Archive for May, 2008

Seattle: Woodland Park Zoo

After breakfast, we headed off to the Seattle Zoo. It is better known as the Woodland Park Zoo and located just north of the city.

I had no idea exactly how big The Woodland Zoo is but it sure felt like it’s a medium sized zoo. We got in using the CityPasses which included entrances to the zoo. Without the CityPasses, it would have costs $11 each.

We did not spend a lot of time in the zoo. I think it was 2 hours or maybe 3 hours max. We like this zoo because it is so compact and well planned. Most important of all, it is very walkable. I remembered how tired we were when we visited the San Diego Zoo which located in a hilly area — lots of steep slope and all.

If you ask me, I would feel that the Woodland Zoo is designed with the young ones in mind. There are a lot of really kid friendly exhibits. Our boys were quite bored because they wanted more exciting stuff.

The last time we were there, there was a flight demonstration at the Raptor Center. Our timing were off. Instead of waiting for the next flight demonstration, we decided to move on.

The African Savanna was a well planned exhibit. It is a large area where the animals are allowed to roam. It’s kind of hard to get a clear view especially when the animals are far away from the viewing points.

It was a hot day when we went. Many animals were sleeping.

Patience is what I did not have that day. It was obvious they boys wanted to move on. So, I managed to take a lot of butt shots. Here is one of the tapir …

… another of the elephant in the midst of dropping it …

… and of the hippos.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Seattle: Breakfast at Shari’s

Day Four. Today is the last full day we have in Seattle. Sightseeing wise, we only have a couple more places to cover but as far as food is concerned, we still have a long list we wanted to check out.

We started the day with breakfast in Shari’s. For some reason, we had always enjoyed Shari’s when we are in the Washington State. Given a choice of Shari’s, IHOP and Denny’s, we prefer Shari’s. We like the way the restaurant is laid out — it is always housed in a hexagonal building which maximizes use of windows. Breakfasts are to be eaten in bright places — that’s the only way to start the day … bright, sunny and cheery.

We like their menu too. Lots of tantalizingly delicious pictures. We always had a hard time deciding what to order. We wanted everything!

We like their coffee too. I am not sure the background of the Arosta coffee but they are pretty good. I like the consistency of the quality … i.e. they always taste great, always. Some places, we find that the coffee is iffy, sometimes they are great, sometimes not.

Normally, we would order three items to share between the four of us. The first item we had was the Flat Iron Steak and Stuffed Hashbrown Platter. It has a tender 6oz flat iron steak cooked medium rare, and THREE eggs and Sharis’s exclusive stuffed hashbrown. $10.

The steak was great. I wished it’s a bit more juicier but it was alright. Steak for breakfast, I like that.

Suanne’s choice was the Cinnama-sation Platter. This plate is even larger. It has two slices of Cinnama-sation which is basically their ultimate version of French Toast. You should try this Cinnama-sation, they are devilishly good, especially when you drown it in more syrup. Other items here are THREE eggs, homestyle potatoes, two strips of bacon, two sausage links and ham. Just $9. Pretty good looking, huh?

I love eggs. And practically no one else really care for eggs in the family. Suanne shuns eggs, especially if it’s not scrambled. Arkensen and Nanzaro too does not care for eggs. So, it is down to me to finish the eggs most of the time. I did 4-5 eggs that morning. I need to check my blood pressure the next week or two!

Nanzaro insisted that he has his own order that day. Strangely, after the episode of the coke in the kiddie cup in Famous Dave the day before, he ordered his from the kiddie section of the menu. He has the “Eggs”ceptional Cheese Omelette. It’s a steal at just $3.70.

So, the total bill came up to $31. Not bad, huh? It sure was much, much better than the $55 bucks tab we got for the breakfast from Portage Bay Cafe (yeah, we could not get over how expensive it was).

We heart Shari’s.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Seattle: Famous Dave’s Bar-B-Que

We had a dinch at Famous Dave’s. Dinch is the meal in between Dinner and Lunch. Sometime, one can refer to this meal as Dunch or even Lunchner.

Lee Ping of Hip Food recommended Famous Dave’s to us. At that point of our trip, we were craving for meat, real meat. We had planned to go to one BBQ place. It was either going to be Famous Dave’s or Dixie’s BBQ. Since we were south of Seattle and Dixie’s is in Bellevue, we opted to go to the nearer place. It was a great choice.

