The Olive Garden

Once again: I had an excessive and somewhat irrational excitement about visiting the Olive Garden. I almost always have it before going to a big chain restaurant, even though I am simultaneously totally disgusted at all of the obvious things to be disgusted over. Maybe it is the marketing that leads me to believe that I will have a fun, lighthearted, hilarious, delicious time while dining there. Maybe it is the promise of copious quantities of salty fatty junky food that is outside what I usually eat but that I, a mere mortal, enjoy. Maybe it the idea of free all you can eat ____ that appeals to some past life depression survival. Who knows.

Anyhow, tonight, after driving around lost in a suburban mallhole neighborhood of Lynwood for much too long, I landed at the Olive Garden for a birthday party. The parking lot was packed.

This I knew: The Olive Garden is famous for all you can eat bread sticks and salad. They craftily started us off with the bread sticks, warm, soft, dipped in some addicting lubricant and sprinkled with salty garlic flavored crack. After everybody was nearly bursting with bread, they brought on the salad.

Slide on in big boy

It consisted of all you can eat iceburg with carrots, olives, pepperoncinies, red onions, croutons, Parmesan cheese and a sharp vinegary dressing surely calculated to reduce the amount of salad that patrons can shovel in. Luckily I have an almost addicted hankering for vinegar and ate and ate long after the salad excitement had ebbed from the table.


There are plenty of things for a vegetarian to order (probably not so for a vegan... salad? spaghetti with marinara?). After a moment of curious temptation, I bypassed the deep fried lasagna bits (no joke) and ordered baked ziti. Another vegetarian ordered portobello ravioli with smoked cheese and sun dried tomato sauce.

Good crust on the baked ziti

Food came and I must admit appealed to the part of me evolved for a simpler time. Plenty of salt. Plenty of starch. Plenty of fat. And with the addition of red pepper flakes (special request), plenty of spice. It wasn't exactly complex or healthful or inexpensive, but I wasn't expecting it to be.

Lots of good smoky flavor in the ravioli sauce.

At the end of the meal, the birthday girl (Sweet 16!) ordered a massive chocolate gelato that arrived with a chorus of Lynwood's finest apron-ed beefcakes singing her a birthday tune.

Happy Birthday A!

Il Fornaio

I recently found myself downtown alone and hungry late at night, and I decided to venture into Il Fornaio, a restaurant open later than most, for a fancy solo dinner.

The menu had many vegetarian choices, including salads, pasta, gnocchi, and risottos (an apparent specialty). I was seated in sort of a strange place: right next to a couple who were the only other people in the west region of the restaurant. The woman was nestled inches from me on a bench seat, and I felt like her Siamese twin, stuck off kilter to her side, trying to behave and make myself scarce while she/we was on a date.

The meal started with a large plate of salty, soft focaccia and a plate of odd tasting olive oil. The olive oil had a rotten sort of flavour, and I tried to convince myself that it was just very green, but I'm not sure I totally believed it.

All for me??

I ordered the Doroto risotto. I am not technically qualified to judge risotto, but I know what I like: fat, succulent, distinct grains of rice in a silky, creamy sauce. The risotto here didn't quite meet these standards. I found the rice to be slightly undercooked, more undercooked than what I'd consider reasonable, even under the pretense of sophistication. I suppose this shouldn't have come as much of a shock considering the relatively short wait before my meal was brought to the table.

Spied this half eaten and abandoned cake at another table. Be classy girlfriend, don't even think about it!

The risotto did have may interesting vegetables in it, including asparagus, artichoke hearts, tomatoes, onion, roasted garlic, and zucchini, and the bites that included any of these were entertaining and tasty. But bites without these were on the plain side, and forced my imagination to stay sharp in order to prevent me from slipping into the buyers remorse that could be expected from eating a big pile of expensive, plain, undercooked rice.
One thing that I was exceptionally pleased over, however, was that the risottos made without meat were made with vegetable stock (rather than chicken stock). This was a surprising and excellent detail that I really appreciated.

