The BEST Sushi I Ever Ate...

...was HERE!

Of course after a long day of sitseeing, the urge to eat great food always bangs on the stomach walls like a criminal in a jail cell.

It's amazing what the shake of an iPhone can do. When hunger strikes in an unfamiliar location, trust your handy UrbanSpoon app.

We read a few of the reviews of other restaurants, but none of them seemed as good as Umi Sake House. After a short walk into the Belltown district of Seattle from our hotel, we were pleased to find HAPPY HOUR!


What better way to start out the evening than with happy hour, sake, and sushi?! And it was incredible! Like I said, it was the BEST sushi I ever ate in my life. The fish was so fresh; the combination of rolls were so unique and flavorful. The colors of everything were so vibrant and you could tell that it was going to be a delicious meal.


The Casanova - snow crab, avocado & pickled eggplant topped with seared spicy snow crab mix, scallops, teriyaki sauce & pico de gallo!

This was probably my favorite of the bunch. The many different flavors all meshed together so well. The whole roll was so delicate that it took real chopstick skills to pick it up without breaking it. Too hard and it would split in half; too soft and you risk dropping it back on your plate.




The Pike Place Roll - salmon skin, cukes & avocado, topped with smoked salmon & teriyaki sauce!

The crunch of the skin and the softness of the smoked salmon provided a great contrast in textures. And the teriyaki sauce was so light that you almost didn't know it was there.







Seattle Crunch - salmon, cream cheese & avocado fried & drizzled with teriyaki sauce & sweet chili aioli!

This is a great play on the Philadelphia roll that I'm accustomed to eating. The cream cheese was so creamy after being fried quickly. And again the contrasting textures of the crunchy outer roll and the creamy cheese. The sweet chili aioli add a great extra kick to the flavor of the salmon.





Seattle Roll - salmon, roe, cream cheese, & avocado!

This is one of their regular rolls, but still worth having. The Seattle Roll comes with 6 pieces.









All their specialty rolls come with 10 pieces! And it's a great deal at $12-18. By comparison, a specialty roll in NYC only comes with 6 pieces for the same price...so Umi Sake House's prices are a steal. I guess it's really true that the closer you are to the freshness, the better the value. And we like value, don't we? Make sure to go during Happy Hour... I guarantee that it's worth it!

I think I'll leave it at that and let the pictures do the rest...


Umi Sake House
2230 First Avenue
Seattle, WA 98121
www.umisakehouse.com

Now That's A Serious Pie!

Pizza, that is! And what better way to coat your stomach before a night out on the town?

Walking around Seattle is a piece of...pie, of course. Street blocks are not as long or wide as a NYC block / avenue. So this makes for some serious street perusal. Somewhere between Pike Place Market and the Hotel Max is Tom Douglas' Serious Pie.

We had heard about this place from a friend of ours who is a Seattle native. He said it was a must try, but we didn't really pay much attention. We just so happen to stumble across Serious Pie during one of our strolls through the city. I'm glad we walked down that street...

At first I was skeptical. How could this pizza be so good that it would cost $16? But then again, why would there be so many people waiting in line to order or be seated in the restaurant, right? I guess this is a prime example of the saying that the smallest places with the most people waiting are usually the best places to eat.

They only make 8 varieties of pizza, but it almost seems like there's no way to go wrong. All the choices on the menu are mouth watering to read about. We ordered the buffalo mozzarella pie. It may have been the best 6.5" pizza I've tasted in my life. (I had to share the 13" pie.) Haha.

The first bite had that great thin crust crunch with a dash of salt. The mozzarella cheese was perfectly stringy and fresh. Since this was one of 2 pizzas with a tomato sauce base (others are olive oil based), you got that sweetness and tangyness of the San Marzano tomatoes, which some chefs consider to be some of the best sauce tomatoes in the world (says Wikipedia). And now I know why.

We debated going back for another pie, but we had to continue our tours and see all the sites Seattle had to offer, not to mention all the food!




If you're in the mood for some simple, yet elegant food of Italian origin, then this is the place to go.

316 Virginia Street, Seattle, WA 98121

www.tomdouglas.com

SeaFeast

If you weren't drunk before this meal, don't worry... all the seafood in this Seattle, WA chow down spot will fill your stomach like drinking Guiness after dinner.



Yup. There it is, in all it's majesty. We got the "Westport" with an addition of King crab. It consists of:

- King crab
- Dungeness crab
- Snow crab
- Shrimp
- Steamed clams
- Pacific mussels
- Andouille sausage
- Corn on the cob
- Red potatoes

Need I say more? Ok, I will. But first, let the waiter lay down the butcher paper, put your bib on, pick up your weapon (the mallet), and arm yourself with some liquefied butter and a side-kick of cocktail sauce. Then have the waiter lay it all on the table...not his life story... but the SeaFeast!

Aromatically, it's like walking into a spice shop, but the natural seafood taste is not overpowered. It's fresh. And since everything is steamed you don't lose the juices to a pot of water like when you boil foods. The crab legs were succulent and perfectly flaky. The head-on shrimp were juicy and took on the spices so well; eat the head! The clams and mussels fell right off the shell and maintained their oceanic flavor.

I never understood the need for sausage, but it definitely added to the full sweet and savory flavors that we already had. The corn was sweet and the potatoes were there as a filler if necessary.

Any seafood lover's palette would be fully satisfied!


Photo courtesy of JQ

If you're in the area, you have to give it a try...

The Crab Pot
1301 Alaskan Way
Seattle, WA 98101
http://www.thecrabpotseattle.com/