It seems that there is plenty of movement around the Ballard/Wallingford/Fremont restaurant scene these days.
Joule, the really great Korean/French/American fusion place has closed its Wallingford location and is moving to 35th and Stone with an opening sometime in June (hopefully).
Hunger, the really great Mediterranean comfort food place is (supposedly) moving from its current location on 42nd and Fremont Ave. to the old Dad Watson’s space just down the street. This was supposed to happen in February, but as of yesterday, Hunger was still located on 42nd.
Elemental and Elemental Too, the funky and somewhat obnoxious but incredibly good Northwest inspired places, are closing in June. They lost their lease and haven’t decided if they are going to open in a new location. Phred, the owner/server/sommelier at Elemental can be gruff and rub people the wrong way, but if you are willing to put yourself in his hands with both food and wine and know when to ask questions about what you are eating (read as – AFTER you have finished it), it is an amazing dining experience.
Le Gourmand, the venerable French/Northwest institution in Ballard, has moved it closing date to June 30 to accommodate more reservations.
Where Ya At Matt, the popular food truck (where I had the worst gumbo of my life), is opening a sit down location at the site of the old Buckaroo Tavern sometime this summer.
I am sad to see Elemental go, I really think it is one of the best places around, but you really have to be willing to give up control over what you are eating and drinking – sort of like coming to an Iron Chef Leftovers dinner. I have been twice (with a plan to go one more time) and both times the food was outstanding and the wine pairings were spot on. Considering that they don’t accept tips (really), I got out of there both times with a $80 tab (4 courses, 6 generous wine pours) and I found Phred, the eclectic owner, to be a great host.
I am concerned about Hunger and Joule. Both are relatively small places that put out great food. I have generally found that every time a restaurant that fits that bill moves to a bigger location, the quality tends to drop. I really hope that is not the case because Hunger is a favorite of the Iron Chef Leftovers clan and I really loved Joule’s quirky fusion menu.
A few weeks ago, I saw an announcement for the DNA project – a joint brewing project between three of my favorite breweries: Diamond Knot, North Sound Brewing and Anacortes Brewing. The collectively brewed 3 beers and released them on Tuesday, March 6th at the new Anacortes Brewing owned – H20 restaurant. Of course, being the sucker for beer and having nothing better to do on a Tuesday night, I trekked the 75 miles each way to Anacortes for the release. All three beers were great, and it was an overall fun night; well worth the drive. Now for the beers:
Hoppy Lager by Diamond Knot
Smells like a summer day – a lager that you want to drink on a sunny, 75 degree summer day on your back patio. Crisp and dry with a barely noticeable hint of hops. Lightly malted with a short, clean finish, enhanced by a hint of hops as the beer fades from the palate. A fine lager and one I would order in a second on a warm day, but not the beer I was in the mood for on a 35 degree evening.
4 sheepshanks out of 5
Red Rye Oat – North Sound Brewing
A red ale. Distinctive rye character on the nose with subtle whiffs of oatmeal. Slightly sweet and malty with hints of hops. A long finish of oats, rye and caraway. Dry, almost tannic on the tongue (in a good way). Reminds me of a very light rye bread.
4.5 whinnies out of 5
Big Black and Hoppy – Anacortes Brewing
A black IPA. Plenty of malt on the nose with a hint of hops. The initial taste is a hop bomb on the palate with a slight lingering bitterness, but not cloyingly hoppy nor overpowering with its alcohol despite its 9.8% ABV. Floral notes give way to a wonderful chocolaty and malty finish. Extraordinarily smooth; hangs around on the palate for a very long time (I mean minutes worth of lingering) in a wonderfully pleasant way. Reminds me of both a stellar IPA and a wonderful porter. Perfect for a cold winter day and paired wonderfully with the burger I had for dinner.
4.5 blackouts out of 5
There are 2 more release events scheduled for these beers – on March 13th at the Empire Ale House in Mount Vernon and March 21st at the Diamond Knot Alehouse on Front Street in Mukilteo. I would highly recommend trying all 3 of these beers at one of these events – especially since you will have the opportunity to talk to the brewers at the same time.
