pike Place Market. (The Times called Seatown an "enticing new restaurant" and hyped an entree of Dungeness crab with tobiko and avocado and an "unconventional" BLT with crab and pickled green tomatoes.)
For late summer, Seatown has updated the BLT to include fresh heirloom tomatoes, but the basic premise was the same: Thick ciabatta bread, spicy aioli, Romaine lettuce, Dungeness crab, and thick-cut bacon. The sandwich---like a wholly uninspired "Rub Shack" sandwich with dry, thick-cut turkey (the "Rub Shack," another Douglas spinoff where you can buy any number of Douglas' spice blends, AKA "Rub With Love")---was less than the sum of its parts. Although every individual element was excellent on its own---thick, crisp slices of bacon, a gorgeous slab of yellow tomato, aioli with serious kick---all were overwhelmed by the too-thick bread, which dominated the sandwich so much that I ate the second half breadless. (That half was excellent). A thin-sliced sourdough would have been far more appropriate.
Seatown's Caesar salad had the opposite problem: It arrived underdressed for the occasion. Two big Romaine hearts arrived with only a kiss of Caesar dressing, too anchovy-heavy for even this anchovy-lover (seriously; I'll eat them right out of the can) to enjoy. And both Jonah and Josh ordered Shandys, which turned out to be pre-bottled (!) and made of weird-tasting near-beer.
Providence Cicero at the Seattle Times may have put it best when she described Seatown as "The restaurant equivalent of the Made in Washington store."
For what it cost---more than $50---I'd recommend going to Cafe Campagne.
