Trolling Seattle

Where do you go when you only have one day to show out-of-towners around your Seattle neighborhood? They'd already explored downtown and visited Pike Place Market, and though there's lots more we could show them in that locale, we decided to stick closer to where we live, and show them some of the funkier Seattle landmarks.



Before we left the house, I stoked them with a nice bowl of hot oatmeal with all the trimmings. Everyone wanted something different — cashews, maple syrup, walnuts, brown sugar, cinnamon, raisins, almond milk ... etc.


me in my new hat.

After breakfast, while my husband was at work, I took Judy (and Michael though this wouldn't have been his first choice) to one of my favorite Seattle Goodwill haunts. This was in honor of Judy's and my history of resaling together. She's way more dedicated to the art than I, but I'm always up for a little second-hand-store surfing. She found a dressy rayon shirt, and I found a cozy new hat.


Spring rolls, steamed veggies, peanut sauce, spicy soup, sweet black rice.

When we finally finished shopping, it was past noon — time to meet my husband for lunch. We went to Araya's Vegan Thai restaurant lunch buffet. Araya's is vegan except they offer cream for those who want it in their coffee. The buffet is not quite as great as ordering from the menu at night, but it's pretty satisfying. It was crowded with eager eaters so I only photographed a few of the many tubs of food available at the buffet tables. The buffet starts out with two kinds of pickled vegetables, and continues with at least two different green salads. Then comes fresh fruit. It continues with fried spring rolls, steamed veggies, peanut sauce, soup, and sweet black rice with coconut milk topping. I like to fill my soup bowl with steamed veggies then ladle in spicy soup.



The next section of the buffet has coconut curry, fried rice, and pad thai. At least that's what I think is there. I'm probably leaving things out so I suppose, in the name of accuracy, I really should go back and get it right. :D And there's usually a mammoth bowl of sweet, fried skinny noodles. Of course there are lots of sauces and toppings.



This is what my plate looked like after my (first) trip to the buffet. Just looking at the photo tugs my memory and stomach, and makes me want to go back.


Michael with Lenin.

After lunch we needed to walk, so we headed to Fremont, the center of the universe, to take in the sights. Fremont has many more strange and unusual attractions, and events, than most neighborhoods of its size, and you can read about some of them here. In the photo above, you can see Michael striking a silly pose with the 16-foot statue of Lenin. (No, not John Lenin.) Many of the sights in Fremont are so unexpected that they cause tourists (and others) to become silly. Who would expect to find a statue of Vladimir Illych Lenin, rescued from Slovakia by a local Seattle art lover? After the fall of the Communist government of the former Soviet Union in 1989, Lewis Carpenter took a second mortgage on his house to bring the statue, found mud-covered in a dump, to Fremont. By the way, the statue, which is controversial as you might imagine, is for sale, if you are interested.


Photo credit: Michael M.

We traipsed for a couple of hours from one end of the neighborhood to the other. Judy and I bought scarves from the outdoor bargain rack of a very cool shop. (Did I mention that all the stores in Fremont are "cool?") We posed in front of the outdoor sculpture, Waiting for the Interurban, but the photo was too weird to share. The public sculpture is kept dressed by neighborhood residents, who choose themes related to the seasons, newsworthy events, political statements, or whatever they want. In the above photo of a section of the sculpture (with us removed), someone is in the process of wrapping the figures in crepe paper. Sometimes, though, the figures are dressed in actual clothes, and look just human enough to require a double-take.


Judy and Michael with The Troll.

No tour of Fremont would be complete without a visit to The Troll under the Aurora Bridge at the base of Queen Anne Hill. The Troll is clutching an actual Volkswagon beetle with a California licence plate, in its hand. Even the most jaded tourists are taken aback at the sight of The Troll, and want their pictures taken with it. After The Troll, we finished out tour with a stop at Theo Chocolate factory, where you can sample fair trade organic chocolate to your heart's (and stomach's) content. It's pretty hard, after trying all the flavors, to walk out empty-handed, and we all bought chocolate to take home.

The most famous event in Fremont is possibly the Solstice Parade, which begins with a nude bicycle ride through the streets, but we had to settle for the more stationary weirdness for our little tour. Next time you're in town, be sure to visit Fremont!

Eating out in Seattle

There are more vegan and vegetarian restaurants in Seattle than I can believe. The choices go from quirky to gourmet and we've dined in the whole range of options from the weirdest to the toniest. You can find many vegan Chinese and Thai establishments as well as vegan sandwich shops, pizza places and bakeries. We've had an elegant dinner at Carmelita and a wedding brunch at Café Flora. We've enjoyed Chinese food at Bamboo Garden and sandwiches from Hillside Quickies. One of the oddest places (said fondly) we ever ate was a throwback to the sixties called Good Morning Healing Earth and was owned by a Vietnam veteran named George. George did the cooking and joined in the conversations in his one-room converted first floor of a house. He had sound equipment in one corner for open-mike music nights. I'd describe the food as hearty American-style vegan with ethnic overtones. George had a Vitamix that he used to make amazing all-fruit ice cream that he served over waffles. He once told us that his dream was to save some money, sell the restaurant and move to Hawaii. Sadly, that never happened. George died some years ago and the restaurant has changed hands and names several times. We've never been back since George died, so I don't know what it's like now.

We ate out three times in two different places on this visit. Sunday night in Seattle we passed on our usual vegan favorites to eat at a neighborhood Chinese restaurant that serves mostly Asian diners who order in Chinese from a Chinese menu. (We had an infant with us and wanted to be conveniently close to home.) N, who has been to China, said the food is pretty authenic. In addition to the regular menu and the Chinese menu, they have a vegetarian menu. (Yay Seattle) The first night we went there we had ma po tofu, home-made noodles with veggies, szechwan eggplant, dry-cooked string beans, and yuba wrapped mushrooms. Unfortunately, I forgot to take photos before we gobbled everything up, so we had to return a second night. Oh darn. The photo above is my plate on the second visit. It has Chinese broccoli with enoki and black mushrooms, tofu with broccoli and the mushroom stuffed yuba, which, in addition to the noodles, we had to get again.

When we tried to order Chinese broccoli the first night, the waiter talked us out of it, saying Americans don't like it because it's too bitter. We knew he was wrong about us but we went along with his suggestions. Our waitress on the second visit didn't question our choices, and this time we got it. Yum. We also had pea vine, but the photo is kind of scary, unlike the actual dish, so I'm posting only the Chinese broccoli. (above)

The thick and chewy homemade noodles are definitely on my list of things to try at home. I used to make noodles often and it's really not hard. I was also very fond of the tofu (below) but deep frying at home is not really my thing.

The last dish I want to try to make is the yuba wrapped mushrooms. Yuba is also called bean curd sheets or bean curd sticks and is made by skimming off the film that forms on the surface of heated soymilk, and drying it. You can find it in Asian markets as sheets, or rolled into long tube shapes — bean curd sticks. I've used the sticks before but not the sheets - something new to learn.

The restaurant is in North Seattle and is called Chiang's Gourmet. Try it if you're in Seattle.

We visited the vegan lunch buffet the following Saturday at Araya Vegan Thai Restaurant. I kept forgetting to photograph my beautiful plate of food, and when I went back to the buffet to take pictures, it was so crowded I couldn't see the selections. So, I have photographed my dessert, which I didn't like and didn't eat. It was some sort of mooshy banana thing with coconut cream that looked good. I put some slightly sweetened crispy noodles on top and those were actually very good in an interesting way. You did notice that I said vegan Thai buffet? No joke.
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