Bits and Pieces from Victoria BC and the Seattle Area (last update)

We recently did a ten-day vacation in the Pacific Northwest.  Many of my trips have a family component, and this one was mostly arranged to spend time with family in the Everett, WA area, but we scheduled in some days to wander off and have some fun.  Since I'm the World's Laziest Roadfooder, my method consists of waiting until the day before I fly out, conducting the most cursory searches and copying and pasting bits and pieces of various people's posts into a Word document which I then email myself or print and take with me.  No addresses.  No checking for hours.  No phone numbers.  Hell I don't need that stuff.  ;)  I'm just going to wing it and turn around wildly in the middle of the road if I recognize the name on a sign.  If I have time.  And haven't eaten.  You get the picture. 
 
A bit of an advance organizer; we're going to start in Seattle, wander to Victoria, BC, come back to the Seattle area and finish up in Pike Place Market.
 
The very first night I arrived my cousin Mark suggested we hit a burger joint downtown near the University after he picked me and my mother up from the airport.  He said it was walkup, counter only, had a limited menu and was excellent.  I was like, hell yes.  So at ten o'clock at night Pacific time after going to work seventeen hours earlier and sitting through two three-plus hour flights, I was introduced to Dick's:



Mark said that you need to know what you want when you get to the counter, they have a single and a double with or without cheese and any condiments that aren't standard come in these little cups and cost a quarter (or was it a nickel?  I don't remember).  I settled on a single with cheese, add onions, and a chocolate shake.  I watched the assembly of the burgers at the grill from the front window:



Apparently they all get cheese, shredded lettuce and what looks to be tartar sauce (but is listed on the menu separately as pickles and mayonnaise).  The onion was chopped almost to a spread and stuffed in a tiny condiment cup with a lid.   Both the burger and the shake were awfully good and incredibly soothing to my jet lag addled brain.
 
A few of days after that Julie and I wandered up to Victoria, British Columbia.  I had always wanted to visit the Butchart Gardens and I really don't need an excuse to get on a ferry.  We went up via the Anacortes-Sidney ride through the San Juan Islands; unfortunately the day we went was really rainy and overcast so although it would have been the perfect trip for a 'Twilight' fan, we weren't the right audience.  It was a long lovely ride.  We hit Victoria and checked into our hotel and asked the concierge for a couple of lunch recommendations.  He suggested the Sookjai Thai among a couple of other Asian joints and we checked it out.  Unfortunately I can't universally recommend it, but I did snag a picture of their excellent chicken satay appetizer:


Really nice and moist, and between their terrific peanut sauce and the pickled chopped vegetables, I'd have gladly eaten another plate of this than the just-okay entrees we got.  We spent the day walking around and waiting out the rain, and walked to four or five of the dinner-recommended places and checked out their menus before we settled on Il Terrazzo.  Again, an excellent appetizer:



This is a fritto misto of three things: chunks of fried halibut (oh, how I miss the halibut), calamari rings and what I would call shrimp and they would call prawns, with a lovely light cucumber-yogurt dipping sauce.  For an entree we ended up splitting a heavy steak with a fussy sauce that I ordered over Julie's protestations and kicked myself for later on.  However, Julie came up with a genius idea.  After we had chatted with and ingratiated ourselves with our excellent waiter, she asked him where he likes to eat--and I added we were good with dives.  No more of that concierge nonsense.  He made a couple of suggestions, and I'm going to repeat one of them even though we ended up not getting to eat there.  Floyd's Diner (you know I was going there if it killed me).  He said the best chef in Victoria right now is probably working at a place called Zambri's; he makes his own salami, etc. and just knocks it out of the park on a consistent basis.  I'm still sorry we missed Zambri's.
 
Next morning we go for breakfast to Floyd's Diner, I think on Yates and Quadra (http://www.floyds-diner.com/).



