Blue Dog Cafe

Fresh Flours

The Counter

Voodoo Doughnuts

Teddy's Bigger Burgers

Tropisueno

Delica - Ferry Building Marketplace

What we ate:

TOFU & CHICKEN PATTY WITH HIJIKI

Free-range chicken and organic tofu patty with hijiki seaweed and carrot. Served in a sweet soy sauce.

ROAST BEEF SUSHI

Roast beef topped with baby arugula, minced shallots and julienne radish, wrapped with seaweed.

WASABI GARLIC POTATO SALAD

Garlic potato salad with wasabi mayonnaise, edamame, snap peas and romaine hearts.

GREEN BEANS SALAD

Green beans and organic shredded carrots with a sesame dressing.

Taste: 6.5

Ambiance: 6

Presentation:6.5

http://www.delicasf.com/

I Love Sushi

What we ate:

TAKO NIGIRI

HAMACHI NIGIRI

JALAPENO BOMBER ROLL

Yellowtail & habanero flavored smelt roe wrapped with salmon. Served with basil-jalapeno sauce.

CATERPILLAR ROLL

Eel, cucumber and avocado roll.

DEEP FRIED WHOLE MACKEREL

Taste: 8

Presentation: 7.5

Ambiance: 8

http://lakebellevue.ilovesushi.com/

Preservation Kitchen

This is such a cute restaurant! It felt as if you were having a meal at someone's home. The ambiance was very inviting...but the food is what put it over the top for me. I loved my omelette and the egg bread toast that accompanied it. Overall I thought this was a perfect place for brunch. Nothing too over the top or fancy, but just a nice place for a quiet, relaxed meal. I definitely want to come back and try out their dinner menu sometime!

What we ate:

THREE EGG OMELETTE

House cured salmon, tomato, grilled red onion, capers. Served with egg bread toast.

THREE EGG SCRAMBLE - VEGETABLES

Roasted red peppers, grilled red onions, roasted mushrooms, grilled zucchini. Served with egg bread toast.

Taste: 8.5

Presentation: 8

Ambiance: 8.5

http://www.preservationkitchen.com/

Root Table

After reading several great reviews on Yelp (which is how I choose most of my restaurants), I decided to check out Root Table in Ballard. It's a pretty small place, but they have very cool furniture. Everything looks like it's been made out of tree trunks! I loved it!

I researched all of the dishes that got great reviews and knew what I wanted going in. Unfortunately, one of my choices wasn't available - Duck Spring Rolls. No worries, we got Corn Fritters in it's place and it was pretty darn good. We also tried their Root Fries (from what I can tell, there was potato, sweet potato and taro?); Stuffed Mushrooms and Menage-a-Thai.

The fries were pretty good, but a bit soggy for my taste. The stuffed mushrooms weren't my favorite, but to it's defense, I don't really care for any type of stuffed mushroom. I only got it cause it had a lot of good reviews. It's stuffed with a curried corn mixture. Pretty bland if you ask me. The corn fritters were great, it came with a siracha-type dipping sauce. The Menage-a-Thai was basically one meat (we chose Chicken), a few pieces of Roti and three type of curry dipping sauces (hence menage). That dish was pretty good...although all three curries tasted alike.

Overall, I thought this was a great restaurant.

What we ate:

ROOT FRIES

Seasoned root vegetables, served with spicy ketchup.

STUFFED MUSHROOMS

Baked white button mushrooms stuffed with curried corn, peas and carrots.

CORN FRITTERS

MENAGE-A-THAI

Three different curries with chicken, served with roti and jasmine rice.

Taste: 8.5

Presentation: 8

Ambiance: 8.5

www.roottablerestaurant.com

Pair

We have been TRYING to get into Elemental over the past two weeks. Seems that in this case, perseverance does not pay off. After 3 unsuccessful attempts on 3 separate days, we gave up (for now). Because Elemental requires you to show up before 5pm to even have a chance to get seated, we were now in search of a restaurant serving dinner pretty early. Driving around, with my Yelp app open, we came across Pair.

Pair is a rather small, but really cute restaurant in the U-District/bordering Wedgewood. I've driven past it several times, but it always looked closed. As we drove past it today, I spotted an Open sign in the window. Bingo, we found dinner!

We walked in and noticed one occupied table in the otherwise empty room. As we were seated, our waiter informed us that it was Happy Hour. Awesome! We decided to try several dishes from both the Happy Hour menu as well as the regular dinner menu.

Everything that we ordered, with the exception of the stuffed grape leaves, was scrumptious. The two dishes that stood out in my mind were the Brisket Sliders and Smoked Salmon Toasts.

Brisket Sliders were so good! 3 for $5?! Here's a hint: Get TWO orders of this!

Smoked Salmon Wild Toasts - seriously good! Maybe it's my strong love of smoked salmon....or maybe it's because I'm a greedy greedy person...whatever the reason, I definitely ate more than my half of the dish.

The quality of food that we got, paired with the happy hour prices (see what I just did - a play on words! 'paired'....haha, ok, nevermind) made this restaurant a real find!

What we ate:

SIDECAR COCKTAIL

HERB AND CHEESE BISCUITS

BRISKET SLIDERS

SMOKED SALMON WILD TOASTS

Pickled shallots, crispy capers & crème fraîche

GRILLED STUFFED GRAPE LEAVES

Fresh mozzarella, olives, sundried tomatoes & pinenuts

SMOKED PORK BELLY

Farro & spring onion salad, wilted chard & ginger-mustard gastrique

STEAK FRITES

Blue cheese chive butter & red wine jus

Taste: 8

Presentation: 8

Ambiance: 7.5

www.pairseattle.com

Kantjil

This was an Indonesian restaurant I went to in Amsterdam...I forget what I ordered, but it was actually one of the best things I ate throughout my trip (other than Stroopwafels that is!)

Taste: 9

Presentation: 8.5

Ambiance: 8

www.kantjil.nl

Tilth

I've always heard great things about Tilth. More specifically, about Tilth's brunch. I like brunch...I like restaurants with good reviews...it was basically a no-brainer.

Tilth is set up inside of an old craftsman house in Wallingford. You feel as if you're walking into someone's home and not a restaurant. We got there about 9:30 on a Saturday morning. There were a lot of good options on the menu, but the one that stood out to me was the crab benedict. Marc got the mini duck burgers. I thought both were pretty good, just not convinced it lives up to the hype. Maybe I didn't try the right dishes? Maybe I'm just not used to fancy breakfasts? I dunno but either way, I don't think I'll come back for brunch. Their dinner menu did look pretty enticing....tempting enough for me to come back for a different meal.

What we ate:

MINI DUCK BURGERS

Served with fingerling chips

DUNGENESS CRAB BENEDICT

Sous vide egg, brioche, spicy hollandaise

Taste: 6.5

Presentation: 8

Ambiance: 8

www.tilthrestaurant.com