Featured Stories
- Recommended Asian Restaurants in the Seattle Area: Master ListHere’s a compilation of links to lists of my favorite Asian restaurants broken down into different categories.
- Published in Lucky Peach: A Dumpling Crawl Through Richmond, BCThis crawl will steer you toward some of Richmond’s gems while offering an introduction to the wide variety of dumplings available in the area.
- A Dream Trip to Chengdu, ChinaSomeone told me you come to China for food, but you come to Chengdu for flavor. I found plenty of flavor and fell in love with the city.
Jay Friedman is a freelance food writer and gastronaut—willing to travel the world for what he wants to eat. His work has been featured in publications like USA Today, Lucky Peach (RIP), Eater, and Serious Eats, to name a few. He’s been hailed as “Seattle’s authoritative voice on Asian cuisine,” and this website aggregates some of his writing about Asian restaurants from Seattle to Chengdu. But Gastrolust is much more, from burgers in Seattle to dining/travel guides throughout Washington state, the United States, and beyond.
Asian Food in Seattle
- Recommended Asian Restaurants in the Seattle Area: Master ListHere’s a compilation of links to lists of my favorite Asian restaurants broken down into different categories.
- Onibaba Devilishly Brings Rice Dishes to the Previous Tsukushinbo SpaceIt’s fitting that Onibaba, one of the most anticipated restaurants of the year, opened very quietly a week ago. Onibaba’s owners are famous — if that’s possible — for being publicity-adverse. For nearly three...
- Eric Banh on the Business of Vietnamese Food in SeattleBanh believes that Seattle is now the most sophisticated city in America for Vietnamese food.
Other Food in Seattle
- 17 Spots for Mind-Blowing Burgers in SeattleCompiled for Eater Seattle, here are my top recommendations for fast-food to gourmet burgers at places ranging from a dive bar to a butcher shop to an oyster house.
- Where to Get Dessert Near Pike Place Market in SeattlePike Place Market is a working market for locals as well as a central attraction for tourists and business travelers alike. There are plenty of places to satisfy your sweet tooth, but here’s where we recommend you start.
- 7 Places to Find Great Fried Chicken in SeattleFrom Southern-style gizzards to crackly Japanese karaage, Seattle is a fried chicken lover’s paradise. Here are seven of my favorite spots to satisfy your craving.
Washington State – Food & Travel
- Farms, Fermentation and Food-Related Fun on Vashon IslandAn easy escape from Seattle leads to some interesting food finds.
- A Food Lover’s Foray to BellinghamSituated between the culinarily sophisticated cities of Seattle and Vancouver/Richmond, is there good food to be found in Bellingham? Here are my finds.
- A Great-Tasting Overnight Getaway to OlympiaAn hour’s drive a world apart from Seattle, here are my suggestions of inexpensive eateries (everything under $10) and activities to consider in Olympia.
U.S. – Food & Travel
- Some Super Bites in StumptownHighlights included fantastic Thai food at Hat Yai, Middle Eastern food at Tusk, and super bites at SuperBite.
- Three Delicious Days in Las VegasYou don’t have to party to enjoy Vegas. People-watching provides lots of entertainment, and you can enjoy plenty of over-the-top pleasures as well. That includes great food from hole-in-the-wall to fine dining.
- A Little Overnight Trip to Lafayette, LouisianaA trip into Cajun country provides an interesting contrast to the urban party scene of New Orleans.
Canada – Food & Travel
- Published on Eater: My Recommended Restaurants in Richmond, BCEater Travel put together a first-ever list of the most dynamic food cities in the world right now, and I was honored to be invited to write about one of the nineteen.
- Three Delicious Days in VictoriaThe ever-improving food scene in Victoria continues to impress me. Here are some highlights of places to check out, plus more to do, in Victoria.
- Published in Lucky Peach: A Dumpling Crawl Through Richmond, BCThis crawl will steer you toward some of Richmond’s gems while offering an introduction to the wide variety of dumplings available in the area.
International – Food & Travel
- Return to Chengdu: A Photo-Heavy Food JourneyThis trip, like my last, offered the usual noodles, ma po tofu, and other spicy Sichuan dishes. But, as a bonus, I also had an amazing chance to shop and cook a few favorites.
- Published in Lucky Peach: A Guide to Chengdu Noodle DishesOne of my writing highlights of the year was my first published piece for Lucky Peach, which invited me to share my discovery of the wide variety of noodle dishes in Chengdu, China.
- A Fast Feeding Frenzy in Shanghai, as Chronicled on FacebookFrom xiao long bao to hongshao rou to delicious sesame wontons and sesame noodles.
Miscellaneous
- Continuation of My Coffee EducationI had good equipment and a good sense of what kind of coffee I like. But how to describe it? Stumped, I went to Stumptown, and then explored other coffee places around the continent.
- The Mein Man Makes Biang-Biang NoodlesI’ve obviously exhibited a lot of enthusiasm lately for hot oil-seared biang-biang noodles. They’re addictively delicious! So, I’ve wondered, why not make them myself? Here’s the start of the journey…
- Spice, Sex, and Censorship (My Second Censored Story for Edible Seattle)This is the second article of mine that Edible Seattle‘s publisher censored due to his discomfort with sex, resulting in my departure from the magazine. See the first, and further explanation, here. Is variety...