The waiter had strongly suggested the varieties of Eggs Benedict, called 'bennies' on their menu.  I settled on the American Idol Bennie, with bacon, brie, pesto, avocado and tomato, served with super-crispy chunky potatoes:



And Julie went for a French toast concoction featuring a couple different kinds of berries and subbing pecans for the almonds, all covered with whipped cream:



OH MY.  Those were good breakfasts.  The hollandaise sauce on my benedict was lemony and fresh and those crispy potatoes, which would usually get shoved around my plate were the perfect sopper-upper for all the hollandaise and yolk and brie goodness.  Julie worked on the mountain of French toasty goodness until she couldn't anymore.  The waiter had described Floyd's as 'kind of a dive' which to me wasn't quite accurate.  It's fun in a hippie diner kind of way, but is actually quite homey and comfortable.  Some shots of the walls, covered in pop culture items and graffiti:





Also excellent waitstaff, very quick and friendly.  I don't mind skipping ahead a bit to tell you I had to go back there for breakfast the next morning, because you can order any of their items all day and I needed to try this:



That's a chicken/bacon/cheddar club sandwich that also has pepper jelly on it.  I would have liked more pepper jelly, or I've just become a pepper jelly snob being from where I'm from or something, but this was still a fine sandwich.  
 
Yes I bought a t-shirt.
 
(to be continued)

Great report so far, Nancy. I'm looking forward to the rest.

Nancy -

Love the photos...looks like a fun trip so far! 

Halibut!

Great report so far, Nancy! I've always wanted to go to Butchart Gardens and tour Victoria. Looking forward to the rest of your trip report!
Teresa

Looking forward to the next installment.

I really miss eating at Dick's late at night down in the U-district. Good cheap eats!

Great report so far, Nancy. I love the photos and that mountainous french toast dish from Floyd's looks like it would drop me in my tracks, but I'd have fun tryin to finish it.

But what really caught my sttention was that Beatles poster in the corner of your Floyd's Superman photo. I had that very poster on my bedroom wall and would kiss each Beatle goodnight every night--till my dad would yell "Stop kissing Beatles!" up the stairs and I'd go to sleep. Lol, what a memory.

@Bill I think that's the one food item we miss the most--we sought out every available opportunity to have that lovely halibut.

@tc then you are gonna like the next part for sure.  :)

@seatown I couldn't tell whether it was just the fatigue or that was a damn fine burger.  I let the hordes of people waiting in line judge for me--damn fine burger.

@Shara you would have loved the rest of the interior--I don't think that was the only Beatles representation.  And it just about did stop Julie in her tracks; she was moaning for a couple hours afterward.

Nancypalooza, Great write-up and pictures.   

I think you could make a trip through McDonalds Drive-thru sound like a once in a lifetime experience

Nancy,
 
Great report and pictures so far.  I too am looking forward to the next part of the report.
 
That French Toast concoction from Floyd's looks really good, as I sit here wishing I had one of them to try.

So after our first breakfast at Floyd's Diner, we went to the tourist information center at the Waterfront to book a whale watching tour, and ended up booking the tour that takes you whale watching for three hours and then deposits you at the Butchart Gardens.  We caught a quick lunch at Sam's Deli near the tourist information center, which was one of the Victoria recommendations here:




Just a ham and cheese sandwich, a cup of pretty good clam chowder, and a butter crunch bar--a sticky pecan-pie-like filling on a shortbready crust.  Very yummy and just right between the two of us given we'd just horsed down those huge breakfasts.  We waited a short while on the pier downtown for our 1pm boat and were soon out in the sound:




The crew on the boat was very knowledgeable and helpful and we enjoyed ourselves immensely.  Even got to watch a very young orca practicing its flips and showing off a bit for good measure.  I was glad that my mother sent us with a new pair of binoculars because it really helped watching the animals, and what magnificent animals.  After three or so stops to watch whales, the boat took off for Butchart.  We had to pass a buoy laden down with these guys:




Maybe they had breakfast at Floyd's Diner too.  We pulled into the Butchart entrance just before 5pm, and I'm just going to give a couple of teasers.  There were certainly more varieties of, and just plain more, dahlias than I've ever seen in my life:




An incredible number and variety of beautiful roses:




But it was the sunken garden, created from a limestone quarry:




that made Julie make the same face her nephew did about the donut from the Farmington Bakery back in May:




We were getting hungry, and the Butchart has I believe three places you can eat, a cafeteria-style place, a snack-bar type place, and a seated dining room.  On a whim we picked the Dining Room:




and upon entering you can see the tea room off to the right:




Now, at this point I'm a little trepidatious because I've been to restaurants connected with high-end museums that were both expensive and really not great (hello, Tate Modern lunchroom in London) and as I knew nothing going in that this would be kind of a crapshoot.  We were seated on the terrace from which point this was my view:




and this was Julie's, where you could see the portion of the sound where we were dropped off:




So at the very least, we had great stuff to look at.  Dinner started with bread accompanied by butter studded with chunks of lavender and orange peel.  I didn't get a picture of it, but let me tell you what, we ate the fool out of that lavender-orange peel butter.  It was awesome.  We ordered off the menu--if you visit Butchart one of your options is to buy a ticket that includes dinner from a limited set of choices.  Don't do that, because I don't think either of the things we ordered were among them.  Julie got a two-chop mini rack of lamb accompanied by shepherd's pie and mini grilled vegetables:




I went straight for the word 'halibut' and ended up with a grilled halibut over a bouillabaisse of clams, scallops and mussels in a delicious tomatoey broth, with plenty of toasty bread for sopping up all that yummy:




Listen, I'm not even going to pretend this counts as Roadfood; this was probably the most expensive meal we had on vacation (about $100 for both of us with Julie having a glass of wine, no dessert) and certainly one of the nicest settings we will probably ever experience, but this was also the best meal we had on vacation.  We absolutely stuffed ourselves silly, and everything was so well done, and it was made doubly delightful by how beautiful everything was and what a wonderful day we'd had.  So I wouldn't automatically recommend a place like the Butchart Dining Room but I really have to.  It's marvelous.

If you are a flower, whale, or scenery dork like I am please feel welcome to check out the rest of my flickr set: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nancypalooza/sets/72157622079477324/

(to be further continued)

Nancy, you do the Pacific Northwest proud!  

Great pictures and I always love your descriptions.

Nancypalooza


No addresses.  No checking for hours.  No phone numbers.  Hell I don't need that stuff.  ;)  I'm just going to wing it and turn around wildly in the middle of the road if I recognize the name on a sign.

I think you should edit this out so that Wanderingjew's head doesn't explode.
 
Cool photos.  I can't remember the last time I ate in a place that uses tablecloths.
 
Brad

Great report so far! I enjoyed the heck out of Buchart Gardens when we did a tour of the Pacific Northwest a few years back, but didn't partake of any food while we were there. Roadfood or not, it's great to have a memorable meal in such a beautiful setting.

@Joe what a lovely compliment--thank you very much!  Thanks to all of you with your nice things to say.

@Brad why do you think I said that anyway?  ;)

Nancy

Dicks brings back many drunken and the few frequent happy memories during my horrific 3 years I lived in Seattle.

Fantastic photos!

The next morning we get up, have the aforementioned chicken club at Floyd's, and make our way over to the downtown Victoria ferry terminal with the intention of getting the 10:45 to Port Angeles.  We got there two hours early like the kid at the tourist information center suggested--no reservation as I hear a couple of you smile in recognition--and find ourselves number 10 in the stand-by lane.  Ooops.  So we basically are parked on the pier for two hours, sweating out the alternatives if we don't make it on this ferry.  We don't have anything terribly pressing but we're supposed to have dinner with my brother's family at 6--in Tacoma.  In hindsight, I'm delighted that this happened, because I got to witness and participate in end-of-ferry Tetris:




In which terribly talented folks direct you to back up and scootch over just a tad more and absolutely pack the ends of these things with every conceivable vehicle that could possibly be squeezed onto it.  They are extremely good at this--even telling Julie when to get out of the car because by the next move she would be unable to.  So praises be, we made the 10:45.  Have I mentioned I love ferries?




I'm embarrassed to tell you we ate at some motel-clearly-once-a-Howard-Johnson's-joint as soon as we got into Port Angeles, and looking back over my stuff there was some burger joint recommended.  We got the least screwable-uppable things (salad and some halibut (!) and chips) and it truthfully wasn't that bad.  But the real reason we were here was to visit Hurricane Ridge in the Olympic National Forest.  The road up had some unique charms:




We saw so many black-tailed deer, so close up--after a while it was like, dude, get out of the road.  But they were quite lovely to watch.  Also lovely was the view from the top, even on a near-overcast day.  




The view toward the top:





We made dinner with my brother's family and wherever he gets Thai takeout in Tacoma, it's awesome.  The next day we had a hot-air balloon ride scheduled that got scrubbed due to weather, so we ended up riding over to Snohomish with my mother for some junk-store fun.  Now my mother is the junker.  I don't have the attention span for it, especially if it's competing with this:




They do some soups and sandwiches for lunch but we were coming in toward the end of their day (around 5) so many of their choices were out for the day.  The menu:




Unfortunately we took a moment too long deciding and the guy in front of us snagged the last slice of strawberry-rhubarb.  Meanwhile I copped a picture of the cookies:




I believe the deluxes are those with the Hershey miniatures on top.  Our selections:




The peach at left and the apple-berry crumb at right, and we split a mug of hot tea.  The apple-berry crumb is slightly better than the peach, but both are good and clearly made of fresh fruit with delicious flaky crusts.   The back of the store overlooks the river with a lumber yard behind it, and a paved riverwalk nearby.