If you happen to be free this Thursday morning and in the Fremont neighborhood, you might want to stop into the Book Larder on Fremont Ave. for a talk with Gail Simmons, of Top Chef fame. She and the boys will be in town promoting her new book from 9:30 – 10:30.
I may just have to come down with a case of something.
Gail Simmons and the boys are coming to Seattle for a visit; and I am not referring to Tom and Padma.
Photos from Hops & Props, a benefit/ beer event at the Museum of Flight.
The VIP pre-event
Next year we’ll skip the VIP dinner. Too much talking by the speakers. Too little drinking and tasting. Ostensibly it was a Pike beer and food pairing. It was mostly a lecture, and a numbing one at that. I think we sat there about 25 minutes before we were allowed to taste the first actual beer, and the event ran over its alloted 1 hour timeframe due to the windbag element.
I’m always the most amped about the piston-powered planes. The black plane on the left is either the same model that the Red Baron piloted, or a very close relative.
A view of one of the buffets. The sandwiches were mostly bread. I think they might have attempted to be a little “classier” the last couple of years as compared to this year, but after some beverages I’m not arguing with a tasty corn dog.
The very sluggishly moving coat check line.
A portion of the coat check line. The moral: Don’t bring a coat to these events.
I think the last couple of years there were more people that came to the event for the airplanes. It seems to have shifted to more of a beer crowd, and some of the lines were really long.
Having said all of that: I’d highly recommend this event — it’s probably my favorite event every year.
Last weekend, Coltrane, Annie S., Mrs. Iron Chef and I ventured to the Bell Harbor Conference Center for the 3rd Annual Belgianfest, presented by the Washington Beer Commission. Thirty plus breweries, 70+ Belgian style beers and 600 people graced the new venue for what is rapidly becoming a great event. The beers ranged from golden and abbey style beers on the lighter end of the taste spectrum to heavy wood aged and sour beers on the other end of the spectrum, most of which were high in alcohol. I took copious amounts of notes, but I didn’t take notes on everything that I had. After a couple of hours, palate fatigue set in, so I stopped writing things down. Here is what I had (listed by order of their appearance in the Belgianfest program):
The lines at the men's rooms were long. Total Johnsonfest.
American Brewing Company
• Big Pucker – a beer that lives up to its name. Lip puckering sour all the way through with no hint of wood. Like sucking on a sour patch kid all day.
Anacortes Brewing
• Dubbel- slightly sweet and off dry, hints of hops with honey and sugar on the back of the palate.
• Trippel – a very characteristic Belgian Trippel on the front of the palate, with a refreshing crispness on the back, with subtle banana hints teasing you the entire way.
• Sour Red – A great beer to introduce someone to sour beers. Slightly sour with the initial hit on the palate but fading into a malty red ale with hints of wood. Not overpoweringly sour like most brett beers.
Black Raven Brewing
• Cask Saison – Off-dry on the front of palate yielding to a malty saison with a hint of sour. Nicely balanced and not overwhelming.
Diamond Knot
• Strong Belgian IPA – great hop character on the initial sip that does not overpower with a long finish reminiscent of an abbey beer. If you drank this one blind, you would not be sure if you were drinking an IPA or an abbey beer.
Elliott Bay Brewing
• Long Black Veil – drinks like a wonderful dry stout with a hint of sweetness on the finish from the Belgian yeast. A beer worth sipping on a cold winter day.
Engine House No. 9
• Love Child Kriek – a crisp beer that had overtones of oak with a hint of cherries on the back of the palate. Too much oak, not enough cherry, but not unenjoyable.
Fremont Brewing
• Return of the Blood Funnel Saison – heavy citrus notes on the palate and the nose give way to a crisp ending. Very refreshing and reminiscent of an aranchata.
Sweet waffle with brie and basil. I think they've shrunk since we first saw them. Still, a hit everytime.
Gallagher’s Where U Brew
• The Monk – orange and coriander on the nose and palate. A supercharged version of a Celis White.
