The Crab Pot is located on Pier 57 … just a stone throw away from the Argosy Cruise and the Seattle Aquarium.  Anyway, Pier whatever, if it’s on the waterfront, you will be able to find it.  The Waterfront is not a long stretch … almost all the main attractions are located on a 1/2 mile stretch or so.

It was almost 2PM by the time we got to Crab Pot.  I thought that it will be a great time to go for lunch expecting to avoid the lunch time crowd.  Bad idea.  Even at 2PM we had to wait 20 minutes for a table.

It was a really cold day, freezing cold as a matter of fact.  We asked to be seated inside but they told us it will be quite a wait.  Being hungry and not wanting to waste any more time waiting we took the tables outside.  It was quite OK.  It was not that it’s outdoors but it certainly is not as warm as inside. [I thought Suanne certainly looked very hungry and cold in this picture!  LOL!]

The Crab Pot has a very extensive menu which includes steak, burgers, chicken and of course seafood.  But the Crab Pot is known as the home of the famous Seafest.  There are four choices of the Seafest.  They are charged by the person.  The cheapest is $15 per person and ranges up to $33 per person.  My advice is to get the most expensive meal you can afford — it is worth every cent.

After doing a few calculation, we decided that we can afford “The Westport” which costs $22.

First came one of the best bread we ever had … and no, it’s not because we are hungry and cold.  They are really nice … warm and crusty sourdough bread.  It was so nice, we asked for more.

Herein is the fun and best part of eating in the Crab Pot.  First they lay a large piece of paper over the table.  Then they gave each of us a wooden block, wooden mallet and a bib with a large red crab.  Oh yeah … no plates, no forks and knives … we all eat with our hands.

They came with a big steamy pot of seafood and then promptly dumped the whole lot onto the table.  It was a lot of food and for a moment we could not decide what to go for first.

The favourite was perhaps the mussels as they were the first gone.  The prawns were awesome too … they were so good that we ate it even with the shells on.

Nanzaro ate only the dungeness crabs and sausage.  He so enjoyed it, he did not say a single word the whole meal.  He just quietly picked on the crabs before we realized that he ate almost all the crabs himself.  That rascal.

They also gave us a lot of melted butter … so much that it overflowed all over.  I guess that is the whole idea.  It is supposed to be messy.

It was a great meal although we made a mess of the table.  The food was great but more so, it was fun.  With hindsight, I wished we had gone for their “Alaskan” which included Alaskan King Crab.  Some of the neighboring tables had that and it looked absolutely delicious.  Next time we’re in the Crab Pot we’ll plan to save enough money to order that.

If you’re looking for food around the Seattle Waterfront, I suggest you go to the Crab Pot and try their Seafest.  Highly recommended.  Like I said earlier, it will be an unforgetable meal.  I guarantee that.

We used the CityPass for this cruise. Let me tell you, again, that when you are visiting Seattle you simply must get the citypass. You get quite a bit of savings. For instance, the 1 hr Seattle Harbor Cruise costs $21.75 but with the CityPass which costs only $44, you get entrances to four other premier tourist spots too. The CityPass covers the basic 1-hour harbour cruise but you have the option to upgrade to other Argosy’s cruises.

We boarded the cruise from Pier 55 on Seattle’s Waterfront. For some reason, I felt all tired that when we got onto the ship. I guess I was just all tired from the hecticness of the day before. The seats were so comfortable, guess what, I fell asleep for the entire duration of the cruise! But Suanne and the boys had a great time and took a lot of pictures.

You get to see the colorful Seattle waterfront from the cruise. It was a fun and quick way to learn about Seattle with the naration throughout the cruise. We passed by the newly opened Olympic Sculpture Park, which is really a huge outdoor sculpture park and opened to the public for free. We did not get the chance to visit it this time but we will some day.

It is located a short walking distance away from the Space Needle, the symbol of Seattle.

