So I recently had jury duty and on my lunch break I decided to go looking for a place to eat.  I happened to walk by El Sabor de Oaxaca and decided to try it.  I had heard from a friend that it was decent Mexican food, and I’m always on the lookout for good Mexican.

I ordered the one enchilada chicken combo plate…my standby.  Well…the beans were just ok.  The rice…not so good at all.  My home made sad excuse of Mexican rice was better than this.   The enchilada?  My enchiladas were also better than this…granted I make some pretty darn good enchiladas.  But STILL!  I was highly disappointed in this place.  I don’t recommend this place at all!  I really wanted to like it, the people were super nice…and it seemed like it had so much potential.

While Seattle isn’t known for it’s Mexican food, there are certainly a lot better places than this.

El Sabor de Oaxaca,  217 James St, Seattle, WA

ML and I went here for lunch and ordered the dine around.  ML got the sherry almond scallops, prawn linguini, and the pumpkin gelato.  She said the scallops were good, but a bit heavy, she loved the prawn linguini, and completely devoured the pumpkin gelato.

I ordered the gala apple salad, which I thought was delicious.  My next course was the pumpkin risotto.  When it was brought out to me, I loved the presentation.  I thought it was really cute that it was served in a mini, hollowed out pumpkin.  The first few bites were delicious and exciting, but I have to admit about 5 minutes later I was bored with the dish.  I think I ate about 1/3 of the dish, and gave the rest as leftovers to ML.  I didn’t even care to have the leftovers.  The pumpkin gelato was also delicious, I actually enjoyed it.  It started out well spiced and sweet, but as I continued to eat the sweetness wore off and it didn’t feel overly sweet, just perfect.

I like the ambiance at Andaluca, I’ve been there before and I remember liking the restaurant and the design, but not really remembering much about the food.  I have to say the same about this dining experience as well.  I remember feeling cozy about the place, but the food didn’t quite stand out and impress me.

Overall, a good place to go for a quick business lunch if I’m in the area…they’re pretty efficient…but not somewhere I would seek out for lunch or dinner for the food.

Andaluca, 407 Olive Way, Seattle, WA

KG and I went to Earth & Ocean for lunch the other day.  It was dinearound and  she ordered the butternut squash soup, lamb sausage, and pumpkin ginger cheesecake.  KG ate everything, so I’m guessing she loved her food.  Hehe.  I ordered the pork rillette salad, pasta with marscapone and chanterelle mushrooms, and sweet and salty cake (chocolate cake with a salty caramel sauce).  I didn’t care too much for the pork rillette salad, I thought texture wise it was a mix between SPAM and pate.  It was a bit weird.  The pasta was delicious though, and the chocolate cake was a bit dry but it was a good mixture with the salty caramel sauce.

Overall, there are definitely better restaurants.  It wasn’t the greatest place I’ve been to and I don’t think I’d return here again for the price that I’m paying.   I wasn’t impressed, but not unimpressed either…it didn’t quite make an impression.  Overall…not recommended.

I must commend them for the service though…great job guys!

Earth & Ocean, 1112 Fourth Ave, Seattle, WA

I finally have completed the Tom Douglas restaurant tour.  I went here for lunch with JR, JP, and LP.  I ordered the yukon gold potato, rosemary and olive oil pizza…it was delicious and HUGE!  I didn’t even finish half of it, so it was a good leftover dinner for Duwardo.

Admittedly, it’s not the best pizza I’ve had in Seattle (Via Tribunali), but it certainly has some interesting pizzas to offer.  I really wanted to try the chanterelles and soft egg, but I didn’t think the egg would last as a leftover pizza.

It’s pretty crowded, so I would expect a wait, or go during and off-peak time.  It has long tables, so you’ll likely share a table with another party…but it’s fun.  It’s a bit loud, so it’s certainly not the place to go on an intimate romantic dinner…but definitely fun with friends.  We brought a little baby with us, who was teething and fussy, but they were really amazing with accommodating us, so a big fat thank you for them for doing that.

Overall, it’s not my favorite Tom Douglas restaurant, but it’s definitely somewhere I will return.

Serious Pie,  316 Virgina, Seattle, WA

So there’s this small Chinese restaurant that is right across the street of Metro Market.  We drive by it everyday when we go to the supermarket, and we’ve always joked about going there but were always skeptical at the same time.  Well, Duwardo, MW and I finally decided to go there last week.

We came in and were happy to find other Asians there (always a good sign to find other Asians at an Asian restaurant.  A better sign if the Asians are of the same ethnicity as the restaurant.)  We looked at the menu and found that it was a bit over-priced for an average Chinese restaurant and the menu was a bit lackluster, but it had your basic Chinese dishes.

We ordered the Hong Kong style noodles with pork, half a fried chicken, and Szechuan beef.  I wouldn’t say the food was exceptional, but it was certainly better than we expected.  I liked the noodles the best.  The chicken was well done, and the beef wasn’t too bad either.

Overall, we’ll probably come again even though the prices are a bit over-priced and the food isn’t the best.  I don’t recommend anyone driving far to come here, it’s certainly not worth it…but if you live within the Sand Point/Wedgwood area, it’s certainly a good option.  We figured it’s a few bucks more than Jade Garden, but it evens out with driving down to I-District to get our Chinese fix.  We’re willing to pay for the convenience.

Yummy Cafe,  4008 NE 55th St, Seattle, WA

Duwardo and I FINALLY made our way to La Carta de Oaxaca…and I’m so glad we did!  This place is really really good.  We had the molotes (potatoes & beef sausage wrapped in fried tortillas), enchilada (with a fried egg), and mole’ negro oaxaqueno (black chile mole’ with pork).  The molotes were fabulous, I’m still wanting more of that right now.  The enchilada was ok, not fabulous, but definitely interesting with the fried egg.  The mole’ negro was pretty good too…I think that was Duwardo’s favorite.

Plates are pretty small, you’re getting more of a tapas style plates rather than those hearty Gorditos style plates.  They also run around $8-10 a plate as well…so not completely cheap for what the amount of food you’re getting.  However, I still think it’s worth the price because it was definitely great.  We will definitely be coming back here…if only to get some molotes!

La Carta de Oaxaca, 5431 Ballard Ave NW, Seattle, WA

Duwardo and I popped in here for lunch.  I’d been here a few years back, but Duwardo had never been here before.  I ordered the crispy drunken chicken baguette and he had the grilled spanish chorizo baguette.  I really really really enjoyed my crispy drunken chicken baguette…it had some great flavors.  Duwardo seemed to enjoy his chorizo baguette as well…although I think he preferred mine more.  We ordered a side of the truffle fries as well, and it was also yummy.  Imagine those Vietnamese sandwiches (banh mi) and spruce them up and make them all fancy and you have the sandwiches here.

It’s a great place for a fast, quick bite.  The only complaint is there aren’t enough tables.  I haven’t been to the new Fremont location so I can’t vouch for that one…but I don’t doubt that it’s just as good.

Baguette Box, 1203 Pine Street, Seattle, WA

Ok, so we usually don’t review chains, but The Melting Pot is such a different place to  begin with, that I had to do it.

AA, a good friend of ours was in town for business, so Duwardo, MW and I all went to dinner with him. We wanted to try something new, and fondue came up and was agreed upon by all.

We walked in and realized that we were probably the  most casual people there, as everyone else was dressed up with the girls wearing really revealing dresses or sparkly sort of things.  Not to disparage anyone, but I kind of got the feeling that this is where the “younger” couples went when they dressed up and went out to a nice meal.

Anyhow, we ordered 2 “Entrees for 2″ One of the Signature Selection and another order of the Pacific Rim.  We started out with a Traditional Swiss fondue, which was a bit heavy on the alcohol taste but still delicious.   I had the California Salad, which was pretty delicious as well and offset the heaviness of the cheese fondue.  The Coq au vin meat fondue was delicious and we all quite enjoyed that.  We definitely didn’t have enough room for dessert, but maybe someday I’ll go there just to do the dessert.

We had great service and our waitress was really sweet and nice to us.

Overall, it’s an interesting place to go to and try at least once.  It’s certainly not our “go to” nice restaurant but it was a lot of fun as a group.  If you haven’t tried fondue, I recommend it at least once…it’s definitely an experience.

The Melting Pot, 14 Mercer St, Seattle, WA

Duwardo and I were recently in Las Vegas and wanted to find a nice restaurant for dinner before we headed off to the Spamalot show at the Wynn.  We decided on Daniel Boulud’s Brasserie for various reasons: 1) Daniel Boulud is a talented chef that we’ve heard quite a bit about, 2) we had mentioned that we’d like to find a French restaurant to try, and 3) it was conveniently located in the Wynn as well.

We were treated amazingly well there, but seriously, that’s to be expected when you’re going to a place like this.  There was no air of snootiness or anything like that at all.  We were quickly seated to our seat, where we had a nice view of the “Lake of Dreams” (which has a really weird show that happens every half hour…we ended up seeing a frog singing What a Wonderful World…a bit out of place with the restaurant, but also amusing).

We opted to go with the prix fixe meal. I had the chilled tomato soup, organic roasted chicken with a scallion and potato puree and a sweet corn ragout, and a warm peach clafoutis.  To top it off, the very kind sommelier suggested a chenin blanc to go with the meal.  (I have the name written down, and will post that later). The tomato soup was delicious, I was ready to ask for a second serving of it, I loved it so much.  The chicken and the wine went superbly together, so a big hats off to the sommelier for his great suggestion.  I had originally wanted to order a glass of the reisling, but he steered me towards this instead and I thank him for that.  The meal was so delicious that I ate most of it, and was very full when dessert came.  I only ate a bit of it, but the peach clafoutis was fabulous.  It was similar to a peach cobbler.  Duwardo had the pate de campagne forestiere, the original NY DB burger, and milk chocolate parfait.  Duwardo had never had pate before, but I knew he’d love it so I pushed him to order it…he ended up eating the whole thing.  The original NY DB burger was completely out of this world.  It’s a sirloin burger stuffed with foie gras, spare ribs, and truffles.  We had heard about Daniel Boulud’s extravagant burgers, but this was just amazing.  The milk chocolate parfait was also absolutely delicious.

This was definitely a great restaurant and ranks up there as one of the top 3 meals.  If you’re in Vegas and looking for a fabulous restaurant, I highly recommend Daniel Boulud’s Brasserie.

Daniel Boulud’s Brasserie at the Wynn Las Vegas Resort and Country Club, Las Vegas, NV

I’ve been to Costas Opa a few times, once for brunch and a few times for dinner.  I’ve really enjoyed the food there.

Recently Duwardo and I went there with our friends.  We weren’t super hungry so we opted to share a meal of the Santorini salad.  It was delicious!!! In the past I’ve also had the avgolemono soup (which is soooooo good), souvlaki and the chicken lemonato. All have been fabulous.

It’s such a huge restaurant that there usually isn’t a wait, but as it’s in Fremont it can be a bit hard to find parking at times.  Overall, definitely a place to go with friends.  I’ve heard from others that this is a great place to get breakfast because it serves the normal breakfast type foods but most people don’t think of going to a greek place so it’s not super crowded!

Costas Opa, 3400 Fremont Ave N., Seattle, WA