Rating:

After a long hiatus, I’ve now had three crêpes in the past month. The latest was this afternoon at The Essential Bakery Café. The name is familiar to local shoppers, as Essential’s products are in most supermarket’s fresh bread section. Last year, Essential opened a Café/Chocolatier on Madison and 28th (right across the street from Café Flora). Lauren and I were in the neighborhood, and Gio gave the Café positive reviews, so we stopped in for a snack 🙂

Essential Bakery Café is a warm, welcoming place with lots of windows to take advantage of sunny days like today. In the display case are all sorts of tempting chocolates and pastries. They also serve soups, sandwiches, and crêpes. We had a spinach, mushroom and bechemel crêpe. These are large fork-and-knife crépes, quite different from something at say Crêpes A-Go-Go. The shell was very soft, oozing with bechemel, and it was a flavorful package topped with black pepper and scallions. It was quite tasty, but I recommend sharing one as it’s big and intense.

It was difficult to decide which of the sweets to choose from, but we opted for two chocolates: an Earl Grey Truffle in white chocolate and a Ginger Truffle in dark chocolate. Very unique chocolates, much better than your run-of-the-mill truffle from Dilettante’s for example. The tea and ginger flavors weren’t overpowering, they simply added a little bite and complexity to the delectable chocolates they were mixed with.

Overall Essential Bakery Café was a charming place with quality food and snacks. I’ll be back to try the croissants and the chocolate pastries next!

TIP: Free wireless is available from Open-noon and 3PM-Close daily.

Essential Bakery Café and Chocolatier
2719 East Madison Street
Seattle, WA 98112
206-328-0078

Mon: 6:00AM-6:00PM
Tu-Sat: 6:00AM-8:00PM
Sun: 7:00AM-6:00PM

Rating:

Top Dog makes an impression on people. Maybe it’s that students can come here at 2AM and treat themselves to a “gourmet sausage” (don’t make the mistake of calling them “hot dog”s). Maybe it’s the logo. For Lauren, the “bird dog” (turkey, bell peppers and cilantro) topped with russian mustard and sauerkraut is what makes Top Dog a required stop on every trip to Berkeley.

My favorite Top Dog story is actually set in Skagway, Alaska. I was on an Alaskan cruise with the family and was wearing my Top Dog T-shirt on a rock climbing excursion. A few climbs in, one of the guides called me over and said “I have a proposition for you. What do you think of this shirt?” And he points to his guide shirt. Turns out the guy grew up in Oakland, loved Top Dog when he was in high school, and really wanted my Top Dog shirt. So we swapped T-shirts (he was stoked), and now I always get asked if I’m a mountain guide when I wear the result of my barter.

Today I was finally able to acquire a replacement T-shirt to accompany my bird dog 🙂

P.S. For those that were wondering, Top Dog is the “other” required stop on our Eat Berkeley trips alongside Crépes A-Go-Go and Chez Panisse.

Top Dog (Berkeley Southside)
2534 Durant
Berkeley, California 94704
510-843-5967

M-Th: 10:00AM-2:00AM
Fri: 10:00AM-3:00AM
Sat: 11:00AM-3:00AM
Sun: 11:00AM-2:00AM

Rating:

When Lauren takes me to Berkeley, there are two must haves on the “Eat Berkeley” tour. Both are right near campus, quick, cheap, and yummy. The first is Crêpes A-Go-Go — a little place that serves (as you might expect) lots of crêpes. The savory crêpes make for a great breakfast, light lunch, or snack. Lauren is showing off the “house special” (turkey, spinach, egg, and swiss). When ordering an egg crêpe you should know that the eggs aren’t scrambled, they’re fried (with the yolk cooked in the middle of the white). It was yummy, but next time I’ll ditch the egg and stick with turkey (or spinach), mushroom and cheese.

They also have perfect choices for satisfying your sweet tooth, such as the chocolate & fresh strawberries crêpe that Vid ordered (be sure to request the fresh strawberries). It’s best to go here with friends so you can sample both the sweet and savory options!

Crêpes A-Go-Go
2334 Telegraph Avenue
Berkeley, California 94704
510-486-2310

Mon-Sat 8:00AM-10:00PM
Sun 8:00AM-9:00PM

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In my limited experience, Berkeley students are fond of the term “ghetto”. Near campus there are two “food ghettos” where you can grab a quick and cheap bite to eat. Further off campus on Shattuck is the “gourmet ghetto”…dubbed so because it is the area surrounding Chez Panisse.

