June 2004 Archives

Was thinking ... even if I lived in Venice or Paris, I might have to visit Seattle from time to time just for Happy Hour at Cascadia.

Belltown's not known for its wine bars, so this is a great alternative. From 5 to 7 every evening, chef Kerry Sear's signature drink is reduced from $8 to $3.50. It's the Alpine Martini, and you haven't lived until you've sipped a couple. Absolut Citron, shaken with ice, served "up" with an iconoclastic scoop of creamy "Douglas Fir" sorbet and garnished with a sprig of pine. Surprisingly refreshing.

Accompany this with a couple of $1 mini-burgers: they're so tasty you'll gobble them down in two bites, but I promise you'll never eat anything as satisfying from the 99-cent menu at McD's, DQ, BK or Wendy's. And should you feel an urgent need for deep-fried seafood, Cascadia's attitude adjustment hour also offers a $2 cone of calamari with a zesty aioli.

Here's the best part: as long as the viaduct remains standing and feeds into the Battery Street tunnel, nothing will obstruct the view of sunset over Elliott Bay from Cascadia's sidewalk tables.

An occasional series highlighting neighborhood favorites.

UPDATE: Sunday, June 27th, a celebratory article appears in The Seattle Times. And FYI, the guy who ate 16 miniburgers, 'twasn't me.

Faithful correspondent David Morgenstern reports from Colorado:

She looked to be all off 23 years old and maybe on the high side of 5'2". Thrilled to slide under the protection of our 15-minute old umbrella while in queue for The Grand Tasting at the 2004 Food & Wine Aspen Classic, she was quick to tell us she was a personal chef in Aspen. The raindrops bouncing off the red & black nylon overhead wouldn't deter her excitement to quaff as many wines as possible in the next 90 minutes. Diana and I quickly noticed the six carat pear-shaped diamond ring on her left hand balanced by a rock of equal size on her right hand not to mention the 2 carat diamond earrings and multiple tennis bracelets. Personal chefs must make some good dough! In the course of four days of chef seminars, winery panel discussions and reserve wine tastings, we estimate we laid eyes on the sparkle of at least 1,000 total carats of colored diamonds. What a way to be so casual yet so chic.

Deaf & dumb, actually. Mute. Not just sotto voce but completely voiceless. And yet, I came so close ...

The scene: a hotel lobby in Venice. The hotel offers wireless access from an outfit called Megabeam. I crank up the laptop, fill in the required credit card information and hit "send." Long pause. Very long pause. Finally, a screen that says my username and password will be sent to me by email.

Of course, to get my email, I have to go online. And to go online, I have to log on. And to log on, I have to type in my username and password.

The absurdity of the situation hasn't penetrated Megabeam's psyche.

Eventually I was able to read my email on a public computer and I did, in fact, find the promised email. Megabeam thanked me for my patronage and provided, no, not the actual username and password ... but a link to a web page where, it said, I would be able to retrieve them. But the link, it warned, would only remain active for a limited time ... and by the time I got there, it had expired a full day earlier.

July 25, 2004 update: Today's New York Times travel section has an essay by reporter Allen Feuer titled "Blissfully Adrift In Venice." Nice article. Just remember, you read it here first ...

In the distant past, travel writers would send their dispatches by telegram, and the words would appear on a ribbon of paper. For instance, "ARRIVED VENICE. STREETS UNDER WATER. ADVISE." Now, I home in on a Wi-Fi hotspot near the Rialto bridge to send my tasting notes from lunch in The Most Serene Republic of Venice.
Since I can only stay for a couple of days, I'm determined not to get stuck with my nose in a guidebook when it could be in a wine glass instead. One of those itty-bitty wine glasses called ombre, literally shade, because the real wine bars are found in cool arcades and dusky corners just around the corner from the tourist traps.

At Florian, on the Piazza San Marco, it's $20 for a Bellini, with a $6 entertainment surcharge for the tuxedo-clad orchestra playing Viennese waltzes to an audience of Japanese school girls sipping Cokes and indigenous pigeons pecking at kernels of corn. Onward.

No thanks to non-functioning wireless technology, finally made it to an internet café in Venice. Will tell you shortly about travels to date, and about some exciting culinary discoveries. Ciao for now, though. Ronaldo