Cards win!

Now for the NLCS, where, unfortunately, we'll probably lose. But I still have hope! Go Cards!

Well, America, you asked for it - you demanded that I blog more, so here I am, ready to appease you.

Hey, I can address one person as "America" if I want - it's my right. Anyway, the blogging:

So, Dawn came in town Thursday, and that means stuff to do. Immediately after picking her up from the airport, we were both HUNGRY - so we headed downtown, to the Palace Kitchen. You may remember my previous entry about it, and I can say again that it was delicious. We had the plin again, it's still my favorite. Dawn had the cornstravaganza I mentioned before, but I decided to mix things up a little, and had the grilled sea scallops, served with corn/bacon/kidney bean succotash and escarole. The scallops were perfect, grilled to a crisp, delicious crust on the top and bottom, but tender and delicious inside - they were so good, I even got Dawn to try them, and agreed that they didn't kill her, even a little bit.

After dinner, we went home, went to sleep, and then the next day I got up and went to work. Not much to report there.

For dinner on Friday, we went to Eva, a restaurant/wine bar in Wallingford, just northwest of the University of Washington. The place was recommended to me by my coworker, who seems to know what's up - and it proved to be so. We appetized with a chorizo, potato, and onion "tortilla," which turned out to be more of a "quiche." It was extremely delicious, however. For dinner, I had a ribeye steak with grilled red potatoes and veggies, topped with Gorgonzola butter. It was as advertised, which is a good thing - cooked well, slathered in blue cheese butter, and just generally delicious. Dawn had grilled pork tenderloin in bacon cream sauce with kale, and it was awesome - a small mountain of pork loin, cooked to juicy perfection, floating in a thick sea of bacon cream sauce that made me want to make a doctor's appointment. In other words, it was everything it should have been. We topped all that off with a shared slice of chocolate-peanut butter cheesecake with candied rice krispies and a glass of Sauternes, both of which were delicious. I predict candied rice krispies becoming the dessert topping of the millenium. After dinner, we grocery shopped briefly, then went home.

Saturday, we got up early (10am!) and headed downtown, where we checked out some galleries in Pioneer Square before meeting Kori and Katie to do the Seattle Underground tour. If you've never done the tour, you should probably do it - but if you have an aversion to cobwebs or terribly corny humor, you'd probably do well to avoid it. Anyway, entertaining. Then we headed to the market, where we ate ridiculous amounts of everything (that reminds me, I think I still have half of a half-pound cookie in my jacket pocket. I should eat that.), and topped it off with a light lunch at Pike Place Chowder, my favorite chowder-only restaurant. Katie, an East Coast native, even signed off on their clam chowder as being "good." I had the market chowder, a market-fresh concoction of oysters, clams, chorizo, and mussels, and it was delicious. Really delicious. Then we wandered around the market some more until Dawn and I went back to my place for a quick nap and rest period before dinner.

Dinner was at Elliott's, Seattle's well-known oyster and seafood house. I tried to get reservations here when my parents were in town, but it didn't work - no problem getting them with Dawn though, despite the fact that half the restaurant was apparently booked out to high-school types who were all glitzed up for something. The restaurant had declared October as "Crabstravaganza Month," and we took advantage of it. Starters were crab bisque en croute, which, according to whoever makes soup at Elliott's means "soup with a biscuit in it." Really, aside from the totally uncuttable biscuit floating in it, it was quite delicious soup. Had it actually been baked with a crust on top, it would have been a near-perfect cup of soup. I had peekytoe crab spring rolls, which were delicious - crispy, piping hot, full of crab, and served with delicious ponzu sauce. Mmm. For dinner, Dawn had crab linguine, which was so creamy I have no idea how Dawn got through the whole thing (but I probably would have found a way were it mine), and I had Homer Simpson's platonic ideal of expensive food - the finest food, stuffed with the second finest: Coho Salmon with crab crust. It was fantastic. Juicy, well-cooked, covered in creamy crab crust without being overpowering, all that stuff. Really really good. Unfortunately, after all of that, the dessert menu was underwhelming, so we polished off the remnants of our wine and went home for a long, lazy rest.

The wine, by the way, Dawn actually enjoyed, so it bears mention here: a 2005 Lucien Albrecht Pinot Blanc, from Alsace, France. Pale blonde, lightly floral and citrus-y, very good. Also, as I discovered after paying far more at the restaurant, it's available from the intarwebs for like $10. I may have to get some.

Today, we ventured to Tacoma. I know, woo-hoo. After driving all around what I assume was town in search of lunch, we decided on the Harmon Brewery and Restaurant, and it was pretty good. I had their Mt. Takhoma Blonde Ale, which was light, summery, and refreshing, a cup of delicious porter-infused chili, and a large bacon cheeseburger, which really hit the spot.

Then off to the Museum of Glass, which was not as exciting as lunch. After brief negotiations with the ticket guy (tickets are $10 apiece, cash only, and they have no ATM - too bad I only had $15 on me), we got in. First, we checked out the glass studio, which was awesome - inside a giant steel teepee-like structure is a working glass studio surrounded by a small amphitheater, in which you can watch glass artists doing their thing live. It's pretty cool. A co-worker of mine recently took a weekend-long course in glassworking, I might have to look into it. Next, on to the galleries, which were small and only moderately interesting - and there were only 2 glass exhibits in the place, the rest was mostly textile works and a few mixed-media sculptural pieces. Not exactly as advertised.

So now we're back home, and apparently tonight is Mexican food at Azteca with Kori and Katie.

Sometime, I should find a hobby aside from eating.