Road Tips

Burien Pizzeria (and 909 Coffee & Wine) - Burien, WA

As my trip to the Seattle area continued, I got to know the small suburban town of Burien pretty well.  Walking the streets in Olde Burien, I found a number of great little restaurants, bars and shops in the area.  The bartender at my hotel was telling me of a couple places that she thought had good pizza in Burien and one of the two she mentioned was a place I had scoped out after dinner a couple nights previously called Burien Pizzeria.  I decided to head there for dinner that evening.

Frank Ricci literally grew up in the restaurant business.  His father, Angelo, was a longtime engineer at Boeing who in 1957 opened a small deli in the blue collar village of Burien, about 13 miles south of downtown Seattle.  Along with Angelo's wife Armella, the couple expanded the deli in 1961 putting in seating.  Throughout the 60's, more expansion happened at the little restaurant including a new kitchen where Angelo and Armella would make Italian specialties passed down from their families in the old country.  

Angelo and Armella would eventually have eight children with Frank being the youngest.  Each of the Ricci children would work at the family's Italian restaurant with the two oldest brothers eventually taking over and expanding to a second location in the 1970's.  (Click here to see the Road Tips entry on Angelo's of Burien.)

Frank Ricci started to work at Angelo's when he was 12 years old.  He did whatever he needed to do to fit - bus tables, sweep floors, wash dishes.  But what he liked to do the most was to work in the kitchen with his two oldest brothers who were the main chefs of the restaurant.  When his brothers Ron and Richard ran the family's second Angelo's location in Bellevue, WA, Frank would help out at both locations doing what he loved to do - cooking food.  

After 20 years of working in the family business - and it was truly a family business with his nieces and nephews also now working in the two Angelo's locations - he decided to do something on his own.

In May of 2007, Frank Ricci opened a little trattoria - Bistro 909 - in Olde Burien just a couple blocks away from his father's eponymous restaurant.  The restaurant evolved and it eventually became 909 Wine & Coffee that featured a short menu that featured some pasta dishes, steaks and seafood specialties.  

Danny House owned and operated the Tin Room Bar, Restaurant & Theater just a few doors down from 909 Wine & Coffee.  House was also locally famous for being Dan the Sausageman who originally sold summer sausage out of the trunk of his car starting in 1988 before opening a storefront a few years later.  Frank Ricci and House were good friends and they decided they wanted to do something together in a restaurant endeavor.

Pictured right - Danny House and Frank Ricci.  Photo courtesy Westside Seattle.  

(In 2013, Ricci opened 913 Spirits - The Place Next Door, a wine bar/short menu bistro located between 909 Wine & Coffee and Tin Room Bar.)  

In 2017, a space opened up next to 909 Coffee & Wine and the two partnered up to open a wood-fired gourmet pizza place.  The restaurant was designed to be family friendly, yet have a grown-up vibe with pasta dishes, signature cocktails, and craft beer.  In the fall of 2018, House and Ricci opened Burien Pizzeria at 907 SW 152nd Street.  (see map)  

It was a Saturday night when I headed to downtown Burien to eat at Burien Pizzeria.  There was an arts event going with a number of people walking the sidewalks of Olde Burien checking out some of the murals and artwork with lights on display.  I had to park in a small lot about two blocks away from Burien Pizzeria and walk over to the restaurant.  

The colorful facade of the restaurant came into view as I walked up SW 152nd Street.  There's a small patio out front with stools and a counter for people to eat on and watch the world go by.  It was a beautiful evening and there were a few people having pizza on the sidewalk patio.  

Inside Burrien Pizzeria, there was a bar off to one side, a handful of hightop tables with stool seats, and a few four-seater tables along the front window to the restaurant.  A display case of the wines they have at Burrien Pizzeria was along the brick wall opposite the bar.  Exposed ducts and crossbeams were found on the ceiling with industrial lighting hanging down.  It was a cozy place, but well-lit.  Classic 60's/70's rock and soul music from the likes of Dusty Springfield, the Rolling Stones, and Marvin Gaye played in the background.  

Out a back door to the restaurant, I found a canvas-covered patio with Edison lighting strung over the tables below.  There was a smoker out back, but I didn't see anything on their menu that had smoked meats.  That's where they stored the wood for their wood-fired oven.  


Back inside, behind a counter in the corner was the brick oven.  A copper plate facade with a brick trim around the opening.  The prep table was just beyond the small wall that separated the dining area.  They were certainly busy making pizzas while I was there as a seemingly never-ending line-up of people were coming in to pick up pizzas to-go.  

When I first came in, I was greeted by a lady by the name of Heather.  She said that I could sit anywhere, but at the time the bar was full.  I asked if I could sit at the table in the corner near the bar and front window.   Heather dropped off a menu and asked what I wanted to drink.  I got the Into the Haze hazy IPA from the Kulshan Brewing Company out of Bellingham, WA, the last city on the American side of the border between Seattle and Vancouver, British Columbia.  (I have a former co-worker who lives in Bellingham and while I would have loved to have gone there to see him, it was just too far of a trip for me that weekend.)  

While I was there for the pizza, I took a look through the menu to see what else they offered at Burien Pizzeria.  They had a nine-layer lasagna, as well as a bucatini carbonara.  Small plates included beef and pork meatballs in a marinara sauce, and oven-roasted cauliflower.  They had a handful of salads on the short menu, as well.  

While they had a few specialty pizzas such as a margarita pizza and a butternut squash/prosciutto pizza, I went with the pepperoni pizza and asked Heather to add Italian sausage and fresh mushrooms to the pizza.   

The pizza had a fluffy crust and a bit of a saggy crust, but that was due to the big chunks of Italian sausage, the plentiful amount of fresh mushrooms, and the large number of salty and spicy pepperoni slices on the pizza.  The outer edges of the crust was blistered, but the cheese and sauce coagulated together for a wonderful combination in flavor.  It was a great pizza. 

And it should have been.  When I got the bill, I got a bit of sticker shock.  It was $19 for just the pepperoni pizza (about a 12" size), but it was an additional $8 bucks for the sausage and $7 for the mushrooms making it $34 dollar pizza!  Ouch!  I'm not certain it was worth $34 bucks, but it was still pretty damned good.  

The thin crust pizza didn't fully fill me up and I was wondering if Burien Pizzeria had any desserts.  Heather said, "We don't, but you can go next door to our sister restaurant 909 and they have desserts."  After paying up with Heather, I took the short walk next door to 909 Wine & Coffee to see what they had. 

It was getting close to closing time when I walked into 909 Wine & Coffee.  The restaurant featured a nice sleek decor with wood paneled walls and ceilings with recessed lighting.  A bar was toward the center back of the restaurant.  There were maybe two or three couples at tables finishing up dinner and Frank Ricci was talking with one of the couple at a table near the bar.  I took a seat at the bar and the bartender - a young lady by the name of Marina greeted me.  I said, "I understand that you have desserts."  She said that they did.  

"I know exactly what I want," I replied without looking at a menu.  Knowing they had coffee, they had to have espresso, and I guessed that they had vanilla gelato or ice cream.   "Can you make me an affogato," I asked Marina.  She said that it would be no problem.  And I asked for a shot of amaretto to go along with it.  

The serving size of the affogato was, well, it was huge!  It was a large coffee cup filled to the brim with espresso and a large scoop (or scoops) of vanilla ice cream.  I had to eat some of the ice cream and sip some of the espresso out just to add the amaretto.  Once the amaretto was added, the affogato was complete.  I promised Marina that I wouldn't be long, but she said to sit back and enjoy my affogato and amaretto.  It was a great end to the evening.  

While I thought the pizza I had at Burien Pizzeria was excellent, I also thought that it was pretty expensive.  $34 bucks for a 12" pizza was a bit steep in my book.  The toppings were fresh and plentiful, and the taste was outstanding.  It definitely went well with a beer.  And I can't say enough about Heather's service.  She was fun, helpful and made a single diner on a Saturday night feel at ease.  And the affogato with a shot of amaretto at their sister restaurant 909 Wine & Coffee next door was a nice finish to a fun night.  It's places like Burien Pizzeria and 909 Wine & Coffee that make for a memorable evening when I'm on the road.   

Buckley's - Seattle

Out in Seattle for a trade show earlier this year, the trade show turned out to be a bust.  I pretty much did everything and saw everyone I needed to see on Friday, and I went back on Saturday morning just to see if I missed anything.  I hadn't.  As a big Iowa Hawkeyes football fan, it turned out that Iowa was playing that day and I wanted to watch the game.  I looked up the list for Iowa Club Game Watch locations across the nation and found that there was a sports bar near downtown Seattle that hosted Iowa watch parties for their televised sporting events.  Wanting to watch the game with like-minded Iowa fans, I headed to Buckley's on Queen Anne in Seattle.   

