Where to eat in Seattle? Try Lecosho

Midway down The Harbor Steps on the south side of 1st street in Downtown Seattle you'll find Lecosho. It was there I met up with my friend Jen from elementary school for Happy Hour. What began as ordering a snack turned into my dinner that night!

The entire evening was a pleasure. We had so much fun catching up and the food was fantastically delicious! Jen knew I'd love the way Lecosho's food tasted and the way it looked. Turns out they practice a locavore approach to the ingredients they use which I always love to hear or read about.

She was also the perfect food photography assistant voluntarily moving clutter out of my backdrops and patiently offering to wait, without complaining, for me to shoot each dish. LOL I had to mention the not complaining part because hubby is the least helpful food photography bystander (not assistant) I dine with. As our food arrives at our table he'll literally say to me, "I'm not moving anything, not my napkin, fork, glass or arm. And I'm not waiting to eat!"

I started with an Orange Juice. It's part of my effort to eat more nutrient dense foods instead of always drinking water.

We ordered several dishes to share starting with the Columbia City Bakery Baguette, Sea-salted Butter, and an Olive Relish ($3.00).

The butter was sprinkled with crystalized flakes of sea salt.

The Olive Relish was to-die-for. It was delish on the bread smeared over the sea-salted butter. All I could think was:

A. I could eat this whole order as my entire dinner.

B. The salt, butter and olive relish would also be awesome tossed over a bowl of angel hair pasta.

If you love olives and bread I'd definitely recommend this dish.

Next we had the House Green Salad with a Soft Boiled Egg, Baguette Crisps and a Cornichon-mustard Vinaigrette ($5.00).

It's one of Jen's favorite dishes at Lecosho. I'd definitely order it again. In fact, I'd order almost  all of the same dishes we had that night if they're still on the menu the next time I visit Lecosho.

But now we get to the highlight of the entire meal. The Spaetzle with Brown Butter and Pecorino Romano Cheese ($5.00).

I'd never had Spaetzle before. Lecosho's is tiny bits of pasta browned with butter and dusted with grated Pecorino Romano cheese.

Dig into the bowl and the golden, browned buttered pasta is revealed. It was OMG delicious! I swear. If I lived in downtown Seattle I'd be at Lecosho's happy hour at least once a week eating two orders of the Spaetzle for dinner. Since I live in San Jose, CA and it's a two hour flight to Seattle each way I seriously need to learn how to make this dish.

Fresh Sardines on Toasted Baguette

Our final dish was the Grilled Sardine Tartine ($6.00). Often overlooked, sardines may be considered humble fish but they contain selenium, phosphorus, calcium, iron, potassium and omega fatty acids. They are also high in Vitamin D.

One thing to watch for when eating sardines, I later learned Atlantic Sardines are a fish to avoid on the Seafood Watch list, the definitive guide to which fish are most sustainable and/or healthy to eat (pertaining to mercury content, chemical exposure, etc.). As it turns out Pacific Sardines are more sustainable of the two most common varities so in the future I'll be sure to ask ahead which ocean sardines I'm considering consuming have come from. These were Atlantic Sardines so if the restaurant is offering Pacific Sardines the next time I'm in town I'll order this dish again. Otherwise I'll try something else as there were still more options of things I would like to try on their menu.

Lecosho is known for their house-made sausage and charcuterie. We didn't order any but if the rest of the dishes we did try are any indication I'm sure they're fantastic.

Jen and I at The Harbor Steps after dinner at Lecosho.