There are two dining areas at Chez Panisse: the Café (or “upstairs”) and the Restaurant (known as “downstairs”). They both use the same kitchen, the two differences are the menu and the atmosphere. The retaurant is solely 3-5 course prix fixe dinners, and has a softer, more romantic atmosphere. The café is a la carte, louder and livelier, and has a lot more seating available. Chez Panisse is owned by the famous chef Alice Waters, and is routinely listed among the best restaurants in America. As such, reservations are a must. Since I called less than a week in advance, the restaurant was completely booked and I gladly accepted a table at the café.

The menu had a number of ingredients that I didn’t recognize. Our helpful waiter deciphered “bottarga di muggine” for us, and asserted that the shaved fish eggs added zing and not fishiness to the pizzetta with sorrel and onions. He was spot on. The pizette was a thin-crust, crispy, wood fired/brick oven masterpiece. It was rich, but not heavy, and a great start to our meal.

In the café the tables are very close together, which means that it’s very easy to eavesdrop on your neighbors’ conversations and to spy on their food (not that LL or I would ever do such a thing ;)). The table to my left received what at first glance looked like a piece of duck, but was really a butternut squash panade with black trumpet mushrooms, gremolata, and friseé salad. I was intrigued, and ordered what turned out to be the best squash dish I have ever tasted. The panade was a stand-out entree, one of those dished that you write home (or on your blog) about. The trumpet mushrooms had clearly been harvested fresh earlier in the day, the interplay between the squash preparation and the vegetables was simply awesome. Chez Panisse’s menu changes daily, but if you are fortunate enough to have this option on your menu, I highly recommend it.

Lauren ordered the hand-cut pasta with North Carolina white shrimp and mustard blossoms. The pasta was soft and the shrimp tender. There was a breadcrumb-like crust atop the pasta which reminded me of comfort food, though it was much lighter than your traditional casserole. Along with the main course we tried the “Chez Panisse Zinfindel”.

Then it was time for dessert. It was a tossup between the “Sierra Beauty” apple crisp (apparently a local favorite) and the dark chocolate homemade ice cream. We opted for the chocolate this time around. The ice cream was reminiscent of the chocolate gelato at Vios, and it was served with chocolate-walnut cookies that were brownie-like in consistency and still warm from the oven. Yum.

Everytime I go to Berkeley my Mom asks if I went to her “favorite restaurant” (a title not given lightly). This time I was very pleased to respond with a happy “yes”!

Chez Panisse Café
1517 Shattuck Avenue
Berkeley, California 94709
510-548-5049

Mon-Sat 11:30AM-3:00PM (Lunch)
Mon-Thurs 5:00PM-10:30PM, Fri-Sat 5:00PM-11:30PM (Dinner)

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After 8 years in Seattle I had yet to find a decent crêpe place. A few weeks ago, Vidya told me about “this crêpe place in Ravenna” that I had to try. Last weekend we attempted a brunch trip and were foiled when the restaurant was flooded (yikes!). Tonight I was able to cash in my raincheck.

The “crêpe place” is the Crêpe Café and Wine Bar on 65th St and 22nd Ave. On the outside it’s easy to drive right by (I had done so for years). Inside is a smartly decorated, casual but romantic restaurant with tasty crêpes. They also boast some fine wines, if the bottle of Meditrina we had is any indication. But I digress. We were here to sample a change from Seattle crêpe malaise, and were well-rewarded for our excursion.

Lauren and I ordered the “Ritz Carlton” — chicken, swiss and mushrooms topped with a mushroom & wine sauce. Fresh ingredients combined with flavorful seasoning and a tender crêpe to provide a rich, yet light, experience. They also make a mean carmalized onion, as I can attest to from “J’s Crêpe” — a fine mix of savory and sweet inside a buckwheat shell.

Then it was time to see if the dessert crêpes would make the grade. I’ll simply say that the Chocolate & Strawberries crêpe lasted about 1.5 minutes before getting demolished. And then the next few minutes involved scraping the remains of melted chocolate from the plate 🙂 One warning about the dessert menu: not everything on there is a crêpe, so read closely. We ordered a “Jitterbug” which turned out to be espresso and ice cream in a cup, not in a crêpe (oops).

Overall I really enjoyed the Crêpe Café. They have a fine array of both the sweet and savory crêpes, and ambience to accomodate both dinner with friends or romance for two. One final note to set expectations: Crêpe Café is a completely different experience from Paris crêpe stands (more “americanized”-style crêpes), so you’ll have to go somewhere else to satisfy that particular urge.

Tidbit:1/2 price wine night on Tuesdays!