Tim Buckley was a longtime pub owner in Seattle running the popular Belltown Pub since 1980.  In 2003, Buckley lost the lease to the pub's spot and was forced to find a new location to set up shop.  He decided to change a few things up and become more of a sports bar and grill.  In 2004, he found a location on Queen Anne street about six blocks west of the Space Needle. (see map) He recruited many of the same employees that he had at Belltown Pub and opened Buckley's on Queen Anne in June of 2004.  

In 2008, new ownership of a building forced the lease holders of a restaurant not far from Buckley's original Belltown Pub to vacate the premises.  Tim Buckley saw an opportunity to get back into the Belltown neighborhood that he loved so much and took over the spot at the corner of Battery and 2nd Ave. (see map) The  Buckley's in Belltown opened in late 2008 mirroring the decor at the original Buckley's on Queen Anne.  Buckley continues to oversee both restaurants to this day.  

There was a parking garage just next to Buckley's on Queen Anne street and I parked in there for a flat fee of around $10.50 for four hours.  I really didn't know how long I'd be there, but I figured $10.50 for four hours near downtown Seattle was a pretty good bargain.  

The place was already raucous a half hour before kickoff.  A lot of Iowa fans were in Buckley's ready to cheer the Hawks on.  The bar was already full and the bulk of the tables in the restaurant were taken, as well.  There was a couple who was getting up from a high-top table in a back corner by the bar and I asked the hostess if I could grab that table.  "I would suggest you get it as soon as you can," she nearly shouted at me as more people poured in behind me.  

The bar was elevated from the back dining area and featured four flat-screen television hung on the wall behind the bar.  There were two dining areas in Buckley's, the lower dining area behind a half wall by the bar and another area off to the side of the bar.  Looking around at the full pub and the increasing amount of people coming into the place, I knew I had scored a prime spot for the house.   

I was seated there for a few moments and one of the bartenders came out from behind the bar to wait on me.  Her name was Lauren.  And Lauren was working her butt off.  She handed me a menu and asked what I wanted to drink.  I didn't see a beer list, but Lauren pointed at the beer bottles and cans lined up on the back wall high above the back bar.  I immediately saw they had cans of Rainier beer.  "Oh, Rainier," I halfway exclaimed.  "Yeah, I'll have a Rainier!"  I hadn't had a Rainier beer in probably six years - the Old Style of the Northwest.  And it was just as good as I remembered.  

The game started and I held off on ordering food for a while.  Buckley's has "Blunch" on Saturdays and Sundays starting at 9 a.m., but it was after noon when I was there.  Blunch features at Buckley's include classic breakfast items such as eggs Benedict, a Denver omelette, and a breakfast burrito.  French toast, pancakes, and a deep fried chicken with gravy, two eggs and hash browns were part of the Blunch menu.  

Buckley's had the prerequisite bar appetizers - wings, nachos, and deep-fried cheese curds.  But they also had Thai short ribs, a chicken quesadilla, and deep-fried calamari for appetizers.  They had soups, salads and tacos which included shredded chuck steak, blackened chicken, shrimp or Alaskan cod with cheese, lettuce, cilantro and chopped onions.  After 5 p.m., Buckley's has a buttermilk fried chicken entree; a penne alfredo with chicken or salmon; and the Pub Steak - a 10 ounce Black Angus beef tenderloin that is marinated in Worcestershire sauce, herbs and spices.  

I was looking at a couple three things on the burger/sandwich side of the menu - the prime rib dip was enticing, as was the Reuben sandwich.  In the end, I got the mushroom/Swiss burger.  I asked Lauren if they could put bacon on the burger and she said, "Absolutely!"  And they had tots on the menu - you know me, I to get the tots.  But they also had sweet potato tots on the menu.  I had to give those a try.  Also, a small tub of a creamy peppery sauce came with the burger and tots.  

The burger was very good.  With all the Swiss cheese and an aioli sauce on top, the bun didn't fare too well.  It literally collapsed and fell apart after about four or five bites.  But, still, I can't complain about the quality and the taste of the Swiss cheese/mushroom/bacon burger.  

The tots were interesting.  They did taste like sweet potatoes with a crunchy outer shell.  The creamy pepper sauce had a bit of a spicy bite and I used it to dip the tots into.  I didn't finish them all as I was getting full after the eating most of the burger.  (A lot of the bun was discarded on the side by the time I was done.)  

As I was eating, a couple was sort of standing near the bar watching the game.  I had two stools open at my table and I offered them the seats.  Turns out that they were from Ames, but he went to school at Iowa and was an Iowa fan.  They were out in Seattle and he said that he did a Google search to see if there was an Iowa Hawkeye bar in the area.  "First place that came up in the search was this place," he said.  "We didn't know what to expect when we got in here.  I guess we should have gotten here earlier."  I told him that I got the last open table a half-hour before the game started.  They were both thankful that I offered them the stools that he ended up buying me a couple Rainier beers while we watched the game.  

I also didn't know what I was getting into going to Buckley's, but I was more than happy with the burger and tots that I got.  The place was rocking during the game and it was a wonder that Lauren was able to keep up with all the orders at the bar and taking care of the tables just in front of the bar.  And it was fun drinking Rainier beer again.  Buckley's was a cozy, yet fun place with a good burger.  

Piacere Trattoria - Burien, WA

While I was out in the Seattle area earlier this year, I literally fell in love with the suburb of Burien, located just about 13 miles south of downtown Seattle and about a 10 minute drive from SeaTac International Airport.  There were great little bars, shops and restaurants all through the downtown area of Burien.  It immediately became one of my favorite little towns to travel to.  One place that I tried one evening came highly recommended by the bartender at the hotel I was staying at - Piacere Trattoria.  On a Friday evening, I drove to Piacere Trattoria to have dinner.  

Michele Godina grew up in the small town of Recco, Italy, not far from Genoa along the Ligurian Sea in the northwest part of the country.  Recco is famous for gifting the culinary world two things - focaccia bread (primarily focaccia with cheese), and pesto.  As a teenager, Michele Godina got interested in cooking while working in the kitchen at his mother's restaurant using recipes that had been handed down for generations in their family.  

When Godina was old enough, he attended culinary school during the day, then worked in the restaurant's kitchen at night.  After graduating from culinary school, Godina was invited to join the kitchen staff at a new Caffé Milano along Miami's South Beach.  Godina was there for five years before he was asked to join friends of his from Italy who were chefs in restaurants in Peru.

Godina made it back to the U.S. to work at restaurants in Las Vegas.  After moving to Seattle to work in a restaurant there, he met a young lady by the name of Jeannette Bastidas and the two soon married.  Michele and Jeannette started on an odyssey that took them from Seattle, to Washington D.C., to the San Francisco area, then to the Houston area in early 2021 before an opportunity to buy a small restaurant in the Seattle area came about later that year.

Pictured right - Michele Godina.  Photo courtesy Piacere Trattoria Facebook Page.  

In 2015, Frank Genzele, his wife Sue, and Genzele's cousin Frank Yellam, Jr. opened a small bistro in downtown Burien called Frankie's B-Town Bistro.  Genzele was the owner of Frank's Quality Produce at the famous Pike Place Market in Seattle, while Frank Yellam, Jr. was the proprietor Frankie Boy Produce that his father Frank, Sr. started in 1955.  Both Genzele and Yellam grew up in Burien and wanted to become part of the burgeoning food scene in Olde Burien.  Frank and Sue eventually bought out Frank Yellam, Jr., then in 2021 they decided to sell their restaurant.  

The Genzele's found a willing buyer in the Godina's who were keen to move back to the Seattle area.  Frankie's B-Town Bistro closed on February 19th, 2021 and the Godinas took over two days later.  It took about six weeks for the changeover and on April 1, 2021 (no foolin'!) Piacere Trattoria opened their doors.  Piacere is the Italian word for "pleasure" and that's what Michele Godina wanted his patrons to have on each visit to his small restaurant.  

It was around 7:30 when I walked into Piacere Trattoria.  I found a parking space on the street just a couple spots down from the restaurant.  (see map)  The hostess stand was unoccupied as the hostess was out front with people eating on the small sidewalk out in front of the restaurant.  It was a small dining room with a tile floor and faux candelabras hanging from the ceiling.  The open kitchen was in the back corner of the restaurant.  Michele Godina had come out from the kitchen to check with people at some of the tables in the restaurant.  He came up to the stand and asked how many.  "Just myself," I told him.  He grabbed a menu and led me to a small two-seat table in the far back corner.  As I turned to sit down facing the restaurant, I noticed a small bar at the front of the establishment.  

