72 Hours of Great Seattle Eats

We recently spent a rainy long weekend in Seattle. Luckily seeing old friends and eating great food made up for the weather. At the time of this writing, proof of COVID-19 vaccination is required to eat indoors.

Beecher’s Handmade Cheese

This artisan cheese shop at Pike Place Market usually has a long line, but it’s less crowded at 9am than at lunch. As an added bonus, you can watch the cheese makers at work while you eat. The grilled cheese is good and comes in a number of interesting varieties, but the decadent mac and cheese is the real winner here.

Beecher’s Handmade Cheese – 1600 Pike Place, Seattle, WA 98101

Ellenos Yogurt

It’s hard to describe how good this Greek-style yogurt is. It’s impossibly rich and creamy with the mildest tang, and much smoother than your typical yogurt. We loved every flavor that we’ve tried, from the more local marionberry, to passion fruit, lemon curd, and orange turmeric.

It is not your typical grocery store yogurt, but it IS available at select Whole Foods Markets nationwide! It’s definitely on the pricer side, but it’s decadent enough to eat for dessert. I recommend trying it if you get a chance.

Ellenos Yogurt – 1500 Pike Place, Seattle, WA 98101

Biang Biang Noodle

At a place named Biang Biang Noodle, I should have known that the hand pulled Xi’an style noodles were the thing to get. The Mala spicy beef dry mix version came with thick well spiced noodles with the perfect chew. The dough didn’t quite work for the chive pork dumplings which ended up being overly thick, doughy, and bland. The cucumbers were the perfect counterpoint to the spicy noodles. They were lightly sweet and very vinegary with a hint of sesame oil. We also enjoyed the refreshing jasmine tea with grapefruit and passion fruit.

Biang Biang Noodles – 601 E Pike St. Unit 100, Seattle, WA 98122

Lola

I have long been a fan of Chef Tom Douglas. His Greek inspired restaurant is popular for brunch, but we decided to go for dinner. We started with a Bitter Burro cocktail with vodka, aperol, lime, and ginger beer with a candied ginger garnish. It was the perfect marriage of two of my favorite cocktails, a Moscow Mule and Aperol Spritz. The kopanisti, pistachio, mavrodaphne dip was warm, salty, spicy, with almost a hint of mellow blue cheese flavor. The pistachio and sweet red wine reduction complement the flavor perfectly and the pita bread was delightfully pillowy. The greek salad was a great balance of flavors with briny olives, crisp cucumbers, pickled onion, perfect tomatoes, and tangy dressing.

The honey roasted delicate squash had a light sweetness and spices that tasted like fall, and the yogurt provided a nice tanginess. The kebabs were served on a sizzling skillet with onions and ouzo. The Bristol Bay sockeye salmon had a herb caper relish, and the Duroc pork with honey-harissa was perfectly tender, and lightly sweet and smokey.

Lola’s donuts may be one of my favorite things. The servers bring them to the table in a white table bag and shake them to coat with sugar before pouring them out on the plate. They are pillowy and lighter than they look, and are perfectly paired with vanilla bean mascarpone and fresh strawberry jam.

Lola Seattle – 2000 B 4th Avenue, Seattle, WA 98121

Dahlia Bakery

Dahlia bakery is Tom Douglas’ bakery, and we dropped by in the morning to pick up a number of items to try over our stay in lieu of the hotel breakfast. It is located across the street from Lola, and adjacent to Serious Pie. Breakfast and lunch sandwiches are available in addition to the wide selection of baked goods. The amazing donuts from Lola’s are on the menu and fried to order, but we resisted the urge to eat them again.

The mochi donuts had a dense chewiness that was more like Hawaiian butter mochi than the lighter trendy mochi donuts that seem to be popping up everywhere. The pumpkin spice tasted like fall, with an intense pumpkin flavor. The apple spice had chunks of real apple and a streusel topping. The banana chocolate walnut cake had an intense banana flavor with good quality chocolate and walnuts.

Perhaps it was overly high expectations that made the chocolate chip cookie a disappointment. It was fine, but nothing special. Overly sweet, doughy, and one note compared to the well balanced and complex flavors that I expect from Douglas. I’m not usually a big peanut butter cookie fan, but Dahlia’s are good. My favorite cookie here is the coconut macaroon. They have a creamy and intensely coconutty interior in a crispy shell. The ginger scone is also a favorite. Light, flaky, and tender like a scone should be, with a good hit of ginger and crystalized sugar topping.

Dahlia Bakery – 2001 4th Ave, Seattle, WA 98121

Serious Pie

Serious Pie is Tom Douglas’ popular pizza spot. We started with a great seasonal salad with light refreshing fennel and sweet Bosc pear that provided a good counterpoint to the bitterness of the radicchio and richness and bite of gorgonzola.

We knew we had to try the pizza with Penn Cove clams, chili flakes, pancetta, lemon thyme, and Parmesan, and it did not disappoint. The crust was perfectly chewy and the toppings had a perfect balance of briny, salty, porky, and heat. Our server recommended his favorite, the sweet fennel sausage, roasted peppers, and provolone. It was also excellent, and the slightly smokey, sweet, cheesy, and spicy flavors provided a nice contrast to the clam pizza.

We couldn’t leave without trying Douglas’ famous triple cream coconut pie slice. It was unbelievably coconutty, milky, creamy with a light and flakey crust. You can also purchase the pie at Dahlia Bakery, by the slice or whole.