• Black Imperial Belgium – a confusing beer with fruity overtones and a malty finish. Liquid dark bread. Did I detect some Rye or Caraway in this beer?
Hales Ales
• Tres Fem – collaboration brew. Tart cherries and malt dominate this beer. Made me want to get a pint and a scoop of vanilla ice cream and make a float.
Schooner Exact
• Biere de SODO – a beer with a confused identity in a very good way. It first wants to be a pilsner, then Belgian ale and then an IPA. Throw in a slight funkiness at the end and you have 3 great beers in one.
Silver City
• The Giant Made Of Shadows – lots of dried fruit with a distinctive Tempranillo hit on the back of the palate from aging in Tempranillo barrels. This beer paired wonderfully with a piece of 85% dark chocolate.
• Nutcracker 2005 Special Brown Ale – a very crisp beer. Yeast gives way to citrus fruit with a pleasant oak finish. Really great for a 7 year old beer (and that was by design).
• La Fat 2007 – a Belgian/Scotch hybrid. Lots of toffee and caramel but no noticeable oak or Belgian character.
Snipes Mountain
• Darkstrong – a “sweet and sour” beer. Lots of sugar on the front of the palate with a sour finish. Detected hints of chocolate but none of the rye malt that it was made with.
Wingman
• Black Widow – subtle hints of Cab Sav on the nose and a touch of oak on the finish, but predominately figs and dried fruit. Didn’t pick up much of the Belgian character, but it hid its 11.4% alcohol really well.
Not Iron Chef Leftovers' floral cursive, in case you were wondering.
So many great beers. I loved the trend of brewing more common styles with Belgian yeast strains and I am starting to see a lot more restraint with the use of wood in Washington beers – for so long, oak dominated most barrel aged beers brewed here. The brewers are still using the oak, but tuning it back and really letting the beer shine. It was nice to see some new breweries at the event and a few aged beers making an appearance. Overall, it was a fun 4 hours of beer tasting.
My top 3 for the day:
The Bronze Monk goes to:
Silver City – The Giant Made Of Shadows. I love Tempranillo and was happy to see someone use a Tempranillo barrel in brewing.
The Silver Farmhouse goes to:
Anacortes Brewing – Sour Red. So balanced, I probably could drink this one all day long and be very happy (and it has nothing to do with my love of Anacortes beers).
The Gold Abbey goes to:
Schooner Exact – Biere de SODO – I really loved that you could taste all of the individual components in this beer. The pilsner characteristics were there without being overwhelmed by the hops and the Belgian characteristics really displayed without being overrun buy the bret that was present. I want to drink this beer again and again.
There will be a dinner at the house of Iron Chef Leftovers in honor of the book Odd Bits and for my sister-in-law who wanted to try them. Recipes and review to follow next week.
Course 4
Peruvian Style Beef Skewers
-Grilled Marinated Heart and Tenderloin Skewers, Salsa Verde; Side Salad
Course 5
TBA*
* Course 5 was supposed to be Pig Blood Chocolate Ice Cream. Finding usable pig’s blood is pretty much impossible to find unless you can find someone slaughtering a pig, so I haven’t quite figured out the dessert at this point.
Well, Restaurant Week is upon us once again and there was an article posted on Voracious concerning an issue that restaurants have with reservations during the promotion.
Poppy’s Jerry Traunfeld this weekend tweeted: “Why so many more no-shows during restaurant week compared to a regular night? We’re offering a great deal, have some courtesy and call!” According to Restaurant Week spokesperson Heather Jensvold, other participating restaurants “have seen a bit of this” too, although not every restaurant is reporting problems.
Ok, I have a real problem with people making a reservation and not keeping it – at the very least when you realize you can’t make it, call, tell the restaurant and let someone else have the table. In this economy, you end up hurting small businesses when they can be filling the table with paying customers. The flip side is that generally the places that are completely booked up for Restaurant Week usually have enough walk-ins that they can easily fill the table, so it isn’t the end of the world for them.