I asked Michele if I could eat at the bar and somewhat flabbergasted - but in a good way - he said, "Sure!  Absolutely!"  He led me back up to the bar and I took a seat on right end of the bar which had blue LED rope lights underneath.  A flat screen television on the back wall of the bar in front of me was playing a loop of scenes from Italy.  In the background, some excellent music from Italian-based artists S-Tone, Inc. (Stefano Tirone), Simona Molinari, Augusta Trebeschi, and the group Marchio Bossa played during my visit.

My server that evening was a young lady by the name of Mary.  She was pleasant and efficient all during the time I was there.  I got a bottle of Peroni beer to start off with while I looked over the menu.  Later in the evening, I got a house chianti to go along with my meal.  

Looking around the menu, I found a pretty interesting mix of items.  Starters on the menu included calamari, mussels in a white wine sauce, bite-size veal meatballs with a house-made marinara sauce, and a trio of bruschetta one with a traditional garlic and tomato-basil, one topped with smoked salmon, and one topped with a peperonata sauce and hummus.  Quite honestly, I seriously thought about getting the grilled octopus with a black olive sauce and the beef carpaccio for my meal that evening.

Main items on the menu included a braised lamb shank; grilled prawns, calamari and scallops served over a bed of sautéed arugula and spinach; and Caciucco - a Tuscan-style stew with prawns, scallops, mussels, clams, calamari and cod in a light, yet spicy tomato broth.  Pasta dishes included a seafood risotto; gnocchi with braised beef; and a pork rigatoni in a vodka tomato sauce.  They also had oven-fired pizza on the menu. There were a lot of great things on the menu and I was having trouble figuring out what to order.  

After I ordered my main dish, I got a mixed salad to start out.  It featured fresh mixed greens with sliced cherry tomatoes and cucumbers, a sliced avocado quarter, focaccia croutons, and shaved grand padano cheese.  It was finished with a balsamic vinaigrette.  It was an outstanding salad and a great start to the meal.   

I went with the tagliatelle pasta with a bolognese sauce.  The ground beef and pork in a tomato cream ragu was simply outstanding.  I've been on a bolognese kick over the past few months - even making my own at home.  But this was some of the best bolognese that I've ever had.  The bolognese stuck to the wide-cut tagliatelle noodles.  It was a one of those meals where I was truly sad when I took my last bite.  

After I finished my dinner, Mary came around with the dessert menu.  They had favorites of mine like tiramisu, and cannoli stuffed with ricotta cheese with candied orange slices and chocolate chips.  The Italian-style cream-filled donut with a warm blueberry compote on the side also got my attention.  But my new favorite Italian dessert - affogato - was on the menu.  I had to have one of those.

Affogato consists of vanilla gelato topped with espresso.  Additions such as whipped cream - as shown in the picture on the gelato - and either a shot of amaretto or the Italian brandy grappa can be mixed in.  I went with the amaretto.  With everything in the skinny glass mug, when I poured in the espresso, then the amaretto, it all almost went over the top.  I had to eat down some of the creamy gelato before I could finish putting more of the amaretto on the top.     

A couple days later, I had lunch at a taqueria next to Piacere Trattoria.  I parked in almost the same spot I was in during my visit to the restaurant, and as I was walking past Piacere Trattoria, Michele Godina was out front getting the patio tables ready for the evening opening.  I stopped and mentioned that I was in a couple nights previously and I had to tell him that his bolognese sauce was some of the best I had ever had.  And it was!  Everything about my meal at Piacrere Trattoria was excellent - the food, the ambiance, the service.  This was one of those memorable meals that I'm certain I'll never forget.   

Centro Neighborhood Kitchen - Burien, WA

The trade show I recently attended out in the Seattle area turned out to be a bust.  But the good thing was that it allowed me to spend some time in the town of Burien not far from SeaTac International Airport.  I quickly fell in love with Olde Burien and their small shops, interesting restaurants and lively bar scene.  On the Sunday afternoon when I was there, I was in the mood for some Mexican food and I found a little taqueria called Centro Neighborhood Kitchen.  We had a Centro (pronounced "CHEN-tro") back in the Quad Cities for a number of years, but this is not connected to that former restaurant.  

Enrique Arias grew up in a family which owned a number of Mexican restaurants in the greater Tacoma area.  His grandfather, Ruben Arias, grew up in Jalisco, Mexico before immigrating to the U.S. in the 1960's.  Ruben Arias opened his first restaurant - El Toro - in 1979.  The restaurant grew to four locations by the mid-1990's.   His son, Enrique, Sr., took over one of the four El Toro locations the family owned and turned it into Maria's Cocina Mexicana, so named after his wife Maria.  Their son Enrique, Jr. was part of the family crew who helped run the business as he grew up.  After getting his bachelors degree in business administration and supply chain management in 2010, he went back to the family business to run the day-to-day operations.  

In 2012, Enrique, Jr. started his own company where he would buy up distressed properties, fixed them up and was able to rent them out at a considerable profit.  While still working at the restaurant, Arias became a real estate agent and turned out to be pretty successful in doing so.  It was during that time in his life that he met a young lady by the name of Trisha who grew up in Burien, WA.  

After getting married, the chance for Trisha and Enrique to move back to Burien to live in the house she grew up in came about.  Trisha was a vegetarian and was not happy with the options she had when they went to restaurants.  She had turned Enrique into a "flexitarian" - a person who will sometimes eat fish or chicken, but will primarily just eat vegetables.  (This is a term I learned from my colleague who is a vegetarian, but his wife is a "flexitarian".)  They decided they needed to address the needs for people like her who wanted fresh Mexican vegetarian meals.  It was then that they decided to open their own restaurant.

The couple had looked at a couple spots in Tacoma before settling on a spot in downtown Burien.  Pregnant with their third daughter, the Arias' opened their little Mexican restaurant - Centro Neighborhood Kitchen - just after the pandemic restrictions were lifted in the summer of 2020.  

Pictured right - Enrique and Trisha Arias with their three daughters in 2021.  Photo courtesy Seattle Times.  

Not only did Centro Neighborhood Kitchen serve vegetarian fare, they had a number of steak, pork carnitas, chicken and seafood options available in tacos, tostadas, burritos and enchiladas.  The restaurant became an immediate favorite of people who liked the protein and non-protein options they served at Centro.  

I had already been in Burien a handful of times before I made it back on a glorious Sunday afternoon.  The weather the whole time I had been in the Seattle area was unseasonably warm and this day was no exception.  I was able to find a parking space on the street in front of Centro Neighborhood Kitchen.  (see map)  The small sidewalk patio with black tables and bright orange chair was full of diners, so I slipped inside the restaurant to get a place to sit.  

Centro is not a big place on the inside.  It seats - maybe - 20 people or so.  But it was comfortable and cozy with a light colored paint scheme on the walls.  I found a booth along the wall and took a seat.  

There were a couple people working the dining room that day, a guy and a young girl.  The young girl - Aliyah - came over with a menu and handed it to me.  Chips and salsa are not gratis at Centro and they have a number of dipping options for their house-made chips including an avocado salsa, pico de gallo, a queso dip, and guacamole.  I got the salsa verde to go along with the chips.  The green salsa had a wonderful smoky flavor and was some of the best salsa verde I've had.  

There's a small bar area behind the front counter at Centro and they make all their margaritas from scratch and without soda pop or syrupy fillers.  I had to have one of their house margaritas made with Pueblo Viejo blanco tequila and mixed with a house-made citrus juice.  The margarita was delicious and I made quick work of it.  When I ordered my food, I got a Dos Equis Ambar that they had on tap.  

To say the menu at Centro is interesting is an understatement.  True to Trisha Arias' need for fresh Mexican-style vegetarian meals, the restaurant featured items such as nachos topped with cauliflower florets, black beans, and fried jalapeños; a vegetarian burrito with black beans, lime-cilantro rice, sautéed onions and bell peppers, and guacamole; and sweet potato enchiladas.  

For those wishing to add some protein to the offerings at Centro, they offered a fresh salmon tostada, and a marinated flank steak with charred cauliflower florets as appetizers.  The "Barba dilla" was their house quesadilla featuring beef barbacoa with cheese, chopped red onions and cilantro.   Halal-style chicken tinga was also available to add to many items on the menu, as well as pork carnitas, or a lime-cilantro grilled chicken breast.  

But I was there for the tacos and I certainly had a choice of some delicious sounding items from the menu.  They had a pan-seared Pacific snapper that was dusted with panko crumbs, but at the bottom I noticed that you could also get the fish grilled and without the panko crumbs.  That was one that I ordered.  The grilled fish taco was topped with red cabbage, an ancho ranch habanero-honey drizzle, and finished with hibiscus-pickled onions and cilantro. 

My second choice for a taco was easy - the pork carnitas. That came with chopped cilantro and red onions, a dusting of cotija cheese, sliced radishes, and a smoky cascabel pepper salsa.  

