Seattle Edition!

So I just got back from an amazing week in Seattle, and one of the reasons this trip was so awesome, was the food. I ate at two of Tom Douglas's five restaurants, and loved both of them! We'll go in order here...

Night one: Etta's Seafood-What a great way to start the trip! Etta's was fantastic! I had forgotten how seafood restaurants are always bringing you plain bread and butter at the beginning of your meal. This tradition carried on every night. Aside from the boring bread, the rest of the food was amazing! Being a Tom Douglas restaurant, I had to try the crabcakes. I was not disappointed! Douglas is famous for his crabcakes...and for good reason. They are hands down, without a

doubt, the absolute best crabcakes I have ever had in my life. Perfectly crispy on the outside, yet still creamy on the inside with a tomatillo and lime cocktail sauce...I can't think of one negative thing to say about them. And that was just the appetizer! For dinner I had the shellfish cioppino. For those of you who don't know what ciopinno is, it's like a seafood stew. You basically start with the makings for vegetable soup but then you add in shrimp and clams and mussels and lobster! It was fantastic! For dessert, I had the coconut creme pie. Again, this world famous recipe did not disappoint. I'm not huge on pies, but I love coconut, and this was full of it. My dad would have been in heaven (he, too, loves coconut). Overall, Etta's was wonderful and get's a 9.7/10.

Night two: Flying Fish-What should have been a great evening full of delicious food and fun, was almost completely ruined by the lack of service at Flying Fish. I usually try to leave the service aspect out of a "food" blog, but there's no getting around it in this situation. When we walked in the door, the hostess acted like there was a problem with our reservation (which there couldn't have been, I reserved a table online and got a confirmation email from the restaurant). We were seated pretty quickly though, and our server came by to take our drink order. Immediately I didn't like her. She wasn't very friendly, and she acted like she had no time for us (and this was just her first visit to our table)! She brought our drinks promptly, gave us suggestions for dinner and took our order, and then she was practically never to be seen again. We got two appetizers, gulf shrimp and clams. The clams were fantastic, but I was a little disappointed with the shrimp. The shrimp were spicy (which I like), but overly so. The spice was definitely overpowering...I could hardly taste the shrimp. That, however, is my only gripe about the food. We ordered the halibut entree and split it, and it was very good. However, the entire time we sat at our table, we felt excluded. I've never been in a restaurant and physically felt like I wasn't welcome, but that's exactly how I felt at Flying Fish. We watched the manager bring food to four different tables around us, but she never so much as glanced in our direction. Other tables had their dishes cleared the instant they were done eating, but we were walked past countless times. Our server was not busy; however, she made herself busy with another table, constantly refilling their water, bringing them bread, pouring their wine. They must have been very important, because she was very concerned with them. I tipped lower than I ever have at Flying Fish. I'm usually a solid 20% tipper, but here, I didn't even want to shell out the 10% that I left. I hope to move to Seattle some day, but I will never go back to Flying Fish, and I'll tell everyone I know not to go, too. Flying Fish=5/10

Night 3: Enter Dahlia Lounge! Thank you Tom Douglas for having amazing restaurants! I loved everything about this place for the second I walked in the door. The atmosphere is great; the

walls are red and there's a distinct Asian feel. Paper lanterns hang from the ceiling, but it doesn't look cheesy. Our server was very polite and helpful (a relief after the previous night's events at Flying Fish). We ordered the shrimp and scallion potstickers, and they were fantastic! The real standout of the night though, was the Washington beef strip that we ordered. We also got the salmon special that day, and I was very good. However, after all the seafood we'd been eating all week, the steak was a welcome change. I'm a sucker for a good steak, and this was no exception. Everything about it was amazing. It was perfectly cooked (medium), and everything else on the plate complemented it. That's what I love about Tom Douglas, nothing is an afterthought. Everything on that plate is important, and it is meant to be eaten together. For dessert we shared the creme caramel and we decided it was the perfect combination of creme brulee, cheesecake, and flan. Overall, Dahlia Lounge gets a 10/10!