Kushibar - "What street food?"

When I think of “Street Food”, I imagine a food cart with steam rising from the boilers below. A one manned station working furiously preparing food, while she or he takes the next five orders and cashes out the present hungry patron. Its simple, easy, and tasty food. Seattle doesn’t have much of a street food scene here, except for the hotdog carts that are dotted alongside of bars and nightclubs during the weekends.

Then there is Kushibar. This restaurant located in Belltown calls itself a “Japanese Street Food” type of restaurant. When you first approach the building it looks something like a Japanese bathhouse that the indoor patio is located. The wood slates makes it look street food-ish, but the moment you walk in the clean long narrow lines of the interior makes it look like some type of minimalist LA restaurant.

You first start with a complimentary bowl of curried popcorn they give to you to start off your drinking buds, very clever. I ended up with a Sapporo in my little hands immediately. After that we ordered about five small plates of “street food”. Some of the items that we really wanted they were out of. So all in all, its just sushi type appetizers, an awful smoke scallop dish with no taste swimming in a tasty broth. Everything was beautifully presented and no taste at all. I think the shining star of this meal was the popcorn which is the only thing that would qualify as street food. But here are some pictures for you to enjoy!

New, Not So New Hong Kong

Ahh…..nothing better for Sunday brunch than Dim Sum. I went to the New Hong Kong restaurant, formally known as New Kowloon. The new owner is the former owner’s ex-wife, so pretty much the same ownership, just new a name. I love going to Dim Sum, the bustling restaurant with a team of Chinese people working hard towards the American dream pushing carts of steaming food, showing items on their cart to the customers in hopes to stamp your food bill. While passing each other they throw jokes or talk shit to each other in their native tongue. I wonder how many of the employees of New Hong Kong came over in a ship container. (Food for thought?)

Dim Sum is the definite cure all for a hangover, very greasy, salty, and lots of fried food. You are in HEAVEN!!! We first started with a sweet baked bun with bbq pork, one of my childhood favorites. I was a somewhat picky eater as a child, not that you would know that now since I am willing to try anything these days. So that was my staple during our Dim Sum outings. Then we moved on to orders of different dumplings. Sticky rice steamed in a banana leaf, fried shrimp, friend tofu, and other steamy or fried delights kept stacking up on our table. My family tends to order way more than we can eat, we just want a taste of everything.

On item we’re sure to get every time is the good old stand by of chicken feet. A family fave, we all can eat this stuff all day. Chicken feet may make the majority of the population squirm but we love them. I swear if you had a Vietnamese family compete on Fear Factor we would not only take first place in the eating challenges, but go on to be world champions. The chicken feet are braised in some kind of savory sauce that makes the skin so very soft and tender that it just falls off the bones. Some people argue that the skin of the animal is the best part (fried chicken skin anyone or pork rinds?). It is a little challenging to eat since you have so many bones to work around but it’s well worth the effort. I don’t know why I love it, I just do. It’s damn good.

I also tried something new, Duck Tongue. It’s pretty much the bottom half of a duck’s bill with the tongue attached. The tongue was battered and deep-fried. Again, anything deep fried crispy is good in my book. I was a little weirded out by it at first but quickly got over it after the first bite. It was light and crunchy. I really could not describe it more than very crispy fried chicken skin. Just a little bit more chew to it. It was seasoned well, I think with MSG.

When you are done, say hi to the new owner that (wo)mans the front desk and runs the cash register. She was camera shy, but I did take a sweet picture of a framed photo of her and our state governor, Christine Gregoire.

Bubble Tea is Awesome!

If you have not tried bubble tea, you have to go out and get one of these delicious suckers. You can have the tea in a variety of flavors, jellies, blended, iced, or even hot. Bubble tea started some time in the 80’s in Taiwan. The “bubble” in the name is actually in reference to the bubbles that occur during the brewing process, not the tapioca pearls as most people believe. I went to Ambrosia, my favorite bubble tea shop in Seattle. It looks like a hole in the wall but I can tell you they serve the best in town. Much better than the flashy, more popular Gossip bubble tea shop across the street. It must be the karaoke machine they have in the upstairs loft and the bright colored Ikea furniture that draws people there. I had the iced green apple flavor milk tea with tapioca pearls at Ambrosia. The balance of flavored tea and milk was just right and the tapioca pearls have the perfect chewiness and weren’t too sweet. Pop in the extra wide straw, suck, chew, and swallow (that sounds slightly dirty). Enjoy!

Cascina Spinasse

Hello from up north!!! Portland-Seattle-Vancouver, B.C. have been described as the Three Sister Cities. Portland being the young laid back granola type gal, while Vancouver is the eldest sophisticated woman, and Seattle being the twit-like sorority sister. So welcome to my twitty view of food in Seattle. I am honored to be part of the BBT gang. I hope I can add a little bling to the tacos down south.

I stumbled onto Cascina Spinasse, a tiny Italian restaurant on Capital Hill, one day on the way to a girly treatment of manis and pedis. A friend and I decided to check it out and were quickly denied since they had not “officially” opened yet. As a girl with an “ignore me and I’m yours” problem, I knew that I NEEDED to eat there.

For weeks I played hard-to-get, walking by the restaurant front sneaking glances at its rustic interior, antique pasta making tools, and back kitchen where you can watch the chef and cooks whirl around making sauces and pasta with dramatic flair. Finally I broke down and made the first move. Stepping through the doors we were promptly greeted by an Italian rocke

r chick named Simona. She had a great accent and a killer tat on her shoulder. Seated at one of the few communal tables in the room, we were presented with crostinis, one topped with ricotta cheese and basil and the other with rabbit pate and a splash of port wine. The rabbit pate was smooth and rich with a slight hint of sweetness from the port. All the pastas are handmade by chef/owner Justin Neidermeyer who used to sell his handmade thin beauties at Farmer’s Markets.

We ordered two appetizers, the anchovies in piemontese green sauce with crumbled egg yolk. The sauce was a mixture of herbs and olive oil which balance out the salty anchovies. I could just eat this alone with a loaf of bread and nothing else. Second were marinated beets with dill, fennel, and faro, a type of barely like grain. I liked the sweet beets with the fennel, but the faro had an annoying chew to it.

As our entrees arrived, the Maltagliatti came out in a wonderful presentation. They brought out a large bowl of random cuts of pasta topped with lamb shanks and cherry tomatoes. The server had a pitcher in the other hand filled with a rich savory broth and poured it over the noodles. The papery thin noodles swimming in one of the most flavorful broth made me just want to take the bowl straight to my mouth.

The ravioli was filled with rapini in a sage butter with toasted pine nuts. A warning for those who do not dig bitter vegetables: it may not be the dish for you, but I thoroughly enjoyed it since I was a child that grew up eating bitter melons and dandelion weeds (yes I was that kid). The first initial bite was bitter, then after masticating for a while sweetness comes through the leafy green.

Don’t expect the usual Italian desserts served in this establishment. No sugary sweet tiramisu, cannoli or gelato. We shared a peach roasted in moscato and dripping in local honey and toasted hazelnut, a perfect end to a dinner that was long awaited. After dinner, I gave Simona a hug and dragged my heavy stomach out of there.