For my third taco, I was torn between the beef barbacoa and the carne asada taco.  Both came with premium Black Angus beef as the barbacoa was slow-braised, while the carne asada was flat-top grilled.  I decided upon the barbacoa taco as it cooked in a guajillo chile adobo sauce and Dos XX Ambar beer, then topped with chopped red onions and cilantro, and finished with a melted cheese crust.  A small tube of avocado salsa came on the side with the three tacos that were served on a small metal plate.  

Actually, I probably should have gotten the carne asada taco as I wasn't all that enamored with the barbacoa taco.  To me, it just seemed a bit lifeless in taste.  I didn't seem to get the pizazz I was looking for from the adobo sauce and while it was still good, I was sort of "meh!" about the barbacoa taco.  

But I can't say that about the carnitas taco.  It was excellent.  The pork was succulent and tasty, and the cascabel salsa was a great compliment to the delicious pork flavor.  Hands down, this was the best taco of the three.  

The grilled fish taco was somewhere in the middle.  Probably closer to the carnitas taco on my "favorite's" scale, not much higher than the barbacoa taco.  The snapper was light and flaky, but the ancho ranch habanero-honey drizzle didn't do much to enhance the flavor and there was a little too much chopped red cabbage on the taco.  Still, it was pretty good as far as fish tacos go.   

The whole time I was at Centro Neighborhood Kitchen, there were people coming and going - either picking up to-go orders, or coming in for a nice lunch.  It was certainly a popular place and the food that I had was the major reason why.  I shouldn't downplay the barbacoa tacos as they were still pretty good.  I just felt the grilled fish tacos were better and the carnitas taco stomped on both with how wonderful the braised pork shoulder tasted in the taco.   The house-made margarita was also outstanding, and the tag-team service I received from Aliyah and her male counterpart was friendly and prompt.  Centro Neighborhood Kitchen was a good and interesting find during my time in the Pacific Northwest.  

Angelo's of Burien - Burien, WA

I was hanging out in the hotel bar one evening when I was out in the Seattle area recently (shocker, huh?) talking with the bartender Stephanie.  I told her that while I'm sure her hotel had great food, I was the kind of guy who liked to explore when I get to a city.  She gave me a list of a number of restaurants in the area that she was familiar with.  One was an old-school Italian restaurant that she said she remembered was better in previous years than the last time she was there. "But it's been a few years since I was last there, so who knows," she said to me.  I was willing to give an old-school Italian restaurant a try, so I headed over to Angelo's of Burien in the nearby Seattle suburb of Burien.   

Michele Ricci immigrated to the U.S. from Sicily in 1911.  He ended up in a small Kansas town where he opened a grocery store.  Michele's son Angelo grew up in the grocery business, but learned a lot about cooking from his father who made family feasts with recipes he brought over from Sicily.

Angelo eventually ended up in the Seattle area working as an engineer at Boeing.  In 1957 with his wife Armella they opened an Italian delicatessen in the blue collar community of Burien about 13 miles to the south of downtown Seattle.  Angelo and Armello served up meats, cheese, and sandwiches from behind their meat counter, while selling soda pop and mixers to people who would buy liquor at a store next door.  Armella also sold wicker baskets - which were big at the time - hanging the baskets from strings from the ceiling because they didn't have the shelf space for them.  

As Angelo and Armella's family expanded - eventually up to 8 children - so did Angelo's delicatessen.  They put in a full kitchen in the 1960's and offered a plate of spaghetti with a side salad for $1.95.  Angelo would make his homemade marinara and put them in jars to take to his co-workers at Boeing.  The menu at Angelo's expanded to include more Italian items along with steaks, chicken and chops.

When nearby Southcenter Mall opened in 1968, a number of the small shops around Angelo's began to close up.  When a shop would close up, Angelo's would expand into that space.  Within 15 years of opening, Angelo's was 10 times the size of the original delicatessen.  The liquor store next door?  The Ricci family took  that over and made it a banquet space.  

Angelo eventually quit his job at Boeing to work at the restaurant full time.  By all accounts, Angelo was a larger than life character who would sing as he delivered food to the tables.  He would never allow a customer to order a steak well done and he never allowed a customer to put ketchup on a steak.  

Pictured right - Angelo and Armella Ricci on their honeymoon.  Photo courtesy Angelo's of Burien web site.  

All 8 of the Ricci children - Mike, Mark, Ron, Richard, Phil, Kathy, Lisa, Larry and Frank - worked in Angelo's either in the kitchen or in the front of house.  In 1976, Angelo Ricci opened a second location in suburban Bellevue, east of Seattle.  His sons Ron and Richard eventually ran that location.  Mark took over Angelo's of Burien when Angelo fell ill in the early 1990's eventually passing in 1993.  In 2007, the youngest son Frank opened 909 Coffee & Wine, and later opened Burien Pizza next door.  Today, the two Angelo's locations are run by various grandchildren of Angelo and Armella Ricci.  

It was about 7:30 when I made the trek over to Angelo's located at the corner of SW 153rd St. and 6th Ave. SW in Burien.  (see map)  Parking in parts of Burien is not allowed in the street, but there are parking areas between buildings and the street.  I was able to get a parking spot right in front of Angelo's.  

I was greeted by a hostess who asked if I would like to sit in the lounge or in the dining room.  She took me down a hallway toward the back of the restaurant and showed me the lounge.  It was a dark and cozy room with a low-slug ceiling and televisions in the corner.  

The bar was pretty small - it only sat six or seven people - and all the chairs were filled when I was looking around.  I didn't exactly feel too comfortable as a single diner eating at a table in the lounge, so I asked the hostess to show me the dining room.  

The dining room was a bit more inviting than the lounge and was better lit.  Decorative sconce lighting on the walls helped brighten up the room.  There are two windows in the dining room and I understand those were put in just recently.  For years, Angelo's had no windows and it turned out that long time patrons were upset when the windows were put in.  They weren't large windows, but it riled up some of their customers to no end.  

The kitchen had open windows that looked out into the dining room.  There was a small little alcove off to the side of the main dining room with some booths and tables.  I looked in there and asked if I could sit at one of those tables.  The hostess said it would be no problem and she gave me a menu when I sat down. 

My server that evening was a lady by the name of Margie.  And she looked like a Margie - outgoing, pleasant, and friendly.  From interactions she had with other people seated near me, it appeared that she had been off-work for some time due to some health problems.  She seemed happy to be back to work and to chat with some of the regulars who were glad to see her.  

Margie came over to greet me and asked what I wanted to drink.  I saw that they had the Space Dust IPA from the Elysian Brewing Company located in Seattle.  Space Dust IPA is available in the Midwest and I've had it a few times in the past.  Later on with dinner, I got a glass of the house Malbec wine to go with my dinner. 

There were a number of off-the-menu specials that evening including a bucatini with ground sausage, mushrooms and red peppers in a light tomato sauce.  That sounded pretty good to me as did the Seafood Angel Hair pasta dish with prawns and halibut with cherry tomatoes, spinach and corn topped with a white wine butter sauce.  On the regular menu, they had a number of pasta dishes, as well as steaks, veal and chicken entrees.  I almost went with the veal piccata, but I was looking for something along the line of pasta.

The pasta dishes were many and there were a lot of options for me to choose from.  There was a penne bolognese dish on the menu, as well as cannelloni stuffed with ground beef, ground sausage and spinach.  There was also a seafood cannelloni stuffed with crab meat, shrimp, mushrooms and spinach and topped with a cream sauce.  I was having trouble figuring out what I wanted.

After I ordered my dinner from Margie, I got a small Italian salad that came with cubed parmesan cheese, slices of salami and a side of toasted house-made bread.  The salad featured fresh lettuce greens and was topped with an oil and vinegar dressing.  Nothing special, but it was still good.

I couldn't make up my mind between two items on the menu - the beef ravioli with a marinara sauce, or the beef tortellini in a cream sauce.  I really like ravioli, but it had been a long time since I'd had beef tortellini.  Margie said, "I can split it half-and-half for you."  I was sort of amazed that she would do that.  She said, "Sure, I can do anything.  We'll make it work for you."  

And that's how it came out - beef ravioli with a marinara on one side, and the beef tortellini on the other.  The marinara sauce was a rich and hearty gravy that covered the ravioli pillows filled with beef.  The tortellini didn't quite have as much of an alfredo cream sauce as I would have liked, but it still looked pretty good.

But it turned out that it wasn't.  The tortellini was sort of "meh!"  It was dry and the tortellini was a bit overcooked.  It wasn't all that great.   The beef ravioli was fine, I thought the sauce was a bit drab, but it was better than the tortellini.  I was glad I was able to try both, but the ravioli was much better than the tortellini.  And the ravioli was just all right.  

