Gastrolust

Staying on the subject of beans, and since I’ll be in Tokyo in just a few weeks, I wanted to share some cute (and yet strangely disturbing) bean-promoting ads from Japan. In each, a dog (shiba) bean (mame) magically appears, giving some factual trivia that’s not so pleasing to the person who’s eating. Here are three [...]

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Finally, one last note from last month’s trip to Kentucky. Just days before my travel, I read a New York Times article about a man making microbrewed soy sauce in Louisville. I did a double-take. Louisville? I had to visit. Matt Jamie is a chef and founder of Bourbon Barrel Foods, and it seems his production [...]

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Sound enters the fusion food fight and emerges with Seattle’s best Wanna have some foodie fun? Go to Chowhound’s Pacific Northwest message board, ask for opinions about Wild Ginger, and watch a virtual food fight break out. People will passionately toss out terms like “fake Asian” versus “the real thing,” debating whether fusion fare is [...]

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Last month, we were in Castine, Maine, savoring a lobster roll sandwich not far from where the crustaceans are caught. Not much atmosphere: picnic tables, self-service, wet naps, and static-filled music from a portable radio. But the sandwich was good. We knew it would be a whole different story at Waterfront Seafood Grill’s Lobsterpalooza: comfortable [...]

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Ramen was what I really wanted, but it was sold out. More on that another time. Dejected, my dining companion and I left the restaurant, strolled out to the street, and ended up at another one: Fuji Sushi. She ordered the katsudon: deep-fried pork cutlet (tonkatsu) simmered in dashi then cooked with egg, served over [...]

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Have you heard the ad war between Tulalip Casino Resort and the just-opening Snoqualmie Casino? Snoqualmie sure faces a challenge to be number one, as there’s lots of fun at Tulalip. Take, for example, Tulalip’s luxury hotel. There are 370 guestrooms and suites; I got a look inside some of those suites, including the Pan-Asian, [...]

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Wow. People really wait for eggs. We’d heard the line builds early, and last weekend, we saw it. We went to the University District Farmers Market to wait in line at the Skagit River Ranch booth for some highly coveted, organic eggs from free-range chickens. Everyone raved about how delicious they are, how the yolks [...]

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Looking beyond French toast for the city’s best brunch In his gritty Kitchen Confidential, Anthony Bourdain describes brunch as “punishment block for the ‘B’-Team cooks” who salvage “old, nasty odds and ends” to create dishes that sometimes include hollandaise, which he warns “is a veritable petri-dish of biohazards.” For this month’s Dish-Off, I set off [...]

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It seems time for the yearly Seattlest commentary on Paseo Caribbean Restaurant. But since they’re on their annual winter leave, this Seattlester traveled nearly 3,000 miles in search of a comparable Cuban sandwich. The destination: Miami’s El Palacio de los Jugos. The dish: a Medianoche. So how does Seattle’s sandwich stack up to a real [...]

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Finally time to report back on my one good meal during my family trip to the New York City area: lunch at Momofuku Ssam Bar. After most of my family left town, and now with a little more culinary control, I suggested to my brother that we sneak into the city for late lunch at [...]

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