Some Seattle Italian Food

I took Lydia to a nice dinner at Seattle Italian restaurant La Fontana Siciliana.

I don't usually buy bread due to the evil carbs that lurk within so when places give it to me for free with a little olive oil to dip it in I tend to make a pig of myself. I'm not sorry.

It's funny, we are keeping the Troll secret until Thanksgiving when our family will all be together. So I don't really speak about its existence to anyone other than Lydia, her doctors, and... restaurant staff. She has several foods that she's supposed to steer clear of which I now have habit of announcing to our servers to give them warning of our new found dietary restrictions. Anyway, it's a weird feeling telling people that Lydia is pregnant.

I rocked the

"Pollo ai Formaggi

Chicken breast baked with parmesan cheese, tomato sauce and melted Mozzarella, in our rich tomato sauce. Served with Spaghetti Aglio e Olio."

It's funny because we eat so much fun Asian food now in the Seattle area that little Italian joint food has sort of become the exotic food all of the sudden.

True to its name, La Fontana does in fact have a fountain.

Japanese Italian Food

I was mostly excited about visiting Japaneses steakhouse Kokkaku in the Wallingford neighborhood of Seattle because I was craving a steak and the Japanese angle sounded like extra fun.

I was secondarily excited to have dinner here because I noticed that they had this on the menu:

Japanese bagna cauda with Saikyo Miso dipping

Assorted vegetables, radish mix, Saikyo Miso sauce

Bagna Cauda is an Italian dipping sauce made with garlic, butter, and anchovies, introduced to me by my friend Seago from Gillespie, Illinois. I guess it was popular in that area. Anyway I knew that the concept of a Japanese miso pretending to be bagna cauda would trigger him and that would give me maybe even more enjoyment than the food itself. This was really good.

I don't recall what I ordered but I can confirm it was good and meaty.

The war in Ukraine has caused an embargo on Russian oil plus there's some inflation happening and the result is some pretty high gas prices. I'd like to buy an electric car one of these days.

Wordle is the hit craze game that all the cool kids are playing these days. You have so many guesses to figure out a word. Its popularity has spawned a whole bunch of copycats. Semantle is kind of interesting where you guess words and it tells you how related your word is to the secret word.

Pretend Texan Sweets

We passed by this business several times during our San Antonio trip, and it had a big tower that reminded me of a White Castle on steroids. It turned out to be Pioneer Flour Mills. While the company is older, this particular mill was built in 1859 and is still operating today. The make Whataburger's pancake mix as well McDonald's McGriddle buns.

We had dinner at Mixtli which was sort of a contemporary Mexican fancy restaurant where you buy the set menu and let them do the magic. They had a really cool philosophy where they taught you about Mexican history and tried to incorporate historical flavors into the dishes. I thought that it was a good idea but I was less impressed with the execution.

Bread Service

Brioche, foie gras, orange jam

I've had pate and foie gras in the shape of a cherry twice now, and even knowing ahead of time what it is, biting into it is always sad. I wish it was just a cherry.

Chayote Heart Salad

Green apple, white anchovy, citrus vinaigrette

Roasted Beet Mille Feuille

Chipotle, mole blanco

Rutabaga

Turpial Cheese

Salmon

Sauce cardinal

Sweetbreads

Pan seared sweetbreads, black garlic

Sweetbread is another thing that just sounds like it will be awesome. Like pancakes or banana bread or something. Then you get it and it's "thymus (also called throat, gullet, or neck sweetbread) or pancreas (also called stomach, belly or gut sweetbread)". Sad!

They had a couple actual desserts that were really good. One was sort of ocean themed with ice cream and a lot of other stuff going on. I think that was the one part of the meal that I completely enjoyed.

I recall during my Anheuser-Busch days talking about how Texas drinks so much beer that they regularly get special packages just for them. Must be nice.

Some Overpriced Indian

Today we tried Meesha for the first time which was supposed to be like elevated Indian food.

The outcome felt to me more like "we took that cheap street food you like and made it more expensive". Especially annoying was I ordered naan and got like four little pieces which wasn't enough to sop up the sauce we had a ton of. It would be like having to buy ten tortilla chips and a Mexican place. Shudder.

Lydia is a dumpster art connoisseur of sorts. 

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.