For an old-school Italian restaurant, Angelo's certainly fits the profile.  Margie was a great server - accommodating, friendly and a bit sassy.  The atmosphere was cozy and warm, but the food fell a bit short of expectations.  They must be doing something right if they have been in business for over 65 years and seem to have a devoted clientele.  But I wasn't all that enamored with the food I had at Angelo's of Burien.  

 

Anthony's HomePort - Des Moines, WA

When I was out in the Seattle area for a few days, I was talking with the bartender at my hotel about some of the restaurants in the area.  She had given me a few good leads on places in the immediate area and I told her that I had gone to Wally's Chowder House in nearby Des Moines, WA (locals pronounce it as Dess MOYNE) and got fish tacos. (Click here for the Road Tips entry on Wally's Chowder House.)  She said, "Oh, gosh.  If you like fish tacos, you need to go to Anthony's HomePort."  When I asked her where it was, she said it wasn't far from Wally's.  For lunch one day, I decided to bag the trade show I was attending and head to Anthony's HomePort.   

Now, I neglected to ask the bartender at the hotel if Anthony's was a chain.  It turns out that it is, but not on a national scale.  They have 27 restaurants under the Anthony's umbrella with most of them in the state of Washington, but also with locations in Idaho and Oregon.  Including the 12 Anthony's restaurants, there are 5 Anthony's HomePort restaurants mainly on waterfronts on Puget Sound.  In addition to the Anthony's and Anthony's HomePort locations, some of the other restaurants under the Anthony's corporate umbrella include Anthony's Woodfire Grille, Budd's Broiler, Boathouse 19 and Churchill's Steakhouse.  

Seattle-area native Budd Gould was fresh out of college after graduating from the University of Washington and getting his Masters from Harvard.  While his classmates went off to jobs in New York, London and Chicago, he decided to head back home to find his fortune.  While he was trying to figure out what he wanted to do, Gould took a job at a local bank helping to spearhead the bank's roll out of its new credit card service.  

Pictured right - Budd Gould.  Photo courtesy Foster Business Magazine.  

Being a budding entrepreneur, Gould had a number of ideas.  He started a business that was a combination pet store, veterinarian clinic and dog kennel/spa.  That never really got off the ground and the business crashed with a whimper.  

Next, he looked at raising lobsters on his own lobster farm on Puget Sound.  With a couple investors, he opened his first restaurant - The Fox - in 1969 to eventually serve their locally-grown lobsters.  And within weeks of opening the restaurant, local factory giant Boeing started going through a downturn that immediately affected business.  The other problem was that there were a number of natural predators in Puget Sound that loved lobsters which caused the investors to get cold feet.  When their corporation was dissolved, the investors gave the restaurant to Gould.  

Gould's plan was to run the restaurant for a year, then sell it to the Texas company which owned the Steak & Ale steakhouse chain.  Unfortunately, the investors who had looked at The Fox decided not to buy the restaurant because of the continued downturn in Boeing's business.  Gould was suddenly saddled with a restaurant he didn't really know how to run.  He went back to the University of Washington business school to learn how to do just that.  

In 1973, Gould opened his second restaurant - Mad Anthony's - in the Seattle suburb of Kirkland.  Named after Revolutionary War general "Mad" Anthony Wayne, the restaurant had a colonial theme and had an immediate following.  But Gould was looking to do a restaurant with a waterfront setting. 

In 1976, Gould opened the first Anthony's HomePort on Lake Washington's Moss Bay in Kirkland.  He followed it up with a second Anthony's HomePort in Des Moines on Puget Sound in 1979.  A wholesale seafood operation opened in 1984 and today Anthony's has a food truck - Finn the Food Truck - that goes around to events in the greater Seattle area.  

Gould's children Herb and Amy followed their father in the company with Herb starting in 1983 and Amy working in one of the Anthony's HomePort locations as a hostess while she was was still in high school.  Amy went off to Oregon State to college, then worked at Microsoft in human resources for 25 years before she came back to the family business in 2013 as a board member for the Anthony's restaurants.  She obtained her Masters at Seattle University and in 2016 she joined her brother Herb as heir apparents to the Anthony's restaurant group.  In 2023, Herb Gould and Amy Burns took over the helm of the Anthony's restaurants.    

Anthony's HomePort is located in the city marina at the end of S. 227th St. in Des Moines, right next to the Des Moines Yacht Club.  (see map)  It's a pay parking lot, but Anthony's will validate your parking for free at the end of the meal at the hostess desk.  Anthony's is a two-story building with Anthony's Lower Deck on the first floor.  Formerly Anthony's Oyster Bar and Grill, Anthony's Lower Deck is open for dinner only from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. 7 days a week.  The menu is pretty basic compared to the dinner menu Anthony's HomePort has upstairs.  

Upon entering Anthony's HomePort, I found that the main floor was closed off with either a stairway or an elevator the way to get upstairs to the main restaurant.  I took the elevator and it came out near the hostess stand.  Since it was just me for lunch, the hostess gave me the option of the dining room or the bar.  The dining room had a great view of the marina and Puget Sound with tables along the windowed wall.  There were step-up booths along a short wall with small two-seat tables on the other side of the wall.  

I took a look at the bar and it appeared to be a bit more lively in there and I decided to sit at the bar.  The bar was basically an extension of the dining room with a 3-sided bar and tables along the window.  Flat screen televisions playing replays of an NFL game were on mounts above the bar.  

Off to the side of the bar was an outdoor patio/dining space.  It was an unseasonably warm day away from Puget Sound with temperatures in the upper 80's.  However, close to the water, the temperature was around 70 degrees with a stiff breeze coming off the sound.  A couple groups of people were seated outside, but they were bundled up as it was a bit chilly even in the sun.  It was a nice patio with metal chairs with vinyl mesh seats and seat-backs, and metal tables with glass tops.  Had it been a few degrees warmer and with less wind, it would have been a nice day to sit outside.  

After I was seated the hostess gave me a lunch menu to look over.  There were a couple bartenders working that day and one of them - a young lady by the name of Sierra - came over to greet me.  They had just 4 craft beers on tap including an IPA that was brewed exclusively for Anthony's by Narrows Brewing in nearby Tacoma.  Since I wasn't familiar with the local brews, I asked Sierra if she had a hazy IPA on tap.  "No, sorry, we don't," she replied.  She did have an IPA from the Scuttlebutt Brewing Company in Everett, WA.  She offered to pour me a sample of both.  While the Scuttlebutt IPA was very good, I liked the hoppy nature of the Anthony's IPA better.  

The lunch menu at Anthony's HomePort is pretty basic.  It featured salads and appetizers, as well as seafood entrees including a shrimp fettuccine, and pan-fried oysters.  They didn't have sandwiches on the menu, but they did have burgers and seafood tacos.  There was a grilled-chicken and rice bowl on the menu, and they also had fish & chips, dungeness crab and shrimp-topped toast, and oysters on-the-half shell.  They also had a blackened salmon on the special menu that day.  I thought about getting the blackened salmon, but I'm still a bit skittish about cooked salmon since I got sick on salmon in France over 15 years ago.  

I started out with a cup of Anthony's clam chowder.  The taste was rich with a buttery after-flavor.  The thick cream base was wonderful and there were a noticeable amount of clams in chowder.  Since I had Wally's clam chowder the day before, I tried to make a mental comparison of the two.  Honestly, as good as Anthony's HomePort clam chowder was, I think I liked Wally's just a bit better.  But that's for others to decide. 

I pretty much knew I was going to get fish tacos when I went in to Anthony's HomePort and they had a choice of either mahi mahi or rockfish tacos.  The rockfish tacos came blackened and I asked Sierra if they could blacken the mahi mahi tacos.  She said the kitchen could do just that.  

The mahi mahi tacos (x 2) were served wrapped in paper on a soft flour tortilla shell and paired with shredded cabbage, chopped tomatoes and a salsa/mayo combination.  A small cup of salsa came on the side along with tortilla chips.  From the first bite, I knew I had made the right choice for lunch.  The mahi mahi was fresh, the blackening seasoning gave each bite a "pop" in my mouth, and the tacos were light enough that I didn't feel full at the end of the lunch.  I think I liked the fish tacos at Anthony's better than the ones I had at Wally's mainly because of the blackening seasoning on the mahi mahi.  

So, what's better for chowder and fish tacos - Anthony's HomePort or Wally's Chowder House?  Quite honestly, I don't think you could go wrong at either place.  The views are much better at Anthony's HomePort and it's a bit more upscale than Wally's.  But the menu at Wally's was a lot larger than the lunchtime offerings at Anthony's HomePort.  I thought the service was good at Anthony's as Sierra did a good job of making sure I had what I needed.  If you're in the Des Moines area between Seattle and Tacoma and looking for lunch options, I don't think you could go wrong with either place.  

