Le French Toast

Our friends from Le France Julie and Renaud invited us over to their place for food.

Renaud is a fancy French baking entrepreneur. Look at me I know a French word.

We had this sort of upscale French toast with chocolate drizzle and strawberries.

Birthday Girl on the Loose

Lydia just had a birthday so I took her out for an amazing evening of excitement and entertainment. 

We had dinner at French join Cafe Campagne.

Later I took Lydia to see some stand up by the St. Louis native Sklar Brothers at the Here-After comedy club. They were fun because they have a two person comedy routine which I don't think I've ever seen before, and about half of the show is them making fun of eachother.

Buttery, Buttery Snails

I've been doing a lot of interviewing lately. I've been getting a lot of FAANG interest which is pretty cool on one hand, but on the other their interview process is cutthroat and gives me a lot of anxiety. I feel like they don't really care about my work experience or education, and they only thing that matters to them is that I memorize a bunch of stupid coding problems. 

I felt a little guilty that we rarely eat at the restaurants in Kirkland because I'm always tempted by the awesome stuff happening over in Seattle. The highlight of our meal at Lynn's Bistro was Lydia's very first escargot.

We have a trip to Paris on the books so Lydia had to do some training with these buttery, buttery snails.

For a Limited Time

I booked a reservation at French restaurant Café Presse as soon as I heard it was closing on Instagram. I'm glad I did, because a Seattle Times article on the subject dropped soon afterwards which surely sent the flood. Hearing Anthony Bourdain liked to eat here sealed the deal. I'm pretty easily manipulated.

My first impression of the place was that it was the least pretentious French restaurant I've ever seen in the US. It was like a French place in France. I asked our server which wine he thought would go best with the food I ordered and he said he didn't know.

For a starter I ordered:

Gâteau aux foies de volailles

Smooth chicken liver terrine, dried cherry compote

I had the

steak-frites, beurre au bleu d'Auvergne, pommes frites

100% grass fed petit top sirloin steak, bleu cheese butter, pommes frites

Lydia got

raclette Savoyarde ou Végétarienne

Broiled mountain cheese with steamed yellow potatoes; apples, pears, and walnuts

Hers was like a nice little fondue.

I figured since this was the only time we would ever eat here we might as well go for it.

Basboussa

semolina cake made with coconut, yogurt, soaked with lemon-rose syrup, whipped cream

It was such a nice wholesome meal without a bunch of weird frills. I'm sad that we won't be back but I think the knowledge that this was a melting iceberg heightened the experience.