Strolling in Seattle – a culinary walking tour
September 27th, 2010 by Pokin Posted in Places to See, What to do | View CommentsWelcome! If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. Thanks for visiting! =)
Despite living in Vancouver, Canada for a number of years, I have to admit I didn’t really know Seattle very well at all.
By chance I ended up in Seattle this weekend on the tail end of a trip to Alaska, and decided that now would be a fine time to get to know the city. Since I love food and travel, what better way to combine the two and experience the city than to take a culinary walking tour?
A quick search around, and I signed up for the “Gourmet Seattle Tour” offered by Savor Seattle Food Tours. I also managed to rope a few friends into coming along for the ride so we could try it out together.
Sitting in the Mayflower Park Hotel
So at 2:00pm on a fine Sunday afternoon (after a super wet rainy morning), we gathered in the lobby of the Mayflower Park Hotel where our guide, Brett was waiting. We did some brief intros, and were then handed out some earpieces so we could continue to hear Brett’s narration even if we weren’t right in front of him – a very nice touch!
Shortly after, we were on our way.
First stop -
Andaluca Restaurant
407 Olive Way
Dishes sampled: House Sangria and Crispy Duck Cakes
Located right inside the Mayflower Park Hotel, Andaluca offers a selection of Mediterranean dishes drawing inspiration everywhere from Spain to North Africa. Their small dishes are named “Pintxos”, which I learned is the Northern Spain equivalent of tapas. We got to sample the Crispy Duck Cake, which was a ground duck rolled in bulghur served on top of some cucumber raita and some apricots. Brett suggested that the taste resembles a falafel, which I agree.
I think my preference would have been larger juicier pieces of duck meat inside a falafelesque coating rather than ground up duck, but it did taste good when you got all three items (cake + raita + apricot) in one bite.
Crispy Duck Cake
The house sangria that we tried is apparently a two day process. They boil down fruits such as pears and apples alongside some christmasy spices before adding wine and letting it soak. Other fruits such as strawberries are added later in the process. I’d had sangria plenty of times before, but never knew how they made it traditionally, so that was pretty cool.
Alvin & Katy enjoying some house sangria
Serious Pie
316 Virginia Street
Dishes sampled: Margherita (Buffalo mozzarella, Tomato), Chanterelle mushroom with truffle cheese
Our next stop was one of Tom Douglas’ many restaurants. Tom Douglas is one of Seattle’s celebrity chefs, and he has competed on Iron Chef (and won), plus has been featured on Top Chef. Serious Pie is his pizza joint, and take note, it’s the only one of his restaurants that doesn’t accept reservations!
Apparently you judge a pizzeria by their Margherita pizza, so that’s what we sampled first, followed by the Chanterelle mushroom pizza that was dubbed “The Best Thing I Ever Ate” by Tyler Florence. I liked that the crust was light, fluffy and had a good crunch, and I definitely really liked the truffle taste on the second pizza. I probably would have better appreciated the first one too if the cheese on my slice was still intact after the slices were torn apart.
The popularity of the restaurant was well deserved, although we were a bit cramped sitting in the waiting area since there were no available seats in the restaurant for us. Apparently we were even lucky to have that space as Brett informed us many-a-time his tours would sit and eat their pizzas side-walk style, which, if it had been raining as hard as it was that morning would not have been all that fun!
Our tour continues down near Pike Place Market, where our guide continues to exhibit his skill at walking and talking backwards. For just about the entire tour, up the hill, down another steep one, around corners, Brett managed to tread backwards without tripping. He even managed to multi-task holding a pink tour umbrella into the mix as we waded deeper into the Pike Place market crowd.
Bravo on that feat!
Double bravo on pulling off posing with the pink umbrella with bravado!
Brett’s pink umbrella makes him easy to find
La Buona Tavola
1524 Pike Place
Dishes sampled: Potato soup with truffle oil, olive bruschetta, truffle salt, white truffle paste
On the tails of a truffle pizza, our next stop was La Buona Tavola, also dubbed the truffle cafe. Aptly so as truffle features quite prominently in their products.
