Gastrolust

Sound’s Search for the Year’s Top Chef
The World Series, an amazing election, and now time to crown a “top chef.” The three best “Dish-Off” winners of the year were willing participants in a playoff, but what about a theme? I wanted something abstract, and with Sound a music magazine…how about “Rock ‘n’ Roll”? When the [...]

[Read more →]

It’s New Year’s eve in Tokyo, and traditionally a time to eat noodles to ensure a long and healthy life.
The noodle of choice would be toshikoshi (year-bridging) soba, but this year (I’ve spent six of the last seven New Year eves in Tokyo), I’ve been invited for fine dining in a  French restaurant. So, as [...]

[Read more →]

Seattle chefs fulfill Sound’s burning desire for chili peppers
Pow. Zap. Bam. When it comes to heat, I’m a superhero. I love spice, from subtle to strong—even with recent reports of a man’s death from eating a plate of hot chili sauce. So for this month’s Dish-Off, I say bring it on. Sound invited three restaurants [...]

[Read more →]

Blogging about food should be beautifully descriptive, but as my time in Taiwan has been full of frantic feasting, there’s been little opportunity to tell all about it. It’s now 5am my final morning here, and I’m sitting in room at the Grand Hyatt (feeling like I can reach out the window and touch the [...]

[Read more →]

Welcome to winter. If the wild weather has got you down, a wonderful way to combat the cold is to warm up with tea service at Polar Bar in the Arctic Club Hotel.
While tea service is steep at $39 per person, it’s a great way to wile away a lunchtime or early afternoon. We like [...]

[Read more →]

Look up the definition of “hot-to-trot” and you’ll find two sets of meanings: (1) willing and eager and (2) sexually exciting.
To us, hot pot is both.
All the recent hot pot talk on food message boards and in the local and national newspapers tempted us to do a turkey trot to Seven Stars Pepper (at 12th [...]

[Read more →]

The chefs show off their shellfish
As a kid, I’d comb the beach for the best shells. They were my treasures. Never did I imagine that years later I’d treasure what’s inside those shells: mussels, oysters, clams and scallops. The tastes and textures of these bivalves delight me. So for this month’s Dish-Off, three restaurants accepted [...]

[Read more →]

When out-of towners come to Seattle and ask where to eat, I often direct them to Vietnamese restaurants. I think our city is special for that. We’ve got great pho joints, Vietnamese delis, regular restaurants—and that’s just in the Little Saigon/International District.
Eric Banh and sister Sophie are building a little Vietnamese empire outside of the [...]

[Read more →]

One of the downsides of being a restaurant/food reviewer/blogger/writer (whatever you call this!) is that when there’s a night off from a planned meal out, I usually want to cook something at home – whether simple or complex. This probably sounds like a strange complaint to some, but I rarely choose my own restaurant and [...]

[Read more →]

We’ve been We were watching the price of Cascadia’s happy hour hamburgers climb steadily. They were the best bargain at a buck each, but then doubled to two and are now, what, like ten bucks each? (Sadness obscures sanity.)
Walk the other way from Pike Place Market, and if you can deal with a chain restaurant, [...]

[Read more →]