Goodbye, East Side. I Loved These Places…..

By Somer

In 12 days I leave the West coast to return to my beloved East coast.  I’ve lived here for 3 1/2 years.  I can’t say that I’m sad to be leaving.  I’m going home.  Things that I’ve seen and experienced here have not all been the enlightening and culturally diverse things that I expected when I first moved out here.  As a newcomer, it’s hard to find that charming, small-time, artistic subculture that one expects to find out here on the West coast.  There’s a lot of corporate glam, a lot of money, and a lot of need to be trendy.  These things I am not.

Eventually, though, we found those small places.  Those charming places owned by local joe’s who greet you as you walk in the door and wave to you as you leave.  Those charming places with menus sitting on the narrow but loving shoulders of only one or two people.  Those charming places that serve warmth and that one-of-a-kind spirit that makes them a million times more special than any pretentious restaurant that has the audacity to charge astronomical amounts of money for cocktails and even more for their cream-soaked mediocre food.

Today, I took my husband out to lunch and we visited a couple of our favorite places.  We went to the Santorini Greek Grill in downtown Kirkland (very close to the waterfront of Lake Washington).  This place is a teeny tiny little joint that stops you in the street as you walk by with the seductive scents of Greek meats.  Lamb for lunch?  Oh sure, why not!

The gyros, salads, Souvlaki, baklava, falafel, and service are all TERRIFIC.  I love this place.  The food is served up lightening fast and on real plates to boot!  Usually is itty bitty places like this, you get plastic forks and paper plates or baskets.  It helps to eat off of a plate with a metal fork.

In a small funky place like this, I was worried that the decor was going to be really kitschy and scary like off of My Big Fat Greek Wedding.  Luckily, it’s not like that at all.  All over the neutrally painted walls, framed photographs of different regions of Greece hang in a very cool and very West coast manner.  It’s lovely.

The one piece of kitsch was this hilarious tidbit right by the entrance/exit.

This restaurant is even featured in Zagat.  That means nothing to me, it’s just amusing that Zagat and I agree for once.

After our Greek lunch, we went a couple of doors down to the Seattle area’s best coffee shop.  No, it’s not Starbucks.  Out here, I’ve found that there are two very opinionated groups where Starbucks is concerned:  those who are proud of it and those who hate it for being a corporate crap shoot.  Now, I get Starbucks every once in a while simply because they are literally on every block in this area.  But if I had my choice, I would go to Cafe Ladro.  This place is what a Seattle coffee shop should be.  Small.  Friendly barista who doesn’t have a painted on fake smile.  Fair prices.  And in their goddamned iced chai lattes, there is more latte than ice…unlike how Starbucks serves them….assholes.

Sorry about that outburst.  But Cafe Ladro is a superior coffee shop.  It’s a small place, it’s mellow instead of that fake rushed sense that you get when in a Starbucks.  It’s a cool and industrial look that is oddly more soothing than that manufactured and fake look that Starbucks is trying to sell.  The coffee is BETTER.  The pastries are BETTER.  All of the drinks are BETTER.

Look at that understated logo.  It’s perfection.

The station was very simple.  In fact, I had a nice little conversation with the barista about the movie Zoolander as she filled our order.  Nice lady.

Some other East Side places that I loved while here:

Momoya Sushi and Sake House

Dick’s Hamburgers

L&L Hawaiian Barbecue (even though it’s a small chain)

Beth’s Cafe

I realize that we’ve barely chipped the iceberg and I have regrets about that, but our time here is up and I look forward to getting to know a new city.  But if you ever make your way out to this area, check these places out and have some great food without worrying about an offensively huge bill.

A Hawaiian Dive is a Good Thing

By Somer

When I was 7 months pregnant with my son, my husband and I took a last vacation as a couple to Hawaii.  To be perfectly honest, we weren’t all that impressed with all of the cheesy tourist-y stuff, but we did get a chance to taste some really great food.  The pineapple there was so ripe and juicy and sweet (nothing like the stuff we get here in the mainland), and the things they do to pork over there is so good I’d dare call it “naughty”.  When we came back home, it wasn’t long until we started really missing the food.  Luckily, we live in the age of information and a quick search on the internet pointed us to a little Hawaiian place called L&L Hawaiian Barbecue.  Boy am I glad that we found this little gem because they have THE BEST Kalua Pork and even my 20 month old baby loves it there (at that age, toddlers refuse to eat just about everything but this kid thinks that Kalua Pork is the best thing next to chocolate).

My local restaurant is located in an old strip mall.  It’s actually funny that it’s located next to a Curves because their food isn’t exactly *ahem* figure friendly.  That’s ok because it’s really good and totally worth the splurge.

The decor in this place is beyond cheesy.  But, if you’ve ever been to Hawaii (Waikiki in particular) it’s not that far off base.  That whole town was cheese-tastic and this restaurant reflects that perfectly.  Every time I have been in this particular restaurant the floors have been very dirty and the red booths are so smooshy, you sink down so that you are nose-level with the table.  The food is so good that these things are easy to ignore.

The serving sizes of the meals are simply enormous.  I have a hard time eating a full serving, and that’s rare for me.  Listen, I’m not one of those tiny super skinny people that tries to brush off my super skinny-ness by saying I eat a lot.  I really do pound it back when I sit down to a meal.  I’ve actually frightened people by how much I can eat.  There’s a reason that I can’t fit into a size 2 pants, folks.  And yes, that’s my son trying to dig into the food.  He loves it so much that he couldn’t wait 2 seconds for me to snap a picture.

This place serves Spam Musubi.  As you may or may not know, Spam is a very big thing on the islands.  Under normal circumstances I don’t really care for this stuff.  Maybe it’s the novelty of having what is basically a Spam sushi, but I really like this stuff.  It’s salty, savory, and the dried seaweed goes perfectly with the Spam.  I like it, so shoot me.

This is what my meal looked like.  Smokey Kalua Pork, rice, and a delicious pasta salad.  Maybe it doesn’t look all that intimidating here, but all those carbs really can weigh a person down.  It’s a delicious meal, I adore every aspect of it.  They serve a Kalua Pork with or without cabbage but I just don’t care for the texture of the option that comes with cabbage (and with Irish and German ancestors, I’ve had cabbage many many ways).  I like my pork straight up.  I’d like to think that the afterlife is fully stocked with Kalua Pork.

The first time I came to L&L, I found the side of pasta salad a little odd, but I went with it.  I’m a sucker for any carb smothered in a mayonnaise sauce so the pasta salad and I made quick friends with each other.  It goes oddly well with the intense smokey flavor of the Kalua Pork.  It’s weird, but it works.

I urge you to please visit the website and see if there is a franchise near you.  It’s still a small restuarant chain so if you are left without one of these little gems close to you, my sympathies go to you and your families.  You’re missing great food in a total dive.