You know what I think? I think all the most beautiful cities in the world have a view of the city from the water. Let’s see how many such cities that had a great waterfront view … New York, Hongkong, Shanghai, Chicago, Sydney, Rio de Janeiro, Istanbul … just to name a few. Oh, of course the prettiest cities of all, Vancouver BC! :-)

Seattle has a spectacular skyline. They do not have the most tallest buildings but they are well planned and concentrated in a cluster. The tallest building in Seattle is the 76-storey Columbia Center (the building in black). It is currently one of the top 20 buildings in the US.

Talking about buildings … I notice that the buildings here in Seattle are unlike Vancouver’s. Almost all tall buildings in Vancouver have green glass. You can hardly see any black glass or beige coloured buildings in Vancouver. Can anyone tell me why Vancouver’s buildings are green?

Right at the south end of the city is two gigantic stadiums. The stadiums were home to the Seattle Seahawks and the Seattle Mariners. I had never understood American football actually … and still do not know why they call it football when most of the game are played with hands!

But baseball is fascinating to me. I still don’t know the rules but it seems like fun attending a ball game. One of these days, I’ll want to go to Seattle to just catch a Mariners game. I spoke to Arkensen and Nanzaro asking them to follow me to the game … but they refused. They are hardcore Canucks fan. For me, I just simply gotta experience having hotdogs and beer in a ball game. One day, I’ll do that … it’s on my “Been There, Done That” list.

We had some time after the Aquarium before we get on the harbor cruise and decided that we go get a little something to eat. We did not want to take a full meal for sure because we had planned for a seafood lunch. So, we headed to the Ivar’s Fish Bar.

I find it unique that Ivar had food outlets to cater for all people. For instance, they have 25 seafood bars like these ones above which is largely a takeout place. They also have fast food like outlets peppered all over the city. Morever, they also have very established full service restaurants like Acres of Clams, the Salmon House and Mukilteo Landing.

On a previous visit to Seattle we had visited another Ivar’s Seafood Bar and blogged about it here.

We decided to get one of their award winning chowder. I remembered very clearly how much we enjoyed the Boudin’s chowder in Sourdough bowl and wanted to see how Ivar’s line up to it. Frankly, at the risk of offending Seattlelites (that’s what you call Seattle folks, right?) I must say that SF’s Boudin wins hands down — Ivar’s sourdough bread is so bad, we did not even finish it.

The Chowder in Sourdough Bread Bowl costs $6.29. The bread bowl is extremely dry and does taste stale. We were wondering if they had served us yesterday’s leftover bread. Moreover, the bowl was so badly formed that the chowders flowed over the top and made quite a mess. It actually looked quite gross … we were quite disappointed.

Maybe it’s the hour of the day. It was still early and maybe they did not have a fresh supply of bread. I can’t believe that for a place with the reputation like Ivar, we ended with food like this.

Since the Seattle Aquarium opens early (at 9:30AM), we decided to start off with this place.

The Seattle Aquarium is located at Pier 59 on Seattle’s Waterfront.  It had recently underwent some expansion but despite the expansion one could complete the tour within 1-2 hours max.

Entrance is $15 for an adult and $10 for children.  We went in using CityPasses.

I would say that the Seattle Aquarium is designed with the elementary school children or younger in mind.

Other than the colorful fishes, there are quite a bit of corals.  The only thing that came to my mind is that while corals are beautiful, they are also very fragile and extremely sensitive to environmental changes.  Once destroyed, it will take forever to recover, if at all.  With all the climate changes these days, I won’t be surprised that over the next few decades, these beautiful corals will be decimated if nothing is being done to protect them.

I had a good time taking pictures … much to the chagrin of the boys.  I can see that the aquarium was boring them.  Being boys they wanted a more action packed vacation, like roller coasters and such.

The best part of the Seattle Aquarium was the Underwater Dome.  This is one of the largest exhibits in the aquarium and is a spherical undersea room with 360 degrees view into a huge tank.

