One of my favorite things about flying, and I know this sounds totally dorky, is reading the in-flight magazine. And since I fly US Airways 90% of the time, I’ve gotten to know it well. I look forward to the two different crosswords and the two sudokus. I also look forward to the one food column in there written by John Edge. So I’m reading it, and the January column coincidentally happens to be about How To Cook A Wolf, a restaurant in Seattle. He raved about it, so you know what? I went!

The place is fairly teeny tiny, it can’t possibly sit more than 25-35 people. They don’t take reservations either. Their menu is small. The place was packed when I went, but there was one little spot for me at the counter. Right by the door, of course. But since I didn’t have any other options, I grabbed it! It’s very moody, dark, yet warm. The counter is made of cork and the facade is natural stone. The ceiling is lined with pine. It’s adorable.

I guess you would consider this place a tapas type restaurant. It’s definitely a small plates and sharing place. And a wine bar. Tons of wine. Everybody seemed to be some type of sommelier who worked there. They were very into their wine. The crowd is also rather… older. And fancy. Everyone was dressed up and sophisticated looking. And then I walked in with my t-shirt and jeans, plus I wasn’t 50-years old. Even though I know I wasn’t actually the youngest person in there (since I’m deceptively young looking), I still looked like I was the youngest person there, by far. Like 30 years far. But they were still very nice to me.Onto the food! Since it was only me, I couldn’t order tons of stuff and share it, so I went with one recommendation from the article, and one that I would have picked anyway. So the first dish was soft-boiled eggs with anchovy mayonnaise. Yes folks, hard boiled eggs. Sounds boring, right? You have no idea how amazing these eggs were! I mean the concept is so simple. Soft boiled eggs so the yolks are still a bit soft, cut them in half, squeeze a bit of anchovy flavored mayo on top of the eggs, and throw some little herbs on them while you’re at it. Doesn’t seem particularly exciting or enticing, but these were some of the best things I’ve ever tasted. Seriously.Ok, so then I ordered the scallops. They were seared and served with garbanzos, golden raisins, and hummus with a vinaigrette . Very simple yet perfectly prepared. It doesn’t seem like I ate that much food, but I was definitely full. I wanted some dessert anyway, and the server recommended the homemade sorbet. No pic, as it was just three scoops of sorbet in a bowl. I was surprised it wasn’t decorated at all with a mint leaf or something, but it was quite delicious. Just light enough that it didn’t make me much more full than I was.

Just a few notes… I was sitting next to a raucous party and they were getting tons of food. Among them, the beet salad. They just kept going on and on about it, so as as note to yourself, try the beet salad. I kinda wished I’d had more capacity in my belly and had room for that. But I can only gorge so much. So if you’re in the mood for an amazing and slightly sophisticated meal, stop here, get your name on the list, and eventually get to eat. You will wait! But it’ll all be worth it.

Whenever I’m going to a different city, I like to do a little restaurant research on Yelp. Yes, I yelp. I find it super handy wherever I go. It’s not spot on all the time, but I’ve eaten at many great places because of it. I trust it like someone might trust zagat’s, except it’s free, which makes it even better. One of the spots I found on this trip was Betty, in Seattle’s Queen Anne neighborhood. One key facet of this restaurant and why I chose it is that it has a chef’s counter, so you can not only feel comfortable that a place is confident enough to have an open kitchen, but you can literally watch your food being made. This sounded perfect to me. Betty has a small menu, which I find to be a smart idea. If you can only cook a few dishes all the time and cook them perfectly, I’d choose that over a giant menu where everything is done half ass. They have 3 chefs, two who do the hot food, and one who seems to stick to salads, sides, and final prepping of the plates before they go out. I’ve been watching Kitchen Nightmares lately, so I find watching a working professional kitchen to be fascinating. And it was amazing to watch such a well-oiled machine that was the Betty kitchen. They barely talked, but it’s like they didn’t have to. They all just knew what to do, and they never missed a beat. There was no yelling, no freaking out, just calm cooking. While I waited for my food and watched all the other food being cooked, I munched on some bread. It was a little crusty this night, but I did a good job of scooping out the soft insides. And I loved the simple balsamic olive oil dip.I got a warm spinich salad as an appetizer. This salad is pretty big and could probably be a good meal on its own. It’s tossed in a sherry vinaigrette and also has bacon, onion, and egg. This was a good salad, and I especially enjoyed the egg. It was sprinkled with a tiny bit of salt and pepper which made them just perfect. You can tell everything is fresh here. I saw them take everything out of the fridge, and nothing was frozen. Everything is cooked to order, except for the lasagna which is precooked. All the sides are made to order. And speaking of sides, I was watching one of the chefs intently, and I’ve never seen anyone use so much butter in my entire life. It seemed like he just kept adding and adding and adding and adding, and I had no idea where it kept going. Not the bastion of health, so for those of you looking for a lite meal, keep on moving. They have a $30 fixed priced menu during the week, which is a great deal. I decided to go with the fish of the day, which was a whole trout stuffed with fennel and lemon. Here’s some of the trout on the grill. I told you that I watched my food get cooked. I really did.
This fish was so simple and so good. They really didn’t do anything to it, and they didn’t have to. Fresh fish is pretty much good on its own, or with maybe just a touch of salt and pepper and maybe a little squeeze of lemon. It was grilled just right, not overcooked at all, so the fish was flaky and hearty. The lemon and fennel on the inside added just a touch of flavor. They left the skin on, and the skin got crispy and made each bite even better. I thought about taking it off, but after I got my first bite, I left it all on. After the big salad, I couldn’t eat too much of the fish. But trust me, this is a pretty sizeable portion. After all, it is a whole entire fish. The accompanying potatoes were also pretty good. I wouldn’t have minded if they’d cooked it just a bit more.
Service was ok. When you sit at the chef’s counter, it’s cool because the chefs serve you themselves. They make it and then blammo, they give you the plate. I like this lack of middle man. The only service issue of note was that while I ordered a lemonade, it didn’t come out until after I’d gotten my salad, which was way after I’d gotten my bread. It certainly shouldn’t have taken that long. Be aware that the food here does not come out quickly. This is not factory chain restaurant. Everything is cooked to order so it takes time. So it’s a place to come and hang out, enjoy a drink, enjoy good company, and eventually, enjoy some great food.

For my first full day in the burbs of Seattle, my new boss and his wife took me into Kirkland (home of Costco!) to eat on the water at Anthony’s. Kirkland is a fairly large suburb and has mad shopping and dining. We were in a fairly bustling area, and just driving through, there were countless eating options. Kirkland, I’m a bit jealous of you.

For those of you that have visited the pacific nw, Anthony’s operates a couple of different flavors of seafood restaurants. It seems to be pretty exclusively in the pacific nw, so sorry to those of you not living here or visiting. I went to an Anthony’s once in Oregon years ago. This particular anthony’s in Kirkland is on the water, so you an see all the boats docked and see across the water to all the lit up buildings in Seattle. It’s a seafood joint, and whence you’re in Seattle, you should definitely partake of the seafood, or at least that’s my philosophy. It’s a fairly upscale place, but not snooty. We weren’t super dressed up or anything.

I’ve been on a scallop kick lately, so I went with the scallops. I was expecting maybe 3 big grilled scallops, but instead, I got a bunch of little ones, that were peculiarly battered. I did not expect batter on the scallops at all. We were all surprised. The rice had golden raisins in it. I’m usually not into raisins, especially not in rice, but I didn’t mind these at all. But I ate them separately, so that’s probably why. The beans were lovely. Overall, it was good, but the scallops were a bit too buttery. Yes, I said it, too buttery. As if that’s a bad thing, but in this case, it was a little bit too much butter!
I was pretty much overstuffed from just my entree, but they had this crazy thing called “slump” on the dessert menu. And to top it off, it was huckleberry. I’d never had huckleberry in my life, so I had to try it. Huckleberry grows best wild in the pacific nw, so I ended up seeing it several times on various menus during my visit. Other than this trip, I’d never encountered it before. It pretty much tastes like blueberry, but a bit sweeter. And what is slump? It’s just another name for cobbler, and I love me some cobbler. We asked the waitress how big the slump was, and she made it seem tiny. Then we ordered it and it was huge. It could so easily have been shared by at least 2, if not three people. I barely made a dent in mine! Service was quite good, the view even better.