Famous Dave’s is a chain restaurant specializing in Southern Style BBQ. The exterior and interior is all western with stone and pine wood panelings. It has a very bright and upbeat atmosphere. Since it was Dinch time, there were no one there but us. The restaurant we were in were quite big with, oh, something like 30-40 tables or so.

On every table is Famous Dave’s very own sauces. We tried everyone of them. The hottest of them all is the Devil’s Spit … which they warned are for adults only. It’s funny the way they describe this … “A generous slathering will make girls prettier and boys stronger, taller and more handsome-or vice versa.”

I like it too the fact they have a roll of paper towels on the table. Real BBQ is meant to be eaten by hands and is supposed to be messy.

We love the atmosphere and the service was great. We ordered some drinks. It happened many time before … Nanzaro ordered a glass of coke and they gave it to him in a kiddie cup. Nanzaro was quite offended and asked that he be served in a real glass!

We did not order much. We had their Half Slab Platter 6-Bones Platter. The ribs were large but wished it could be a bit more meatier. The ribs that Suanne makes have more meat in it and so I always compare ribs with hers. This one costs $17. It was quite alright.

We also ordered the BBQ Shrimp Platter. It was alright. The shrimps are not terribly big, wished they were a tad bigger. Also, they were a bit too salty for our liking. Otherwise it was alright. $15.45 … price-wise seems OK.

The best of the Dinch is really their ultra-rich Famous Dave Bread Pudding. Not only does it look good, it tastes great. It has a melt-in-your-mouth bread pudding, smothered in praline sauce and served with vanilla ice-cream. I had placed a special request to Suanne to search out the recipe and try make this at home. She gave me a dirty look. After two months, there is still no sign of bread pudding at home. I guess I got to be patient … a lot more patient.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Seattle: The Museum of Flight

The highlight of the day is the Museum of Flight. This is the third time we’re here but we’re never bored of this place. For one, I love museums and can spend an entire day checking the exhibits.

The Museum of Flight is located just south of Seattle. I think this museum will interest just about everyone, whether you have any liking for planes or not. It is just so fascinating and they have a very wide range of exhibits. It is not just technical stuff and so it will definitely appeal to just about anyone.

The entrance is $14 for an adult. We used the Seattle CityPass for the entrance. The Seattle CityPass costs about $44 that includes entrances to four other popular tourist attractions.

We got ourselves each an audio guide. It’s just a few bucks each but is an additional cost. Using this is easy … just punch in the number shown next to the exhibit.

The Museum of Flight is divided into several galleries and exhibits. Some indoors and some outdoors — mostly indoors. The grandest gallery is aptly called The Great Gallery. This is a really spectacular sight — a six story high all glass and steel exhibition area with almost 40 full sized planes from all eras.

One could spend two to three hours just going through all the exhibits here alone.

Right in the centerpiece is the Lockheed M21 Blackbird — the fastest jet ever built. This all black, sleek jet can hit 3 Mach easily.

The Kitty Hawk is the first contraption that flew. In many ways, this is what gave birth to aviation. This replica of the Kitty Hawk is one of only two in the world. It was over a period of a week that the Wright Brothers flew the Kitty Hawk several times. The first flight took to the air for 12 seconds only. The longest flight that was achieved was 59 seconds before a hard landing broke the plane.

The Museum of Flight recently opened a new space exhibit: “Space: Exploring the New Frontier”, which traces the evolution of space flight.

The picture above is the Sputnik which is a robotic space craft. As puny as it seems (just a mere 2 feet in diameter), this is the first object ever launched to space. With the launch of Sputnik into space by the Soviets, they shocked the mighty US space agency in the space race. It was immediately after the launch of Sputnik that the entire US space program was revamped which led to the creation of NASA.

Now, if I am not mistaken, the Soviets is still using the object above for returning astronauts from space. I thought I saw a news footage of this a few weeks ago when the last cosmonauts came back from the Space Station on one of these things. Seems very primitive to me.

Space food … vacuum packed and dehydrated. The above is from the Apollo missions. The museum also showed the food from the Soviet program … they are mostly canned food. I’ll opt for canned food over these above.

Sleeping quarters … because of weightlessness, the astronauts are basically strapped down here for their forty winks. I notice they did not have pillows … I can’t sleep without my own pillow.

I was looking out for their toilet but can’t see any. I was wondering how they did their business.