For dessert, perhaps in celebration/mourning for the fresh loss of my twin and my new status as complete loner in the west side of the restaurant, I decided to have an after dinner drink. I landed upon Lemoncello: sweet, tongue numbing lemoncello. It was lemony and strong but without a hint of pithy bitterness.
There were a few things that I noted as I ate:
1. Free hors d'oeuvres are served during their nightly happy hour. This is exciting, and a detail and was probably hibernating someplace in my brain.
2. The restaurant seemed to have many out of town guests cashing in on hotel meal vouchers
and, upon leaving...
3. Doh! This was a big faux-fancy restaurant chain! I somehow missed the listing of alternate locations when I entered. Saw it when I exited. Now I know.

I think I might be interested in visiting again for happy hour, but was not exactly dazzled enough to go back full price.

Il Fornaio

(206) 264-0994

600 Pine St
Seattle, WA 98101

Lottie's Lounge

OK, I had a luke warm Lottie Motts review up for some time now, and it was high time to change it. My prior complaints, mainly the unfriendly staff and unfriendly feeling vibe of the place, no longer seem present. The staff doesn't even seem unfriendly anymore, actually, quite the opposite... maybe there was just a rough period in the transition from Lottie Motts to Lotties Lounge.

Now, I love the place. The food is excellent... there is a small kitchen, so come relaxed and ready to hang out (and play cards or checkers with some of the communal games available) and have a drink while you wait. I am a huge fan of the lasagna (there is a sausage version with meat from Bob's Meats, as well as a fantastic vegetarian version with spinich), that has a rich and spicy sauce and comes rolled up and vertical, like a savory cinnamon roll. The salads are ample and have lots of interesting things in them (nuts, fruit, cheeses etc), the appetizers are good, the cream based pastas are garlic laced and smell heavenly.

The drinks are good too. In addition to the usual beers, they tend to have good fruity drinks (I recently had a delicious mango martini that tasted and had the texture of being made from real mango nectar), and usually have a fantastic sangria. It is sweet and fruity but also herbal and spicy.

It has become quite a pleasure to spend time here, and I am really happy to have it as a neighborhood hangout!

There is also a good happy hour.

La Medusa

Ok, the picture is sort of lame, but this is an announcement that La Medusa, the lovely, somewhat higher priced (eh, by my frugal standards) Columbia City Sicilian Soul Food restaurant is experimenting with a happy hour. I went recently and split a couple of reasonably priced happy hour snacks (ratatouille and polenta fritters) with some friends and drank and a most delicious elderflower/aperol cocktail.
The happy hour was a nice opportunity to have a taste of what makes La Medusa so wonderful without having to shell out the money for a full dinner. Especially as the weather turns more to fall, I look forward to more afternoons sampling the delicious offerings!

Bar del Corso

I have long been eager to eat at Bar del Corso on Beacon Hill, and recently had the chance for a celebratory dinner.

We started with fried risotto balls. They were every bit as scrumptious as that sounds... creamy, pink risotto with a mozzarella center fried in a crisp cornmeal crust. I could have eaten a whole lot of these!

Bar del Corso has a frequently changing seasonal menu, and it was unfortunate that the menu for our visit was a little heavy on the meat (for example, a salad with tuna heart), and I did not feel inclined to pay for a somewhat pricy salad made to order without all of its expensive and interesting components ($9 plate of just radicchio? no thanks). None the less, managed a fantastic meal, and there was a fully vegetarian spinach dish on the menu. It was exquisite.

The dish was a huge mound of lightly sauteed spinach with roasted hazelnuts, golden raisins and browned garlic.

We ordered two pizzas, one with braising greens, tomatoes and smoked mozzarella (copa on the side).

And another with fresh mozzarella, spicy peppers and rapini (hold the anchovies).

Both were outstanding Napoleon style pizzas. I am sometimes unsatisfied with this style of pizza because the center tends to disintegrate into a pile of mush and the toppings are often extremely scant (leaving some slices with nothing but melting crust and a smear tomato sauce), but the toppings here were plentiful and well distributed. I was especially taken by the presence of green veggies on both of these pizzas. Both the greens and the rapini got a tasty brown char in the hot pizza oven that was really special.

The pizzas were quite a bit larger than we had expected, and we had ample leftovers (always a treat!).

My main advice for visiting this place as a vegetarian or vegan would be to check in ahead of time and make sure that either the daily menu was to your liking, or that you were prepared to pay full price for a dish that had been modified to remove its expensive (animal) parts.