Crêpe Café and Wine Bar
2118 NE 65th Street
Seattle, WA 98115
206-527-7147

Tues-Fri 10:30AM-3:00PM (Lunch)
Sat-Sun 9:00AM-3:00PM (Brunch)
Tues-Sat 5:00PM-10:00PM, Sun 5:00PM-9:00PM (Dinner)

Update (5/7/2006, 5:45PM): Lauren and I took DeAnn here for lunch today. We discovered that you can get top-notch foccacia paninis at lunchtime. We also had a fabulous tomato-garlic soup. Medium thickness, and full flavors. If you order the Westchester crêpe (and you’re not vegetarian), I recommend exercising the “add chicken” option.

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This week I’m offsite at the Microsoft campus in Charlotte. I’ve been hanging out with the Distributed Systems support team witnessing first-hand how we respond to customer issues. These guys are amazing with windbg. I feel like I’m in The Matrix, except instead of pointing out “blonde, brunette, …”, they look at the hex dumps and are pointing out “string, connection, heap corruption, …”

In some ways the buildings here in Charlotte are similar to what I’m used to in Redmond. But the cafeteria divurges (in a very positive manner) from the one at Augusta. In my hallway I’m notorious for side-stepping the cafeteria wherever possible. In North Carolina, I would be happy to take my lunch downstairs a few times weekly. Overall I was pleasantly surprised by my noon-time experiences here.

On Tuesday I cased the place, and saw some good looking tuna steaks at the grill station. It’s a relaxed atmosphere there, a far cry from the madness of main campus, and the kind grill lady seared the tuna steak for me and I enjoyed it atop a bed of fresh spinach:

While I was waiting for the tuna, someone ordered a chicken cheesesteak. It was enticing, and so on Wednesday I branched out (before returning to the tuna again yesterday). Peppers, onions, lots of cheesy goodness. It wouldn’t hold up on the streets of Philly, but was well above expectations here, and bolstered my high opinions of our Charlotte office food. As a bonus, the arepa on the side was a solid combination of sweet corn and provolone.

Today I bid the Cafe adieu as Lou and the gang are taking me out for my last day out here. Then back home I’ll return to my off-site lunch tradition 🙂

Microsoft Arrowpoint
8055 Microsoft Way
Charlotte, NC 28273

Mon-Fri 7:30AM-10:00AM, 11:00AM-2:00PM (Breakfast & Lunch)

Rating:

After a full day of snowboarding on Whistler mountain followed by a two hour nap, we were ready for our walk across the river to the Upper Village. Most visitors stay in the main village (with good reason), but in doing so they miss a culinary delight hidden near the base of Blackhomb: La Rua.

I had fond memories of my only previous meal at La Rua, 6 years ago. Tonight was a pleasant refresher for those memories. Upon entry, we were greeted warmly by the hostess and seated in a quiet corner of the restaurant (thankfully a safe distance away from the unruly family at the center table). Our waitress Kim was very sweet, helpful, attentive, yet discreet.

We began with the special of the day, a seared scallop atop a pea-vine ravioli with white truffle sauce. A fantastic opener — the scallop was reminiscent of Zoe’s, the ravioli delicate, and a sauce you would love to bottle and take home with you:

Next was a duck spring roll — crispy (yet not greasy), with orange peel in the sauce to counterbalance the full flavor of the duck+mushrooms (and make for an attractive presentation):

For our main course we tried a local catch — B.C. Sablefish. For a second night in a row we were graced with top-notch fresh fish. The sablefish was firm, bursting with flavor, and embraced the Pacific Rim influence of its soy/miso preparation:

La Rua’s desserts were the weakest part of the meal. The profiteroles were filled with a nice creamy homemade ice cream, but the pastry and chocolate were not particularly distinctive. Though I did get a nice shot of Lauren in one of her favorite sweaters:

La Rua Restaurante
4557 Blackcomb Way
Whistler, BC
604-932-5011

Daily 5:30PM-late (Dinner only)
Tidbit: Complimentary parking available

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Seattle is in the Superbowl this weekend and Lauren and I snuck away to Whistler. All week I’ve been looking forward to the conditions from January’s record snowfall of 15.6 feet (with little sign of slowing down). I’ve also been looking forward to a weekend of fine dining in the evenings. Whistler has a ton of restaurants. Some are amazing and others are overpriced tourist traps, so where should you begin?

This weekend, Lauren and I began at Quattro (in the main village, across from the Delta Whistler Hotel). It’s a cozy restaurant that does a great job with both couples and large groups. Last year we had a group birthday dinner for 10 in their private Tasting Room. Tonight it was a fireside dinner for two.

Along with our Pinot Grigio we started with Dungeness crab & scallop cakes. They were generously filled (the breading was kindly restricted to the outside of the cakes), and the crab and scallop was a tasty pairing. Some wild mixed greens on the side (just to make you feel healthy), and more importantly a topping of moscato & chive aioli:

For our main course, Lauren ordered the “Rotolo Farcito”. It had been described as pasta rolled with ricotta cheese, sweet peppers, spinach, and mushrooms in a creamy tomato sauce. What we got (while tasty enough) was not at all what we expected. The filling was low on ricotta, high on mushrooms, and overall the closest comparison I can engender is mini-lasagna filling. The “creamy tomato sauce” meant that 2 of the four pasta rolls were in cream sauce and the other two were in tomato sauce. It was well prepared, but Quattro has much stronger items on their menu.

Which is a perfect segue into a perfect dish: “Branzino alla Crosta”. Quattro can really knock your socks off with their fish preparations. 4 years ago I had a Chilean Sea Bass that was so succulent…but I digress. The Branzino is a baked black cod with a pistachio crust. Soft, but not too mushy. Rich flavors without being overpowering. Topped with a fire roasted sweet pepper sauce that is possibly more addictive than crack. We certainly used the homemade foccacia to ensure not a drop was wasted. Heaven on a plate.

Quattro at Whistler
4319 Main Street
Whistler, BC
604-905-4844

Daily 5:30PM-late (Dinner only)

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Last night we went down to the French Quarter to see “…And the Ball and All” — a comedic farce about Mardi Gras. The evening started with some classic New Orleans fare: gumbo and poorboys. “Poorboy” (or “Po’ Boy”) is the locals term for a french roll filled with meat or seafood. A New Orleans hoagie if you will. According to the locals, the best places for po’ boys are all “hole in the wall”s. Liuzza’s is no exception.

It’s a dive near the train tracks a few blocks from where Jazz Fest is held. We squeaked in just before close (at 5PM), crowded around a small table, and ordered a bowl of gumbo and a pair of po’boys (fried oyster and barbeque shrimp). The gumbo was spicey and loaded with goodies (andouille sausage, chicken, shrimp, and oysters). The poorboys were definitely not for the feint of heart (medically speaking :)), but were tasty as can be. I was pleasantly surprised to discover “barbeque shrimp” in New Orleans doesn’t involve a tangy or vinegar-based sauce. Rather it’s more of a garlic-pepper sauce — think scampi on steroids with some extra pepper.

Liuzza’s by the Track
1518 North Lopez
New Orleans, LA 70119
504-943-8667

Rating:

I flew into New Orleans yesterday to see my Dad who lives in Slidell, on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain. Since he had just gotten a new tarp for the roof, all was clear for my visit.

After five months of rebuilding, things are starting to clean up. Not to say there isn’t a TON of work left, I can’t even begin to explain the extent of the devastation — a topic for another post.

The primary reaction I had gotten in Atlanta when I told them I was headed to New Orleans was “wow…the food there is amazing…” If the Dakota Restaurant is any indication, I can see why the cuisine in this city would make a lasting impression.

The ambience is romantic with a touch of chic. Dad told me that the dishes were moderately sized (i.e. I would actually be able to finish a soup and/or salad plus an entree). I started with one of their signature dishes: Lump Crabmeat and Brie Soup. It was thick and creamy and sinfully good.

I then got to sample two salads (fortunately my entire family encourages the “wandering fork syndrome”). Lynn ordered the Asian Ahi Tuna Salad — sushi grade ahi, sesame crusted, with a touch of soy and ginger. It was like they had taken a play from Wasabi Bistro’s cookbook and then upped the ante:

Dad’s roquefort salad was a finely executed version of LL’s salad template: [greens]+[nut]+[fruit]+[cheese] (in this case baby greens + roasted cashews + apples + roquefort).

For the main course I ordered the scallops. I can honestly say I’ve never seen scallops anywhere near as large. And yes, they were as yummy as they look — meaty and finely seared on top, served with wild mushroom ravioli in a foie gras sauce that added to the tastebud indulgence:

To complete the round up, Dad had the Parmesan crusted Tilapia (with crabmeat and fried artichoke), and Lynn had the grilled redfish. Both were very well executed and tastefully presented, with the sides complementing the fish (and our Gruner Veltliner) quite nicely. Overall a fantastic meal and a gastronomically sensational beginning to my weekend in New Orleans. This will be fun 🙂

The Dakota Restaurant
629 North Highway 190
Covington, LA 70433
985-892-3712

Mon-Fri 11:30AM-2:30PM (Lunch)
Mon-Th 5:00PM-10:00pm, Fri-Sat 5:00PM-11:00PM (Dinner)