I'm backkkk from Seattle! I can't even begin to tell you how much I enjoyed the trip. It was my third time there, and I know I'll be visiting again. The people, the environment, not to mention THE FOOD... were all extremely comforting and welcoming. Now, I have to break the myth-- it doesn't rain in Seattle 24:7. We were there for 4 days and it only sprinkled a bit, allowing us to walk everywhere. Now don't get me wrong, this Southern California girl was definitely not used to the cold.. but I survived!These two pictures (the one above and below) were the only two taken of me and the bf on the entire trip.. it's kind of hard to have pictures taken when there's only the two of you there! Anyways, I promised I'd take pictures of the food that I ate, so here they are! This isn't even all the food that we consumed on our trip-- so you know we went all out, food wise. Please excuse the poor lighting in some of the pictures.. I did the best I could! With all that aside, let's go on a Seattle foodie journey!
After settling into our hotel, we walked to the Baguette Box for lunch, as recommended by my cousin. Their logo was adorable and there were dog paintings all over the inside of the restaurant. It was the perfect place for lunch-- fast, delicious, and moderately priced. How would I describe the Baguette Box? The food is basically upper scale Vietnamese sandwiches with a bit of a kick.
My bf got the lemongrass steak with cheese (which I didn't take a picture of) and I got the tofu with avocado sandwich. AMAZING! My boyfriend raved about his sandwich as well.. I'd highly recommend this place to anyone near Capitol Hill.
For dinner that night, my cousin took us out to The Chapel Bar, Machiavelli's, and Molly Moon's for dessert. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture from the first two places.. but trust me, they are both amazing! Molly Moon's reminded me of Scoops over here in LA, but more hip. Apparently everywhere we went that day had dogs as their logos. I tried the salted caramel ice cream, since it's supposedly big in Seattle, but that just didn't float my boat. Instead, I got the Vivace coffee ice cream (as did the bf) and my cousin got a lavender ice cream. Yum!
This coffee shop in particular- Bauhaus- was also located in Capitol Hill. They had the most amazing bookshelf I have ever seen. It looks exactly like the one from Beauty and the Beast, where Belle climbs the ladder and gets all her books from, except this one was REAL! They even had the huge ladder to climb to the very top! love love love.
I can't even tell you how many cups of coffee my boyfriend drank a day. He was determined to try every coffee while in Seattle and find the most amazing one. I actually don't drink coffee-- so I just ordered chai tea lattes and hot chocolates. :) On one of our many stops, we went the monorail espresso. It's a fun and trendy little place and I found it on where else but yelp. Yelp never steers me wrong-- we got the mocha and white mocha latte and both were delish.
For breakfast, we ate at a restaurant at our hotel (we stayed at the Hyatt at Olive 8) called Urbane. Though it was a bit pricy -- we spent nearly 40 bucks on breakfast! -- it was well worth it. The service, environment, and quality was up to par on all aspects. I just got the standard eggs and bacon...
while my bf got the steak and potatoes. He's such a meat man.
We got to visit the original Starbucks. It's crazy how such a HUGE company started from such a little store! Side note-- don't mind my hand. What in the world am I doing?
And walked around Pike Place Market (my favorite!)
I've also heard Lowell's (as you can barely see in the pic underneath) is great for breakfast/brunch, but we didn't get to try that out because the bf was scared it'd all be seafood. He doesn't eat any seafood, so eating at a restaurant by tons of fish markets wasn't too appealing for him.
We stopped for some more espresso and chai...
And then snacked a bit since we were going to eat dinner so late. The boy's snack from Taco Del Mar- chicken burrito with beans.
and mine! I'm such a sucker for guacamole.
Of course, I had to bring my boyfriend to the bakery I lived at on my last visit, Macrina!
We had breakfast here one of the days and just had good ol' bread and butter. I can live off of that stuff. I also picked up a chocolate chip cookie to go, along with various rolls. My boyfriend fell in love with the mocha latte he got there and said it was the best that he's tried.
Before dinner, we had to catch the first Laker game, but we didn't have a TV at the place we were staying! What else were we to do, but go to a bar! Sport is actually literally right across the street from the Space Needle and was within 3 blocks or so from where we were staying. How convenient!
This bar was quite lovely, since every booth had their own TV and we were able to watch the Laker game in peace. :) Meanwhile, we snacked on these delicious soft baked pretzels with cheese. I used to eat this for lunch every day in high school. How healthy, right?