I'm looking forward to going back to Seattle just so I can visit Lecosho again. If you're ever in town and want to try a nice sampling of rustic and comfort style foods in a casually elegant setting overlooking Puget Sound be sure to visit them during Happy Hour. And take a friend. It's more fun with two because you can order order and share twice as much :)

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You'll find Lecosho at:

The Harbor Steps (midway down the steps on the lefthand side)
89 University Street
Seattle, WA 98101
206.623.2101

Visit the About Page on their website for lunch and dinner hours. As of June 2012 they offer both an early and late Happy Hour:

3:00 PM - 6:00 PM Everyday
10:00 PM - 1:00 AM Sunday - Thursday
11:00 PM - 1:00 AM Friday & Saturday

Seattle's Wild Ginger Asian Restaurant & Satay Bar

While in Seattle for the #BlogHerFood conference a girl's gotta eat.

So, the night before the conference I went to dinner with Jaelithe Judy, our panel's moderator and Dawn Brighid, our co-panelist. At Jaelithe's suggestion we walked down to Wild Ginger which serves meat, vegetarian and vegan dishes.

That's Dawn on the left and Jaelithe on the right.

Our session the next day was titled Taking Your Blog Activism to the Next Level. It was really great that BlogHer arranged for all of the speakers to be able to meet in person before our sessions. We spent an hour at the formal speaker's meeting in the Spanish Ballroom at the Olympic Fairmont Hotel, stayed for our own private session after, then stepped out for a late dinner together.

We didn't have reservations so instead of waiting for a table in the dining room (pictured above) we headed straight to the bar where we could order anything from the menu without a wait :)

The food was so pretty I had to photograph everything Jaelithe and Dawn ordered.

Squash and Sweet Potato Soup

A Vietnamese stew with bean curd sheets, tapicoa shreds and bean thread nooodles.

Pickled vegetables: Daikon, beets and onions.

Market Vegetable Satay with orange teriyaki sauce, sticky rice, and homemade pickles.

Pickles from the back corner of the tray.

The Rama Setu was red curry, eggplant, hard spiced tofu, sweet potato, daikon, red onion and curry leaf.

And the Thai Passion Tofu consisted of fried tofu, eggplant, soy sauce, kafir lime leaf and basil. The color of the eggplant was especially pretty beside the golden browned tofu and bright green basil leaves.

In all honesty I didn't feel too hungry because I'd eaten a late lunch at Etta's just a few hours earlier. So, I decided to order one of my favorite foods, a plate of Sichuan Green Beans. You can see how fresh and tasty they were.

I also asked for a bowl of brown rice. I loved that Wild Ginger offers short grain brown rice. I wish more places would. Over the years I've grown to prefer it over white rice but I usually have to make it at home.

It was a perfect and simple meal.

We ordered a nice selection of dishes that originated from several different Asian countries. The Wild Ginger website says their dishes span "the eastern Pacific Rim from China to Indonesia, and Malaysia to Vietnam."

This is a good Asian fusion restaurant to go to if you're dining with a mix of omnivores, vegetarians and/or vegans. It definitely worked for Jaelithe, Dawn and I as we throughly enjoyed our meal as much as the opportunity to get to know each other better before our session the following afternoon :)

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Wild Ginger has two locations you can visit:

Seattle
1401 Third Avenue
Seattle, WA 98101
206.623.4450

Bellevue
11020 NE 6th St. Ste 90
Bellevue, WA 98004
425.495.8889

From Vegetarian to Pescatarian

What better time to make a food announcement that I'm moving from being a committed vegetarian to a very selective pescatarian status then when I'm in Seattle attending the BlogHer Food conference.

For two years now I'd been completely vegetarian meaning I would eat dairy products and eggs but no meat or products that came from slaughtering animals including cows, pigs, chicken, turkey, fish, mollusks and shellfish.

I'm in Seattle right now for the BlogHerFood Conference.

Since September however, I'd been experiencing fatigue, low blood pressure, dizziness, nausea and a host of other symptoms that have become progressively worse. Visits to my doctor and a sleep study didn't identify the problem. According to their tests I was fine. But I didn't feel fine.

So my next step was to seek answers from a naturopath. Despite what a lot of people seem to think, the naturopath I'm seeing isn't all crystals and woo-woo or things of a mystical nature. In fact the first things she did was to order the most extensive blood tests I've ever had and she tested my adrenal function.

