Somefood I've Eaten in the Last Few Weeks(Mother's Day Weekend cont.)

I'm going to tell you about a little hidden treasure in Burien.  A few months ago Elliot Bay Brewery in Burien started doing a weekend brunch.  We have been several times since conception.  What beats breakfast and custom brews? Huh?  Well, besides the ever changing beer menu we have found two things we love.  First is the chicken fried steak.  I think since I have moved to the Northwest from the Midwest I've been on a quest to find midwest treats here.  I would say I've found one; but this tops any chicken fried steak I've had anywhere.  This is an actual steak, batter dipped, and fried.  Its topped with poached eggs and chrizo gravy and comes with a side of biscuits.  And its huge!  Mili and I usually split one order.  This is in my top 3 breakfast items ever!!  Try it.

The second thing we've found that we love at Elliot Bay Brunch is the fresh whole wheat chocolate donut.  The thing I love about this is that its made to order.  I have never really been the type to have a craving to go get a dozen donuts and make a breakfast out of it.  But if I had a box of 12 hot donuts I would probably gain 100lbs.  And as you can see by the picture they go great with a nice breakfast beer.

An added plus on Mother's Day was the live jazz they had playing in the back.  Plus, not too many people know of this treasure so its never too crowded.







Also, my quest for bbq in the Northwest is still on.  Last week I was able to make to Pecos Pit in the Sodo area.  Its hard to get there because its only open weekdays and only for a few hours.  But last week I was down in the area for work and realized this could be my only chance.  No cash on me so I waited at the longest crosswalk light ever to get to a cash machine and back.  They were so impressed with my determination they threw in a free bag of chips.  I got one pecos pork and on pecos beef.  Both were good.  Gates in KC, my favorite bbq, uses alot of celery in there sauce, I could taste it here too.  One of my complaints about most bbq places is not getting sides of extra sauce.  I need it!  I didn't get it.  I should have asked.  But my idea is that I shouldn't have to ask.  The meat was cooked probably better than any other bbq I've had.  The fat was all rendered down and it was like they used the best pieces of meat, not the scraps.  Definitely worth the run across the street.

All photos take with camera low-tech camera phone.  Use Caution.

Mothers day food tour (Serious Pie and Elliot Bay Brewery-Burien)

Ok, so in school I took a theatre class where we had to go see plays and then write a review.  I used to write about the whole experience and get points taken away because it was not part of the play(lame).  I would mention how uncomfortable the seats were or how hot the auditorium was.  Well good thing this isn't school because I'm going to write about more than just the food at these two places.  Serious Pie was a two hour wait!  Honestly I expected this long of wait with the eateries big name and all.  They did take my cell and we were able to go have a drink at Oliver's, a hotel bar down on the corner.  I had an Absinthe made in at Pacific Distillery.  Back to Serious pie.  The Pizza was awesome.  We had six of us so we ordered all but one type of pizza. 

• buffalo mozzarella, san marzano tomato 15
• yukon gold potato, rosemary, pecorino 15
• cherry bomb peppers, sweet fennel sausage 16
• roasted mushrooms, truffle cheese 16
• penn cove clams, house pancetta, lemon thyme 17
• guanciale, soft egg, arugula 15
• morels, nettle cream, parmesan 17

The roasted mushrooms and truffle cheese got the boot.  There were some questions as to what guanciale was.  I thought the waiter had told us it was bird cheek but apparently it was pig cheek.  Usually I am into the exotic pizzas more just because you can't get them most places and while the clams, soft eggs, and potatoes were all treats I really liked the sweet fennel sausage.  The grind of the sausage was so fine.  It felt like clumps of couscous but greasy and tasted like pork.  Overall good service.  The question in the end does the food out weigh the wait.  No.  But I don't regret waiting two hours to try these delicious morsels.  I would recommend going but I probably won't go back.  But trust me with a two hour wait they are definitely not hurting for business. 

The details on Elliot Bay Mothers Day brunch will be included in the next blog....

And for my sister who always has to put in her two cents, we are adding pictures...hopefully we can remember to bring the camera next time!

Two Blogs in One

Gabe has been getting on me to blog on here, as I haven't posted anything yet!  So I'm a bit behind on my blogging.  I'm going to make this short and I apologize in advance as I am not a very good writer!  And sorry about the lack of photos, I attempted but our SD card for the camera is screwed up.

Last week Tuesday I made a "healthier" version of a loco moco.  For those of you who don't know what a loco moco is, it's a local dish that we eat in Hawai'i for either breakfast, lunch or dinner!  It's basically a bed of rice, with some sort of meat  served on the rice (normally hamburger patty, Portuguese sausage, or spam), then topped off with brown gravy AND an egg!  Some places will sprinkle shredded cheese and/or green onion on top of everything.  It sounds like a lot, it is a lot and it's damn delicious.  It's one of the typical comfort foods for locals in Hawai'i.

Instead of the typical white short grain calrose rice (white rice), I used brown rice. We buy 99% fat free ground turkey from Trader Joe's which I cut with a little ground beef for the meat patties. I've tried to just use the turkey, but it's way too lean for a meat patty and becomes very rubbery in texture. As far as the brown gravy, well I was subjected to use prepackaged powder gravy from McCormick's. Sue me, it was mid-week and I don't make homemade gravy! But I did use beef stock instead of water thinking it may add depth to the gravy!