Serious Pie – 2001 4th Ave, Seattle, WA 98121

Rondo Japanese Kitchen

My dear childhood friend from Tokyo made reservations at Rondo, and it was great to eat at a real Japanese style izakaya after a few years away from Japan. I was focused on the great company, but the food and drinks were excellent too. The yuzu gin and tonic had an incredible house made yuzu syrup. The ebi mayo had a mildly sweet yuzu flavored aoli coating the perfectly cooked tender shrimp. We also enjoyed a nice selection of sashimi, uni (sea urchin) cream croquette, and corn kara-age. Rondo roll came with five different kinds of fish with a sesame soy drizzle, wasabi aoli, egg, ikura and tobiko (salmon and flying fish roe), garlic chips, and kaiware (daikon sprouts). The tako wasabi was my favorite dish of the evening, fresh octopus with wasabi and served with nori.

Rondo Japanese Kitchen – 224 Broadway E, Seattle, WA 98102

Fuji Bakery

It’s been two years since I’ve been back to Japan, and I really miss the bakeries. I had given up trying to make my own shokupan (Japanese Pullman style milk bread), so I was really excited to read about Fuji bakery. We ended up visiting the International District location after hitting Uwajimaya, one of my favorite Japanese grocery stores in the United States.

The egg salad sando was a mix of Japanese and American styles. The texture from the egg whites and tangy vinegar flavor more American. The smooth egg yolk, rich kewpie mayo flavor, and excellent shokupan reminded me of Japan. I’m usually a purist when it comes to egg salad, I prefer the simple original style found at Japanese convenience stores without an extra egg. The perfectly soft boiled egg is a welcome addition here though. The almost jelly like yolk balances the acidy and texture of the egg salad.

Fuji Bakery’s version of chicken katsu sando is the best that I’ve had. I usually prefer tonkatsu to the usually dry chicken version, but Fuji’s chicken was tender and flavorful with an extra crispy exterior and good house made sauce. Crisp lettuce and the fluffy shokupan made it the perfect combination.

We also tried the ube and crunchy cream malasada. The dough was lighter than the versions that I’ve had in Hawaii and Portugal, and seemed a cross between a malasada and an-donut. The crunchy custard had an eggy homemade custard and crunchy corn flakes on top. Our favorite was the ube malasada. The filling had the richness and smooth texture of a Japanese purin (custard pudding) with a nice ube flavor.

Fuji Bakery – 526 S King St, Seattle, Washington 98104

Tamari Bar

Tamari Bar was the second Izakaya we visited on our trip. We learned that it is under the same owndership as Rondo, and the food and drinks were just as good. We tried two of the seasonal cocktail specials. The Autumn Leaf had Suntory Master Blender Legent bourbon, with Campari, yuzu sake, yuzu juice, and house made ginger syrup served on a beautiful block of ice. It tasted like a Boulevardier, but the yuzu flavor really pulled through. The Haku’s Smile had Haku vodka, grapefruit syrup, grapefruit and lemon juice and Angostura bitters. It was citrusy and refreshing with a strong honey finish.

The Tamari mule was also good, made with fresh ginger. The spicy mule was served in a glass rimmed with shichimi togarashi (a seven spice chili blend). The frozen Satsuma gimlet was a refreshing lightly sweet slushy for grownups with a hint of honey.

We started with the best bite – nigiri sushi with wagyu (Japanese beef) and uni (sea urchin) and flavored with tamari soy, flake salt, and wasabi. It was incredible, but we soon discovered that both wagyu and uni were in everything we ordered that evening and it was almost too much of a good thing.

We also ordered the Chirashi Jewelry “Ju-Box.” Chirashizushi translates to scattered sushi and is a bowl or box of sushi rice with the toppings “scattered” on top. The Tamari Bar version has uni, maguro (tuna), wagyu, salmon, hotate (scallop), saba (mackerel), ikura, ama-ebi (sweet shrimp), unagi (freshwater eel), and avocado. It was all excellent, but the the unagi had areally tender almost melting beef like texture and excellent sauce. I’m not usually a big fan of unagi because it seems heavy, but it was one of my favorites. The hotate was incredibly fresh and sweet with a yuzu flavored roe that almost made it seem like a dessert.

I knew I wanted to eat at Tamari Bar after reading about the special seasonal Shokado box. There are a limited number a day, so I was relieved that we were able to order the Fall Shokado. Before the pandemic, the Shokado was served in a beautiful wood box filled with an assortment of Japanese ceramic dishes. When we went, it was served in a plastic tray which took away from the visual appeal.

The salmon had tobiko for a nice contrast of textures, and the katsuo was complemented nicely with earthy mushroom. The hamachi and oo-toro were both buttery with a nice pop of saltiness from the ikura. The uni shot came with ikura, tobiko, a quail egg yoke and nori on top of sushi rice. The Pacific halibut was perfectly fried in cornflakes for added crunch and was nicely paired with tartar sauce. The garlic shrimp was a mash-up of ebi mayo and garlic shrimp with a nice kick. The beef short bib was unbelievably tender and beefy with a light sweetness from a balsamic glaze. The box also included our favorite version of wagyu and uni that we had that evening.

The Fall Shokado was a great way to try a number of incredible bites and was our favorite of the night.

Tamari Bar – 500 E Pine Street, Seattle, WA 98122

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