JNo in the House!!! (Part 2)

Earlier last week, a coworker had asked me, "what are you and your friend going to do when she visits?"  Without having to give it too much thought, I replied, "Eat!"  My coworker thought that was a strange plan, but when I told Jennifer she completely agreed.  What else would we do?!?


Friday morning started out with french press coffee, beignets, and some fancy eggs benedicts at the french/cajun cafe by my house.  Afterwards we were stuffed and ready to work off some calories so we walked all around Pike Place Market, downtown, and the sculpture garden.  Jennifer totally brought some Virginia sunshine with her because Friday was one of the most beautiful days I've seen since living here and it was perfect for walking around.  Since it was a weekday the market wasn't too super crazy and we were actually able to see the first Starbucks, get pastries from Piroshky Piroshky, and I saw fish being thrown for the very first time.


We had covered a lot of ground during the day so we decided on what we thought would be a low key key dinner on top of the hill.  As we were trekking up, I was telling Jennifer how my Dad and I went to a nice dinner up the hill and she turned to me, looked outraged, and said, "You made your poor Dad walk up this thing?!?"  (I love you daddy!)  So we got to the top and we were debating between two restaurants; both had received great urbanspoon ratings but one was practically empty and the other had a 35 minute wait. 


We figured everyone must know something we didn't so we waited and waited to snag a seat at How to Cook a Wolf.  Although the restaurant was beautiful inside, I don't think Jennifer was particularly up for eating beef tongue, escolar crudo, and chicken liver mousse.  Frankly, I'm a little surprised that a place with such an exotic menu was so popular.  We ended up sticking to the more tame menu items and they were... ok.  I'd been wanting to try this place for awhile so I'm glad we did, but at the end of the night we decided maybe we should've given the empty restaurant across the street a chance after all.


Saturday morning we had the most fabulous brunch at Portage Bay Cafe!  The pancetta and tomato hash with Zoe’s All Natural Meats crispy pancetta, organic cherry tomatoes, organic sweet onion, organic sweet potato, organic butter roasted Yukon gold potatoes, and fresh organic herbs sautéed and topped with three poached Stiebr Farms free range eggs was out of this world delicious!  As if that weren't enough on it's own, we also order the lemon curd french toast which allowed us a trip to the "toppings bar": sort of like a salad bar, but full of fresh fruit, berries, butter, whipped cream, syrup, and nuts for you to decorate you pancakes or french toast.


After breakfast we waddled around picturesque Lake Union and saw little kids racing wooden toy sail boats, folks hanging out on their yachts, an old-timey river boat, kayakers and seaplanes.  Afterwards we headed over to Seattle Center because there is almost always something interesting going on there and we weren't disappointed.  There was a Filipino cultural festival going on, so we figured why not sit and enjoy the show for a bit.  Things started off a little slow with some really miserable looking percussionists.  We decided they must be performing some sort of court-ordered community service for them to look so joyless on stage.  Our patience was rewarded when the last act came on stage; the naked tribal man!  Well, technically he had on a loin cloth and he had dreadlocks almost down to his ankles, does that count as clothes?  He was our favorite!


Since we still had plenty of daylight left and it was a beautiful day we drove over to Fremont which is a funky, cutesy, artsy little neighborhood.  We stopped for a beer and an afternoon snack at great little pub with sunny patio.  We sat back an admired the "I-got-dressed-during-a-tornado" fashion styling of several of the girls there.  Example: black and white polka-dot boxer shorts and a neon pink lace halter top both sticking out of a flowy floral pastel dress.  That seems to be the cool new trend around Seattle, but I don't think I'll be jumping on that bandwagon anytime soon.  Although we were feeling kind of full we picked up some chocolates for later; a strawberry balsamic chocolate bar (we scored the very last one in the shop), a bacon chocolate bar (not as good as we'd hoped), homemade marshmallows and graham crackers covered in chocolate, and caramels of every imaginable flavor (including lavender, ginger and ghost chile).


It's getting late here... so I'm afraid I will have to leave you hanging once again, but trust me, you will want a full account of Saturday evening...