Gastrolust

I was delighted to be invited to Sleeping Lady Mountain Resort in Leavenworth to experience the Taste of the Valley package this past summer. What a wonderful way to close the loop on a culinary/agri-tourism trip that had already taken me to Portland, Yakima Valley, SageCliffe’s Cave B Inn, and the Wenatchee Valley. A Thursday [...]

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I’m at the new South Lake Union location of Flying Fish (reviewed three months ago by our Jason Sheehan) when the server sets down an enormous platter of crabs. Crabs! This sex educator thinks back to those scary VD movies of yesteryear. But making this connection would be too easy, too obvious, and too scary [...]

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You’re looking at the dish that won Best of Show at the second annual Lamb Jam Seattle. Chef Mark Bodinet (pictured, right) of Copperleaf Restaurant at Cedarbrook Lodge took the overall prize and also a win in the “Shoulder” category for his grilled lamb shoulder confit with preserved huckleberries and creamy parsnips. As the winner, [...]

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When I went to Betty recently, my dining companion and I got two different versions of the dinner menu. “The Parmesan pudding looks interesting,” I kept saying, but she couldn’t find it on her menu, and wasn’t getting excited by the sound of it. I repeated the line, then realizing the potential selling point, added, [...]

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With so much attention on new restaurant openings in Seattle and Bellevue, I find myself focusing on old favorites that, for some, have fallen off the radar. One of my favorites is just a bit out of the Seattle/Bellevue scene: Trellis, located in Kirkland’s Heathman Hotel. When I learned that Trellis’ Chef Brian Scheehser would [...]

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I didn’t have the same amount of time to spend as I did in the Yakima Valley, but after an overnight at Cave B Inn at SageCliffe, a drive through the Wenatchee Valley en route to my final stop of Leavenworth gave me a few hours of agri-tourism pleasure. As it should. Wenatchee Valley takes [...]

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Everywhere I go these days, people are talking about a new palace of pleasure that’s opened in Ballard. So I went. And I swear: Going to D’Ambrosio Gelato is like paying a visit to a popular brothel. A very popular brothel. What I’d heard was true: There’s typically a line of people trying to get [...]

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The SageCliffe website says it best: Where the Columbia River carves through the sunny center of Washington State, there is a destination. A place where you can experience all that the land has to offer. A place where you can share a glass of wine with the winemaker, savor seasonal, regional foods, be moved by [...]

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Once upon a time, there was a food writer who happened to be a sex educator. Always hoping for pleasure, he went out to satisfy his longing for Latino food. Pretty soon, he came upon three restaurants. At the first, he placed an order for a burrito. He was hungry. It arrived, and he took [...]

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When I heard that Jacob Wiegner, the former sous chef at Olivar, had opened a place called Blackboard Bistro in West Seattle, I had a hunch it would be good. And a desire to quickly head over for lunch. Yes, the menu is written up on blackboards. On those blackboards, I liked the humor with [...]

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