Ristorante Machiavelli

I ate at Machiavelli the other evening, and ended up sitting in the bar due to the large queue. I'd heard that the food was decent and the prices reasonable, so the long line wasn't a huge surprise for the tiny Capital Hill restaurant.

But you can eat in the bar, so it worked out really nicely. Started with a coctail I might not have ordered had I been at a table, but it was really delicious and I was happy to have it. I ordered a ginger mango margarita. It was made from real mango juice and fresh squeezed lime and enough grated ginger to make it spicy. Yum. Dining companion ordered a martini. Along side our drinks came a large chunk of soft chewy olive bread and a bowl of some kind of savory dipping dressing.


There were plenty of vegetarian items on the menu, and I chose the spinach ravioli with tomato cream sauce. It usually come with mushrooms, but they were happy to substitute in peas instead.

The food came remarkably quickly... I had barely started to sip my drink... but unfortunatly it had been delivered a bit prematurely, as my pasta wasn't quite fully cooked.

Aside from that, it was all decent. The green pasta was stuffed with spinach and ricotta, and the sauce had the delicious mellow/sharpness of a tomato cream sauce. It was a bit heavier than what I'm used to eating (duh, cream sauce), but I didn't feel totally fat overloaded afterwards. The waitress gave me a big scoop of Parmasean and a hefty twist of black pepper, which I appreciated.

The price was good. The entrees were about $10 or under, which feels like a really good deal in this land of over priced pasta. I'd put this place in my mental roladex of inexpensive but good enough capital hill choices, but probably not on a list of places to visit for spectacular food.

Machiavelli
(206) 621-7941

1215 Pine St
Seattle, WA 98101

Park Chow

For our last night in San Francisco we followed a friend's recommendation to Park Chow, a popular sister of the other Chow restaurants located in other parts of the city.

It was busy, and we waited with a crowd under outside heaters for our table. Inside, the waitstaff was friendly and hip, and the vibe was very much slightly-upscale, well loved neighborhood bistro.

We started with a beet salad ,which came with roasted beets, endive, greens, hazelnuts, oranges, feta (substituted for the usual goat cheese) and olives.


The menu isn't specifically vegetarian oriented, but there were plenty of vegetarian choices (baked eggplant, pastas, pizzas, garden burgers, etc). I ordered the wood fired spinach lasagna. It wasn't bad, but wasn't the most interesting thing I've ever eaten. Maybe it could have used something to vary up the texture a little?


D ordered the daily sandwich, which was some sort of fancy fish, and it came with exquisite french fries. The presence of these on the table possibly had something to do with my lack of appreciation of my lasagna.

Overall a quality dinner and a fun evening. Thanks N for the recommendation! (And now, back to Seattle!)

Park Chow
(415) 665-9912

Sunset
1240 9th Ave
San Francisco, CA 94122

The Pink Door

I have been waiting for years to go to The Pink Door at Pike Place Market, but hadn't gotten around to it until finally recently, when the added impetus of hearing the gypsy jazz/swing band Trio À Propos inspired the actualization.

The restaurant itself is lovely- there is a huge outdoor patio and the inside is at once romantic and lively. Soon after being seated, we were given a half loaf of fresh rustic bread, and (a detail that impressed me), some high quality olive oil for dipping with a handful of green olives luxuriating in the pool.


The Pink Door isn't exactly a vegetarian mecca. The vegetarian main choices on the menu are pretty scant; in addition to salads and veggie sides (roasted potatoes, grilled veggies, etc), there are just a tiny handful of vegetarian dishes, including a lasagna and a polenta.

We started with the beet salad, which came with roasted beets, arugula, walnuts, and Gorgonzola (for which I substituted fresh mozzarella). It was a tasty and satisfying combination. It was definitely at "fancy salad" prices, but that goes with the territory I suppose.


For a main dish, I ordered the vegetarian lasagna, which was strongly recommended by one of my dining companions, who had formed an obsessive memory of it after eating it years ago and falling in gustatory love.

And it really was that good. Part of the beauty of it was its simplicity- there were no slimy vegetable chunks to contend with. Instead, there were layers of velvety, toothy fresh spinach noodles, a heavenly creamy bechamel sauce, and then on top, a perfectly savory tomato sauce. Again, it was relatively expensive (I think $17 for a single portion), but my goodness, it was delicious.