I then assembled the loco moco: bowl, brown rice, turkey/hamburger patty, brown gravy, fresh egg (over easy for Gabe and I, scrambled for Carlan), green onion, and reduced fat shredded cheese.  Overall, it came out pretty good.  It would have tasted a lot better had I used homemade gravy, but you all know how that goes!

Last Wednesday night was Cinco De Mayo.  I felt obligated to cook something "Mexican".  I didn't want your typical tacos, burritos, or fajitas.  I was inspired by Rick Bayless and his show on PBS called Mexico One Plate at a Time.  Rick Bayless is a chef from Chicago who has three restaurants in the area, the most well known being Frontera grill.  If you go to the supermarket there is a Frontera salsa brand, that's Rick Bayless.

I ended cooking shrimp chile rellenos grilled in corn husks.  The concept was pretty simple so I thought I would be able to pull it off!  I soaked my corn husks for an hour or so before I did anything else. I threw my Anaheim chiles on the grill and they started to blacken and blister.  I took them off the grill and put them in a bowl and covered with a kitchen towel as the recipe indicated.  I improvised the shrimp and cheese stuffing for the chiles but kept the recipe's concept.  I used precooked shrimp that I thawed and did a rough chop on.  Oh and I grilled my red onion after I blackened my chiles.  I rough chopped the onion and threw it in with the shrimp.  As far as the cheese was concerned I ended up using a lite Mexican cheese blend from Trader Joe's.  I added some oregano, salt and pepper.  The recipe didn't call for either salt or pepper but I added it anyway and ended up adding too much salt! 

The chiles.  I had to peel my chiles.  It was a pain in the butt.  Why was it a pain in the butt?  Because I didn't blacken them enough on the grill.  It wasn't too bad, but it could have been a lot easier.  After peeling the chiles I rinsed them out and stuffed them with the shrimp and cheese filling.  I then attempted to wrap the chiles in the corn husks.  I say attempt because even though I got them wrapped, it wasn't pretty!  They weren't very uniform and some of the stuffing fell out of one chile!  It was my first time working with corn husks and it could have been worse!  On to the grill went the wrapped chiles and I cooked it for a few minutes until the cheese melted.  It was delicious despite the stuffing being a little over salted.  I would definitely make this again, plus it would give me practice working with corn husks!

Why We Eat

First let me introduce ourselves: Gabe, Mili, and Carlan. We eat out two to three times a week and have, in the past four months, started eating better. Wait. By eating better I mean eating healthier which is not always "better" tasting; nor is at as bad as some imagine. Mili has lost 20lbs. and I have lost 10lbs. And trust me we are not starving ourselves. During the week we make healthy choices when eating snacks and our three meals. Carlan on the other hand is hopefully gaining weight(she's only 16 months), but she is not allowed to eat junk either. On the weekends we are allowed to eat what we want, candy, pizza, burgers, junk, etc. Not that we just gorge ourselves with buffet after buffet on weekends but we don't sweat an extra fry or doughnut. Especially if it is the name of food exploration. We definitely look forward to the weekends even more now.

We love to try new places and recipes, constantly keeping our eyes open for places we hear about, read about, and see about. Seattle Magazine, Seattle Weekly, the Stranger are all tools we rely on heavily. The three of us put our heads together recently and thought we would be a little more productive with our eating and eating out. We want to legitimize the amount of money we spend on food. We want to feel like our money is being put to good work! Hence the blog. Most of the time we are on a budget, have a toddler, and are critical of what we eat. Now this includes our own cooking too!

So enjoy and feel free to let us know your thoughts(good and bad!)

Cheesecake Factory Bruch

My sister made a request for me to work on my "edge" so look out for the "F-BOMBS"! Recently we've been on a trend of looking for brunch places. I mean you can't beat a good breakfast. It doesn't matter what you eat or how much you eat because you have all day to burn it off. Plus it can be a foreshadow for you whole day. Good breakfast=Good day! Right?!

Today we had Sunday brunch at the Cheesecake Factory. We usually will try to venture out a little farther than that but we had to make a trip to Target and Best Buy. And really not too many places serve brunch so when you do find one you have to try it. Ok I would like to say it completely sucked but, they did bring Carlan a plate of bread and bananas sliced up as soon as we got there. So that was good for them. I ordered the Baja Chicken Hash. As you can tell I am not a critic on just the food but the whole experience. It was lukewarm. The dish seemed like a bunch leftovers thrown together and I am not sure about the Hollandaise Sauce. I'm not sure if I've ever even had a good Hollandaise Sauce. The tortilla was crisp I guess.

Mili ordered the Monte Cristo. We've been dying to find a good Monte Cristo in Seattle. Something not too greasy but we wanted one of those batter dipped, deep fried ones! No luck here. It was two pieces of french toast with ham and eggs in the middle. Lame. The french toast I don't even think was cooked all the way. The thick bread was soggy in the middle. Gross.

So Cheescake Factory Sunday bruch sucks. Service ok. Anyone have suggestions for that Monte Cristo let us know! And sorry no F-bombs today.