Communion Round Two

We rarely go to the same upscale restaurant twice these days, as we're fairly new to town still and have a lot of restaurants out there to explore. So it's really high praise from us that we returned to Communion a month after our first visit.

Eater Seattle:

"Chef Kristi Brown — who made her name running the catering operation That Brown Girl Cooks — calls the food at her Central District restaurant “Seattle Soul.” At Communion, fusions like the Hood Sushi Bowl featuring fried catfish and seaweed salad come from Brown’s memories of shopping at Asian markets in the neighboring Chinatown-International District. But the dishes that shine brightest are her more traditional Southern ones, like a pork neck bone stew, with smoky meat simmered in umami-packed broth with lima beans. It’s hard to get a seat at this Eater Award-winner in the renovated Liberty Bank Building. Make reservations weeks ahead, or show up right when the restaurant opens on a weekday to vie for a spot."

I did a little more research, though, and uncovered the real reason behind Lydia's love of this place. "Her creations combine her food experiences from a childhood in Kansas City, Missouri, to her teenage years in Seattle's Central District." Lydia was being called to this place by her Missouri blood!

While waiting for our food I read some local event newspapers. The blurb on Seattle Rep.'s Lydia and the Troll was hilariously similar to the story of the real Lydia and her internal Troll stowaway. We are definitely going to need to see this show.

A fun thing about Communion is that the menu is always changing. We were just here a few weeks ago and the menu was unrecognizable.

Slow burn hummus and injera

Slow burn - hummus, earthy, spiced and creamy black eyed pea hummus served with local injera

Sauteed mussels

Sauteed Totten Inlet (Puget Sound) mussels & a spicy Laotian sausage & sauteed, creamy coconut sauce, shallots, and garlic.

It's strange we had to travel so far away to have the best Missouri food but I'm happy with my choices.

Vegetarian hella filthy rice

dirty rice Seattle style and vegan

Add-on: deep fried cornmeal crusted catfish

Lydia finally got the banana pudding that she was denied on our last visit.

MuscleFest Goes to Musselfest

Today we hit the Penn Cove Musselfest in Coupeville, Washington.

Coupeville is located on Whidbey Island. We drove the long way around and took the bridge rather than mess with ferries today. The ferry is the Amtrak of the water. It's amusing but too slow and unreliable if you actually care when you're going to arrive.

My favorite part of the day was taking this tour of the mussel farm. I don't know what my deal is but I love learning how agricultural products are made. Most products I guess because car, beer, and chocolate factories are all pretty cool too. Anyway. It was fun.

The way it works is they seed the mussels on these long ropes that are tied to floating platforms.

Then when they want to harvest a certain amount of mussels they just pull up some of the ropes the adult mussels are living on.

This was like a floating mussel harvesting machine.

Back on land we were compelled to go to Front Street Grill and devour some of the creatures whose homes we'd just visited. What monsters we are.

We got two orders of mussels this time:

Copenhagen mussels

Butter, shallots, garlic, bacon, spinach, bleu cheese, cream and sun dried tomatoes

Coconut green curry mussels

A unique secret blend that comprises our signature dish here at FSG! A little kick of spice as well!

Somehow Lydia's accumulation of bad karma attracted a deer that seemed to have nefarious ends.

After our marathon all nighter Myst adventure, Seago and I moved on to a game that I've been curious about since maybe the 90s. It was... very bad.

Pyst is a parody of Myst that against all logic features live video of the great St. Louis native John Goodman.

In an even further display of ridiculousness the game has a theme song sung by the very same John Goodman. It seems to have been written by a person with no knowledge of either game.