It’s always nice to find a new place to drink beer. Not that we have any lack of beer up here in Mount Vernon, but when you’re in need of a place to hang out in the Ballard/Greenwood/Fremont area of Seattle it’s handy to find a good casual beer joint. The Dray on 65th Street is that sort of place – lots of regulars, warm wood walls and fixtures, soccer on the TV at all times, a short sandwich menu, and a really fine selection of beers on draft. The first time we stopped in they had Pliny the Elder, a hard-to-find IPA from Russian River that tends to disappear fast wherever it crops up, despite its slightly high price tag. Last time I was there I had a Green Flash Hop Head Red, an extremely excellent beer for those of us with a taste for the bitter. And they also had the Weed IPA, which I haven’t ever seen outside of the Weed Alehouse. The kegs change pretty briskly, from what I’ve seen, so you never know what you might be able to get there.

Also, there’s a squirrel on the wall of the bathroom. You might want to see it first while sober, so it doesn’t take you by surprise later.

On Tuesday of last week, we had driven to Issaquah to pick up my work from an art show and decided to go home by way of Seattle. We ended up in Capitol Hill exactly at 5 o’clock, just in time to get a seat at the bar at Canon, Jamie Boudreau’s new place (which is in the old Licorous location, btw). And if that weren’t cool enough, our bartender turned out to be none other than the legendary Murray Stenson, previously of Zig Zag Cafe. He said he had only worked half a dozen shifts or so at Canon, and he was still feeling his way around the bar, but it was a true pleasure to finally get to watch him at work.

The cocktail menu had some interesting drinks on it, but none of them seemed quite what we wanted. Murray pierced us each with a penetrating stare and asked a few pertinent questions (clear or brown? bitter or sweet?) After a short interrogation, he determined that what I wanted was a drink made with either bourbon or rye, bitter or herbal in tone, but soft and easy. He whisked away and poked around in the shelves, returning shortly with a cocktail. A version of the Currier (this was the only drink name we were able to get out of Murray all night), it had Buffalo Trace bourbon, Rose’s lime juice, fresh lime and kummel, a caraway-scented liqueur. Really interesting, balanced and complex.

Jon’s first drink was a gorgeous concoction of excellent rum and amaro and I forget what else. It was delicious. I have no memory of his second drink, except that I know it had Campari in it. Dang, I knew I should have been taking notes. I do remember that we had a plate of ricotta gnudi with kale and shiitakes that was truly delightful and paired rather well with our first round.

As we sat admiring the liquor collection, my eye was caught by the tequila selection almost immediately over my head. I asked if I could have something with tequila for my second cocktail, and Murray’s eyes lit up. “Oh yeah!” he said, and dashed off. The drink that appeared before me definitely had tequila and green Chartreuse, but I’m not at all sure what else. Some sort of juice, and a bit of lime zest. It paired perfectly with the Barron Point oysters we were eating.

Needless to say, Canon is an amazing bar (dare I say, even on a night when Murray isn’t working). We are SO going back as soon as possible.

Geez. I had meant to run this post off several days ago, but first I got busy and then the phone company helpfully cut off my DSL connection at home. Thank goodness for public wifi…

Anyway. Last week we were in Seattle again and needed an early and not too involved dinner, so we decided to try out Tom Douglas’ new place in South Lake Union (well, one of them), the Brave Horse Tavern. We showed up a bit before six and the place was already packed with people who all seemed to have gotten off of work at the same time; many were still wearing their official lanyards. The music was incredibly loud, the crowd was louder, and a rowdy shuffleboard game was in progress in the corner. Long tables filled most of the space. We pushed and shoved our way into an empty spot with some difficulty and attempted to have a conversation over the uproar.

It was Fresh Hop week at the Brave Horse, and I ordered a Killer Green Fresh Hop Ale from Double Mountain. It was extraordinary – somewhat high in alcohol, although not as ferocious as some, but with a huge depth of flavor and a serious hop hit. Jon settled for his favorite Total Domination from Ninkasi. We really wanted to try some of the pub snacks (they have fried cheese curds, people!) but didn’t have time, so I settled for a basic pub burger and fries, and Jon got a steak salad.

I was impressed. The burger was very different from the Palace Kitchen version. It channelled a summer grill party, with iceberg lettuce, plenty of mayo and a barbecue-like sauce, and a soft and sweet bun that never quite disintegrated but got very close. I chose cheddar and grilled onions as my toppings, which were excellent with the sauce. Next time I might go for avocado. Or maybe the fried egg.

Then there were the fries, which were, let’s face it, perfect. Steaming hot, crisp on the outside, fluffy on the inside, and heavily studded with salt. I hate fries that aren’t salty enough – these were incredible.

The steak salad was a success, too – a large piece of perfectly cooked steak, very tender, with a pile of mixed greens, stinky blue cheese, really ripe tomatoes, paper-thin radish slices, a chunk of grilled bread, and a dressing made with A-1 sauce. Brilliant.