Elliott Bay Brewing - Burien, WA

On a recent trip out to Seattle, I had gotten in around 1:30 in the afternoon.  After getting the rental car, I went to the hotel not far from SeaTac International Airport.  It turned out that my room wasn't ready and they asked if I could hang out for an hour or so.  I said that I could go get a bite to eat and I did a quick check of brewpubs in the area.  There were two or three, but only one that had food.  I set out for Elliott Bay Brewing in the Seattle suburb of Burien.   

There are well over 450 breweries or brewpubs in the state of Washington.  It turns out that Elliott Bay Brewing was one of the first - they were the 33rd brewery to open in the state when they opened in July of 1997.  And it took off from a dream from two guys who met at one of the very first breweries in the state in 1994.   

Todd Carden was a brewing enthusiast while going to college at Linfield College in McMinnville, OR.  In the summer, Carden interned at the McMenamins brewery in the Hotel Oregon in McMinnville.  McMenamins is famous as possibly being the first brewery to repurpose old properties into breweries and refurbishing the properties into hotels.  After graduation, Carden continued to work full time at McMenamins until the corporate world came calling.  

Carden took a management position at In-N-Out Burger in Southern California.  Carden later took another position at a competing burger chain as he moved north to the Seattle area.  By 1994, he determined that he wasn't cut out for managing burger joints and he went back to his brewing roots joining Maritime Pacific Brewing Company, one of the first microbreweries in the Pacific Northwest which just celebrated its 34th year in business.    

While at Maritime Pacific, Carden met Brent Norton, a fellow brewing enthusiast.  The two became fast friends and found the both had a common goal of running their own brewpub at some point.   After getting the hang of running both a brewery and a restaurant for a couple years, Carden and Norton found a space in the historic Junction neighborhood in West Seattle that they leased in November of 1996.  After nearly 8 months of transforming the space into a brewpub, Elliott Bay Brewing opened in July of 1997.  The brewpub was named after the main bay that Seattle was founded on in the 1850's.  

In 2002, Norton and Carden welcomed Doug Hindman to become the head brewer at Elliott Bay.  Hindman brought a philosophy of using only organically grown and sourced ingredients in the brewing process.  The process to get designated as an organic brewery by the Washington State Department of Agriculture took a couple years, but in 2008 twelve of the beers brewed by Hindman got the organic brewery designation by state officials.  Elliott Bay was the 2nd brewery in the state of Washington to receive the organic designation.

While they were trying to get their organic brewery designation from the state, Carden and Norton opened a second brewery in the south Seattle suburb of Burien.  Hindman moved over to that location to run the brewery operation while they hired Dan Ashley to run the operation at the original Elliott Bay.  Ashley had worked at two Bay Area breweries in California before making the move up the coast to Seattle.  

In March of 2012, Elliott Bay Brewing opened their 3rd location in Lake City, a lakeside neighborhood on Seattle's north side.  Norton and Carden hired brewmaster Bill Jenkins away from the Big Time Brewery and Alehouse in Seattle to run the operations at the Lake City location.  

By the time I got out of the hotel after finding out that my room wasn't ready, it was around 2:30 PDT in the afternoon, but my stomach was still on Central time.  I typed in the address for Elliott Bay and I pulled up to the restaurant at the corner of SW 152nd St. and 4th Ave. SW in Burien less than 10 minutes later.  (see map)  There's no parking on the street in front of Elliott Bay, but there is a parking lot between the street and the building and I was able to find a spot in one of the diagonal parking spots.  

Upon entering Elliott Bay Brewing Company, I found a large open space with exposed beams and ceiling supports.  A series of booths were along the front wall of the restaurant with banquette seating along a short wall just opposite the booths.  I was greeted by a young lady by the name of Hilary who told me that I could sit anywhere.  I took a booth along the wall that gave me some space to stretch out.  They had a couple different hazy IPA's on tap out of the 20 beers they had listed and I tasted both.  I ended up settling on the Ride the Cyclone hazy IPA.  The North Atlantic hazy IPA I also tried had a lower ABV and tasted a little flat.  The Ride the Cyclone was very good.  

I considered sitting at the bar, but I wanted to use my computer on a table to check and return e-mails that had piled up since I had left home earlier in the day.  The bar was located just over another short wall with high top tables along the wall and an ornate bar with polished dark wood.  The beer menu was written in chalk on blackboards on the wall behind the bar.    

Toward the back of the dining room was a game area featuring two shuffleboard tables.  And they were very elaborate shuffleboard tables.  That's something you don't regularly find in bars and brewpubs any longer as video games or trivia contests usually rule in those places.

The brewery operation is on the lower floor of the restaurant.  It was a full-fledged operation with a series of tanks behind a glass window.  Things were dormant in the brewing area that afternoon, but it was a pretty impressive set-up.  

Hilary had given me a food menu when I sat down and I was busy going through e-mails when she came back a couple times to see if I was ready to order.  After the second time, I promised to be ready when she came back a third time.  "No worries," she said cheerfully.  "I'm in no hurry, either."  

The menu wasn't anything exotic - salads, appetizers, sandwiches, burgers and tacos.  Some of their specialty items included jambalaya, German potato pancakes, bangers & mash, and fish & chips.  The Southwest-seasoned ahi tuna wrap caught my eye, as did the corned beef brisket sandwich topped with beer-braised sauerkraut, Swiss cheese, and a "pub" sauce on marble rye bread.  

In the end, I went with the "Shroomer" burger - a 1/2 lb. burger patty topped with Swiss cheese and sautéed mushrooms along with lettuce, tomato, onions and pickles and finished with their "pub sauce" which I determined was basically a Thousand Island dressing.  I also had Hilary add some bacon to the burger.  The burger and fixings came on a multi-grained bun that was made by a local bakery using the spent grain from Elliott Bay's brewing process.   And for my side, I got tots.  And they even had Cholula for my tots at Elliott Bay Brewing Company!

The burger was surprisingly good.  The bacon was thick cut, the burger was juicy and cooked to a perfect medium temperature with a hint of pink in the middle, and the bun was very good.  At first, I thought the bun was sort of full and dry.  But it turned out to be spongy and held together very well.  The tots were also very good with a crispy outer shell and that wonderful flaky potato consistency inside.  

I was more than happy with my visit to Elliott Bay Brewing.  They let me spread out on a table with my computer and a note pad, Hilary was patient with me as I found myself too busy to look over the menu for the first few minutes while I was there.  I really liked the burger and the tots for the side, and their Ride the Cyclone hazy IPA was also very tasty.  For just getting off the airplane and trying to figure out a place to get some lunch, I'd say that I did a pretty good job in finding Elliott Bay Brewing Company.  It's pretty easy to see why they're one of the oldest breweries in the state of Washington.  

Wally's Chowder House - Des Moines, WA

A preamble to this Road Tips entry on Wally's Chowder House -

I've been a map nut ever since I was a real little kid.  I'd look at maps, study them, got to know the state capitals by the time I was 5 years old.  (My parents used to bring me out at parties and have the guests ask me what the state capital of New Hampshire was; or the state capital of Montana.  It was a pretty good parlor trick for my parents friends.)  I think I had a bit of wanderlust at an early age looking at the map and wondering what it was like in New England, or in the Southwest.  

But I was also enamored with names of cities - especially realizing that there were multiple states with cities of the same name including the towns of Kellogg and Newton near where I grew up.  Iowa's state capital of Des Moines was a pretty unique name and there weren't a lot of places called Des Moines - actually just 3 places.  There's a Des Moines, New Mexico - a small village in the northeastern part of that state; and there's a Des Moines, WA located just south of Seattle.  I'd always wanted to go to Des Moines, WA (the locals pronounce it "deh MOYNZ" instead of the "duh MOYNE" pronunciation we Iowans use) and on a recent trip I was able to do just that as I had lunch at a spot called Wally's Chowder House.  

Mike Nordean has been associated with restaurants since he was a teenager.  He started out busing tables at a Doubletree Hotel restaurant while he was in high school.  He continued to work at the restaurant through his college years eventually becoming a bartender and the catering manager.  During his time in college, he met his first wife and they were married in 1978.  

However, tragedy struck just after he graduated in 1979 - his wife was killed in a car wreck.  A few years later, Nordean met and married his second wife Judy, but Nordean continued to be close to his former in-laws.  In 1991, the opportunity came about for Nordean and his former in-laws to buy a restaurant - Wally's Drive In - in Buckley, WA, a small former logging and coal town southeast of Seattle that sits at the foot of Mount Rainier.  

In 1992, the Nordeans and his in-laws opened a second restaurant - Wally's Chowder House - in the Seattle suburb of Des Moines.  Nordean eventually bought out his in-laws making Judy and him the sole owners of both restaurants.  