For dessert we ordered some sort of salted caramel chocolate tarte, which, though thoroughly consumed, wasn't particularly noteworthy.


It was an evening of good music, good food, good company and good ambiance. I am so glad to have finally checked it out!

Da Pino

4225 Rainier Ave. S.
Seattle, WA
206-356-8502

I'd passed Da Pino near the corner of Genesee and Rainier for nearly 2 years before registering that it was actually a restaurant I might be interested in visiting.... the location is definitely lackluster and the building is not obviously enticing.

But today I went and was really glad that I did.

The restaurant is tiny, but just large enough to sit down and not feel like you are in the way. Upon entering you are greeted with a case of curing meats, and a beverage fridge with both Italian and American soft drinks. The Italian owner was there working in the back, and his handsome and friendly sons were working out front.

I was the only vegetarian out with 4 meat eaters, so we managed a pretty comprehensive tasting of Da Pino's small menu. We had a caprese salad and a really impressive plate of house-made salumi for starters. My enjoyment of this phase was mostly vicarious... in a generous and beautiful arrangement were cooked copa, regular copa, wine salami, prosciutto, some exquisite smoked mozzarella, and roasted almonds (I ate the latter two...) and probably more that I am forgetting now. There were sounds of immense appreciation from the rest of the table, which included at least one serious salumi/charcuterie buff and many hobbiests.

For the main course, I had the hot vegetable sandwich, which was pretty good aside from the fact that the main vegetable was eggplant, which I have a bit of an aversion to. In addition to the eggplant there was roasted zucchini and smoked peppers, and it was all quite good almost to the point that i was able to excuse the eggplant. I think that if somebody liked eggplant, they would be really happy with this sandwich.

Two other folks at the table had hot sandwiches, one a meatball, and one with sausage (again, both house made), and the reports were excellent.

The other two had daily pasta specials... one of which was housemade mushroom ravioli in a gorgonzola cream sauce, which was savory and decadent and tempting some even when full and satisfied with their own meal. The other ordered penne in a rich spicy olive oily tomato sauce with pancetta. I shared a couple of pancetta-less bites of that and it was my favorite item ordered today.

This restaurant falls outside of the trendy part of Columbia city, but is realistically just moments from it. It is totally worth venturing over (there is an adjoining gravel parking lot) for some really good food. You can also buy the housemade salami/sausages/cheese to take home, and the owner supplies these meats to many other Seattle restaurants.

I got the feeling that this place might be struggling a little bit due to it's location... it has the sort of honest, delicious, soul warming food at reasonable prices that should have lines out the doors.

So go check it out! Notice it next time you drive by, and stop in.

Pizzeria Pulcinella

Recently had a fun night at Pizzeria Pulcinella with a large party to celebrate a birthday. Pizza Pulcinella is located in the (well renovated) old Lakeside Tavern, which stands alone with its upside-down sign between Seattle and Renton.

The space was lovely on this particular gloomy day, and the menu had lots of interesting vegetarian pizza choices (most of which require ordering a menu item without its included meat), including pizzas with broccoli, arugula, pesto, and eggplant. Unfortunately, these guys are on the botched "Napoli style wood fired" pizza bandwagon that is messing up pizza all over this town.

Arugula, Parmesan and prosciutto, half without prosciutto

I love the idea of Neapolitan pizza. What I don't understand is how this style is so consistently bastardized into a soggy, dissolving, wet mess, and continues to be praised praised praised.

Broccoli Pizza, sans sausage

It could be that I am just WRONG about what it is supposed to be like. To me, a Neapolitan pizza should be very thin, very quickly cooked, and with a crust that is crisp hot. Instead, all Napoli pizza I've had in Seattle (which is this place and Tutta Bella) seems to be limp and sogged out. Are the ovens not hot enough? Do the San Marzano tomatoes need to be better drained? Is the dough too thick? Am I just ignorant?

Plus, the "I'm just gonna put on a sprinkle of toppings, because it's authentico!" idea is less impressive on a subpar crust.

