Leslie and I had been talking about how we'd been to plenty of "fine" or even "good" restaurants in Seattle, but neither of us had really had a great meal. So on Wednesday, we set off in search of a place for dinner and wound up at Seastar. I'd heard good things so my expectations were high. We walk into a huge, posh dining room and waited at the hostess stand. And waited. Various employees walked past us... and then we waited. Finally some guy came up to us and asked, "Can I help you with something?" "Uh, we want to eat dinner," I replied. Why else would we be at the hostess stand of a restaurant?!? He left and said that some one would be with us shortly. So, we waited some more.
Eventually we were seated and told about the specials; Copper River salmon for $52 an entree. Yikes! We weren't trying to be that fancy!! Luckily the rest of the menu was more reasonable. We picked out a bottle of wine, decided on an appetizer to split, debated over entrees, but managed to make a decision... and then we waited. There seemed to be plenty of wait staff in the dining room, but no one would come and take our order :( We were getting a little antsy and thought that some one should've at least come by to get a drink order.
After we were finally able to order the service totally sped up; we got our wine, we got our bread, and we were happy. Only a little while after ordering two separate employees came over to apologize that our appetizer wasn't ready yet. Since we'd only ordered about 10 minutes ago, we weren't particularly bothered by the wait, but once it did arrive there were more apologies about the delay.
For dinner I had the reamy russet hash, haricots vert, butter sauce, and lemon-chive oil. It was delicious and a pretty big portion for a "fancy" restaurant. Leslie and I had a fabulous time talking, drinking , and eating. When the bill came at the end of the night, our appetizer wasn't even on there and when the waitress brought back our credit cards she brought us free homemade chocolate truffles to apologize about the appetizer. We were puzzled about why there was so much fuss about it all, but we certainly weren't going to turn down free food and chocolate!
Last night my daddy arrived in Seattle for a visit so of course he wanted a nice PNW dinner. We went to Emmer & Rye and learned that "emmer" was another term for farro. It really was a great example of Seattle cooking and all the ingredients are sourced locally. Since my dad's friend was also with us, we ordered tons of stuff to share: farro fries with sage-yoghurt dipping sauce; artisanal cheeses with herb crackers and rhubarb-fig chutney; split pea soup with pea shoots, parmesan, & bacon; grassfed beef bolognese with pancetta, red wine, & sausage; washington ivory salmon with asparagus and morels; and maple brined pork loin with faroncini and braised cabbage.
Since we are total eating champions, even after ALL of that we still had a little room for dessert. I had my heart set on the butterscotch pot de creme with oatmeal cookie so I was crushed when the waiter said they didn't have any! I guess the waiter took it personally and offered me any other dessert free. Woohoo, I could totally get used to all this free food.
My daddy is here for another few days and then my bff arrives so I see a lot more wonderful meals in my near future :)
Sounds Great! Have Fun!
ReplyDeleteyay food!
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