The Personal Courage Wing was another exhibit which I enjoyed a lot — not so for the boys. It is an exhibit of WWI and WWII stories. I grew up reading a lot of British World War One comics, particularly Warlord. I would buy every issue each week with my pocket money when I was young.

So, I am pretty conversant with World War II planes. The above is the German Luftwaffe’s Messerschimdt (he he he … I still know how to spell that name) which was the backbone fighter of the Germans. They lost to the British Spitfires during the Battle of Britain.

Just next to the Museum is the “Red Barn”. This is the original manufacturing plant of Boeing when it was just starting up. This is actually an historic site today.

It was quite interesting going over how commercial planes were made in the early days.

There are a few planes located across the street from the Museum of Flight. Two of the most popular is the Concorde and Air Force One.

The Concorde is built by the British and French governments. It was never a successful commercial jet and had not made money at all. It was fraught with problems from day one, the most problematic of which is the noise generated by the sonic boom.

This plane could cruise at 2 Mach (over 2,000 km per hour) and could zip one from Paris to New York in just 3.5 hrs. It was so fast that you could take off from Paris at 9AM and land at 7:30AM on the same day (if my math is correct!).

The Concorde is now retired from service but it had a good 30 years run until a crash several years ago. The avionics on the plane had never been upgraded. So, you will see lots of old fashioned dials in the cockpit. Only about 20 of this plane was ever built.

The Air Force One above is the first presidential aircraft built just for the President of the United States. I bet many of you know that the term “Air Force One” is just a call sign for ANY aircraft carrying the President of the United States. So, the plane above is not Air Force One if the President is not on board. Why … even a small Cessna is called the Air Force One if the president is on board.

OK, here’s some trivia … do you know that the limousine that the President travels in is call Cadillac One? and that the helicopter (operated by the Marines) that the President travels in is called Marine One?

The area above is the conference room. The President gets to sit on the high chair while the entire cabinet sits around the sofa.

The above is specially built for one of the most famous user of the Air Force One … Jackie Kennedy. The First Lady need a proper place to spruce up.

The above is the private work area of the President which also doubles as his bedroom.

It was a good trip. I thoroughly enjoyed this visit … the boys enjoyed about 66% of it and Suanne about 33% of this.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Seattle: Portage Bay Cafe

Day Three. The highlight of the day is the Museum of Flight. Since we are traveling southward that day, we decided to go for breakfast at one of the recommended places.

The Portage Bay Cafe is located in the University District. This is supposed to be one of the most popular breakfast places. Parking is a bit of a problem because their parking lot is so puny. We ended up having to do pay parking along the street.

It was quite early in the morning when we got there. Moreover, it was a weekday and so we were seated very quickly. We were quite worried of the reported long waits (over 1 hour) that we had read. Customer service sucks really or maybe we just got a grumpy impatient waitress — she does not seem too happy with us asking about the all-you-can-eat breakfast bar. *shrugs*

Anyway, they serve all-day breakfast here. They prepare the food in an open kitchen and behind the breakfast bar of fruits, whipped cream, maple syrup and what-nots. Because of the hype and prices of this place, we expected that fruits in particular should be fresh, like being prepared just a hour or so ago — some of them looked sadly soggy and decidedly yesterday’s fruits that’s just taken out from a freezer.

Started with the coffee, the litmus test of a good breakfast. It was alright not awesome, but we liked it.

Almost everything on the menu is described with the word organic … it’s organic eggs, organic whole wheat toast, organic green onions, organic baby spinach. Even the Heinz Tomato Ketchup is organic. I bet the coffee we had was even organic. To me, organic means only one thing … $$$.

Since their breakfast bar is like the star of this place, we ordered their “Two Pancakes”. This is just two large and thick pancakes which included ONE free trip to the Toppings Bar. At the Toppings Bar are fruits, nuts, butter,organic maple and syrup. I find this quite expensive at $8.25 but I guess that’s what you pay for something that’s made from “organic wheat and low fat organic yogurt and organic vanilla”. Doesn’t look too filling does it?

We also ordered the Organic Prawn Omelette. It is made of grilled organic vegetables, even organic prawns, goat cheese and spicy coconut curry sauce. I thought the combination of omelette and curry sauce is very unique and a great idea. It was nice … love this dish but not the price. $13.

The Rancher’s Breakfast is nothing to shout about. Three eggs made anyway you want. There is also pepper bacon which was done pretty good (not oily).