We are totally coming back here. I need to try those fried cheese curds. And another burger.

When you’ve just spent a substantial amount of time quietly freaking out about something, getting unexpected good news may well send you straight to the nearest bar to try to process the emotional reversal. Last week, after spending the afternoon at Virginia Mason Hospital and being reassured by a reliable source that my husband would most likely NOT need a horrible sounding medical procedure, we headed right for Barrio and began consuming celebratory cocktails, including one made of extremely ferocious ghost-chile-infused tequila. Plus a lot of their most excellent guacamole.

Then we went to Volunteer Park and sat together, enjoying the view.

A friend and I were in Seattle for a lecture last week and wanted something interesting and affordable to eat ahead of time, so I did a little research and came up with a newish place called Satay in Wallingford. I adore Malaysian food, and have had very little of it since Mandalay Cafe unfortunately closed and was replaced by Tilth, just down the block on 45th. Satay isn’t nearly as fancy as Mandalay, but I appreciate that they’re keeping it simple: a few kinds of satay, two noodle dishes, curry, roti, and curry puffs. I’ve been twice so far, and I’ve already tried over half of the menu.

On my first visit, my friend and I split an order of the chicken satay and a bowl of laksa, plus one roti with curry sauce. The chicken was fantastic, with great grill taste and plenty of lemongrass. The accompanying slaw was flavored with herbs and coconut, and there was a large pile of rice to help sop up any leftovers. Despite all that, the real star was the roasted peanut sauce, which was the best and most interesting peanut sauce I have ever eaten in my life. I wanted to spoon it on everything.

The laksa was very good as well: a deep bowl of egg noodles in rich broth, it was nicely decorated with fried tofu (a favorite of mine) and large prawns, with some bean sprouts and cilantro for garnish. I would have liked more vegetables, but the flavors were excellent. The roti was like a flat croissant, dripping with fat and incredibly flaky – I loved it but I’m going to make sure I’m good and starving before I order another one. The dipping sauce it came with was, oddly, a ladleful of vegetable curry, complete with potato chunks. Strange but tasty.

Yesterday my husband and I went again, as we wanted a quick lunch before a medical appointment, and we tried both the beef and tofu satays, plus a curry puff, all of which lived up to my hype from the first visit. The beef was flavorful with tamarind, but sadly did not come with peanut sauce. Fortunately the tofu did. I thought the tofu was really interesting, it was deeply marinated with hard-to-identify seasonings and was nicely crispy around the edges. The curry puff was good, too – basically a deep-fried samosa stuffed with vegetable curry, dangerously thermal.

The place is run by extremely nice young men, and the general ambience is comfortable and casual. It’s quick and cheap, and they have Tiger Beer in the fridge, for which I have a strange fondness. I look forward to trying the rest of the menu very soon.

We recently indulged ourselves in a Big City hunting and gathering trip, stocking up on supplies not commonly found in our neck of the woods. Pedro Ximenez and Oloroso sherry from the Spanish Table, Sichuan preserved vegetable from Ping’s (finally identified by learning the Chinese words for it, cha choy), gochujang, curry leaves, Indian bitter melon, sea beans (also called samphire or glasswort) and noodles from Uwajimaya, and Toulouse sausage from the Paris Grocery. The bitter melon molded within a day and had to be composted (darn it), so the night which had been slated for curry suddenly had to be re-planned.

The main dish I came up with was simple – farfalle pasta tossed with garlic, chile, white beans and the sausage, which I seared in a skillet and cut into rounds. For the sea beans I took a flavor concept from the Zuni Cookbook, sauteeing them in butter and finishing them with a splash of sherry vinegar. Sea beans are so salty no other seasoning was needed, and the vinegar was a perfect complement. I think this was my favorite way of eating sea beans so far.

Earlier this week we went to an AMAZING performance by guitarist Charlie Hunter at Jazz Alley in Seattle (Seriously. Amazing. Really!). Afterwards we had plans to have dinner with friends at the Palace Kitchen, but figured we’d better get a bite to eat ahead of time so as not to be completely knocked for a loop by Jazz Alley’s rather strong cocktails. We decided to try Ravish, a little place on Eastlake that a friend of ours had been highly recommending for some time.

(This was also my chance to really try out the camera on my fancy new phone instead of hauling along my old point-and-shoot that I usually use in restaurants – it was very exciting)

The place was cute, but not too cute, if you know what I mean. It looked like a cafe attached to a rather chic garden store, with bright green furniture and antique seltzer bottles and typewriters for decoration. It was quiet when we went in, except for a contingent of focused-looking young men gathered at the bar, but rapidly filled up with blond professional women meeting for wine after work.

We decided to take advantage of their happy hour deals, which seemed very generous. I had a pint of Stone IPA (they ran out of Racer 5 just minutes before we got there) and Jon tried a house cocktail called Three Strikes, with rye, lemon juice, cherry heering and sage syrup. Many of the cocktails seemed a little extra fruity or spritzy to me, as if they were trying to lure in Cosmopolitan drinkers who might be ready to move on to more complex flavors.