The political and cultural upheaval that started in 2016 has given Wally's Chowder House some unfortunate notoriety.  Mike and Judy's son Ethan literally grew up in the restaurant business.  By all indications, he was a good kid growing up helping at the restaurant while Mike Nordean taught him how to ski and ride ATV's.  Ethan and his step-sister - Judy's daughter from a previous marriage - were destined to take over the family's restaurants at some point.  

Out of high school, Ethan joined the Navy hoping to become a Navy Seal.  However, it turned out that he couldn't make the cut during training.  After washing out of the Navy, Ethan became disillusioned and in 2017 he ended up joining the Proud Boys, the extreme right-wing all-male faction that has been labeled as a hate group by law enforcement officials.  Ethan continued to work at the restaurant, but his views became extreme and well-known amongst people in the community.  When Ethan was prominently caught on camera fighting with left-wing protestors in Portland, OR in the summer of 2018, Mike was forced to fire his son from the restaurant.

However, community backlash continued against Wally's as Mike was deemed guilty by association even though he publicly disavowed his son's societal stances.  As Ethan grew more prominent in the Proud Boys organization, the boycott by some in the community against Wally's Chowder House continued to grow.  It didn't help that Judy Nordean seemed to back some of the rhetoric that her son exposed.  She used social media as a platform railing against gays, left-wing activists and Muslims.  Local civic organizations either dropped Wally's Chowder House for membership, or outright banned city events to be held at the restaurant.

Hoping to get his son set straight, Mike Nordean rehired his son to be the assistant manager at the Wally's Drive In in Buckley.  He had hoped that putting him there would get him away from the influences of the Proud Boys.  Unfortunately, that didn't happen.   Ethan Nordean became more radicalized and became one of the leaders of the Proud Boy faction.  

In 2019, Nordean was forced to fire his son once again.  Ethan Nordean's wife - who was a waitress at Wally's Chowder House - was also let go.  And he persuaded his wife Judy to take down her Twitter account and quit espousing right wing views.  He hired a communications crisis management company to come in and help soften the image of the Wally's restaurants hoping to bring customers back.  

Ethan's troubles came to a head when during the January 6th insurrection of the U.S. Capitol in 2021, Ethan was one of the first persons who stormed the building that day, leading a group of about 100 Proud Boys past barricades and into the Capitol.  Because he was known to law enforcement officials from being front and center at previous rallies, Ethan Nordean was also one of the first to be arrested for leading the insurrection.  The FBI raided his home in Auburn, WA and took him into custody.  In September of 2023, Ethan Nordean was sentenced to 18 years in prison and 36 months of supervised release.  

Mike Nordean used to be the first person you saw when you went into Wally's Chowder House, but he has kept a low-profile over the past couple years as the community still has hard feelings about his son's and his wife's views.  Now in his late 60's, Nordean lives primarily in Arizona.  Business had been tough during the pandemic, but with Ethan Nordean now in prison and the Nordean's no longer running the day-to-day operations at the Wally's restaurants, the crowds have started to come back.

Now, let me say that if I had known all that before I found Wally's, it would have given me pause.  But I will point out that when I went there, I followed a black couple into the restaurant.  There were two Hispanic girls at a table near me, and an Asian lady was part of a group of four women seated at a table in the dining room when I got up to leave.  It appears that some in the area have strong feelings against the Nordeans and still boycott Wally's, but it was apparent to me that there was some diversity in the restaurant when I was in there.

Wally's Chowder House is located on Marine View Drive S., the main north-south road through the city of Des Moines.  (see map)  It was tough to miss the restaurant with massive petunia arrangements hanging from baskets and in planters around the perimeter of the building.  I went in the wrong entry way taking an entrance to the north of the restaurant into a parking lot with signage all over the place that said that was NOT parking for Wally's.  But that lot emptied into an alley way that allowed me to get into Wally's parking lot just to the south.

The main dining area is just past the host stand.  It was rustic in decor with reclaimed barn boards paneled on the wall.  Antique light fixtures and fans hung from the low slung ceilings.  It wasn't a big place and was rather cozy.   

I asked if there was seating at the bar and the young man at the front desk said that I could go back.  However, as I was walking toward the lounge area, the young man was told by a lady, "The bar is full and she's really slammed back there,"  The lounge looked like it had been added onto from the original building with a much higher ceiling with recessed lighting and a large contemporary fan hanging from the ceiling.  There was a half-wall partition between the dining area in the lounge and the bar itself.

The bar wasn't very big and it sat just six people.  It was, indeed, full when I caught a glimpse of it when I walked into the lounge area.  There were three televisions one the walls - two directly behind the bar and one off to the side.  The Seattle Mariners were playing in Oakland that afternoon and they had the game on one of the TV's.

There was a table just off the bar in the patio on the side of the restaurant.  It had full view of all three TV's, so I took a seat there.  The patio wasn't all that large and featured seating for 14 to 16 people.  It was a warm day for Seattle-area standards - upper 80's into the low 90's.  But the humidity was low and the ceiling fans and additional fans moving the air made it tolerable inside Wally's Chowder House.

My server that day was a young man by the name of Bryden.  After getting a menu to look over, he asked me what I would like to drink.  I asked if they had any hazy IPA's available and he said they didn't, but they had a local IPA on tap.  I said I'd take that.  Moments later, Bryden scurried past the table and said, "Sorry.  We just blew the keg.  I have to go change it."  

He reappeared and dashed behind the bar.  A couple minutes later he brought me out a cold glass of Manny's IPA from the Georgetown Brewing Company located just south of downtown Seattle.  "It's on the house," he said.  "Sorry you had to wait."  Now, that's called good customer service.  

It was a pretty lengthy menu at Wally's, but most of it was geared toward seafood.  Appetizers such as fresh dungeness crab from the Pacific Northwest, shrimp cocktail, clams, and calamari were on the menu.  Entrees such as fish and chips were on the menu - salmon, halibut, Arctic cod, and local Ling cod were the choices for fish.  Platters with deep-fried prawns, shrimp, clams, scallops and oysters were also available, each with bottomless French fries.  

Specialty plates of a blackened salmon filet, almond crusted halibut, and fresh crab cakes were part of the menu, and they also had a USDA prime cut New York strip and a garlic-marinated grilled chicken breast to choose from.  Pasta dishes such as a seafood fettuccine and a cioppino pasta plate were also available.  There sounded like a lot of good things to choose from.  

Wally's Chowder House also featured a lunch menu with smaller portions of a handful of items on the menu.  They also had sandwiches and burgers, a kid menu, and daily lunch specials.  It would have been very tough to not find something you like on the menu. 

Since it's called Wally's Chowder House, I had to start out with a cup of their house-made New England-style clam chowder.  It was topped with parsley flakes and a couple small bags of chowder crackers came on the side.  The chowder was thick, creamy and very rich - and very delicious.  It left sort of a buttery taste on the tongue.  It was some of the best clam chowder I had ever had.  

For lunch that day, I ended up getting the fish tacos.  I had a choice - Arctic cod, local Ling cod, halibut or prawn tacos.  The seafood could be either grilled, breaded and fried, or blackened.  I got the blackened halibut tacos on soft flour tortillas.  (Corn tortilla shells were also available.)  The tacos were topped with a house-made chipotle crema with cilantro, and fresh house-made salsa came on the side.  The chunks of halibut were big, but they were light and flaky inside with a crispy shell of blackened spiced on the outside.  They were simply excellent.  

The food and service at Wally's Chowder House was very good.  I can't say enough about how good the blackened halibut fish tacos were, and the house-made clam chowder was some of the best I had.  Bryden did a good job of making sure I was taken care of while I was there.  Family issues have helped drive a wedge between the Nordean family and some in the community, but from the looks of the crowd that was in there for lunch on a weekday, it seems like many have gotten beyond those past problems caused by Mike Nordean's son and wife.  I would have no problem recommending or going back to Wally's Chowder House.    

By the way, the capital of New Hampshire is Concord, and Helena is the capital of Montana...

 

Chandler's Crabhouse - Seattle

During my recent trip to Seattle, we were able to eat a couple of meals out.  The first meal at MorMor's Bistro was disappointing.  But the second meal at Chandler's Crabhouse along the waterfront in Seattle (see map) was just outstanding. 

Chandler's is part of the Seattle-based Schwartz Brothers Restaurant group that includes the upscale Daniel's Broiler steak house and Revolution Bar and Grill that is part of Paul Allen's Experience Music Project museum in Seattle.  (A beer lover's dream - Revolution Bar and Grill has a custom made beer delivery system that allows them to have 50 beers on tap.)  Chandler's is equally as impressive a restaurant as the other two Schwartz Brothers restaurants.

