dine around seattle is BACK!

making upscale dining affordable to the downtrodden with well-trained palates, dine around seattle comes but once a year and offers three course meals for an amazing 30 dollars. i love this for three reasons:

1. i'm pushed to try restaurants that i've been leaving alone because they're "too expensive."
2. if you bring the right two friends with you, you can sample and enjoy three different appetizers, three different entrees, and three different desserts. now that, my friends, is bang for your buck.
3. you are pretty much forced into getting dessert! who can say no to a dessert INCLUDED in the price. that would just be wasteful, silly. and that friend of yours who always passes on dessert and sneakily insists on "trying" a huge bit of yours...with this deal she is losing money by not getting her own. it's beautiful.

i'm planning on at visiting at least two of the restaurants included in this year's lineup (you can peep the choices here). the first tour included a trip with my roomie (a) and her coworker (l) to lecosho.

nestled on downtown's harbor steps, lecosho is well-known for its meats and delivers on the promise printed across the banner of their website: "food we like." and i did, i really liked the food at lecosho. i didn't LOVE it. hey, they can't all be a homerun, and we should still celebrate a triple.

during dine around seattle, you are given a menu with three appetizer, three entree, and three dessert options. my dining companions and i all selected a different appetizer. i proclaimed that i could choose the cheesiest one (duh) and went with the manchego stuffed dates, a had the house green salad, and l had the lamb sausage-stuffed grape leaves. the lamb sausage was a standout, and the dates were pretty scrumptious as well. the salad was pretty standard. the soft boiled egg on top WAS perfectly cooked, though, and i do love me a perfectly cooked egg with a nice soft yolk.

the main course offered pasta, pork or quail. no one really wanted to waste this opportunity on pasta. two of us chose the pork and one the quail. the pork chop was HUGE and served over a delicious potato and parsnip puree and some delicious beets. being the recovering vegetarian that i am, big ol' pieces of meat sometimes prove too much for me. if it were my dish, i would have doubled the amount of garnish and halved the chop. i like to assemble juicy little bites including a little of everything on the plate, and i was out of sides about halfway through my pork...and i was being very conservative! a's quail was so little comparatively, it felt rude to have that much meat in front of her. her sides, of corona beans and arugula salad were in desired portioning and completely delicious. if you've never had a corona bean before, it's bigger than a butter bean, and more firm. they were cooked to perfection for a's plate and i borrowed more than a few over to mine.

for dessert, none of us could pass off on the completely unique semolina custard cake. that was all the menu said, but it was also served with a hefty scoop of fresh whipped cream and some sort of a compote (my guess was huckleberry with a port wine, probably should have asked the waitress). the cake was moist and not-too-sweet, and had the texture of the most sumptuous cornbread you could imagine. the ratio of whipped cream to cake was way off and myself and l both left at least half of ours on our plates.

i don't think i need to return to lecosho for dinner, but i do want to try some of their more casual stabs at cuisine at lunch time, where they offer very reasonably priced gourmet salads and sandwiches. the restaurant also boasts a late night happy hour (10 to 1 on weekdays and 11 to 1 on friday and saturday) with some tasty little morsels to offer and a $4 wine, $3 beer, and $5 cocktail special.

vietnomnomnom.

this friday marked the 23rd anniversary of my lovely roomie m's birth! to celebrate, we put a wonderful group together and ventured to the highly recommended tamarind tree in the international district.
everyone seemed to have heard of this place but me...but i was excited to sample some vietnamese cuisine--as all i have had in the past is pho [which is always a win]. now, when i say that this place is tucked away, i really mean it. we had to poke our heads into a little 99cent shop to even figure out how to get there. upon arrival, however, it was definitely worth the hunt. take my advice, fellow foodies, when you make a reservation at the tamarind tree [and you should make one, especially on a weekend] try to do so on the patio. the covered area bosts a beautiful waterfall, lush bamboo and greenery, and is heated if need be. on this sunny friday evening, i couldn't ask for a better ambiance.
please, if you are a fan of cocktails--get a list. between the 10 of us we had lemongrass, kumquat, tamarind, and green tea martinis as well as a juicy pineapple mojito. the boys all manned up and had tsingtao--but i could see the hidden looks of envy as us girls swilled equal parts strong, fruity, and unique cocktails.
for starters, we split up some chicken satay and some amazing spring rolls. if i would have had it my way, i probably would have sat and munched on the spring rolls all meal. they were deliciously paired with peanut sauce, and sizably portioned. i, however, had to perform a minor ricepaper surgery on mine in order to extract a silly prawn. my neighboor in dining, the lovely roomie a, was happy to take it on.
now, i didn't get to sample every dish, but raves came all around for the coconut curry prawns and chili beef lemongrass. i sampled a new food, however, and went with the lotus root salad. at first, the lotus root was tangy, acidic, and a really intriguing flavor. but, after 3 or 4 pieces, i grew weary and found my chopsticks wandering to far away plates...
the star appeared to be roomie a's tamarind tree crepe. with the appearance of a large omlette or oversized taco and served with a pho-like platter of mint, lettuce and other greenery, the dish was daunting. the combination of a rice batter and coconut milk shell with the fillings of bean sprout, shiitake mushrooms, and mung beans was completely delictable. and while a had the dish riddled with sea creatures, i will probably opt for the vegetarian version on my next trip to the tamarind tree.
dessert was a personal sized ginger mousse with a candle in it especially for the birthday girl. i [of course] snuck a more-than-tiny nibble, and it was pretty perfect. i can't wait for my next visit!