Seattle, WA

After Beloved, Sam and I, plus Deondra and Danica all loaded up in Voltron and made a day trip of getting to Seattle, where my sister was most interested in visiting. The vibe of the city is a little more generic than I thought it would be, but the longer we were there, the more we found awesome places to hang out. We ended up spending the vast majority of our time in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, and also really enjoyed Belltown.

Restaurants

Our first day there, the girls and I ate at Steelhead Diner, which was to die for… they served shrimp and crab tater tots that were ridiculous. We had amazing little French canapés at Café Kanape, and fantastic sushi at Momiji. List was probably the best happy hour we had – small plates of Chilean sea bass and truffle gnocchi with patio seating. The Saint, which boasted Mexican/South American cuisine, also had an awesome happy hour with small plates of various enchiladas and tacos and ceviche that was all unique and delicious, and some really interesting tequila cocktails. Our last day there, as always, we met an awesome couple (hi, Paul and Kiki!) who took us to the Alibi Room for some pizza and Spicy Mac and Cheese!

Coffeeshops

My favorite coffeeshop was definitely Joe Bar, which in addition to coffee had a fantastic selection of Belgian beer, perfect for when I have to work but my friends want to drink. On an unrelated note, this is where we first met Kelly, Sam’s friend from turntable.fm, who is one cool chick! Bedlam Coffee was very cool, although it took some time to get used to the alt-country station they had going on all the time. I did get used to it, though, and the drinks and ambiance brought me there more than once. Our other favorite was the Artisan Café in Belltown, which played catchy French music and had a heck of a tuna melt.

Bars

I wish I had a better section on bars, but for no lack of trying, there were just not many we liked. Liberty was the only one I feel a strong urge to mention… we went there with Deondra when we were looking for sushi, and found it to be more of a cocktail lounge, so we left. Later that week, when a lounge is what we were going for, we went back and settled in for some great drinks, music, and… get ready for this… AMAZING LATE NIGHT SUSHI! I did not see that coming. Rock Box was also pretty cool – a karaoke bar where you could rent out rooms for groups, Japanese style (lots of bachelorette parties), or you could sing in the main bar, where microphones were passed around the crowd. It was awesome at first, until it got crowded and loud, inebriated girls wanted to sing along with Deondra in the second mic, which I had to steal and hide so I could properly admire my friend. That’s about when we left. I should also mention Joe Bar in this section. Cheap, Belgian beer. For real.

In addition to your standard eating and drinking, we also did some of the classic and not-so-classic Seattle things – Pike Place Market, Seattle Art Museum and the Sculpture Garden. Took a ferry over to Bainbridge Island to watch Shakespeare in the Park’s Taming of the Shrew with a picnic feast of wines and cheeses and berries and breads and chocolates. Went blues dancing. Watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail at an outdoor movie theater. Overall, definitely made the list for top five cities in the states, and I'm so glad Deondra and Danica got to be there for it!

(Sorry I didn’t take any pictures…)