Seattle Vacation

After a wonderful time in Vancouver, we took an Amtrak train down to Seattle. Thankfully the train tickets were only about $15 combined due to my reward points, otherwise it would not have been worth it. The train is almost twice as long as driving and we got stuck in a car with kids and no view.

One big plus about Seattle was that we had cell phone service finally. While we did like being disconnected for a while in Canada, we were happy to be able to look up places on the fly, especially when we needed directions.

The weather was a bit chilly in Seattle and much windier than Vancouver. I also didn’t realize how some parts of Seattle are so hilly, almost like San Francisco! Each day we spent in Seattle was jam-packed to the point where there were a few things we’ll have to go back for some time that we didn’t get to do. Our motto when planning trips is that you have to leave some stuff to do next time!

Day 1

After waking up at 5AM and traveling across an international border, we were in desperate need of caffeine. After checking in to our AirBnb, we hopped over to Stumptown Coffee. The coffee was good, but not the best–a bit too acrid for my taste. We then headed over to the CakeSpy Shop.  – I’m a fan of Jessie (blogger/artist) and we were staying in Capitol Hill nearby. Sadly, the shop/art gallery is closing, but I’m glad we got to visit! It had some very interesting pieces of art, including the art donated to CupcakeCampDC and an art gallery upstairs. We continued to walk around Pine/Pike, though some portions of the street were closed due to a block party.

We hopped over to Marination Station which was some of the best food we had all trip. It’s a Hawai’ian place tucked into a shopping center with great sauces, daily specials (ex: Theo chocolate chicken mole because the Theo factory is nearby), and juice drinks from HI. Mac salad with spam? Yes please. We also got the kahlua slider and the Spicy Pork & Kalbi Tacos, which were juicy, saucy, and parcels of flavor in our mouths.

I only really wanted to try one cupcake place (Trophy), but Cupcake Royale was seemingly *everywhere*. I only tried one mini cupcake (peanut butter, chocolate, and bacon) and it was good. Before we went to Seattle, I asked fellow foodie Pat from The Asian Grandmother’s Cookbook/Blog for some recommendations and I took her up on her suggestion for Little Uncle. It was a bit of a hike to get here, but since a lot of Pike was closed, we had had time to spare. We opted for the heirloom green rhubarb and peach shaved ice. The space is very interesting and the staff was very nice and friendly. The food smelled so good, I was tempted to order something, but we were very full.

What did I say about being full? That didn’t stop us from snacking on some Stumptown Coffee ice cream in a housemade waffle cone at Molly Moon’s. They had interesting flavors, but the ice cream was a tad too soft for my liking. We rounded the corner and walked in to Old School Frozen Custard for some tastes since we were on the verge of diabetes at this point. They have vanilla, chocolate, and a special flavor every day. It’s milwaukee-style and similar to Milwaukee’s Frozen Custard around here, so we didn’t go back. We then looped around to Bluebird for a taste of the weekend special, “Phantograham” ice cream. I don’t like graham crackers, but graham cracker ice cream for some reason tasted great. Since it was a weekend special, we made it a point to come back the next day, which was easy because they’re open late. They also make their own waffle cones, serve beer, and have board games that you can play like 1993 UNO and Boggle.

For dinner we sat outside at Restaurant Zoë. The drinks were nice, but a tad too sweet and weak. We got gnocchi, shaved beef tongue, wild boar pasta, and tumeric glazed lamb with lentils. The macadamia short bread cookie-accompanied coffee creme brulee we had for dessert and the soft and salty bread made up for any hiccups in the menu. We ended the night at Tavern Law / Needle & Thread. Needle & Thread is a speakeasy inside Tavern Law. We had a black tea rye fizz while waiting for our reservation for Needle, then went upstairs after calling from an old-school phone and entering through a saf-style door. Though it was a Saturday, we were the only people inside! I think it was because of the block party going on at the time. We got to talk a lot to the staff about cocktails and spirits in general and every great tasting cocktail was custom tailored to our request. We also got 2 containers of digestifs/bitters with our check. The space really reminded me of the Columbia Room.