Savor Seattle Gourmet Tour

Directly following my trip to Peru, I left on a research trip to the West Coast for two weeks.  What was I researching?  Glad you asked: a book on Stadium Eats!  Um, yeah, without a deal in sight currently (hint, hint, anyone reading this who is interested!), I went to preemptively scout out the 6 West Coast stadiums and eat my way up and down the West Coast at the same time, starting in San Francisco, working my way down to Los Angeles, then San Diego, back up to San Francisco and then to Seattle!  Phew!  Tune in at 4:15 EST (or 1:15 PST, lunchtime on the West Coast) for the next 6 weeks to see what I ate and where I ate it… and how I gained 10 lbs in two weeks!

One of the things HB and Dr. PB did while in Seattle was attend a gourmet tour of the area by Savor Seattle.  They both spoke highly of the tour and said they had a good time, so I signed up as soon as I remembered once I was in Seattle.  $69 for a tour that afterwards gives you a card good for a discount (between 10-20% usually) at all the places you visited, and then some (it includes every place they have as stops on their tours – they do at least two other tours, one is Pike Place Market and another is a chocolate tour).  So awesome.

Our first stop was the restaurant off the lobby of the Mayflower Park Hotel, which is the oldest continuously operating hotel in downtown Seattle.  It’s an amazing space for sure, but our group was more interested in the food…

It was early afternoon, so what greeted us – the restaurant’s special spiced sangria.. all lined up on the bar, ready for us to partake! 

One of the higher ups from the restaurant (manager, maybe?) came by to explain the process of making the sangria.  It’s pretty involved and there are a lot of spices (I want to say mulling spices, even) used in the combination, which makes it really interesting to taste, but in the end, not to my taste.  Too much going on and a lot of the spices were ‘warming’ which I tend to dislike in sangria – I want my sangria to cool me off! 

Next was a crispy duck cake with apricot chutney and cucumber raita, also very interesting but much more to my speed – very tasty and a great way to kick off the afternoon. 

Then we were off; a short walk to Serious Pie which I’d thought was pie – the sweet kind – but was immensely relieved to find it was pizza.  Then I realized that I was in Seattle, and I’m from New York.  It ain’t pizza till I say it’s pizza (despite my less than frequent nomming on pizza, I still feel very protective of what can and should be classified as pizza). 

(Also of note: that’s our tour guide, the amazing Ezra!  More on him later!)

The delectable menu; there’s also a happy hour where you can try each pizza for a fraction of the cost!  Unfortunately I’ve forgotten the details – I totally meant to go back, but … there was only so much time for me to wander around. 

I’m not sure if she was also a food blogger, but she totally took pictures of everything too. 

Our first pie – roasted mushrooms and truffle cheese. 

I’m going to say here that it was good, but not quite pizza-enough for me. 

Next: San Marzano tomato and buffalo mozzarella! 

nom..

and NOM!  This one was way more pizza-like, not the tomatoes, but rather the crust on this one was much crisper and had more char to it.  The first one was a bit more like really good bread topped with some stuff.  I liked the second one enough that I wanted to go back for the happy hour, but never had the time.  Ah well.  Oh, and I guess I should mention that the person who owns/runs this place (and a couple of nearby places as well), Tom Douglas I think? is like, super famous in the Seattle foodie world.  I’m not on the up-and-up on everything in other cities, so I don’t know him offhand – but there were a bunch of other places nearby that were his doing that sounded interesting as well.  (And to my very big surprise, Seattle is quite the foodie-town.  Why surprise?  Because I don’t see much about it on the blogs nor on the television… guess I’m reading and watching the wrong things!) 

Our next few stops took us right into Pike Place Market! 

First up, some amazing discoveries for me.  We went to visit the Truffle Queen, who owns La Buona Tavola. 

Inside is this incredible tasting section – I can’t even imagine any place that allows you to taste what they do.  Short of whole truffles, much of the store is here to sample before you buy, which is great considering the cost you’re investing. 

Just look at that table. 

We were given a creamy mushroom soup to sip… 

then a few drops of truffle oil were added, and the experienced changed completely.  Amazing. 

A small biscuit with a bit of pesto. 

The most amazing discoveries for me were that in the past, I haven’t liked truffles, and I’ve had them in many, many forms, at fancy pants nice places.  And I’ve been less than amazed; the earthiness is usually too overwhelming to me and I just taste ‘dirt’ – hey, everyone has their preferences.  But then I tried some of the white truffle cream and fell in love, and somehow wound up taking a small jar of that home.  Even more amazing though was the cherry gold balsamic vinegar.  I have tried and tried and tried to like balsamic vinegar; it is something I have struggled with because it is something that falls into the category of things I really should like (because by description alone, it matches things I like), but tasting it, I just never seem to be all that appreciative.  The Truffle Queen insisted I taste a bit on my hand, and I did, and omfg it changed my life.  I brought home a bottle – and yes, it was at a discount using the card Savor Seattle bestowed upon me at the end of the tour.  SCORE. 

Directly adjacent the market is a restaurant called il Bistro. 

The restaurant isn’t normally open for lunch, so they opened specially just for us; these glasses of red wine were waiting us at each table. 