There is also a live tidepool exhibit with includes touch zones.  You get to touch the starfishes.  The boys, despite their constant bravado, were too chicken to touch it.

There is also an outdoor exhibit which I felt was very well designed despite the lack of space to create a more natural environment for the marine mammals.  You could view the sea otters and seals on the surface or from beneath the surface.

It was an interesting trip.  I guess we had been spoilt by much bigger aquariums that we find this aquarium a bit too unexciting.  Being a foodie, what is foremost on my mind if seafood … now, that is more exciting.

The rooms were very comfortable and clean. We actually have a great room. We, and Suanne in particular, just can’t stand second hand smoke. That’s why the first thing we do when we open the room door is to have a whiff of the air. This one is good. It seems like the hotel had just recently refurbished.

For the first day, we decided to try the free breakfast in the hotel. We like this one because they have a decent breakfast area with proper tables and chairs. Some of the hotels I had been to forces you to carry the breakfast to your room to eat.

The coffee and the orange juice sucks — it just tastes awful. There are hard boiled eggs which we enjoy. Oh BTW, I remember my mum forbade me to take “day-old hard boiled eggs” when I was young. For those of you who know … you tell us the reason behind this. LOL!

About the only other thing I find edible is the waffle … we make it fresh. Nanzaro is an expert in this and I can see he was itching to teach everyone who is not sure how to use the waffle maker. The bagel was dry and hard. I don’t know how Suanne likes it so much.

After this one breakfast, we decided to eat out for breakfast even if it means McDonalds.

Maggie Moo’s ice-creams are freshly made in store. Since our first trip there, we had been there three times already. We simply love their super rich ice-cream and especially their prices.

You can have the ice-cream in any way you want. You could order one of their creations which they call “Fresh Escape”. We tried that (sorry no pictures) and they were simply awesome. Selecting from one of their dozen or so choices were bewildering to say the least. But it will cost you something like $6 or so.

Alternatively, you could go the traditional route of ordering a base flavor and then select one of their many mix-ins. However, the cheapest alternative is to just choose a wafer cone and a couple of ice-cream flavours.

We learned that if you just select a chocolate coated wafer bowl and then two large scoops of ice-cream, it will cost just slightly over two bucks. It’s a very nice dessert after the fried chicken lunch.

Believe it or not, but we had never been to any ice-cream places in Vancouver before. There is one place we want to check out sometime this spring … Vivo’s. Do you know of any such ice-cream places in Vancouver, or Richmond?

I felt so pressured to keep up blogging on this Seattle series. My memory on this trip is somewhat fading. I had been looking at the screen for the past 5 minutes just thinking of what to share. Sigh … and some of you just gotta say you look forward to this series. Pressure, pressure, pressure! LOL!

We left Richmond kind of late … in the late morning. By the time we got over the border, it was already noon. We drove on and decided to make a stop at Burlington for a quick lunch in a fast food joint. We did not care about what it is except that it should be something we do not have in Canada.

As we drove along the shopping row on S Burlington Blvd looking for a fast food joint we chanced upon the distinctive yellow and red Popeyes Chicken and Biscuits restaurant. Popeyes was one of the places we had on our shortlist of restaurants.

One would have thought that in a place called Popeyes, you would have expected that there will be Popeye (the Sailorman) images all over the restaurant. Nope, there was none at all. Strange.

Anyway, Popeyes is one of the biggest chicken fast food outlets in the US. There is none in Vancouver.

We ordered the 8 pieces Spicy Chicken. It seems like their flagship product just like the Big Mac is to McD’s. It came with some “biscuits”. I still thinks that biscuits means cookies. At least where I grew up, biscuits IS cookies. These US-style “biscuits” should just be simply called bread, or scones.

Anyway, the biscuits were flaky but too dry for my liking. If only I have hot chocolate, I’ll dunk it in. I took a bite and decided I had enough.