I was a little quizzical about a retail shop as a stop at first, figuring that we’d mostly be sampling restaurant dishes. I ended up enjoying my experience though. Rei Hanscomb, the owner is a very bubbly person, and it was a fun ritual to watch her hand out samples of her potato soup, have us taste the soup pre-truffle, then watch as she squeezed a few eyedrops of truffle oil into our soup cup one after another in turn. As we stood and sipped on our soup, she explained “shiny eye”, which is her way of telling if something is good or not. Following the soup, we had pieces of toast with an olive bruschetta (sans truffle) before returning right back to truffle tasting with her truffle salt, which did indeed pack a truffle punch. I liked it enough to buy some. 
Il Bistro
93A Pike street
Dish tasted: Risotto de la mer
After od’ing on truffle, we continued our tour to Il Bistro, which opened up its premises just for our tour. Brett continued to show his backward walking prowess by going down a steep cobbled street to where Il Bistro was tucked away in a corner of Pike Place Market. It was kinda nice sitting in an empty restaurant all to ourselves. We were served a seafood risotto with some clams paired with a glass of red wine. Since the restaurant is guaranteed open till 2:00am daily, it’s apparently a known hangout spot for the restaurant industry after their restaurants shut down every night.
Pike Brewing Company
1415 1st Avenue
Beer sampled: Kilt Lifter, Tandem
Continuing our tour, we stop at Pike Brewing Company located right inside Pike Place Market. I’m really not a beer fan, so I least looked forward to this stop. We got a quick explanation of the making of beer before sitting down at a table with two samples of beer. Meanwhile, I jealously eyed the two non beer samples that two of the fellow tour-mates were served (they got cider.) I was tempted to ask for the same but figured if I’m here I better try the beer. In all fairness, I did like the first beer better than I like most beers, and it was entertaining passing all our leftover beer on to Alvin.
ART Restaurant
99 Union Street
Dishes sampled: Mini burgers, Dry Soda – Kumquat flavour
I knew it would be something fun when Brett informed us that our next stop would be at the Four Seasons where we’d be served burgers and soda. Onward and out of Pike Market, over the street and into the Four Seasons Hotel we went, past the lobby through the restaurant and toward to their private dining area we trekked, where we were served the cutest mini burgers ever complete with cute mini condiment dishes and mini spoons. Alongside each mini burger was a not so mini glass of soda. The burgers are a great deal – apparently 3 for $6 during happy hour, and I found them pretty moist, though having sampled pretty tasty sliders in Palo Alto they weren’t blow-my-mind outstanding. The soda was a pretty cool find. I like having carbonated beverages with my dinner, and sometimes they can be too sweet. This was a nice subtle tasting fizzy beverage.
I was excited to discover Four Seasons offers a cheese buffet – $12 for all you can eat cheese, but was dismayed to learn it was only offered in Seattle at the ART Restaurant. Hopefully they will still have that my next trip in. I heart cheese in a big way.
Japonessa
1400 1st Ave
Dishes sampled: Buddha Roll, Green Tea Tiramisu
Our final stop of the tour was Japonessa. Depending on the day of the week, the tour stops at a gelato place or at Japonessa. Apparently Japonessa is a new partner, and so we were only the third tour to stop at the location. The idea is Japanese / Spanish fusion, which was pretty cool. We were served a Laughing Buddha Roll – all vegetarian with some mango shiso sauce on top, followed by a green tea tiramisu. Brett described the green tea tiramisu as something you don’t have to chew. He’s right. It was soft and super good. In fact as I’m writing this now I could go for another serving. That and the truffle pizza and truffle salt were probably my fav items of the tour.
After the tour, Brett handed us out a Culinary Tour pass, giving us a 10-15% discount off their featured restaurant partners. It’s a good way to encourage us to go back and try out more of what we sampled, which is exactly what I did. I went right back to Japonessa for dinner that evening, but regrettably was too full to order a Tiramisu for dessert. That night, hotel roomies Katy and Alvin went back to Serious Pie and got more pie.
So was it worth it? Indeed yes! For the $69 and 3 hours of time it took, what better way can you combine eating, learning, and even getting a little bit of exercise?
Time to look for more food tours in more cities.
To sign up for this tour:
Savor Seattle Food Tours
1-888-987-2867
http://www.savorseattletours.com
Bon appétit!
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