I went just now and didn't wait to get in, but OMG the line to buy...2 lines, one with maybe 70 people, the other with ~50...there is good stuff left, but nothing I needed enough to stand in those lines.

Thanks, we'll go at off hours. I like RHLP better since I'm not super crazy about the celery salt or whatever seasoning it is that Luke's uses.

Great, thanks for replying.

Are the lines reasonable for this? I love the RH lobster rolls and would rather not go all the way to Red Hook again if I can help it. I was planning on hitting up their truck in Dumbo on Sunday of Memorial day weekend, but Madison Square is even more convenient. But, is this mobbed? If so, is there a best time to go?

A big NAY to the Pad See Ew. The sauce just tasted like soy sauce, the tofu was just cubed and not fried, the whole thing was just not good. Given that I like their other "Thai" frozen entrees I was surprised that this was such a fail. Oh, and it is supposedly 5 servings. I am a small person and I ate the whole thing for lunch, no problem.

Did we talk about the new Thaiku yet? It's right by my house so I've been. It's quite different than the old Thaiku on Ballard Ave. The menu is smaller and doesn't have all the usual suspects. We had a poached whole fish, laab, and Yum Woon Sen. It was fine but nothing knocked my socks off, so I'll keep going to Pestle Rock. I actually thought the menu was a bit challenging for a neighborhood Thai place--there is lots of dried shrimp, and few of the usual dishes that you see everywhere. But they seem to be doing well.

You're close enough to the ID that this blog should help:
http://msg150.com/

Very interesting post. It sounds to me like you'd be the perfect person to open an innovative, modern Chinese restaurant in Seattle. Preferably in the Ballard/Phinney/Greenwood area. :)

This is kind of a tangent but some of your points remind me of the article about westerners opening Thai restaurants in Bangkok that was in this month's Food and Wine. They're doing this because they can't find innovative and interesting restaurants there and in some cases are even bringing back traditional dishes that have been long forgotten by Thai cooks.
http://www.foodandwine.com/articles/b...

Isn't that always the way it is? I'm in NYC soon and will be going to the legendary Spicy and Tasty in Flushing, despite the fact that some people say it's gone downhill. If there were any consensus about where to eat Szechuan elsewhere in NYC (and there are a ton of choices, but no clear consensus) I'd do that, but there are boosters AND naysayers for every place and my head hurts thinking about it.

I think with SF, greater LA and NYC, you legitimately have lots of great Chinese food (although it's funny, when you go on the SF board and try to figure out where to eat, everyone tells you there's no good Chinese in the city). So they win. I'd love to have their Chinese scene.

But for all those other cities ahead of Seattle, I'm thinking it's not anything to be jealous of. Besides my already given Iowa example, I'm thinking of my friends in Denver, who always complain about the lack of good Thai and Vietnamese there. The majority of what they have for Asian is Chinese, and it's not good Chinese for the most part. And Denver's not a backwater. I think in so many parts of the country, Chinese is still THE Asian cuisine. If someone wants noodles. they go to Chinese. Here in Seattle, you have a lot of other options. So the more I think about this, it's not really that surprising. And yes I'd kill to have the kind of Chinese options they have in LA, SF, and NYC, but we are so much smaller than these areas, and we are not getting much in the way of current Chinese immigration like LA nad NYC are, that I know it's not a fair comparison.

One more thought: besides bad C-A food, how many of those respondants said yes because they ate at PF Changs? Probably a lot.

Nancy's survey was for the Metro area:
"Less than a third of people in the Seattle metropolitan area say they’ve eaten in a Chinese restaurant in the past 30 days, according to surveys conducted by market data firm Scarborough Research."

I don't have an explanation, but I wouldn't look toward quality/authenticity to explain it. I would bet that MOST Americans that have eaten "Chinese" in the last 30 days did not eat something exemplary. In fact I bet most Americans still eat the "predictable, lowest-common-denominator menus of Canto-American standards." My 80 y.o. Iowan mother in law loves Chinese food, and eats it in her small Iowa town. She would have replied yes to the survey. You can guess exactly what the quality/authenticity of that meal was like.

If anything, maybe Seattle just doesn't have enough of those old school crappy places that other people still visit, and that's why we rank low. And then there's the lack of options in the city. When I think about the variety of Asian places that have opened the past 10 or 20 years, it seems like it's mostly Vietnamese or Thai or Japanese. I don't see interesting new Chinese places opening in Seattle proper. We have great Szechuan and Taiwanese options in Bellevue, but it's interesting nothing is opening in the city.

I eat Szechuan twice a month, and I go to the 'burbs to do it, so I would have answered yes.

I will have to try those. As part of my general mission I'm also looking for a fried fish burrito and I went to Agua Verde and got that, and the fish was fine but all of the burrito stuffing--cabbage/lettuce, guac, sour cream, pico--came OUTSIDE the burrito. Was I supposed to unwrap and stuff it myself? I was annoyed.

Gingershelley, I hate to post it here because they were so kind as to share and probably don't anticipate I will post it on a popular website for everyone to see for years to come. But if you post your email I will send it to you.

Holy cow, they gave me the recipe. It's cured for 36 hours with sugar, salt, lemon zest and ground juniper berries (depending on the season-sometimes also "young pine needles"). I think Blaine sent me the email because he discussed what else he might use rather than juniper and lemon zest on occasion.

