Seattle Foodie Moments

My wife and I recently spent a fun and relaxing weekend in Seattle, where we enjoyed many interesting sights, sounds, and activities. We visited many of the tourist hotspots, like the Pike Place Market, Space Needle, Museum of Flight, Pacific Science Center, and more! Along the way, we indulged in our beloved hobby - eating - and collected some fond foodie memories. Here are a few of our favorite foodie moments from Seattle.

Since my wife is a rabid fan of Starbucks, it was absolutely mandatory that we visit the original Starbucks store, located in the world-famous Pike Place Market. Upon arriving at Starbucks, we encountered a group of very talented street performers standing right by the entrance, who regaled visitors and passers-by with their spirited a capella renditions of old R&B classics, such as "Cupid" by the Spinners:


Inside Starbucks, we ooh'd and aah'd at the renowned pig made out of coffee beans:


We found our way to the Pike Place Fish Market. This market is famous for its "flying fish", which refers to the way employees pass fish to each other by throwing them (sometimes at distances of over 20 feet) rather than just handing them off. Customers are often invited to try their hand at catching a flying fish. The young lady below (wearing a black T-shirt) gamely tried, but was unsuccessful. "But I caught a fin!" she said.


Seattle's Museum of Flight features some truly marvelous flying machines, such as the ones shown below...


...but one exhibit really caught our attention, and that was the space food consumed by the early astronauts and cosmonauts:


The Soviet cosmonauts ate canned foods and vegetable paste which they squeezed out of tubes (not the most appetizing menu):


The US astronauts didn't fare much better, as they also had to eat out of tubes:


We had to get our Asian food fix somehow, so we headed off to the Great Wall Asian Mall:


Inside the mall we found this charming little model of the Taj Mahal:


And we also found a place that's a very familiar sight to us - 99 Ranch Market. 99 Ranch Market is an Asian supermarket chain that is very popular in our home, the San Francisco Bay Area. We buy a lot of Asian foods there including Filipino longganisa sausages and Vietnamese pho noodles. We were pleased (but not entirely surprised) to see that they had established a presence in Seattle as well:


There are quite a number of Asian restaurants in the mall. After looking around, we decided to go with the Edokko Japanese Restaurant.


We ordered bento (combination of meat, vegetables, and rice served in a box). My bento had beef and tempura while my wife had chicken and sashimi. The meal was okay, but nothing really special.


We weren't the only foodies gorging ourselves in Seattle. At the butterfly habitat of the Pacific Science Center (right next to the iconic Space Needle), we saw a bunch of hungry butterflies going absolutely gaga over some rather nasty-looking bananas - while ignoring the perfectly good orange right next to them. Oh well, as long as they're happy...

Tanto

While I was searching around for a good Japanese restaurant, one place stood out by being unanimously recommended by every Japanese person I know: Tanto in Sunnyvale. So I was pretty excited to join a group of friends for dinner there.


Inside, I immediately felt comfy with the hip and cozy interiors:


Next came a parade of delectable dishes. We started off our feast with some tuna sashimi, which was excellent. The meat was fresh and tender with absolutely no fishy smell:


We also had buta kimuchi (pork with kimchi). Being the wimp that I am when it comes to spicy foods, I appreciated the fact that the kimchi had just the right level of spiciness - mild yet zesty:


Other lovely morsels we enjoyed were...

...tori kara-age (deep fried chicken nuggets):


...dashimaki tamago (rolled egg omelet):


...kushi katsu (deep fried pork on skewers):


...yaki nigiri (grilled rice balls). I adore this dish. The crisp, crunchy, tasty rice ball exterior is a joy to bite into, revealing the delightful insides which have a soft texture and flavor:


...ebi shinjo (deep fried shrimp balls):


...salmon and ikura (salmon eggs) salad:


It was really cool to go there with a good-sized group of people (there were 6 of us), because it allowed us to order more dishes and enjoy a wider variety of Tanto's delicious treats. I'll try to assemble an even larger group next time ;-)

7-Eleven in Taiwan

In my previous post I named 7-Eleven as the last place where I would want to buy anything (particularly food). For me 7-Eleven is the store of last resort - it's a place that I would visit only when every other store is closed.

However, according to my Taiwanese friends (which includes my Taiwanese wife), in Taiwan 7-Eleven is the first place they would go to for their shopping and food needs. 7-Eleven is hugely popular in Taiwan, and during my visit to Taiwan I found out why:

The stores are very clean and well-lit, with attractive interior decor and pleasant background music. They offer very fresh and tasty food items like bento (boxed lunches), sandwiches, noodles, pastries and desserts. They also have a multitude of really cute and fun toys for kids, which is why kids in Taiwan get excited at the idea of visiting 7-Eleven! In contrast, when was the last time you saw an American kid go ga-ga over 7-Eleven?

It's all in the way the 7-Eleven stores are managed and marketed over there.

Cafe Won Kee

There are places where I go to eat not because I like the food, but simply out of convenience. 7-Eleven is a prime example - although I think their sandwiches are appalling, when my IT job causes me to stagger out of the office at 3am feeling ravenously hungry, it's off to 7-Eleven I go. On such occasions, I wistfully wonder if good food and convenience are mutually exclusive. Fortunately, there are places where one can have both - Cafe Won Kee Chinese restaurant in Milpitas is such a place.


I find Won Kee to be very convenient because their service is really fast and they don't take an afternoon break between lunch and dinnertime. It's one of my favorite places to go for a quick lunch after 3pm, when most other restaurants are closed. On top of the convenience, the food is quite good too. I usually go for one of the rice plates - which are large, tasty, and served steaming hot (usually arriving within a few minutes after I order). Among my favorites are:

Beef with tender greens:


Beef with egg:


My wife likes the spicy beef noodles:


My wife and I were intrigued when we saw that they offered snake soup, so we decided to give it a try:


The snake kinda tastes like chicken, although it was hard to really taste the snake meat since the soup contained too much ginger, which overpowered the flavor of all the other ingredients.

I'm also a big fan of their roasted duck. I brought one of these birds to a potluck and it got rave reviews.


It's also fun to meet the aquatic life that lurk in the fish tanks at Won Kee, like this handsome fellow:

The Occasional Burger

Just because I'm an Asian Food Fanatic, doesn't mean I don't enjoy a good, juicy burger and fries every now and then. I particularly like Red Robin's "Royal Red Robin" burger which has bacon, eggs, cheese, and lettuce - everything a growing boy (like me?) needs. It's like a hearty breakfast on a bun, and makes for a nice brunch.


As I gorged myself on my huge burger, my wife enjoyed her grilled chicken platter, which was pretty good too.