Last Tuesday I boarded an airplane headed to Salt Lake City. My final destination was Seattle and I didn't have a very long layover, so I didn't really get any feel for the actual city, but the view, even with airport as the forefront, was spectacular. I can't imagine living with that sort of landscape staring at your face. The Hudson Valley Region had a bit of that quality for me, a little: a sense of artistic urgency as a result of the beauty around me? That may be false, but the landscape, the country-ness, it did influence me. Still, the Salt Lake City airport and its views were, for the most part, quite spectacular. It was strange to see a smoking section in an airport. It has gone quite out of style, with good reason. Though it still can be the best place to have a conversation with a complete stranger.
M. picked me up from the airport and we drove to Pike Street, or its environs or something like that name but not?, and had lunch at
Etta's. This was my first coffee of Seattle, and one of the few photographed, but there were many undocumented intakes of lattes.
We shared a dozen oysters, half of which were (if I recall correctly) of the Deep Cove Bay variety. But I may be making the name up.
One variety of oyster, whatever its name, had a real salty quality that grabbed me in and slightly caused my eyes to open for a moment; nothing major happened, but I perked up more after one oyster slurp than from the two cups of coffee.
They were having a $15 prix fixe menu for lunch, and one of the three choices for a first course was fried oysters with a green tomato remoulade. I went for the oyster 'two ways' and didn't regret it. Nicely breaded, but not overly so, each oyster maintained an excellent crispy to succulent ratio, still with its own distinct flavor bite (or three).
For my main course I ordered the shrimp-in-the-style-of-a-lobster roll-roll. I didn't love it. I found the shrimp to be better than many a restaurant's, but the flavoring wasn't quite right. It just wasn't for me. I have had a lobster roll or two in my life, and I always feel a little disappointed. I think I like the work and the ritual of sitting down and working your way through a whole lobster - or, to a lesser extent, a shrimp - and simply having the best parts in a roll, coated in even the best of mayonnaise and wrapped in a buttered roll from the best bakery, isn't as satisfying. I am also not a huge fan of dill, though I'm coming around to it a little. So a shrimp roll is equally a let down. I love me my mayonnaise, don't get me wrong...but this wasn't quite it.
My third course was an oatmeal ice cream sandwich. I liked the cookie part of the dish and was surprised to learn that M. preferred the ice cream. After lunch M. took me to see a few of her favorite bookstores. They were quite lovely. One was very into activism, another had a great selection of art books and a fair variety of fiction for such a small space.
We also saw fish, none of which were thrown.
M. picked me up from the airport and we drove to Pike Street, or its environs or something like that name but not?, and had lunch at Etta's. This was my first coffee of Seattle, and one of the few photographed, but there were many undocumented intakes of lattes.
We shared a dozen oysters, half of which were (if I recall correctly) of the Deep Cove Bay variety. But I may be making the name up.
One variety of oyster, whatever its name, had a real salty quality that grabbed me in and slightly caused my eyes to open for a moment; nothing major happened, but I perked up more after one oyster slurp than from the two cups of coffee.
They were having a $15 prix fixe menu for lunch, and one of the three choices for a first course was fried oysters with a green tomato remoulade. I went for the oyster 'two ways' and didn't regret it. Nicely breaded, but not overly so, each oyster maintained an excellent crispy to succulent ratio, still with its own distinct flavor bite (or three).
For my main course I ordered the shrimp-in-the-style-of-a-lobster roll-roll. I didn't love it. I found the shrimp to be better than many a restaurant's, but the flavoring wasn't quite right. It just wasn't for me. I have had a lobster roll or two in my life, and I always feel a little disappointed. I think I like the work and the ritual of sitting down and working your way through a whole lobster - or, to a lesser extent, a shrimp - and simply having the best parts in a roll, coated in even the best of mayonnaise and wrapped in a buttered roll from the best bakery, isn't as satisfying. I am also not a huge fan of dill, though I'm coming around to it a little. So a shrimp roll is equally a let down. I love me my mayonnaise, don't get me wrong...but this wasn't quite it.
My third course was an oatmeal ice cream sandwich. I liked the cookie part of the dish and was surprised to learn that M. preferred the ice cream. After lunch M. took me to see a few of her favorite bookstores. They were quite lovely. One was very into activism, another had a great selection of art books and a fair variety of fiction for such a small space.
We also saw fish, none of which were thrown.
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