At therapeutic levels I'm taking 4 fish oil and 2 borage oil capsules per day.

Long story short, the first thing she was able to discern is that my diet was almost devoid of essential fats particularly the Omega 3 and Omega 6 fatty acids. So a few weeks ago I began incorporating more essential fats into my diet by eating flax seeds, avocado, walnuts, and other foods.

But EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) and DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) are most highly concentrated in fish. To deal with these missing essential fats (they're called essential because your body can't produce them) she suggested I take fish oil capsules.

She thought the capsules would relieve some, not all, of my symptoms. And she was right. Within 3 weeks I was feeling better.

I did some research and discovered there is an algae based supplement of these nutrients but the thing is, I hate taking supplements of any type. I'm a firm believer in eating whole foods that come with all of the accompanying amino acids and elements your body needs to actually metabolize the nutrients you're ingesting.

Etta's Restaurant

For now I'm staying on the supplements for a few more weeks but I'd decided to begin adding fish back into my diet. And seriously, the timing couldn't have been better because there is nowhere better to find delicious salmon than in Seattle, WA.

Etta's Wild Caught, Alaskan, Copper River Salmon.

The best salmon I've ever had was the "Rub with Love" Salmon at Etta's across the street from the Pike Street Public Market.

Yesterday I walked over from my hotel and ordered their seasonal Wild Copper River Salmon, Yukon Gold Mashed Potatoes, and Mustard Greens topped with a Cherry - Walla Walla Onion Relish.

It was so good. And healthy. I also need to eat more greens because as it turned out the Naturopath also discovered while my total iron count is normal, my ferritin level is very low. Ferritin is a protein that helps your body to store the iron it needs. So I also need to eat more iron rich foods like pumpkin seeds, beans, leafy greens, salmon, soybeans, cooked spinach, chickpeas, oatmeal, sweet potatoes and broccoli.

It's this lack of ferritin that she suspects is causing my exhaustion.

SInce I love to cook I stopped by Whole Foods to see if it's possible to purchase line-caught, not netted, salmon. One of the reasons I gave up eating fish was because of the collateral damage that occurs when nets are used. Lots of other fish and forms of sea life can be caught in the nets at the same time and die in the process. But they're not harvested. Instead they die and are tossed back into the ocean. Everyone has probably heard about how dolphin die in tuna nets but even other smaller fish and invertebrates like jellyfish also perish in the process of netting any type of fish. This is why I'd rather eat line caught salmon than netted tuna.

As it turned out I could purchase a wild, trolled (meaning the fish was caught on a pole but the boat was moving at the time) salmon at Whole Foods.

 It was $21.99 a pound. *Gulp* That's expensive was my first thought. 

Net Weight 00.38 lbs

A medium sized piece was only $8.36. I say only because in a restaurant any meal with wild caught King Salmon is probably going to cost around $20. Anything cheaper, like a $10 salmon dinner is most likely using farm raised salmon, which I prefer not to eat.

I rinsed the salmon, sprinkled some sea salt and freshly ground black pepper on it and baked it in the toaster oven at around 350º. I also boiled some pasta (a combination of regular and whole wheat and tossed it in just a little bit of butter with frozen organic broccoli I'd sauteed in water. It was a simple and really delicious meal and one I hope will help to restore my health.

While I feel sad to not be able to remain a committed vegetarian, I'd reached a point where I simply need to feel better and not allow my health to deteriorate more. The naturopath said all of our bodies have different needs. Some need more essential fats than others and more importantly some are able to process and absorbs different fats better than others. It appears I am less adept at metabolizing certain nutrients so I need to eat more of them and, perhaps, a wider variety of them so that I'm able to absorb what I need to be healthy.

ETTA'S
2020 Western Avenue - Just a half block north of the Pike Place Market (Map)
Seattle, WA 98121
(206) 443-6000