The decor at Chandler's is sort of new age/art deco.  They also have great views of the marina and harbor next to the restaurant.  The wait staff is young, hip and well-versed in the food and wines they serve.

And the wine list was impressive with over 150 different wines to choose from.  Many were from the impressive Washington state wineries which are fast becoming known as making some great wines.  The other wines came from Oregon and California with less than 15 wines on the list coming from overseas. 

One of my colleagues picked out an '04 L'Ecole no. 41 Cabernet from the Columbia Valley of Washington.  He said he had read about it and wanted to give it a try.  After the waiter brought a bottle out, a couple of us smelled and sipped the wine.  We were all in agreement that it was a very good wine and asked him to bring two more bottles.  At $69 bucks a bottle, my boss didn't flinch when we ordered the extra wine. 

Chandler's menu changes nightly as they always get the freshest catch of the day.  They're known for their seasonal crab entrees and they looked good.  But at $45.95 a dinner, I thought I'd better look at something else.

I ended up getting a half-dozen of the Stellar Bay oysters-on-the-half-shell from Cortes Island, British Columbia (just up the way from Seattle).  They are one of the few types of oysters that I can remember because they're always so big, meaty and juicy.  And these were no exception.  They were unbelievable great.  So good that I almost got another half-dozen.

We also had a plate of Spicy Fried Calimari that was being passed around.  They were served with a chili oil and an excellent lime-cilantro chutney. 

Dinner was a tough choice.  I really wanted the crabs, but business hasn't been great lately and with my boss seated next to me I didn't think it would be appropriate to get the most expensive thing on the menu.  A couple of my colleagues seated near me went with the King Salmon on a bed of cous cous with smoked mozzarella and a roasted pepper relish.

My boss, who was burned by getting the steak the night before at the MorMor Bistro, took my advice - When in the Pacific Northwest, get fish.  When in the Midwest, get beef.  He got the Dungeness Crab Cakes servied with marinated apples, rice and green beans with a watercress vinaigrette. 

I went with a safe choice - the medium priced ($28.95) Hawaiian Ahi Tuna, medium rare.  It was served on a bed of sticky rice with baby bok choy.  And it on the side was a miso green peppercorn sauce.  It sounded wonderful.

When my tuna came to me, I was literally floored.  I'm used to having the tuna come as a 3/4 inch to 1 inch tuna steak.  This was actually large chunks of tuna - looking more like remnants and end pieces rather than a steak slab.  But they were all cooked to a perfect medium rare.

Oh, and the taste.  Unbelievably great.  I don't know if it was the freshness of the tuna, or they used chunks of tuna instead of a steak cut, or if it was the green peppercorn sauce you could dip the tuna into.  It was probably the best piece of tuna I'd ever had. 

Everyone elses meal was just as outstanding.  One of my colleagues (who has a lot bigger balls than I do) got the Alaskan Dungeness Crab and he said it was as good as he remembered it when he used to live in Seattle.  The guys who got the King Salmon were blown away at the taste. 

And my boss loved his Dungeness Crab Cakes.  But he was able to coax me into trading a bite of my tuna for a bite of his crab cakes.  After taking a bite of the tuna, he got this look on his face of great surprise.  He said, "Shit, man.  My crab cakes are very good, but I should have gotten the tuna!"  He's right.  His crab cakes were good (from the bite I had of them), but the tuna blew them away.

Chandler's is not cheap - the bill with tip came to about $95 person - but it was some of the finest seafood I'd ever had in my life.  Seattle is one of those places where I'd like to be able to spend more time some day and Chandler's would definitely be on my list of places to eat when I come back.

MorMor Bistro - Poulsbo, WA

We spent our first night in the great Pacific Northwest in the small town of Poulsbo (pronounced PAULS-bo), Washington (see map) on the Kitsap peninsula (thanx to Tom Miller for straightening me out on that one).  Poulsbo is known as the Norwegian capital of the Northwest as Norwegian settlers found the area to be similar to the fjords of their native country.

The downtown area is sort of quaint with a lot of Scandinavian architecture throughout.  There's not much to the town in terms of fine dining, but the one place that our hosts from Shunyata Research took us to was a small restaurant called the MorMor Bistro (see map).

Our hosts - Shunyata owner Caelin Gabriel, along with his significant other, Nina; Matt Reilly and his wife, Gina; and Mino Chrisante and his wife, Lucia - welcomed us to the restaurant.   We were warned beforehand by Mino that the MorMor Bistro wasn't probably the kind of haute cuisine guys like us were accustomed to.  We assured him that we'd play along nicely and to have no worries.

The MorMor is a quaint little place.  You walk in the door and there's a small bar area up front.  On the walls of the restaurant are a number of collages of newspaper articles tracing the history of Poulsbo.  One of the more interesting ones had to do with the rise and fall of a local grocery store over the years. 

The husband and wife team of John and Laura Nesby run MorMor.  John is the chef, while Laura is the business manager.  The menu is very health and organic oriented.  The MorMor offers lots of fresh seafood and a number of exotic nightly specials.  The menu changes daily based upon the availablity of fresh ingredients.  And the vegetables and salads are all organic. 

I sat at one end of a big table with Mino and his wife.  Both were very interesting people.  Mino is a semi-professional musician who plays small bars with a partner on the weekends.  Lucia is a stay at home mother who was somewhat bohemian in her nature.  They both were very fun people to talk with. 

The menu that evening was very interesting.  Interesting enough that I kept a copy.  They had some tough choices - a monkfish with cajun seasonings; a lamb Shepard's pie with winter vegetables; and a lobster stuffed ravioli in a white wine butter sauce.

We started out with a series of appetizers including MorMor's assorted organic artisan meat platter with assorted cheeses; lightly fried Dungeness crabs; and a warm spinach, Parmesan and cream cheese dip.  They were very welcome as we looked over the menu for our main course.   

I ended up going with the pan seared wild Sea Scallops on truffle whipped organic potatoes with grilled asparagus and a white wine sauce.  One of my colleagues across from me got the Alaskan Halibut "fish and chips" with garlic and parmesan homemade organic fries.  Mino and his wife both got the Alaskan Sockeye Salmon cooked on a cedar plank.  And one of my other colleagues got the Midwest aged top sirloin with whipped organic potatoes. 

We got a couple three bottles of a local Washington state red wine. It was very good.  Wish I would have gotten the wine list, but since I didn't make the choice I didn't see what they had to offer. 

When our dinners were served, the presentation was very nice.  Portions weren't too big, but they were enough. 

But it went downhill from there. 

My scallops were over-cooked.  They were hard and rubbery.  Mino and his wife's salmon were "OK, but not the best."  The steak one of my colleagues had was "not very good.  Over-cooked and chewy." 

However, the fish and chips my colleague across from me had were reportedly "excellent.  Some of the best I've ever had."  He said he really liked the fries and offered me a couple to try.  They were good.  I'm not big on fried fish, but he said the herbed batter they used on the fish was very good.

The MorMor Bistro is not that big of a place and I'm guessing that trying to deal out 15 meals all at the same time caused some of the meals to get overcooked.  Nonetheless, Mino was right - it wasn't all that great.  But compared to the other food fare in Poulsbo, it was the best they have.   

(Update - In December of 2013, the Nesby's closed the MorMor Bistro and reopened it as a classic diner concept restaurant by the name of the Green Light Diner.)

 

Seattle

A few years ago, I made a list of cities in North America that I wanted to visit, but never had.  Those cities were San Diego, Memphis, San Antonio, Montreal and Seattle.  Cindy and I went to Memphis for a long weekend about five years ago, so I got that city off my list. 

I started to work for a company out of Montreal 4 1/2 years ago, so I've been to Montreal four or five times so far. 

I've just crossed another city off my list.  I'm in Seattle today.  Actually, I'm coming home tonight.  I've been out here for a couple days going through training with Shunyata, a manufacturer of very high end power conditioners and cabling for esoteric audio systems.  We have partnered with Shunyata Research to represent and distribute their products in North America. 

The weather here is typical of what you hear about Seattle - cool and alternately sunny, then damp.  But it's still a wonderful place to come to. 

Actually, we spent Wednesday evening over on Bainbridge Island, as Shunyata is located in the small town of Poulsbo, WA.  We had to take a car ferry across Puget Sound to get to the island.  Even though the weather wasn't great, it was still pretty cool.

The Bainbridge Island area is just gorgeous.  I can't begin to tell you how lush and green it is.  I wished I would have brought my camera to take pictures.  But since we were out in Seattle for only two nights, I wanted to pack light.   

We spent last evening in the Lower Queen Anne section of Seattle, an area with a variety of eclectic shops and restaurants.   I'll have a report on one or two of places we ate at while we were out here in the coming days. 

I'm hoping we can come back out to Seattle sometime when the weather is nicer.  And even though the traffic sucks, the area is simply beautiful.