My boyfriend and I are taking a trip to Seattle and I want to take him on a birthday dinner. We both love good food and interesting dining experiences…tapas, not medieval time. Money, etc, doesn’t matter, but nothing stiff. Does anyone have any suggestions for a good, fun, interesting, regional restaurant in Seattle?
When I visit Seattle and I want something fun and interesting I go to the U district. I’m sure a local will be along in just a few to give you some particulars.
Hmm, where to begin…
Here are some of my favorites.
Wild Ginger - This place has great seafood and appetizers. They have this sea bass appetizer which is out of this world. Very cool bar and a trendy place to hangout if you are into that.
Brasa - Very good Mediteranian (mostly North African) food. Not in the best neighborhood, but a quick walk to one of the nightlife-areas called Belltown
Marjorie - A new place getting good reviews.
El Gaucho - High-end steak place, but get the tuna steaks which are killer. In the above mentioned Belltown.
Machiavelli - an inexpensive little Italian restaurant with some of the best food around. It’s a favorite place of my wife and I.
Pink Door - Another little hidden Italian place with excellant ambience and awesome food.
Also, check this article out:
Seattle Magazine Best Restaurants - http://www.seattlemagazine.com/bestrestaurants.asp
P.S. Don’t go to the Space Needle restaurant. It’s known as the “Denny’s in the Sky.”
Three more to the excellent list above:
The best Korean place in Seattle is north of the city on highway 99 in a strip mall. Hosoonyl restaurant has great food, and a very informal atmosphere, and fair prices. Lunches are outstanding, but you may have to wait outside a while for dinner.
Also, a Persian restaurant called Kolbeh just south of downtown and Safeco Field (baseball stadium) on 1st Avenue has great food, atmosphere, and service.
Finally, Kabul Afghan is on N. 45 in the hip Wallingford neighborhood, over the freeway west of the university district (the U district is pretty crummy these days). Hearty cuisine and cozy atmosphere.
Enjoy your visit, Seattle is lots of fun.
There was a Dopefest a few years back at a place called, IIRC, Two Dagos from Texas. (It wasn’t in the Yellow Pages under that name, but “Two <something else> from Texas”.) Good food and not too expensive. I think Thursday was biker night, so that might be an interesting time to go.
Still there, in the Belltown area. At least I hope it’s there!
2600 1st Ave
Seattle, WA 98121
206-441-7714
Muy delicious!
I also recommend Cyclops, in the Belltown area:
Two Dagos rocks. It’s not cheap, and not everything on the menu is great, but you can’t go wrong with the thai pasta. Or the lamb chipotle pasta. Or a number of other things.
Also recommended: Restaurant Zoë in Belltown, the Asteroid Cafe in Wallingford, or any of the Chow Foods restaurants (5 restaurants, 5 neighborhoods, all tasty).
Since moving to Seattle (from the other side of the state) in '98, I’ve adopted Gorditos as my favorite place to eat authentic mexican food. Their burritos qualify as hearty meals, and it’s cheap! They also serve bottled beers, if you like. Family run restaurant, pleasant atmosphere. Closed on Tuesdays. If you live in Seattle and haven’t been there yet, we should meet up in Greenwood sometime so’s I can slap ya.
Respectfully, I would tend to suggest that you not go this route. As a one time insider, let me just state that some of the events that I have seen in the back kitchens are less than wholesome.
On the positive recommendation side, I can suggest Blue C Sushi in Freemont. I just tried them for the first time yesterday and found it pretty tasty. It’s one of those places with the big conveyer belts that goes around and around and you pick stuff off that you want. Also, you could go see the Troll when you are finished.
Oh, so many choices…
Two Dagos rocks. Kinda low on ambiance, makes up for it in awesome food. I think Randy (the chef) makes the best seafood in the city. He gets it fresh, cooks it fresh. Save room for desert, if you can. He got the recipe for Belgian chocolate mousse from the chef to the King of Belguim. His white chocolate mousse made me change my mind about white chocolate. As you may have guessed, I was the originator of the Dopefest at the Dagos.
For great food in a lovely romanitc atmosphere, try Chez Shea across from the Pike Place market. Spendy but lovely. Way spendy but high end gourmet and worth it is Rover’s. Wow, just wow.
There are several Tapas places. There’s one in the Wallingford neighborhood, whose name I can’t remember. A terrific place is called Cactus and is in a neighborhood called Madison Valley. Then, after you have stuffed youselves silly on tapas, southwestern food, and margaritas (it works, trust me), you can walk it off down by Lake Washington.
Kabul is fantastic, one of my favorite places in the city. If you’re going on a weekend you might want to try to make a reservation - I don’t know if they take them. They make the best lamb I’ve had in Seattle, as well as amazing vegetarian dishes. They do a thing with eggplant that is too good to describe with mere words.
Just let us know if you want more ideas.
Binarydrone: part of me wants more details, and part of me doesn’t want my trips to 5 Spot spoiled. Gimme the dirt!
On the other hand, the peach cobbler is not very good. If you save room for dessert, stick with the mousses.
Were you thinking of the one in Wallingford Center? That one’s been out of business for a while now, replaced by Au Buchon, a reasonably good (but slow) French place.
I’ll second/third/whatever the recommendations for Blue C Sushi and Kabul, as well. Also: if you like Thai, Tup Tim Thai in Queen Anne is hard to beat. And there’s a relatively new Indian place in Fremont, Qazis, which has become one of our favorite inexpensive dining places. The chicken tikka masala is especially good, as is their naan.
That’s me sweetie above. Yes, Two Dagos and Kabul are both excellent.
I’ll also throw in a reference for Calypso, which is on 80th and Roosevelt in the Maple Leaf neighborhood (north of the U District). They do Caribbean cuisine. A little on the spendy side, and definitely small and very crowded on busy nights, but just wonderful.
Er, me sweetie is herownself, not Punctuation Boy. Just in case anybody was confused.
Ok- I am now disappointed. One of my agencies hosted us in Seattle and I was just there for a week about two weeks ago.
I have not gone to these cool restaurants. I went to Saltys at Alki and yes, the Space Needle. Armando’s was quiet and well priced Italian in the old town portion of Seattle.
Damn, now I want to go back and eat at the right places.
I cannot really speak for the 5 Spot, as I worked for Coastal Kitchen on 15th. I will say that I never saw anything that I would classify as outright gross, or any kind of a health risk. Just that in general I did not see the care and reverence to food that I would have liked.
Generally speaking, the food seems more like lowish end comfort food rather than something that I would suggest for a special treat.
As an aside, given that I work in Freemont and you seem to eat here quite a bit, I wonder how many times I have seem a fellow Doper on the street and not know it.
I had my birthday dinner this week at Carmelita- a vegan/vegetarian place in Greenwood. It’s somewhat upscale but has really interesting ambiance and great, unusual food. One of my favorites.
Interrobang!?, the Tapas place I was thinking of in Wallingford was closer to Kabul, not in Wallingford Center. It may not be there any more. But I think it was Tapas and a wine bar.
Check out Thirteen Coins. It claims to be Seattle’s only gourmet 24-hour restaurant. It’s a fun place, not cheap, but with these great high-backed thrones when you sit at the counter and watch the cooks prepare the food.
Be sure NOT to eat at the Space Needle restaurant. My $0.17 ramen lunch was tastier than the crap they serve there.
How could no one mention the Metropolitan Grill? If I recall correctly, they are one of the top 10 steak houses in the US (forget who issued the award). Anyways, the food is amazing. Check this link for more info: