Archive for the ‘I District Eats’ Category
Saturday, May 28th, 2005
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Let’s get the most critical information out of the way first: The waiter at Saigon Bistro is totally hot. Whew, what a looker. Okay then? Okay. Now, the food.
Saigon Bistro is a favorite of Bill and Nia’s. They swear by the crepes and you can’t beat the price, we came in at 11 dollars each, including tip. Okay, there wasn’t much beer on the table, but we did order a handful of specialty drinks. Bill, always brave when it comes to the beverage section, ordered the pickled plum drink. Salty and weird, I found it near undrinkable, but Bill seemed to take to it as the dinner progressed. Terry and I each had coconut juice, icy and sweet with chunks of white coconut meat in the glass, a good call for a warm evening.
Vietnamese food is just the thing when it’s hot out – and yesterday we had a high of 90. The food is light, though not everyone finds it filling enough. “I feel like I should go home and eat lasagna,” said Terry. I was plenty satisfied with my meal, the grilled lemon grass chicken skewers served with all the stuff to make roll-ups: wrappers, lettuce, basil, veggies, rice noodles, lettuce, and dipping sauce. Bill and Nia both had the crepe, Bill’s was served roll up style, Nia’s with lettuce. Terry and Julius had the shrimp, Terry’s with rice, Julius’ with noodles. They were both a little underwhelmed by their food though Julius did say he’d order it again.
There’s so much Vietnamese food on Jackson Street that we’re starting to learn our way around it. Terry’s beginning to conclude that he just doesn’t like Vietnamese food that much, saying he finds it insubstantial and too much work. “I just want to eat my dinner; I don’t want to have to prepare it also.” Fair enough.
Saigon Bistro gets a 3.5 out of 5 from the Jackson Street Eaters. It’s worth noting that the three of us that like Vietnamese food REALLY like Saigon Bistro, we’d recommend it highly. It’s a friendly place, too. The staff are helpful and the menu is simple and completely translated. (We’ve been to some places where there are whole sections that are in Vietnamese so who knows what we’re missing.) It’s totally charmless; it’s a bit like a workplace cafeteria, but no matter, the food is fresh and good and cheap. They’ve got big tables, go with friends.
Saigon Bistro is at 1032 S Jackson St, just west of 12th in the upper part of the Viet Wah complex. The parking lot is a bit of a challenge, be warned.
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Monday, May 23rd, 2005
The cool thing about the Jackson Street Crawl is that no matter the quality of the food, the company is always excellent. This little byproduct of having fine friends that also like to eat was important this Friday at New Kowloon where the food was, well, unexceptional but the company? First rate.
We opted for New Kowloon for two reasons. First, they’re known for their Dim Sum. Second, we were a large group, seven this time, and we wanted a place with big tables. New Kowloon is huge, the word cavernous comes to mind. There are plenty of those big round tables that seat eight and a dance floor, and a disco ball. There’s a menu that matches the size of the place - it’s near impossible to decide what to eat. Though unfortunately, it turns out there’s not much on the menu you do want.
Exceptions to the primarily bland food on the table were the Chow Fun with BBq Pork, the Singapore Noodles, and the Squid in Black Bean Sauce. The rest of the food was just not that good. Don’t get me wrong, it’s wasn’t bad food, but with Sichuan Cuisine and Seven Star Peppers just up the street, there’s no excuse for a place to serve up second rate meals.
Word has it that New Kowloon makes fine dim sum, so I’m not going to knock it off the list entirely. I absolutely will not be going back there for dinner any time soon, but I’m willing to give it another try for the meal they’re known better for.
Here’s another review of New Kowloon that pretty much agrees with what I’ve said.
New Kowloon is at 900 Jackson. Dinner was 18$ each with beer. Not as cheap as Sichuan Cuisine and nowhere near as good.
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Saturday, April 16th, 2005
Another Friday, another Asian food feast! This week we bundled in to the Yodler, my 85 Tercel, and headed down Jackson before settling on Thanh Vi, a Vietnamese place in the strip mall on the northwest corner of 12th and Jackson.
Bill is a pretty serious vegetarian, the conscious kind who doesn’t eat meat for political/conscience reasons - unlike me. I just lean that way and recently discovered that it happens to be four legged critters I don’t eat, but mostly because I just don’t like the meat. This matters because Bill likes to be sure he’s getting true veggie food, whereas I just don’t order anything with pork, beef, lamb, or bunnies. At Thanh Vi we had to scramble over a bit of a language barrier during the order, but our waitress was quickly replaced by a waiter who was a bit more fluent in vegetarianism and was able to suggest animal free substitutions, even.
We started with the crepes. There’s no possible way I could remember the name in Vietnamese, but I’ll be ordering these things again, maybe as an entire entree. The crepe is a big crispy oniony delight filled with tofu and bean sprouts, served with lots of greens to stuff in side and lettuce, maybe to roll the crepe up in to make for easier eating? It comes with a sweet dipping sauce - that’s the fish sauce that our waiter was good enough to replace with peanut sauce as a sub.
Bill had the hot and sour soup, which is nothing like a Chinese hot and sour soup, though it was marvelously sour and full of good sized pieces of veggies and tofu. This and the crepe alone would make a first rate meal. Nia had the chicken curry, which had just the right amount of spicy to give it a kick but not so flaming as to deter folks who don’t usually go for the fiery food. Julius had the shrimp and veggie stir fry - plenty of shrimp and the veggies were cooked just right. I had the lemon grass tofu, which wasn’t really much to write about but was just fine, really just fine. It was served with long skinny chow mein noodles that had a sweet and oily bbq sauce on them, not so much as to make the noodles greasy, just enough to add a bit more flavor.
Bill and Nia, who are ahead of Julius and I in the Jackson Street Crawl, said that the crepes stack up well against Saigon Bistro. I had nothing to compare them to and Julius said he thought they were too plain.
Thanh Vi filled right up while we were dining, lots of Asians, lots of gringos, everything coming out of the kitchen past our table looked appetizing and fresh. There are huge alpine landscapes on the wall, heaven knows why. The service was all right, nothing exceptional, but not bad. And once again, the tab for four people, with beers and tip, came out right around 15 dollars each. Thanh Vi definitely warrants a second visit.
Thanh Vi is at 1046 S. Jackson St.
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Saturday, April 9th, 2005
I don’t know enough about Vietnamese food to know what I want, or even what I like, when confronted with the menu. I’ve eaten plenty of it, but that doesn’t help because, uncultured slob that I am, I just can’t remember the names of things. I order by animal or vegetable and leave it at that. Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose. Last night at Vy-Da, I won. I didn’t win big, but it was a win all the same.
We were four at dinner, Bill, Nia, Julius, and myself. We started with tofu rolls, always good if they’re fresh. These were a little on the plain side, but fine for a starter. If you flip the Vy Da menu over to the back side, there’s a list of items, all in Vietnamese. Nia asked our waitress what they were. “Lots of things, beef, shrimp, frog, served with rice crackers. Also raw shrimp and beef, served with wasabi. It’s good with beer.” “Vietnamese tapas!” said Nia, and suggested they translate the menu for the rest of us. A good idea. I like to see what I’m not getting to, just to be sure.
Julius had the stir-fry chicken with rice. It came with broccoli, bamboo sprouts, onions… “pretty good” he says, today, the day after. Bill had a the lemon grass tofu with rice. I had the “bun” version of the same dish, with chicken instead of tofu. “Bun” comes in a bowl with skinny rice noodles, greens and some veggies, and a sweet spicy sauce to pour over the whole lot. I enjoyed my dish, rather a lot, possibly more than my dinner companions enjoyed theirs. Nia had the beef and pork skewer version of the same dish. It was all fine, just fine. Nothing spectacular, but really, perfectly fine.
Bill also ordered a salty preserved lemon lemonade. Collectively we agreed that it tasted like salty kool-aid. After dinner, our waitress brought us small bowls of dessert - tapiocca and mung bean in coconut milk, sweet, tasting of coconut and bean paste. I liked it well enough to eat all of mine, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to have it again.
There not much atmosphere to speak of at this place. Our waitress was nice and very willing to answer questions about the menu. The service was fine and we all enjoyed the high heeled ankle strap white pumps our waitress was wearing. On the other side of a planter box divider in this small place, there was a table of Vietnamese guys, watching something on the television and smoking. We fled right after dessert because the place isn’t really big enough to separate the smokers from the non-smokers. The total bill, before tip, was about 11.00 each. I’m unlikely to rush back there, but if you don’t know Vietnamese food this might be a good place to start because they were so helpful with the menu.
Vy Da is at 1200 Jackson.
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Saturday, March 26th, 2005
Jackson draws an East-West line through Seattle and marks the edge of where the Central district meets the International district. It’s also the home of good eats, and plenty of ‘em. There’s sure to be some bad eats too, like that drafty place Brett and I ate one time just south of Jackson on Rainier.
Nia, who lives just north of Jackson, has initiated the Jackson Street restaurant crawl, bless her heart. I missed last week’s adventure when she and Bill ate Vietnamese at Saigon Bistro, but I’ve been there before so I don’t feel too left out as I already know they make a fine roll-up platter, even if it is freezing in that place.
Last night, four of us (Nia, Bill, Terry, and I) got in to Bill’s car and headed down Jackson until we saw enough neon to make us park the car. We stood in Ding Ho Shopping Center eyeing the offerings and settled on the Seven Stars Pepper.
Now, I’ve been away and it’s been some time since I’ve feasted on high quality Chinese, so maybe I’m easy to please, but the other three at the table agreed that this was some fine chow.
We started with the Laver Seaweed and Tofu soup - creamy and comforting without being too heavy. Next, Green Onion Pancake, which I’m sure we could easily have eaten two or three orders of as they were fresh, crispy, and delicious. I’ve actually had better Green Onion Pancake, at a place on King, but these were still quite good, if not the best I’ve ever had. The soup and the pancake really were appetizing as an appetizer should be, they promised that the food to come would be just as good.
We were not disappointed. We had three main dishes: Eggplant and Deep Fried Tofu, Dry Tofu with Celery, and the Crispy House Noodles. While none of these dishes were exactly what their names implied, they were all very, very good. The eggplant had a nice smokey flavor and the tofu, while not really deep fried, was just a little crisp on the outside and covered in the same smokey sauce as the eggplant. Yum. The dry tofu was what I’d call smoked tofu and served up with celery that was braised but still crunchy and piled high with cashews. The noodles weren’t crispy, but they were full of veggies that still had plenty of crisp to them and a mixture of everything else - shrimp, chicken, beef…
We ate everything on the table. And while we ate and commented on how delicious everything was, we coveted the food on the neighboring tables. What are those deep fried things? Those people have hot pot! Hey, is that ginger? What is that, it looks so exotic!
Seven Stars Pepper has a pretty big dining room, but it filled up while we were sitting there. We sat in the corner window overlooking 12th and Jackson, watching the busses come and go and a Critical Mass ride roll by. A good mix of people ate there - the table behind us seated four young Chinese guys, while gringos in the know waited in the doorway for a table.
The staff was freindly, the service was quite good, and get this, it was cheap, too. Dinner for four with beer came out to 15 dollars each, including tip. If you don’t want to wait, go early because the place does fill up. We loved it.
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