I Heart Seattle

So I am begrudgingly back from Seattle, the city that I feel still serves the best food in the land.

To commemorate the impetus behind the visit I purchased this artisan's plate of "the salmon." Ah yes, copper river salmon, you were mine. *sigh*

And it was cold, and cloudy, and one day rainy, and just to tease me on my departure day it was bright and sunny...but no matter; it was great to be back!

Instead of going back to old haunts per usual, this creature-of-habit tried some new stuff, and rediscovered some old. While all this news now appears on the City List at right, there are still a few more bits to share about why I Heart Seattle:

1) Visiting Queen Anne -- a tiny neighborhood on a hill overlooking Elliott Bay near Seattle Center that is filled with greenery and charm.

2) Discovering Black Bottle -- a newish wine bar/small plates restaurant that has the coolest industrial Brooklyn decor and vibe.

3) Trying Dry Soda -- lemongrass was good but lavender was the best! What a great thing to use as a cocktail mixer if it hasn't already been discovered.

4) Remembering why I love the restaurants of Tom Douglas -- one bite into a mushroom appetizer speaks volumes on Pacific Northwest Cuisine and why it rocks my world.

5) Sitting in an oasis of a coffee shop -- with 20 clean armchairs each with a street view, where the music is soothing, people of all ages have enough room to each get a seat, and the coffee is perfect.

6) Witnessing restaurant originality again -- the restaurants of Seattle have more creativity than restaurants in other great cities, yet you don't pay the same high price for it. To experience this level of freshness in New York in these days of the super chef, you would pay 3-4 times as much. Here it's just how restaurants are.

7) Delighting over a new kind of condiment table-setting at Steelhead Diner -- sure they had ketchup at this "diner that isn't really a diner," and Crystal hot sauce. Add to this a bottle of pepper vinegar. But the coolest was, while eating a fantastic salad with pine nut vinaigrette, what appeared to be salt & pepper shakers. One contained a house-made Cajun seasoning, and the other contained... smoked sea salt? This is expensive! So to have all that on every table, such a unique and generous selection, made me smile.

8) Copper River Sockeye Salmon -- and we've come full circle to the reason behind this visit. It turns out that I'm not a huge fan of the king variety; the sockeye is the kind I find transcendental, sooo deeply orange/pink in color (like a salmon-colored shirt, that color salmon), and so rich with flavor you can't imagine.

Til next time Seattle!
Marly

New - Marly's City Must Lists

Ok fellow food explorers, it's time to introduce the list I've been compiling for ages, my tried-and-true city favorites, each item sampled personally at least one time -- ok probably more like two, three or ten times! (*blush*)

If you've known me awhile you may have heard some of this before, though this is just the beginning. The list is going to be BIG, it's going to grow baby, and new things will be added as my beloved food adventures continue onward.

You'll notice, unlike other reviews or lists, that this one is short & sweet (& salty too! lol). Expositional verbiage has been left out so you can get right to the need-to-know: where to go and why. Do you have time to read through pages of text to get to the pearl? I didn't think so. Do I have time to provide links for every pearl you find? I knew you'd understand that I don't :).

So on the right side of this blog, click on the link at City Lists. There you will find a short list of cities in alphabetical order. Each city lists up to five categories:
1. Eats (sit-down places)
2. Drinks (sometimes including food)
3. Markets & Shops (farmer's, gourmet & unique)
4. Hotels
5. Other

The destinations on each list feature the places I like to breathe in while visiting a particular place (like the photo above, Dahlia Lounge in Seattle). This is followed by a neighborhood, if relevant, and then the nugget -- the item you should order to achieve some level of nirvana. See if you don't order what I recommend I won't be held responsible for your "just OK" experience. Got it? And this doesn't mean the item I include is the only great thing on the menu; no it probably means I never tried anything else because I liked this thing soooo much.

Planet Marly reader, let me be the first to humbly say these lists are by no means complete. Some listings may seem redundant or even the opposite of trendy, but don't you fret -- this is an ongoing project, viewable from the blog's righthand column. So don't forget to check back for updates or when you're about to take a trip! Have faith that if it's on the list it means it's damn good, and here's hoping you'll agree.

Chocolate with a dash of vanilla irony

At left is the chocolate stash now in my house. The next time you see me I will be several chocolate pounds heavier and quite happy about it.