One other thing in the article did annoy me:
A third explanation, eagerly advanced by veteran diners, posits that Restaurant Week brings out the worst-mannered eaters. Bargain-hunters who don’t usually eat in white-tablecloth restaurants are notorious for trying to wring the most value from their $28 tabs, demanding endless soda refills and complaining about small portions. Failing to cancel a reservation is consistent with such loutish behavior, Restaurant Week detractors claim.
While I think that there are a small percentage of diners that fit the above description, I think most of the people who are dining out for restaurant week are doing so to try new places to decide if they are worth spending full price for. I usually try one or two places each restaurant week that I would not normally go to, whether it be their normal price point is higher than I can afford or it involves a significant distance (say to West Seattle or the East Side from Ballard), just to see if they are worthy of me paying full price.
The flip side to the restaurant complaint about diners is that I think that in some places, the servers and staff look down upon the diners that are ordering off the restaurant week menu. I have been to places that the service was terrible during restaurant week, even when I ordered off the regular menu. Restaurant Week is the opportunity for these places to pick up some new customers, there is no reason why the level of service should drop, just because as a server you might end up with a slightly smaller tip from someone ordering off the RW menu. If I get good food and service, not only am I going to tip you better than 20%, but I am more likely to come back to the restaurant when it is full price.
I will admit it, I was wrong. I really didn’t think that Pliny would be able to win, although, it barely won. The scoring was on a scale of 1-9 with 1 being the best. There were 5 tasters and the tasting was conducted blind. Here are the results with how everyone scored them.
Rank
Beer
Judge #1
Judge #2
Judge #3
Judge #4
Judge #5
Total Score
1
Pliny the Elder
2
1
4
4
1
12
2
Boundary Bay IPA
4
3
2
2
2
13
3
Diamond Knot Industrial IPA
8
2
3
3
3
19
4
Anacortes IPA
1
7
9
1
4
22
5
Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA
6
6
1
7
6
26
6
Firestone Walker Double Jack IPA
5
5
5
8
8
31
6
Laughing Dog Devil Dog IPA
7
8
6
5
5
31
8
Avery Maharaja
3
9
7
6
9
34
9
Harpoon IPA
9
4
8
9
7
37
The judges’ identities are being kept secret to prevent retribution from any disgruntled beer drinkers, except Judge #1, which is yours truly.
I would caution anyone reading this that finishing at the bottom was not an indication of a bad beer – it was just in this sampling, the judges preferred one beer over another. I think if I poured any of these beers individually, everyone involved would have enjoyed them. You also have to deal with sample size – 5 people are not enough of judges to really get a handle on this, and I do think there is a certain extent of regional bias – everyone tasting the beers has lived in the Northwest for an extended period of time. There was some great conversation at the table surrounding what people liked and did not like and why the ranked beers in a certain place, which was unexpected and most enlightening.
This was a fun experiment and one that I hope to repeat again once I get my hands on some additional bottles of Pliny.
I also attempted to identify the beers. I was successful on 4 out of the 9 (I got Maharaja, Harpoon, Anacortes and Boundary Bay correct) but I somehow didn’t get Devil Dog (thought that Pliny was DD) or Diamond Knot (thought that Firestone was DK), which are 2 of my favorite beers. I wasn’t guessing on these, I was basing my decision on what they smelled and tasted like. I guess it shouldn’t surprise me though, the 4 I got correct were the last 4 IPA’s that I drank prior to this taste test, so everything about their makeup was relatively fresh in my mind.
While the NW beers did not win, they did finish 2nd, 3rd and 4th, which should not really be a surprise. Boundary Bay could have easily won the competition purely with my vote – I had Maharaja, BB and Firestone all ranked about the same and I kept changing my rankings on them. On several occasions, I had Boundary Bay ranked #3 and I changed it to #4 at the last minute, otherwise it would have tied with Pliny.
Harpoon’s last place finish was not a terrible surprise, it was by far the least hoppy beer in the competition, at 42 IBU (The next lowest was 75) and was really tasteless compared to the other 8. It was also the only English Style IPA, whereas everything else was a West Coast style single or double IPA.