Now we skip forward a couple of days to the day we have to go home.  We decided to hitch an early ride to the airport along with my mother who was leaving early in the morning (our flight left around 6 pm), store our bags and take some kind of public transportation downtown to the Pike Place Market or elsewhere downtown, since we hadn't spent much time in Seattle proper.  When I was leaving the airport after picking Julie up the week before, I'd seen light rail near the airport and I was hoping that would be an option.  

We said our goodbyes to my mother, checked our bags downstairs at the bag-and-cooler storage place, and started trying to figure out the next step with the information booths not open yet.  This involved a lot of squeezing our hands through the metal bars in front of the info booths to grab pamphlets that looked reasonable.  We were able to get general prices for the bus, a cab, etc. and after several misstarts and talking to some helpful folks discovered that the Link station (the new Seattle light rail) was not open at the airport yet, but was really nearby and accessible by a free shuttle bus.  We hopped on the bus (at the bus pickup area) and went to the brand spanking new Link station, where $1.25 will get you all the way to the other end of the line.  The stops:




What is 'SODO' anyway?  The sparkling clean (for now) train:




So all told, the time it took from the door of Sea-Tac to the station two blocks from Pike Place Market was just shy of an hour.

(to be further continued--this is somewhat of a cliffhanger, I understand)

One minute you're talking about PIE, and then you mention a CLIFFhanger, Hmmmmmm?

This is a great report, Nancy. We are doing a number of these very things next month. Our daughter has told us about
Snohomish Pies. 

We want to take the light rail at least a few places, maybe from Pike Place to the ID. Did you take any buses through the tunnels?

Your Victoria pictures make me very envious. The food looks fabulous.

Snohomish!  That is one of my favorite cities.  Then again I liked the "aroma" of the lumber mill while loving the walk through ALL of the "junk" stores.

When I was there last there was a 50sish soda fountain around back.

Wondering if the mill and fountain are still there.

Still loving your pictures!

SODO was originally named to be SOuth of the King DOme but since it isn't there anymore it more loosely translates to SOuth of DOwntown or still south of the stadium district.

@Joe--woh wah waaaah /rimshot  :)

@zataar we didn't do any buses.  If by ID you mean International District there was a rail stop that was very nearby because we discussed taking it over there.  The $1.25 fare was to the end of the line but small trips were running $.75, so I'd definitely try that.  It's just so delightful watching one of those start up.
 
@mar I really liked Snohomish and would gladly traipse back over there again.  There were at least two other places with food I'd like to have tried and only had room for pie, sadly.
 
@seatown thank you!  I knew it had to be something like that.

Okay, last bit.  




Getting to the Pike Place Market around 7 am is a good idea, especially on a Saturday, which I would not fully appreciate until about four hours later when the crowd is so bad you have trouble getting around.  We had a short list of things folks here recommended--a good number of them from The Travelin Man and one strong recommendation in particular from ayersian.  We started at that one, The Crumpet Shop:



The counter where an absolutely delightful staff will take your order:




We settled on ricotta and orange marmalade for me, and Julie got the variation on the maple butter crumpet that also included a schmear of cream cheese and walnuts.  Hot tea for Julie and crazy-good hot chocolate for me:




The counter guy must have had our number right off; he said "I'm gonna cut these in half so you girls don't fight."  Julie said 'oh, it's penuche' when she bit into the maple butter crumpet.  She was very stingy with the sharing, as I recall, and when she was finished she said 'Tell Chris (ayersian) I owe him a beer the next time we see them.'  Which is not to downplay the ricotta/orange marmalade version, but that maple butter one is fantastic.

A crumpet, for those like me who were not quite sure, is like a pancake cooked in a ring on a griddle so it's about an inch thick and maybe five inches across.  We sat up front near the window facing the street, right next to the griddle and this was my best shot of about three tries at a good picture:




He arranges the rings on the griddle, pours batter, discards the cooked crumpets into a big bowl, and goes again with the rings.  The Crumpet Shop is also charmingly accommodating:




And if we'd been to the produce stalls before we got there we probably would have taken advantage of that.  Hey, by the way, the colorful poster behind the sign is for some Wagnerian-style farce having to do with barbecue.  I was intrigued, but not enough to actually remember the name of the production.

