CB> From: [email removed] (Craig Bunkley)
CB> Subject: Re: solo in seattle; "sleepless"restaurant
CB> The restaurant in "Sleepless" is called Dahlias. It is very good.
Here's a crosspost of my impressions of 4 top Seattle restaurants
from last Jul or Aug:
Ray's Boathouse, Ballard, Washington.
We arrived right on time for our reservation, and they gave us
a beautiful table for two with a perfect view of the sunset over
Puget Sound. Great start. Help was a little slow coming, which
was understandable, because the place was totally jam-packed.
Just as well, because there were a lot of names and descriptions
to savor on the menu, and an extensive wine list (very fair
prices) to pore over. An interesting option that I haven't seen
elsewhere is Ray's bottle-and-a-half deals - under $50 for three
pretty good half-bottles. I had thought that we'd go with two
halves of Woodward Canyon Chardonnay (regular at $17, followed
by the Reserve at $25), but then I caught sight of these. I jumped
for the cheapest of the deals (a true bargain, I believe) - Domaine
Ste. Michelle brut nv, Covey Run Chard '93, and Stewart late-harvest
Riesling '90, 3 halves for $26. We also opted for assorted glasses
of distinguished Pacific Northwest wines as reinforcements
Domaine Ste. Michelle brut nv. A clean, lemony sparkler. Quite
dry and Chardy, not too complex. Crisp medium finish. A good
aperitif. Would have gone well with oysters on the half-shell,
but they didn't offer any, it being the middle of the summer.
So we followed with
Manila clams with bacon in lemon cream over fettucine. A striking
dish, and quite copious (we ordered it split as our appetizer, and
each half-serving filled a bowl with half a dozen clams and a generous
amount of fresn, al dente fetuccine. The sauce, a lemon Chard cream
with bits of superb, deeply smoked bacon and chopped sweet peppers,
was a stunner, and the clams, although cooked a bit to the well-
done side, were very tasty - these Manila clams must have come from
a pure salt-water source; many such clams come from the estuarial
waters of the Sound, such as Dabob Bay. I was very proud to have
chosen this dish, which went well with the bubbly and then with
the first Chard.
Benita ordered clam chowder - I warned against it, and in fact,
we had 4 clam chowders (all "New England style") on the trip,
none of which was very pleasing. This one was the best of the
lot, mildly clammy and with a good amount of stuff. The soup
was overthickened, which I think is the #1 mistake they make
in the chowder department in the Pac NW.
With the end of our appetizer, I drank the Covey Run Chard 1993,
a pleasant, also somewhat citrusy wine with very mild oak. It went
well with the pasta, and Benita wisely stuck with the brut through
the chowder.
Our main courses were Grilled smoked black cod and grilled king salmon
with apricot-pear chutney. The black cod (also known as sable) came as
a too-big piece of tender alder-smoked oily white fish, slightly crusty
from the grill. It was supposed to come with steamed new potatoes, but
what actually came out was garlic roast, which (although perhaps too
rich for most people in the context) was fine with me. The fish fell
beautifully into soft, moist flakes as I cut it. It had to be over half
a pound of fish, but I ate every bite. The veg was less memorable. In
fact, all the veg we had on the trip were of a feather - a lot of sweet
peppers, a lot of Washington onions, a lot of sugar snap peas, which were
uniformly wonderful. I do not recall exactly, but it may be here that
the sugar snaps were slightly overcooked, which did not do them much
harm, owing to their being at the sweetest point (I guess it must have
been the season). The salmon was almost equally rich and flavorful but
had been done just a little too much - firmness had taken precedence
over unctuousness. The mildly spicy chutney rescued the moisture, but
we agreed that the flavor of the fish had needed no augmentation. She
didn't like the chutney at all, whereas I thought it interesting and
probably well-made - but a little out of place. With our main courses
we drank glasses of three Chards.
Covey Run Reserve Chard 1993. This is a good wine, but I thought it a
bit raw. The sommelier suggested that it smelt of unripe apples, whereas
I asserted that I could detect a note of horseradish. The acidy quality
did well with the oily fish, though. I thought that the rather obvious
oaking (American barrels?) was a minus. The Reserve obviously attempted
a lot more than the regular bottling, and it achieved somewhat more.
High acid, medium legs, stronger on the nose than the finish.
Quail Ridge Chard 1993 (Ray's own bottling, from a smallish Napa valley
vineyard run by Chalone). A much fatter wine, with a bitterness that I
thought not appropriate with what we were eating. Probably a good wine
in its place, but not here. This was the waiter's favorite, and he pushed
it on us. A well-meaning mistake in that it didn't take into account the
dynamics of the meal. A long finish that kept bumping about into other
* * * C O N T I N U E D T O N E X T M E S S A G E * * *
* KingQWK 1.05 # 187 *Seattle, WA