Saffron and seafood risotto.  I want to say this must’ve been an off-day for the restaurant because it tasted like there was no salt in the risotto at all, which made it hard to eat.  The seafood was good – properly cooked and all – but the lack of salt made it just awful.  The sommelier was on hand and we were discussing the wine he chose to pair with this dish, and he said he’d chosen a red because he felt that the risotto was robust enough to stand up to the wine.  Maybe if it’d had salt, it would have worked better?  But as it stood, I thought the red completely overwhelmed the risotto.  Unfortunate, but true. 

Around the corner from there is the Pike Pub & Brewery. 

We received a really in-depth look at the brewery’s innards, and a quick lecture on how to brew beer.  We had at least one home brewer in the group who also added some insights that went completely over my head – it’s no secret that I have little appreciation of beer – but it was another side of foodie-ism that I’m rarely exposed to.  (Yes, there is a beer column on Feisty Foodie now for that sole reason: he talks about that of which I know nothing!) 

This sign really got me.  I don’t understand why the Artisan Cheese of America…. was held in Italy.  Hahaha.  Unless this is just a cheese festival and this sign just happens to also say Artisan Cheese of America?  Pretty funny 🙂

Our tasting portions of beer – I took a sip of each and then ignored them, heh – and spent grain roll, along with two beer-washed cheeses.  The roll is made with grain that’s been “spent” or used to make beer, and I have to say that I really liked the bread.  It was super soft, and not – well, by the looks of it, you’d think a dinner roll, slightly chewy, where you’d tear into it, right?  Nope, it was soft and totally pliable.  I really liked the cheese on the left, but the one on the right, not so much… I even tried to find the cheese so I could buy some to bring home (I have a serious cheese addiction), but alas, Beecher’s didn’t have any when I went.  Nom! 

Our next stop was the Four Seasons… and this really surprised me – I need to find out if our Four Seasons does something like this! – for…

their restaurant…

isn’t this set up cute?

DRY soda, which I found out was also based in Seattle.  I tried to go visit their headquarters, down in the Pioneer Square area of Seattle, but again, time constraints being what they are, I was unable to do so.  This was a lovely and refreshing drink, and I wish I’d been able to check out the headquarters and ask them if they were planning on expanding to the East Coast!

Sitting around the bar at ART was lovely, with all sorts of interesting… sculpture… things…

It’s like a vase of fruit filled with wax on top of it? 

So pretty.  I think those are preserved oranges with a wax cap – wonder if you can pry off the wax and still eat them… haha

Finally, our sliders arrived!  Garnish yourself.

So cute.

Add your own condiments.   

Sliders have been done to death here in NYC, but in Seattle, it seemed to be just starting its upward trend.  Juicy, well-flavored, and perfectly customizable with the additions I made… perfect.  Another example of a place that offers this during happy hour, whose details again escape me… oops. 

But even more amazing is the cheese bar happy hour they offered – $15 got you all you can nosh from this section.

Look at that.  All you can nosh – cheeses and some accompaniments (nuts, fruit spreads, breads, crackers) – another one I wanted to hit up but the time just didn’t let me.  Plus, how could I have gotten away with only gaining 10 lbs. if I hit this?  I couldn’t. 

They also had a hot appetizers all-you-can-nosh happy hour, for I believe about the same amount of money, but I didn’t take pictures of it.  In honor of the (at the time) upcoming World Cup, they were featuring dishes from the countries participating in the World Cup.  Pretty interesting. 

Last stop: Boka! 

Our dessert: brie cheesecake with a graham cookie crumble…

Lemon syrup on the side, and a cherry cordial ensconced in white chocolate.  Very tasty, and an awesome end to an awesome tour. 

I have to stop for a moment here to give props to the amazing tour guide, Ezra, who was super knowledgeable, super friendly, and made the tour super fun.  He took the ribbing I gave him with good humor (which it was intended to be!), answered all the questions I had about pretty much anything, and was an all-around great guy.  Fortunately, in this day of email and Facebook, we wound up exchanging contact information and have been in contact since cuz he’s such a cool guy 🙂  I highly recommend going on this tour if you can, and even more so – see if you can request Ezra cuz he’s that awesome!!! 

After the tour was over, I headed over to some of the spots that Ezra had recommended, including the Chocolate Box, where I picked up nearly everything I bought for people back home (I brought back chocolate for my writers, because I’m nice like that).  Well, some stuff from Fran’s as well, both had discounts from the card Savor Seattle gave me… nom.   

The Chocolate Box also had hot drinks, including – swoon – salted caramel sipping chocolate – but I’m not a fan of European sipping chocolate (it tends to be thicker and more like drinking melted chocolate than drinking hot chocolate), so I had to pass for practicality reasons. 

A shot of the outside of the Chocolate Box. 

An excellent experience, I sincerely recommend that if you care about food and are on your way to Seattle – or even if you’re based in Seattle – take a moment to book this tour for the first day of your trip (so you can use the discount card every single day of your trip! – you walk by so many of these places just in the normal course of the day).  Totally worth it, great experience and really great guides.  Win!!!