There are some people who choose the flavor of chocolate over vanilla every time. Ironically, most of the chocolate we eat in desserts or candy contains vanilla, as an additive used to bring out the flavor of chocolate. One exception is a French chocolate bar named Chocolat Bonnat, and it's a fantastic discovery once you taste a 75% dark chocolate bar without vanilla and realize the influence vanilla has had on your chocolate taste buds all these years. (Btw I can't seem to find this for sale online now, so if in San Fran visit Cocoa Bella in the Westfield San Fran Center on Market & 4th.)

That is one of the great chocolate & vanilla ironies. The other is that people assume I prefer all-chocolate desserts when in fact lately I prefer chocolate in its unadulterated form, as pure chocolate candy, not whipped into a cloying mega-triple-fudge-whatever-it-is- with-fudge-and-chips-on-top. There is no particular reason for this revised palate preference, it just is, which is why I'm giving you the news now so you don't call me a choco-Benedict Arnold at some dessert time in our future. (Or perhaps the future is the next paragraph...)

In any event! This is why on Saturday night at the lovely SF restaurant Coi--their bar is a long plank of wood with stools facing a wall; there is no liquor or bartender there--when given a choice of a deep chocolate parfait with lime or a warm vanilla cake with strawberries for dessert, I chose the latter. The warm and buttery vanilla-flecked cake was really wonderful, a reverse molten chocolate cake. More restaurants should serve this, it's still considered rare and reminds you of how good a vanilla dessert can be.

And while we're talking about chocolate, if any LA-ers would like to take a stab at my Chocword Puzzle (a crossword puzzle about chocolate), just give a holler!

Next up: The Fried Chicken Report

Where I've been, where I'm going 5/10/07

Where I've been:
A few weeks ago Dan K from NYC came to town and we went to Soot Bull Jeep, the best Korean BBQ place I know of. Since I am known for ordering redundancies, we had the steak and the spicy pork (3rd time). Dan of course went back to New York singing a new song that went something like this... "When I need a spicy kick, Ktown Q to my ribs does stick. It's good to try new spicy things; sometimes even I tire of buffalo wings."

Then last Friday Sussy took me for my first visit to Cobras & Matadors, Hollywood Blvd. location. It so happens I haven't had the big food O in a long time, and this place did it. Can't live without items: almond & cabrales-stuffed bacon-wrapped dates in a port reduction, cheese plate, churros. Can live without: the socca, which I'd hoped would be like the famous chickpea pancakes of Nice (only seen photos) but these were thick and covered in a curry-spiced honey. Why, why?

Where I'm going:
San Francisco! Back to the Ferry Building with Pina for Recchiuti's fleur-de-sel caramels (Mr. R himself just replied to my email inquiry and sadly they will be making passion fruit caramels no more), then venturing into Berkeley for the first time to gain foodie glory by simply walking past the apparent birthplace of California cuisine, Chez Panisse.

Seattle! It's copper river salmon season mid-May to mid-June, and I'll be there right in the middle. Trying all new places this time...already have a dinner rez at the tried-and-true Cascadia (will I try their Douglas Fir cocktail? Think I must), and on my list as almost definites are Restaurant Zoe, Tom Douglas's new pizza spot Serious Pie, and Flying Fish. Not to mention I'll be hopping on a stool at the fabulously retro Cyclops Bar for another swig of the best mojito in the continental United States.

It's time to visit Planet Marly

Too many years ago when I worked at my 1st New York City ad agency (in the creative dept. making ads for Transformers), it became clear that this Jersey girl wasn't ready yet for the big city. So after six months of scripts and storyboards at a frighteningly low salary, I headed back to the home state, but not without the idea to start a greeting card company called Planet Marly. The name of the "company" made sense to everyone, especially colleagues and old friends who'd often said in the past "What planet are you on, Marly?" :)

Well the company never happened. I'll admit I was distracted by other things in Princeton...ok by a guy named Chuck who made buffalo wings. I never met Chuck, but I sure consumed a lot of buffalo wings. Yes I can still see the orange stains on my fingers, which really did prevent me from making greeting cards (yes yes that's only one reason why the card company never happened, you got me!)

Since then life's taken me straight to the path of foodie--not to be confused with a food snob as some folks describe it. Specifically my interests relate to what to eat and where, and in sharing that knowledge, because you never want to say you visited a place for a day and missed out on an incredible food opportunity!

With that, I introduce my blog, in the hopes that this time when I am distracted by the proverbial buffalo wing, you can read about it here on my planet.

Cheers,
Marly

(ps: this is me en route to dinner in Paris)