Finally, we met up at Umi Sake House for a late dinner with some of my boyfriend's friends. We choose this place because of my cousin's recommendation. This was my favorite atmosphere of all the restaurants that we've been to on our trip. Our waitress was just the sweetest and most helpful person. They even have happy hour 3 times a day!
We had dinner around 11PM and hung out til about 1AM. This place is open late, which is always a plus. I had a spicy california roll and a seattle roll-- both for only 8 bucks total because of the happy hour special! My boyfriend got short ribs and sesame chicken for only $10.50 total. Sorry I don't have pictures of the actual food! I was too hungry to take pictures before I even remembered.
Walking around on Post Alley, I wandered into this store simply because of the name. I am immediately drawn to all sorts of sweets and had to buy something from this cute little chocolate boutique. 2 truffles for 4 dollars, totally worth it. My boyfriend got a blueberry basil truffle and I got a cherry cordial. Everything was handmade by the little sweet lady that worked there and I was so impressed with everything! She even used to live in Santa Monica, so we had a lot in common.
Now, I got a lot of suggestions from my previous post to go to the Tom Douglas restaurants. I have a confession to make--- I had to google Tom Douglas because I had no idea who he was. I thought he was either A.) a book author, B.) a famous old war hero, or C.) Christopher Columbus' best friend. The name just fits all of them. After looking at yelp reviews and various menus, I HAD to drop by the infamous Tom Douglas corner and dine at some of his restaurants. All of his restaurants had amazing reviews and I was definitely not disappointed. First stop.. Serious Pie!
My bf and I share the buffalo cheese w/tomato for lunch and WOW. Seriously, the best pizza I've ever had. I can only imagine what the rest of the pizzas taste like. It's like heaven in my mouth.. perfectly crisp and flavorful. The combination of ingredients were to die for. You just have to try it for yourself to fully understand what I mean.
I mean, just look at that.. I don't even normally like flat crispy pizzas, but I'll surely make an exception for this one! You can even see them make the pizza in a big ol' brick oven. Fantastic! I love being able to eat and getting a glimpse into the kitchen at the same time.
After devouring the pizza, we walked around the corner to:
The bakery was adorable and the staff was very friendly. I got the monkey bread with caramel sauce. When I went to go pay for it, I got it for half off because it was after one o'clock! Score! Apparently there's a row of baked goods that's all half off after one. I love getting deals without even knowing about them.
Alright, so I walked by the yellow leaf cupcake and even walked in to check out what the new fuss was about. This is Seattle's most recent cupcake shop and although it looked cute, I just wasn't impressed with it. According to my cousin who lives in Seattle and is a major foodie as well, this cupcakery didn't impress her either. She said the cupcakes were too oily, but I didn't try them myself. I was saving my stomach for guaranteed satisfaction... at Trophy!
This is what I came to Seattle for-- my most favorite cupcake shop of all time: Trophy! I imagine that if I ever opened my own cupcake shop, it'd look exactly like this. They have the most adorable color palette, decorations, chairs.. heck, they even sell gift wrapping supplies! This bakery just yells out all sorts of love.
My boyfriend and I ended up getting a stout, mint chocolate chip, and a red velvet cupcake to share. Both of our favorites was the red velvet, hands down. What I love about Trophy's cupcakes is that they're moist, you can never go wrong with ANY of the flavors, the cream cheese frosting is pure heaven, and the buttercream isn't too rich. The buttercream is actually very light and sort of whipped. Ah, I just die thinking about these lovelies.
For our last night in Seattle, my boyfriend and I wanted waterfront dining to end our trip with a bang. After a lot of research and menu-searching, we ended up here, at Pier 59? 55? Something like that:
My starter- casear salad (I eat, live, and breathe ceasar salads, in case you didn't know. This one was just average)
Boyfriend's appetizer- clam chowder. You can't have waterfront dining without some clam chowder!
My entree- grilled salmon. Honestly, I've had better salmon. It was a bit tough for me, but the broccoli was amazing. I finished all mine and ate my bf's.
Boyfriend's entree- What can I say... he's a steak and potatoes kinda guy. Believe it or not, he doesn't eat any vegetables at all. Nothing. No broccoli, lettuce, green beans, zucchini.. zip, zilch, nada. How does he survive? I have no idea. But it works out for me because that means I can eat all his vegetables!
Whew! You made it to the end-- thanks for reading!
