I always enjoy the food when I visit America. You just can’t get the same stuff for those cheap prices in Canada! The food we had on this trip was awesome. I had a few recommendations written down from several sources (internet friends, New York Times, yelp) and they did not disappoint. Mmmmmmm.

from Cuban Food USA

The first day we went in search of Paseo, a Caribbean sandwich shop a little bit out of the downtown area. We had to go to a tourist information center to get instructions on how to get there, then take a bus ride, and then walk up a big hill. But mmmm it was worth it.

from Seattle Weekly

I had their popular Cuban slow-roasted pork shoulder sandwich, with aioli, cilantro, japapenos, lettuce and caramelized onions. It was drippy and moist and SO GOOD. The meat was tender and yummy, the caramalized onions were amazing, and the baguette was tasty. I have no complaints.

Scott had the tofu delight, which was similar but had tofu instead of pork. He liked his too but it was a bit small considering it was the same price as mine (and mine was humongous).

Both of us had sticky hands after eating, it was impossible to keep the sandwiches together.

I also tried McDonald’s strawberry lemonade that I’d seen on TV but we didn’t have in Canada. Verdict: meh. Even though that is basically my favourite drink combination, the strawberry stuff was too sweet and the whole drink was just average. I guess what do I expect from Maccas.

The same day we went out in search of drinks and ended up at Barca, a moody bar in possibly a student area. The music was cool and the patio was good and the drinks were ultra cheap. Awesome.

After getting a bit DRONK we headed off to the Mexican restaurant that Scott had picked (Barrio). It was fancier than either of us had guessed, but mmm delicious.

We only ordered two small appetizers and one enchilada plate to share and still ended up with piles of food. In the top left you can see a pork tamale (braised pork in pepita mole, sweet pepper crema, cotija cheese, onion and cilantro, for me, obviously). In the top right is mushroom quesadilla (chipotle roasted portobello mushrooms, oaxaca, jack and cotija cheese, poblano-onion rajas and crema served with pickled vegetables and tomatillo salsa) and then in the foreground is grilled local summer squash enchiladas (with onion-red pepper rajas, jack, oaxaca and cotija cheese and tomatillo sauce).

Everything was super tasty, except for we both thought the corn tortillas were too thick and took away from the tastiness of the dishes.

I also had a strawberry margarita and Scott had a margaveza (a ginormous combination of a margeurita and a beer!). He liked it.

Me with rosy cheeks from walking.

After lazing around for a bit the next morning we headed off for breakfast. The whole walk was uphill, but again, IT WAS WORTH IT. I am still dreaming about this breakfast. We went to Glo’s, another recommendation from an internet friend/NYT. It was a small cozy breakfast joint, with a line out the front door.

We ordered way too much. I didn’t know the dishes were going to be SOOOO big!! We shared the Eggs Californian (avocado, grilled tomato and two poached eggs on English muffins with hollandaise, plus hashbrowns) and the huevos rancheros which I can’t find on the menu but basically had eggs, salsa, avocado, tortilas, sour cream, cheese, jalapenos and more, plus hashbrowns.

I’m drooling again just thinking about it. Everything was extremely yummy. We couldn’t finish it all, but we did give it a good go. Neither of us even thought about lunch at all, we were so full. Actually I was still kind of full at dinner time, but I knew we should eat something otherwise we’d end up starving on the train.

We ended up getting some light Chinese food near the train station at Ho-Ho Restaurant. Scott had some veggie chow mien and I had wonton soup with a bit of duck in it. Yummy. I don’t have any pictures of that.

Well that’s pretty much everything we ate over that weekend. All good stuff! The food was definitely one of the best parts of our trip. Now back to my salad….

I just finished resizing all our pics from Seattle and have decided to split them into two parts: food… and everything else! I’ll go against my usual priorities and write about the ‘everything else’ first. :)

Here we are on the train. Perhaps you can tell I was still angry that the custom people took our sandwiches that we had packed.

The way there took about 4 hours, including the border crossing that we didn’t even have to get out of our seats. The wifi worked on and off, so I didn’t manage to get my WHMIS training done as planned, but I did get a bit of reading done.

We were able to check in right away at our hotel, which was good. We stayed at the Grand Hyatt. It was lovely. That was our view and it had electric blackout curtains and a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuge bathroom.

After a quick rest in glorious air conditioning (it was HOT the whole weekend) I dragged Scott to Paseo, a sandwich shop that had been recommended to me. We had to take a bus pretty far to get there, and then walk up a hill, but it was really good. I’ll write about that more in my food entry!

On the way back we swung by the intriguing ‘troll’ marked on the map under a bridge. It looked like this but I didn’t take a picture because some losers have graffiti’d all over it, and also there were other people there.

We bused back into the city to the Seattle Center area where you can find the Space Needle (too expensive), the monorail (too pointless), and the Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Museum. After a bit of debate (I was hesitant because I wasn’t sure I would like it) I agreed to go and anyway it was fun.

They had all sorts of rock and roll history stuff. I didn’t really know what a lot of it was, but Scott seemed to enjoy it. There was an exhibit on Nirvana, and Jimi Hendrix, and this art piece made of guitars.

Then upstairs they had this really cool exhibit where you get to learn and try some instruments and do little challenges or just JAM. You can even record your session and make a CD.

There is Scott mega-concentrating on the drums.

And me trying out being a DJ. Cool!!

They also had an exhibit on Battlestar Gallactica which I walked through pretty quickly since I have never watched that show, and an exhibit about Avatar that was pretty interesting. They showed how they filmed with real people and translated it to animation and other neat stuff. I could move those seed things with my hand.

After that we went back to the hotel for showers (I was sweatyyyyy) and then we went out in search of dinner. We ended up hiking up a hill and having some drinks at a very dark bar (pretty much the opposite of that yellow chair picture). Very atmospheric. And super cheap!! After getting DRONK we tottered off to a fancy Mexican restaurant that I will write more about in my food entry. After a long dinner we went back to the hotel and relaxed and then had a lovely sleep on the super comfy giant bed.

Next morning we hiked up another hill (a Seattle trend) and had a Glorious breakfast at Glo’s. Breakfast that dreams are made of. So delicious and so huge. Details to come.

Then we did a lazy touristy stroll. Downtown, Pike Street Market, out by the water etc etc. It was OK except for the heat and the weird guy with his pants around his ankles possibly pooping into his armchair that he had brought down to near the market???

After that Scott and I went our seperate ways for a bit. Scott went to watch a baseball game (and got some great pictures, but that’s for Scott’s blog, not mine) and I went on another bus adventure to Target for a pair of cheap boots. They didn’t have the ones I wanted but I got another pair, and a plaid shirt. Then I came back to the city in a desperate search for air conditioning. I went to the fancy mall and looked in J. Crew and other stores but didn’t buy anything because it was $$$$$$.

At 5 I met back up with Scott and we trudged to Chinatown in search of a light dinner (still full from breakfast!!). We were pretty tired at this point, from so much walking and heat. We had Chinese for dinner, and then headed to the train station for our trip back! The way back took more than 5 hours, ugh. The train kept stopping to let other trains pass? And we were in a car with some really obnoxious loud OLD people. Anyway we arrived home to find that the hot water hadn’t been working all weekend so our showers had to be cold. BRRRR.

I was a bit tired at school on Monday, but happy because we had such an awesome mini vacation. Scott and I had so much fun together and it was just amazing to live a little differently than our usual routines for a bit. Back to being cheap and eating salads now though, haha.