Guess what the total came to … $55 bucks not including tips, taxes and my own parking. I must say it is too expensive and overpriced for the kind of food. We could get more for less elsewhere and not having to put up with grumpy waitresses. So, I got nothing really positive to say about Portage Bay Cafe.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Seattle: The Tamarind Tree

By the time we got back to the hotel, we were all dead tired. I guess it was not because of the places we visited today but the past three days. So we decided to go back to the hotel to have a nap and then go out for a late dinner. It was certainly what we all needed.

We woke up at almost 8PM but Arkensen was still very tired and wanted to continue to sleep. We had bought some fried chicken from Albertson’s and left that for him to eat in the hotel while we took a drive to the Tamarind Tree for dinner.

The Tamarind Tree was one of the highly recommended places from readers of chowtimes. They are located in Little Saigon. If not for the GPS, we would probably have rounded the place a few times because this restaurant is hidden behind a strip mall on 1036 S Jackson St.

We were impressed with the restaurant. This is certainly not like any Vietnamese Pho restaurants we had ever been to. The Tamarind Tree is many class above that. I was wondering if there is a place like this in Vancouver, I can’t think of any. This does not appear to me like a family restaurant maybe because this is an upscale Vietnamese restaurant.

For one, this place does not reek of pho soup. You know what I mean? Everytime I have a meal in Vancouver’s Vietnamese restaurant, I always end of having my clothings and jacket smell like pho. I can’t see anyone having pho here. No siree.

The table setting is very nice but am not sure if this is Vietnamese though. We did not have the ubiquitous plastic Sriracha hot chilli sauce bottle here.

But the place is really dark. It was so dark that it’s impossible to read the menu even after moving the menu next to the candle cup … any nearer the menu will probably combust. We had to ask for a torch light and I am amazed that they had to scour for one for us. I was thinking that this place is so dark I was quite sure many customers would have asked for one too. Maybe we’re getting old and our eyesight is failing! Time for us to get one of the credit sized magnifying glass cum lights.

Because of the poor light, many of the pictures ended up fuzzy — I wanted you to know that. I cranked the ISO to 1600 on the camera and yet there was not enough light.

We decided to order their “7 Courses of Beef”. I think it’s their specialty and was recommended by the waiter. The first course was the Beef Salad which came with some kind of fish sauce (above). We were told to pour it over the Beef Salad (below).

Nanzaro had never been one to like vegetables, let alone salad but he absolutely loved this. In many ways, this tastes a lot like the Malaysian Yee Sang (raw fish salad). The mix of crunchy fresh cabbage and cilantro and thin slices of beef and most importantly the fish sauce made this an awesome dish. We were telling ourselves that if this is just the first course, we are in for a treat that night.

Course two is simply called Beef Vinegar. It’s a do it yourself dish. First component is a plate of thinly sliced beef.

The other components are a big plate of green herbs (basil?), beans sprout, carrot and vermicelli. Also there is a burning pot of vinegar — or at least, I think this is vinegar since this dish is called the Beef Vinegar.

We hesitated for a moment on what to do until the waiter came and gave us a crash course.

First we had to cook the raw beef slices in the vinegar. And then …

… the hard part is to assemble this. We made a real mess of it. It was not easy putting this together with the rice paper that was provided. I never knew handling rice paper was so difficult … the instructions sounded simple … just soak it for 5 seconds and then wrap it up. Oh yeah, sure.

We see the other tables (and whites too!) putting this together so deftly. Ours fell apart and looked awful. However, it was great. It is because of the ingredients they gave us was fresh and very good.

I remember thinking … this is course two of seven and I am beginning to feel full already!

It’s a good thing that Course 3 through 6 came in a single dish. They are all meat — basically marinated in different ways and grilled. They were really nice.

We still had some stuff left from course 2 and we improvised by mixing this meats with rice paper, vermicelli and herbs. We practically ate with our hands throughout, made a big mess but we had a great time.

The last course was the Rice Soup. Cute name but it should be called congee but Rice Soup sounded nicer. We love this as there is a certain sweetness to it unlike the Chinese Congee which is basically salty.

All the above is only $27. It was really, really good. Do any of you know of a place in Vancouver which is like The Tamarind Tree? We will definitely want to come back again here for their other dishes.

Oh, I smelt my jacket as I left the restaurant … no smell of pho.

So, all thanks to “fresh_one” who recommended The Tamarind Tree to us. This is the BEST Vietnamese meal we ever had.

Popularity: 8% [?]