We spent some time walking through the flower stalls




goggling at the seafood on display




looking at the interesting signs




and decided to spend the rest of the morning wandering about--we walked down to the pier where the giant cruise ship was docked, and along the waterfront--and hitting various food stops whenever we felt like a bite.  I did not take a picture of the $.70 worth of luscious gold-and-red Rainier cherries we bought for a walking nosh, but they were lovely.  When we started back eating, we could not resist Jack's Fish Spot:




Part of the menu:




I ordered off the other half of the menu, and got fried halibut (and the angels sang) and chips:




From this point on we got wise and started doing splitsies so we'd have more overall room to try things.  We savored these babies because we knew they'd likely be our last Pacific halibut for a while, and those fries were no slouch either.  Eeeexcellent.  Now, while we were seated at the crowded counter waiting for our food, I noticed the name 'Strom' on one of the many signs hanging around and I peered closer to investigate:




So it would seem that Jack is kind of a CNN troubadour, and has penned several original songs in response to news and culture topics of the day.  We located the lyric sheet for 'Weeping Willow,' the song about Strom Thurmond and racism; if you go to the large-size version of this picture at flickr http://farm3.static.flick...37621_8c667c6366_b.jpg you can actually read the lyrics.  Personally I think he's giving Strom more credit than he's due, but it's a lovely sentiment throughout.

Huh, fried fish *and* entertainment.  Was not expecting that.

So we made our way to a few more stops.  Julie always wants to check out the soups and chowders so we stood in line at Pike Place Chowders:




What to choose, what to choose.  We went with the basic clam chowder, and a strawberry lemonade:




You get both french bread and oyster crackers for accompaniment.  The chowder had a very creamy, smooth base and as much clam as potato.  Really delicious.  We walked this off a bit by shopping--Julie bought a necklace--and looking through the produce:




and then we needed sweets!  We hit the Three Girls Bakery, which has a charming wood-and-glass-cabinet paneled stall with a front window and a small counter with seats in back.  Some goodies in the cases:




and sweets:




Our choices:




That's from left an Earl Grey cookie, a chocolate drop, and a macaroon brownie.  They had about four or five brownie variations in the case and Julie wrestled with herself mightily--she loves plain old brownies so much that they really don't need any fanciness for her to be delighted, but she's beset with the idea that she'll miss out on a great variation, so she chose the macaroon and ended up picking out all the macarooniness about halfway through.  These were all quite good--the Earl Grey tasted exactly like the tea, the chocolate drop cookie was a big chunk of fudge in the middle of a not-too-sweet buttery cookie.  With a cup of hot green tea this was a perfect polishing off to a great day.

Let's see, what else.  If I were ten percent more of a rube I'd have happily taken a picture of the six-foot-tall Glamazon fixing her teased updo and makeup in the Macy's ladies room where we stopped before getting back on the train.

We had a lot of wonderful home food this trip too--my mother's oven-roasted ribs.  My brother (the chef!) made me a wonderful crepe with yogurt and strawberries.  My grandmother's shrimp chowder and jello-cream-cheese-pretzel-crust Lutheran church lady congealed salad, and the two jars of cherry-rhubarb jam she pressed into my suitcase after I spent the week decimating the jar she had in the fridge.

We had a lot of fun on this trip.  Thanks for tagging along!

Great report and sounds like a wonderful trip with outstanding food.  Thank you.
I do have to say that I am going to be laughing myself silly over this one for a week...........................My grandmother's jello-cream-cheese-pretzel-crust Lutheran church lady congealed salad!

I do need that recipe

Those would be the ones Bill!  Delicious.

Amazing.  A trip to Seattle and not a single mention of coffee.
 
Tremendous food and sights, Nancy.  Thanks for taking us along!
 
Brad

It is possible to enjoy a place without the primary regional specialty. :)  I did consume a lot of halibut, you see.

Nancy, maybe after you finish your dissertation, you'll consider -- and I may be putting myself out of a job here -- writing for RFDigest.  Your style and tone is hilarious and so you.  I love this report, and I think it's your absolute best so far!    Chris

P.S.  Tell Julie that I'd rather have some Zesto's chicken...