The pesto pizza, without the i'm-amazing-cuz-i-come-from-italy San Marzano tomatoes, was quite a bit better in texture

Aside from the situation with the pizza, (which I did eat about a dozen slices of despite all this whining) the place was all kinds of good. The ambiance is pleasant, light and warm, especially on this rainy evening, and the waitress was outstandingly friendly and accommodating (even for our large party), without being cloying.

I don't mean to single these guys out. Their pizza is just as good as the other, very popular, praised as "authentic" Neapolitan pizzerias around town. But I just don't get it. Is everybody else being lulled along by the hype of a trend? Am I wrong about what it is supposed to be like? Am I just a pizza asshole?

Insalata Mista. That isn't my milk.

Pizzeria Pulcinella
(206) 772-6861
South Seattle
10003 Rainier Ave S
Seattle, WA 98178

The Old Spaghetti Factory

2801 Elliott Ave.
Seattle, WA 98121
206.441.7724
http://www.osf.com/

The number of good restaurants owned by good people making good food is overwhelming in this city... so much so that there is hardly any excuse for intentionally paying to eat something mediocre. With that said, there is one highly mediocre, national chain restaurant that will always hold a piece of my heart, and still manages to tempt me to it maybe once every year or two: The Old Spaghetti Factory.

After a recent day of skiing, a ravenous hunger spurred thoughts of the Old Spaghetti Factory on the drive home, and the wispy little dreams that were around exit 50 had grown into intense and concrete needs by time we crossed the I-90 bridge. Parking is often tricky at the Old Spaghetti Factory, as there are not quite enough spots in the lots to accommodate the loyal mangeurs but street parking reasonably easy to find. Stuffed the skis in the cab of the truck and stretched our tired legs on a walk to the gigantic brick fortress that is the Old Spaghetti Factory.

As it has been for as long as I can remember it, the restaurant was really busy. The large front lobby, ringed with antique looking arm chairs and love seats, looked like a scene from an old and deserted mansion, save for the hoards of noisy kids and chubby middled adults and others (such as those wearing ski underwear) who really didn't seem to be giving the olden days their proper respect. No matter... the hostess was friendly and handed us a little piece of technology that would vibrate and flash when our table was ready. We slumped down into red velvet chairs and watched as a steady stream of other waiting patrons stepped onto the lobby scale and obtained their entertaining and ephemeral pre-dinner weights.

For the amount of people waiting, the wait itself seemed rather short. We soon found ourselves sitting at a glossy wooden table looking menus. The reason, I know, that I hold a tenderness for the Old Spaghetti Factory is that for relatively cheap (under $10), they provide you a many course meal. There is something so lavish and resplendent about a many course meal, even if it is coming from a self-proclaimed factory.

I ordered the spaghetti with marinara, my dining partner ordered fettuccine Alfredo. In an un-necessary but indulgent move, we splurged on a large order of broccoli, steamed lightly and seasoned not just with olive oil, but with browned butter and mizithra cheese too. It came as an appetizer before the real production of the meal began. It was tasty, and a surprisingly large portion that was perhaps intended for a larger family than two.

The real part of the meal begins with a choice of milk, iced tea, or water. Then comes a salad... a joyous little iceburg salad with shredded carrots and their most delicious creamy pesto house dressing that hasn't changed in taste or texture for as long as I can remember.

Next comes the really dangerous part of the meal... the private loaf of warm, fresh baked sourdough bread served up on a thick wooden cutting board with a bowl of soft whipped garlic butter. Even with our broccoli pre-appetizer, and salad appetizer, and knowledge of a main course coming, it was really hard to resist ripping into that loaf... thin chewy crust, gluten-y sour insides, and devouring the bowl of butter.

This is the time in the meal where you start thinking that perhaps they ought to just wrap up your spaghetti to go and call it a night while you can still walk yourself back to the car.

But no.

There isn't anything especially remarkable about the pasta, but it comes in a big pile and tastes good enough. By this time in the meal, any notions of eating healthy are gone and the carb gluttony is in full effect. We mixed our dishes together into an orgy of delicious creamy pink sauce on the two shapes of pasta. In retrospect, I wonder if the Alfredo sauce was completely vegetarian, or whether it had chicken stock or bacon fat in it somewhere.