Despite being called Spicy Chicken, it is quite mild. We like the crispy skin a lot and the fact that it was not all too greasy. The pieces were quite big too, especially the breasts. I would say they were huge, not only big.

We read the brochure in the store that the chicken are made fresh and hand battered. It is marinated in Louisiana seasonings.

The Cajun Sparkle was really nice with the chicken. It is a mix of salt, garlic, onion and spices. It was so nice, we took a few extra packets with us.

We also got ourselves the Chicken Po’Boy. Po’Boy is a Louisiana subs made of baguette and fried meat. I remembered the first Po’Boy I had in New York’s Oyster Bar last year. That Oyster Po’Boy was great … this one, it tastes just like Mc Chicken if you ask me. Popeyes Po’Boy has the edge over McChicken because of the Cajun Sparkle.

The bill came up to $25.47. The expensive one is the Fried Chicken which works out to be about $2 per piece. For what we had, we felt it was quite expensive.

This is the long promised series on Seattle. During the school spring break last month, we decided that we make a short 5-day trip with the primary purpose of checking out a little bit of the food scene in Seattle.

Seattle is sometimes known as the emerald city in reference to the lush green evergreen trees around the area. In many ways, Seattle reminds me of Vancouver. The healthy people and especially the rainy climate are so similar. The big difference is that it the city is much bigger economically than Vancouver. It is after all the home to Microsoft, Boeing, Starbucks, Amazon.com, and Costco to name a few.

There were almost no pre-planning done for this trip. I had been so busy at work these days, I had no real time for myself, let alone plan for vacation. So, this time, I depended almost entirely on the recommendations of the readers of chowtimes.

About a month before the trip, we left a posting on the blog asking for recommendations. The response were astounding to say the least. As a matter of fact, that posting was the SECOND most commented blog entry we had with 44 comments. So, I took some of the most interesting recommendations and updated it on a Google Spreadsheet above. So, in many respect, this trip would not had been so much fun if not for all your recommendations.

Direction-wise, we relied entirely on the GPS — no more paper maps to struggle with. Let me tell you this … the GPS is God-sent. I kid you not when I swear that the GPS is the single most important device for lowering divorce rates in the world.

He he he … you know how it is right? For some unknown reason, all females in the world are utterly hopeless in reading maps and telling direction. Guys, don’t you agree? [Ladies need not answer ...]

Oh, also being a guy … well … I NEVER stop to ask for direction. It’s a guy thing … REAL guys never ask for directions. They just know the way to everywhere. it’s just that sometimes it takes longer than usual.

Oh yeah … one other cool thing. Being an occasional travel blogger, we asked for complimentary CityPasses. It’s amazing we got them and we are considered MEDIA. Cool, huh? It was cool until one place actually asked us for a Media ID and I had a hard time explaining that Suanne and I are travel bloggers.

With the CityPasses, we get entrances to 5 attractions in Seattle. That includes the following:

• Museum of Flight
• Seattle Harbor Cruise
• Seattle Aquarium
• Pacific Science Center
• Woodland Park Zoo

We had been to many of those places before but it was many many years ago. It was great to check them out again.

I really hope you will enjoy the next 2-3 weeks of our series to Seattle.

The Pineapple Bun (or Polo Bun) turned out quite soft and I think the dough recipe is good for any other bun. The bun remains soft even after two days.

Now, I know why it’s called Pineapple Bun. The name came from the look of the topping which resembles the pineapple skin.

It took me quite long to make it as I was trying to convert the measuring into cups and spoons as far as possible so that it’s easier for me to make it again.

