Trip Report: What I Ate In Seattle
And why Pike Place is better than Times Square, Hollywood Walk of Fame, and Millennium Park
There’s a reason the Culinary Director of Serious Eats, J. Kenji López-Alt, calls Seattle home - it’s full of really good food. Rachel and I went last weekend to visit a friend we always meetup with for an extended weekend of eating too much food. I’m still recovering from eating every day like it’s Thanksgiving.
Quick plug: I book trips through Fora now. Let me know if you want help planning something - agents like me get access to perks you can’t find on your own.
Turns Out Pike Place Is Great
Before I get to the really tasty foods, I have to celebrate Pike Place real quick. Growing up in Portland we’d get up to Seattle on occasion and I thought Pike Place was just another tourist trap. I don’t know if it’s changed or if I just grew up, but it’s more than that now. The streets around it are bustling with nooks and crannies filled with shops and restaurants that are actually good. We enjoyed our dishes from Pike Place Chowder and The Crumpet Shop, and the coconut cashew mylk at Storyville Coffee was tasty in a cappuccino. (I wanted to go to Post Alley Pizza but our timing didn’t line up.) The area is crawling with tourists, but unlike other big city tourist hot spots, it was also crawling with locals. Pike Place did not feel like the part of town to be avoided if you lived there.
The buildings with layers of shops and restaurants hidden throughout gave me the Japanese city feel that I miss here in the US. The removal of the freeway on the waterfront side of Pike Place is a success that every city needs to look at.
Our Top Bites of the Trip
An early stop was the Pie Dive Bar in Snohomish. An old friend from college married a pie maker whose humble crumble won an episode of Bake You Rich on the Food Network. He was a well known bartender in the Fremont neighborhood, and when they came together they combined their skills to create a dive bar with great pie.
All the pies we got were really good, but the Cookies and Cream was one of those bites that makes everything else going on at the table stop. It’s thick and rich with cream cheese turning it into something between a cream pie and a cheese cake. When my friend Hart came over to chat Rachel took the opportunity to start shoveling the pie into her mouth. It honestly probably saved me from bursting. We also really enjoyed the cherry pie. It was delicious and not overly sweet and gloopy like many can get.
(Pie Dive Bar also brings co-owner Alyssa’s counseling career into the fold by having a neurodivergent affirming hiring program!)
The strawberry shortcake at Cafe Flora was another one of our top bites. They used corn bread for the cake which gave it a delicious extra element that paired well with the in season strawberries and fresh whipped cream.
I enjoyed our pizzas at Moto, but I think I’m not super into Detroit style pizza. It’s great, but it’s a little much for me, and I often feel a little sick after eating. Everyone seems to be doing Detroit pizza these days - just add extra bread and let the cheese crisp on the sides and people will come flocking. That being said, this black garlic cheese bread from Moto was unique and delicious!
The cream cheese furikake twist from Saint Bread was a lot of fun. The okonomiyaki frittata was a nice dish that made us want the real thing again.
We got to Temple Pastries a little late in the day so they were fairly picked over. For being the last picked, these pastries still surprised us. The rye pain au chocolate stayed on our mind for a couple of days. The rye flour brings a little extra heft to the French staple. The caramel kouign amman was great, and the chocolate chip cacao nib cookie worked.
Other Bits
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