After eating to the point of near burst, we got a box to wrap up the leftovers, and a choice of spumoni or vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce. We both chose spumoni, and it arrived in classy silver petaled cups. The ice cream portion seemed much larger than I remembered it though... I was actually surprised (a surprise both good and bad) at the heft of the large densely packed scoop.

With iced tea and salad and our own loaf of bread and big plates of pasta and obese balls of spumoni and tax and tip and a mounded plate of tri fat seasoned broccoli, we still left the restaurant for under $30.

Skipped the scale on the way out, waddled back to the car cursing myself for pushing beyond the point of dining pleasure and into the realm of unbridled gluttony. Needless to say, it is easy for a vegetarian to eat here. In fact, the old spaghetti factory could be the love den for the unfortunate new vegetarian eating style that relys too heavily on pasta and bread.

To anybody who wonders how a vegetarian could become fat, look no further.

Tutta Bella

(Columbia City Location)
4918 Rainier Avenue South
Seattle, WA 98118
206.721.3501

Tutta Bella has gone through a pretty significant cycle over the years... it started as a confused and confusing place, not sure whether it was a full-service restaurant or some kind of Italian Cafeteria. Then it got its program down: the wait staff was organized, the procedure was clear, and the pizza was great and felt like a good deal. Now, the wait staff is excellent... attentive and quick, but the pizza has gone way down in quality and the prices have gone up. I realize that Tutta Bella is Seattle's lil' Pizza darlin', but it seems to me the reputation is currently carrying more weight than the reality.

I am definitely a fan of thin crust Italian style pizza, and these guys have, over time, really botched it. We ordered two pizzas, the Quatro Stagioni (Four Seasons), which comes with artichokes, roasted red pepper, roasted zucchini, and herb mushrooms, and the Regina Margherita (Queen Margherita), which includes fresh mozzarella and basil, and opted for the $1 addition of chopped tomatoes.
The "Pomodoro San Marzano" sauce on each was unremarkable, an unfortunate reality considering the effort made in using special tomatoes. But the real lameness comes from the crust, again, a shame considering they have gone through special efforts to use authentic wood burning pizza ovens. About an inch in from the outer edge the sog starts, and it continues, getting worse towards the center such that a slice, thin and and scarcely topped, slumps and sags with no structural integrity, totally soggy fresh from the oven.

The topping are tasty and interesting, but poorly distributed and not quite plentiful enough. The Margherita had so little cheese (non-uniformly distributed), that there were a couple unfortunate slices that had nothing on them but wet sauce and a dissolving bottom crust.
The salads, on the other hand, are excellent. They are huge and delicious. There are two vegetarian salads, the Insalata di Mista (House Salad) with mixed greens, slivered onion and carrots, kalamata olives, roasted red pepper, white beans, and balsamic vinaigrette, and the Insalata di Salerno (Salerno Salad), which is made with Romain hearts, small fresh mozzarella balls, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, basil and crunchy fennel in a Dijon balsamic vinaigrette. (Both pictures show the Salerno.)
I love the them both... the Large version of either is big enough to completely gorge one person (and I have a near endless appetite for a salad chopped by somebody else), or satisfy a whole table in more reasonable rations. The house salad has enough stuff on it to feel hearty, and the Salerno is both refreshing and decadant with the fresh mozzarella and fennel.

They have a variety of desserts including gelato in a small array of flavours, and I made a small faux pas by mistaking the price for the number of scoops. The waiter was a little bit surprised but happy to oblige my request for the 6 scoop option.

Belltown Pizza

So... I had had a long week at work, but maintained the noble intent to go home and cook up some dinner from the odds and ends already in the kitchen. As I dragged arse walking my tired self through Belltown with my dining companion, he busted past me and followed his nose right into the front door of Belltown Pizza, where the intoxicating aroma of fresh pizza pulled him off the street. By time I followed behind him, he had already ordered us each a couple of slices of this vegetarian delight and the idea of going home and cooking dinner was merrily on its way.

I hardly cared what else was on there... I was easy to please and 100% sold at the Jalapeno slices alone. Turns out the pizza was pretty darn good... thin crust, good sauce, etc. I guess I don't spend much time eating in Belltown, otherwise this might be a mainstay, especially because they sell by the slice. Pepped me back up!