We had fish tacos and clams and chips. The fish tacos were probably the best I've had in Seattle, since I insist on having fried fish and nearly everyone here does grilled. I wish they used corn tortillas rather than flour but since I'm so desperate for a fried fish taco, I'm letting it slide. The clams were fine, but just like all the other clams and chips I've had (ie Ivar's). So fine but not exceptional. The chips are what I, in the '80s, would have called "jo jos". Wedges with seasoning. Based on the fried fish in the taco I'd try the regular fish and chips.

When it's parked at Chuck's you can order beer and grab an inside table, and they'll deliver your food inside (or outside, though signs indicated you couldn't drink beer outside. Though I think people were).

This truck is parked on 85th tonight--I'm going to check it out.
http://fishbasketnw.com/

I thought I'd do a brief review of our latest trip. I went last June, as you see upthread, and this time was in mid-April. We had 5 (small) courses and 10 "snacks."

The courses were:
Foraged beach peas with razor clams
Wild onions with carmelized mussels and toasted bread
Dried escarole with aged venison and yogurt
Sablefish with black trumpet mushrooms and herbs
Steamed rhubarb with spring pine and angelica (true dessert people would probably be disappointed in this)

Snacks:
Baked sunflower root
Crispy crepe with salmon roe (wonderful--kind of like Per Se's Salmon cornet)
Toasted kale with local truffles and rye
Pickled oyster
Weathervane scallop (raw)
Grilled shittake
Smoked sockeye (UNBELIEVABLE)
Hearth bread with pan drippings and homemade butter
Goat's milk yogurt with wheatgrass and parsley (ha, it sounds awful but it was a fine palate cleanser)
Chocolate flax bite

All in all, it was an outstanding meal and I consider it a great value. You leave quite full but not horribly stuffed like you do at some places that do multi course meals (like Per Se). I think I prefered our menu last June, but it's neat to see what they do in different seasons.

Last year they served a potato and lovage dish for breakfast that I've been dreaming about for a year. We didn't get that, but we got what might be the best salmon I've ever had. As soon as we sat down they brought house cured (but not smoked) salmon, with homemade creme fraiche and homemade rye crackers. It was out of this world. I thought the smoked sockeye at dinner was unbelievable and this even topped that. I think I am ruined forever for any lox-type preparation--this was so so so good.

Also for breakfast we had fresh pressed apple juice, steel cut oats, fritatta, and ham, all very good as well,.

I like Spud, too. That's as NE as I can think of.

I've unfortunately come to that same conclusion, gingershelley. I was hoping I could find something close, and maybe I'll stumble across something someday, but I think you're right--if I want anything like this, I am going to have to make it.

Will you be downtown? If so, check to see how late Din Tai Fung, Facing East and Bamboo Garden (here's your spicy) are open. None may be open late, but those are my go to downtown Bellevue places.

Yes, I do think they get their whole salmon there, but they told me they make their own lox, and it is not smoked at all. I think I am probably out of luck for finding anything similar unless I want to undertake the project myself.

I am eating the G&D Gravlax with rye toast and creme fraiche right now. I don't love it. It's smoked, for one thing, and from everything I read gravlax is not supposed to be (and I'm looking for un-smoked). I've had a couple really fishy bites. It's Coho. I dunno, maybe this is as good as packaged stuff gets but it's not like what I had at Willows Inn. The search continues.

I thought about Zabar's or Russ and Daughters since I'm going to be in NYC next month, and they have gravlax. I too suspect they use Atlantic farmed, which, I can't imagine is going to top the reef net Sockeye I had at Willows. I'd be interested to try it, though.

The Krispie treats are out of this world. I think it must have been your stale marshmallows. I do not normally go for super sweet sticky American desserts like this but these, these are wonderful.

Was it good? Gravlax seems to be hard enough to find that I guess I better just start buying and eating...

I did and they tell me that their lox is not smoked, but it is "weighted and flattened." So maybe it's closest to gravlax, though they don't call it that? It did have a silky raw texture.Any chance of finding something like this in a store?

I think I need to read up on different kinds of lox. I looked at G&D''s website, and it looks like they do smoked salmon, but I'm looking for lox that's been cured but not smoked. I think. It didn't taste smoky, anyway.

Who makes really exceptional lox (just lox, to take home)? This isn't something I normally crave but I just had some at Willows Inn on Lummi that was out of this world. The homemade creme fraiche and rye toasts didn't hurt either. I am dying for more but am looking dubiously at the packaged stuff I see in stores.

Do you mean you DON'T eat "meat/shellfish and eggs"? On top you said no meat so with your latest post I'm wondering if you mistyped.

If you meant to say no meat but yes shellfish, that would lead to another set of recommendations--I'd search old threads for recommendations on oyster houses and seafood.

Razor clamming is a huge recreational thing, and the beds are monitered and open only certain days, but they aren't protected to the point that they are unavailable. Mu local fish store has them vacuum sealed and frozen (that's generally what even recreational harvesters do to preserve them). Are you asking because you aren't seeing them on menus? I also rarely see them at restaurants--I'm not sure why but it could be that there isn't much of a commercial harvest. I had a razor clam sandwich at BOKA in Hotel 1000 last year but that was a surprise that they had it.