An order of beef satay was not disappointing. The meat was very tender, as though it had been marinated in citrus juice for several hours, and had plenty of flavor all by itself. A coconut-orange dipping sauce was a surprisingly good match. We got three fat skewers with the order, which seemed like a very good deal.

We had thought of stopping there, but then ordered a beet salad after seeing one go by. It was nicely built, with a good assortment of bitter greens, sweet roasted beets, crunchy candied walnuts, and Rogue Creamery blue cheese, and was plenty for two people to share.

I was impressed – this is a really nice place to come after work or before a show. Maybe one of these days we’ll have a chance to explore the menu a little more thoroughly.

Last weekend was a true taste of summer: sunny, seventies, and mosquitoes. We finally got our patio free of the encrustation of junk (ladders, plant pots, rocks, dishes, ancient bags of fertilizer) and sat outside for dinner for the first time this year. We went to the local farmer’s market and bought asparagus and sweet baby turnips. We made nuoc cham and ate it on Vietnamese spring rolls and Korean pancakes. I pulled rhubarb in the garden and made buttermilk muffins. We drank white wine with a hint of fizz. And we had brunch at Revel. It was a good weekend.

Oliver’s Twist, a cocktail bar on Phinney Ridge in Seattle, was one of the places that helped kick off our cocktail obsession – it was the very first place that we ever tasted a Corpse Reviver #2, considered one of the great “gateway” cocktails. That was several years ago, and yet we hadn’t been back. Mostly because the place is always crammed full of hip young things, but still. I guess we got distracted by Liberty and Barrio. Anyway. We finally made it back there last week, and the first thing I saw as we settled ourselves at the bar was a slightly weathered looking bottle of Amer Picon.

A French bitter liqueur, this stuff is not easy to find these days. It used to be available in the states, and many classic cocktails call for it. But now I hear the only way to get it is to buy it in France, or find a bartender or other cocktail geek with a personal stash and attempt to buy it off of them (good luck). One of our favorite drinks, the Brooklyn, is technically supposed to be made with Picon, but we’ve always used Amaro Nonino as a make-do, and I’d never tried the cocktail made to its original recipe. So when I saw that bottle, my first thought was to ask the bartender for a Brooklyn.

His first reaction was to say “I really should hide that bottle” – but then he not only made me a Brooklyn, he also gave me a sip of the Picon so I could experience its taste undiluted. I would have loved to try it side by side with other amari, but it seemed most like Averna to us – lots of caramel and orange, but not too sweet. The cocktail was perfectly balanced and delicious, but didn’t taste extremely different than our adapted version. It was, however, nicely built and quite large. And excellent with truffled popcorn.

If we ever have the opportunity to get a bottle of Picon, we definitely will, but I’m reassured to know that the cocktails we make at home are acceptably close. And I can always go back to Oliver’s Twist for a reminder, at least until that bottle runs out.

We visited Revel for the first time just four days after it opened in mid-December. We fell in love. We went again last Monday, and fell even harder.

Brought to us by chefs Rachel and Seif of Joule (two of the nicest people you’ll ever meet), Revel is a more casual, Korean street food sort of place. The main feature of the restaurant is the huge wood bar that serves as a work counter for the staff and a table for the guests. On our first visit we sat at the bar and had the cooks all wandering by giving us the hairy eyeball to see if we liked the food. Which we did. Oh, yes we did.

There are salads, savory pancakes, and dumplings…

…with a wide array of condiments. I love the nam pla prik, but Jon really likes the spicy miso.

Their rice bowls are the high point for us. Each is a meal in itself, balanced with protein, vegetables and a potent condiment like kimchi, plus a rich egg yolk to mix into the rice with your chopsticks. The short rib with pickled daikon was delicious, but the albacore with grilled escarole and fennel kimchi was deliriously good. I still get hungry for it every time I look at that picture.

Along with their own house-made dumpling skins (flavored specifically for each type of dumpling), they make noodles. We tried the clams last time, which are served in a salty broth with fresh hand-cut spinach pasta. I haven’t tried the duck meatballs yet, but I suspect it won’t be long.

There is also a bar. Called “Quoin”, it’s only open in the evenings, but they have some intriguing cocktails. Next summer I anticipate spending some quality time on the deck outside the bar and trying them all out.

And then there’s dessert. At the moment they have three kinds of ice cream sandwiches: pound cake with coffee ice cream and milk jam, coconut macaroons with kaffir lime ice cream and a cherry compote (huckleberry on our first visit), and chocolate chip with caramel. You know I’m not a dessert person, but these I can go for. The only complaint I can come up with is that the sauce for the macaroon overwhelms the delicate flavor of the kaffir lime, but it’s a small quibble. We just ate them separately.

This place makes us happy.