Ramen Fo Real

Today I continued my unsupervised culinary tour of Seattle where I walk up to random places and see if they have seating for one. Today's winning contestant was Rondo Japanese Kitchen: "Casual-chic stop for in ramen, donburi bowls & izakaya-style snacks, plus Japanese cocktails."

I knew this place was for real when I noticed the art above the door comprised of Nintendo Famicom game cartridges.

I would like to do an experiment someday where I eat ramen every day forever and anyone who criticizes me goes to hell.

Sometimes you can see some pretty righteous mountains from Kirkland peeking out over Lake Washington.

Sneaky Little Joule

Lydia is out of town which affords me the rare opportunity to be my true self. Mostly this involves eating pizza in my underwear and playing a medically ill advised amount of video games.

Central air is apparently not common in the Seattle area because it didn't ever used to get hot enough to be necessary. Well, now it does, so we bought a portable air conditioner. Another fun and weird aspect of many dwellings around here is for whatever reason the windows open horizontally. Usually I'm accustomed to most windows opening vertically. Anyway, this precludes us from buying the classic AC window unit that just hangs out the side of the window. So we bought this monstrosity that has a big pipe thing that snakes out the window.

The people that make deliveries to our apartment hate me, and so whenever something is very heavy they leave it at the bottom of three flights of stairs. I hate them so much.

I really found myself today. Instead of "making a reservation" or "planning my day" I just sort of picked a neighborhood, looked up what restaurants around there were cool, then walked up and asked if they had seating for one. I got turned down once or twice but Joule said: "you look like you might be tired from lugging an appliance up a bunch of stairs why don't you sit down and have the beers." So I did.

Joule is super fun. Google describes it as "Korean-fusion steakhouse offering Asian-Northwest eats amid handmade wallpaper & communal seating." I saw so many delicious sounding foods that I ordered way too much. Whatever.

This beauty is just a bone sliced down the middle. I am a wolf man.

"Bone Marrow

spicy anchovy butter, leek"

Spicy rice cake

chorizo, pickled mustard green

"that" Short rib steak

kalbi, grilled kimchi

This gross little surcharge thing seems to be gaining steam at local restaurants. I'm fine with the social cause, in fact, I don't care. What you do with the money I give you for half a bone is your own business. You need to be an adult and raise your bone price 4% and quit being a sneaky dirtbag. 

My new Xbox Series X arrived and I've been playing the maddeningly difficult Elden Ring. One of the reasons that it is the current hotness is that George R. R. Martin of Game of Thrones fame was a writer. I put this hilarious pumpkin helmet on my character because I'm gangster like that.

I had a sip at Central Club & Tavern and watched some very important sports matches.

Mount Sai Hike, Bye

Today we went for a hike in the Mount Sai area just east of North Bend.

This fungus looked kind of like delicious jelly beans. Tempting.

This slug was a babe. Tempting.

French Food Fremont

Today we checked out the Fremont Fair.

We were excited to see our French baker friend Renaud's The French Guys booth in the wild for the first time.

There were a lot of notable vehicles in attendance.

Afterwards we visited Aslan Brewing Seattle for a brew.

The midwest is being punished with weather for its many many sins.

All the Beers and a Baller Dinner

My boss at Microsoft Roger was kind enough to invite us to the Washington Brewers Festival at Marymoor Park in Redmond, Washington.

There were exotic birds. Things were off to a good start.

There were exotic beers.

I was drawn to my Anheuser-Busch undercover Elysian brethren. It's ok, I won't tell the locals you control 30% of planet earth's beer market. We'll just pretend you're still a Seattle mom and pop operation.

Diamond Hands is a reference to holding onto stupid investments like Bitcoin or Gamestop stock in order to be brutally devastated when the rug is pulled out from under you.

There were a lot of fun beers to try. In St. Louis, land of the free, a festival like this would be all you can sip. Here in occupied territory they give you like 5 tokens with admission then take more of your money if you want more tastes. This is an injustice that cannot stand. Washington politicians legalized weed and are now moving on to psychedelic mushrooms. When are they going to legalize beer?! 

We bought some of these deep fried peanuts. I think we ate a bag and saved one for Lydia's dad. In the south where he lives the move is boiled peanuts where people also often eat the shell. It was sort of an inside joke type situation.

The problem with so many beer tastings is I often forget my place and have to start all over. Sad.

Today we ate dinner at what might be the fanciest restaurant in Seattle that I'm aware of: Canlis.

Our table setting had like a little zen garden in the center.

The food here was so wild that I wasn't quite certain what the heck it was even after ordering it. "We're serving a multi-course dining experience where you choose three of the courses (and we like to surprise you with several others)."

One thing I've learned about fancy people is that they don't like their soup to come in soup form. They want to examine the solids then watch the liquids poured on top. They are very particular people!

duck, green garlic, spinach, berries

There isn't enough fern in food these days. They are so fun and spiraly.

smoked cacao, nougatine, milk ice cream

When it was time to go they gave us a postcard. Bold move.

When it was time for us to depart the hostess already knew we were coming. She was standing by the fireplace and holding out of coats to warm them. Now that is baller service.