Another sunny day in Seattle

An afternoon of Seattle culinary tastings bookended by a morning walk through historic neighborhoods and and evening of Picasso at the Seattle Art Museum.

Totem pole in Pioneer Square. Click the photo for more images of Pioneer Square.

Day three in Seattle broke with beautiful morning skies and mild temperatures. Some say this might be unusual for the Emerald City, regardless, we took it as a cue to hit the streets. Our morning mission was to visit the historic Pioneer Square neighborhood. This is where it all began–Seattle’s earliest settlers landed here in 1851. In 1889 the city was quickly rebuilt after a devastating fire, and then again fended off destruction in the 1960’s when city planners thought the neigborhood would best serve the city by being leveled to the ground.  Concerned citizens rallied to save Pioneer Square and today it stands as an architectural gem and host to a variety of galleries, restaurants, and small businesses.

The afternoon was a guided food tour of the city lead by Savor Seattle Food Tours. Unlike the day before, this tour was with a larger group (11), therefore it lacked the intimacy and personal attention we received from Jan and Mark of Seattle Bites. The variety of restaurants visited provided a good overview of the gourmet flavors of Seattle and Caroline, our tour guide, was knowledgeable, energetic, and a fine

Our Savor Seattle Food Tours guide Caroline, leads us down the streets of Seattle.

hostess. What she lacked perhaps was the culinary experience and relationships with vendors (this was her first gourmet tour – she normally did one of the other tours offered), and an overall higher level of credibility that Jan from Seattle Bites had. All of our tastings were good–well prepared, creative samples, but some tended to lean towards a common denominator of flavor in order to appeal to the masses. Our Savor Seattle tour was good but considering the price,  our expectations of a gourmet tour, and comparing it to the experience we had the previous day, we were left wanting just a little something more.

Our day finished with an evening visit to the Seattle Art Museum which was hosting the traveling exhibition “Picasso – Masterpieces from the Musée National Picasso, Paris.” Seattle was fortunate to land this show, which hit the road while the Picasso National Museum  in Paris is under renovation. Over 150 pieces of Picasso’s personal collection is displayed spanning his lifetime of creative work. It seems the entire city got behind this show as there are a number of cross promotions throughout the city including restaurants that altered menus to celebrate the show ranging from an exquisite cheese table of Spanish and French cheeses at ART restaurant to Cubist-inspired Jello shots from the bar at TASTE.

Another day is in the books capped off by tasty morsels of baked goods from Three Sisters Bakery and some more eggnog from Pike Place Creamery.

What we ate…

• Andaluca Restaurant – House Made Sangria & Duck Cake with Cucumber Raita
• ART Restaurant – Kumquat DRY Soda & Chef Sear’s Famous Mini Burger
• Il Bistro Restaurant – Saffron Seafood Risotto served with Waving Tree Sangiovese
• Pike Pub & Brewing Company – Pike Kilt Lifter (scotch ale) and Pike Tandem (double pilsner) with artisan cheeses and a spent grain beer roll
• Serious Pie – Buffalo Mozzarella/San Marzano Tomato Pizza and a Chanterelle Mushroom & Truffle Cheese Pizza. Note: Tom Douglas’s pizza was just named best pizza in Washington State by USA Today.
• La Buona Tavola – Potato & Leek Soup with Truffle Oil. Specializing in all things truffle
• Gelatiamo – Two samplings of seasonal gelato

Meeting the Pike Place Market Family

A tour of Pike Place market taught us that behind the veneer of this bustling market is a tight-knit community.

Crepe de France where we sampled a banana Nutella crepe with whipped cream and a lavender DRY soda.

The plan for Wednesday morning was to meet Mark and Jan, owners of Seattle Bites Food Tours, at the Seattle Art Museum at 10:15 a.m. where we were to launch our tour of Pike Place Market. Tour group sizes can grow to 14 and when they do each person receives a radio headset so they can hear the guide over the din of the market. But on this day it was just my wife and I which meant we could dispose of the headsets for a more personal, less structured tour.

Jan and Mark mapped a route that included stops at 10 different establishments ranging from a full service restaurant to a small 10′x10′ Indian food vendor. As we progressed through the tour it soon became apparent that this experience for us was much more than a food tasting event–it was a walk through the history of Pike Place Market (and Seattle) and an invitation to meet some of the people who represented this vibrant, complex community of the market.

As we approached each vendor Jan would tell us the backstory of each shop owner and each is very unique. This is a market comprised of small business owners from every walk of life and all four corners of the globe. Mark would add vignettes of select stops which provided us with the added benefit of allowing us to catch our breath between bites. Both Jan and Mark were the most gracious of hosts as they personally introduced us at each stop.

Tours generally last 2-1/2 to 3 hours. It was just the four of us, chatting, asking questions, laughing, and learning, and before you knew it our tour was over 4 1/2 hours later! All the while we ate… and ate… and ate so much so that we skipped dinner entirely that evening. I think I got a glimpse of what Anthony Bourdain goes through during the taping of his show “No Reservations.”

Where we went, what we ate…

• TASTE Restaurant – Smoked Salmon Flatbread
• Crepe de France – Crepe with banana, Nutella and whipped cream served with Lavender DRY Soda
• I Love New York Deli – Pastrami on Caraway Zissel Rye, Potato Knish, Sour Pickle, Dr. Brown’s soda
• Saffron Spice – Chicken Tikka Masala served with saffron rice and a Mixed Berry Smoothie
• Pike Place Chowder – New England Style Chowder and Seared Scallop Chowder. Special note: Pike Place Chowder was inducted in the Chowder Hall of Fame, Newport, Rhode Island. I can say definitively that this is the very best chowder I have ever tasted.
• Pure Food Fish Market – Smoked Salmon and Teriyaki Smoked Salmon
• Pike Place Creamery – not on the tour route, but we stopped for a taste of locally produced eggnog
• Uli’s Famous Sausage, Inc. – Sampling of sausages, sauerkraut, and German-style pilsner
• Corner Produce – Honeycrisp and Aurora apples, perfectly ripe pears and a blood orange
• Seattle Coffee Works – A tasting of coffees from the three major coffee regions of the world: Aurelio (Central/South America), Ethiopia Harrar (Africa) and Sumatra Gayo (Indonesia)

View photos from our tour.