I was also surprised that I didn’t like the Diamond Knot IPA. It is one of my favorites usually, but, unlike the other judges; I really didn’t like it on this day. I might have just had a bad day or my palate was not working at 100%, but I was getting a smoky/woody flavor out of it that was a bit off-putting. On the flip side, I was loving Maharaja, but I was in the minority in that opinion as everyone else ranked it in the bottom half of their list. Anacortes proved to be the most polarizing with 2 judges giving it the top spot and 1 the bottom. Anacortes was probably the highest IBU beer at 118 and it was the only one that did not come from a bottle – I drove to Anacortes 48 hours before the beer was poured to get a growler as it was the only way I could be assured that we would have it – I couldn’t find it on tap anywhere near Seattle. I think this might have led to some of the comments about it being flat.
So where does this leave us? I think it is inconclusive – Pliny, while a fine beer, doesn’t seem to be significantly better than at least one beer brewed in the Pacific Northwest, Pliny just has better marketing and distribution than Boundary Bay (as well as scarcity driving up the hype). We need to do this again with a larger group of hopheads and see what the results look like in round 2. A couple of the beers might need to be replaced due to lack of availability (Harpoon definitely will be replaced), so who should be added to the lineup? Feel free to post your suggestions in the comment section.
There are two upcoming beer events of note in Seattle.
On October 8th and 9th, Elysian Brewing is going to hold its annual Pumpkin Beer Festival at their new Georgetown production brewery. There will be 50(!!) pumpkin beers on tap, including the Pumpkin Aged Great Pumpkin (it is Great Pumpkin aged in a hollowed out pumpkin), 11 from Elysian and a bunch of gets breweries from as far away as Norway. Tickets are $20 and there will be some food trucks on site for the event.
On Friday, October 14th, Woodland Park Zoo is hosting its first (hopefully annual) Brew at the Zoo. There will be 14 breweries, featuring brews from local favorites Fremont Brewing, Lazy Boy, Georgetown and Mac & Jacks (Annie S – Pyramid will also be there pouring Snowcap.) Tickets are $20 in advance and get you admission to the event, 10 tastes, and access to the zoo’s penguin and jaguar exhibits (the rest of the zoo is closed during the event) as well as some animal encounters. Proceeds benefit the zoo. Please pass this information on to anyone who may be interested and come help make this event a success. I will be there helping out at the event as a volunteer, so come by and say hello.
There is lots of really cool culinary related stuff happening in September and October in the Seattle Area. Here are my picks for your viewing pleasure:
September 9 – 11th – Hopfest at Brouwer’s Café in Fremont. Hoppy beers paired with hoppy animals, what more can you want.
Saturday September 17th – Mobile Food Rodeo behind the Interbay Whole Foods. Tickets in advance for $7 or $10 at the door. There will be 20+ food trucks, all of the usual suspects and 3 trucks from Portland. Check out my review of the last time they had a paid event like this here.
Sunday September 18th – Eat A Bug at the Burke Museum. Before you go EEEWWW! Don’t knock it before you have tried it. Bugs are actually quite tasty (try a silkworm – they taste like mulberry), extremely healthy and raising bugs as food is better for you and the environment than the factory farmed meat and veggies in your fridge.
Wednesday September 28th – Craft Beer + Food at the Yacht Club at Lake Union. A pairing of food and beer with 10 restaurants and 10 breweries from the Seattle Area. Probably worth the $30 for admission.
Sunday October 2nd – The Original Mobile Chowdown in West Seattle. Not to be confused with the Mobile Food Rodeo, this one is free. Same general lineup as the Rodeo. Saturday October 8th and Sunday October 9th – Great Pumpkin Festival at Elysian Brewing in Georgetown. This year there will be 40+(!!!!) pumpkin beers. Can’t wait for this one. Tickets are available here, here or here.
Monday October 10th – my man crush, Alton Brown, returns to Seattle at the University Bookstore at 7 PM to promote his new book. Not a great venue and a really small space, so I will be getting there early.
Saturday October 22nd and Sunday October 23rd – the Northwest Chocolate Festival returns to the Seattle Center. Two days of chocolate overindulgence. Tickets available here.
FlatbreadGarden 