Ingredients

Dough:

• 240g bread flour (2 cups less 3 tablespoons), I used all-purpose flour
• 60g cake flour (8 tablespoons)
• 45g sugar (3 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon)
• 5g yeast (1 1/2 teaspoons)
• 30cc egg (1 medium egg)
• 135g water (125ml)
• 3g salt (1/2 teaspoon)
• 9g milk powder (2 tablespoons)
• 30cc warm water
• 45g butter (3 tablespoons)

Topping:

• 80g butter (6 tablespoons)
• 50cc egg
• 1 g salt (a pinch)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 50g icing sugar (1/2 cup)
• 5g milk powder (1 tablespoon)
• 150g cake flour (1 1/4 cups)
• another egg for egg wash

Click on the link below for the instructions.

Instructions

Proof the yeast in the 30cc warm water with a teaspoon of the sugar until it’s foamy in the bread machine. I revised this step as I’m quite puzzle with the use of the 30cc of warm water in the recipe. Place the remaining of the dough ingredients in the bread machine according to the manufacturer’s recommendation. Set to dough and start the machine. It takes about two hours for the dough cycle to complete.

The dough is not too sticky and very soft. Divide the dough into 14 pieces and place two parchment lined baking sheet. Let stand for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, prepare the topping. Blend the butter and icing sugar together. Butter must be at room temperature.

Add in salt, milk powder and vanilla, mix well.

Add in the beaten in two times, mix well after each addition.

Fold in the flour with a spatula.

This is a very sticky dough. Refrigerate it if it’s too sticky and soft to handle. Divide it into 14 pieces.

On a floured hand, flatten the topping and place it on top of the bread dough.

Use a sharp knife to lightly score the the topping. This will create the pineapple skin effect. Let stand for 40 to 50 minutes. I had to warn you on this. At the end of the rising, some of the topping will slide to the side. Gently move the very tender risen dough so that the topping remains on top, you know what I mean. I should have taken the lop sided bun pictures for illustration.

Egg wash the top and bake in a preheated 170C (325F) for 10 minutes. Turn down the temperature to 150C (300F) and bake for another 5 minutes. Helen, thank you for sharing the recipe.

This Light Carrot Cake has the natural sweetness of the carrots and has reduced amount of oil and egg. In order to keep the cake light, the eggs, sugar and oil mixtures is whipped to incorporate air in it. This keeps the cake from being too dense.

This Light Carrot Cake is moist and rich without being soggy and greasy from an overabundance of fat.

Ingredients

• vegetable cooking spray
• 2 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 1/4 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon table salt
• 3 large eggs
• 1 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 pound carrots (about 6 medium), peeled and grated (about 3 cups)

Click on the link below for the instructions.

Instructions

Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and heat the oven to 350F. Lightly coat a 13 x 9 inch metal baking pan with vegetable oil spray, then lined the bottom with parchment paper.

Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, spices and salt together in a medium bowl; set aside.

Combine the eggs and sugar in another medium bowl.

Use and electric mixer to beat the eggs and sugars until they turn thick and creamy, 1 to 3 minutes. Turn the mixer to low and slowly whip in the oil until thoroughly combined and emulsified, 30 to 60 seconds.

Sift half the flour mixture over the batter and gently mix in. Repeat once more with the remaining flour mixture and continue to whisk the batter gently until mist of the lumps are gone (do not overmix).

Use a rubber spatula, gently stir in the carrots.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan, and smooth the top. Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out with a few moist crumbs attached, 35 to 40 minutes.

Rotate the pan halfway through baking.

Do not overbake.

Cool the cake in the pan for 10 minutes, then invert the cake onto a wire rack and remove the parchment paper. Flip the cake right-side up, and cool completely on a wire rack, about 2 hours, before frosting (if desired) and serving.

Light Cream Cheese FrostingBe sure to mix the frosting by hand - an electric mixer or food processor will turn the frosting soupy. Makes about 2 cups: 12 ounces low fat cream cheese, softened but still cool 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar Mix the cream cheese and vanilla together in a large bowl with a rubber spatula. Add the confectioners; sugar and stir until thoroughly combined and smooth. Karen, thank you for sharing both the carrot cake recipes.