Archive for July, 2011

Ideas for Date Night #3: The Climb Home Will Do You Good

July 17th, 2011 by Shelley Goulding

We’re pretty much fair-weather runners, so this evening’s summer drizzle saw the planned run around Green Lake morphing into a much shorter jaunt in the other direction – seven blocks north and seven blocks west of 9 Cranes Inn to a fun little strip of restaurants, bars, and a coffee shop that straddles the Phinney Ridge/Ballard neighborhoods.

Tonight’s destination was The Blue Glass, a restaurant/bar that opened last December – one we’d been meaning to try for a while, but we kept getting distracted by the nearby Ridgeback Café, a great place for crepes and other fun bites.

This time we made it to the corner of NW 7th St. and 65th Avenue NW, where a modern yet approachable space welcomed us in shades of blue. We like to sit at the bar so Mike can swap cocktail recipes with the bartender, so belly on up we did and I ordered one of two featured cocktails off of the large chalkboard on the wall. It was rosé Sangria – light and summery. (On a 62-degree July evening, sometimes you have to force the “summery” thing in Seattle.) Mike’s Vesper martini was spot on, he says – better than he makes at home. The secret, apparently, is all in the garnish – a huge knot of lemon twist. We don’t get much beyond olives at home.

Daniel at the bar and Chelsea handling other serving duties contributed to a friendly and informative visit to a cool, relaxed establishment. The music was eclectic, but skewed toward drum & bass, played at just the right volume.

Once again we ordered too much food, but no sacrifice is too great for 9 Cranes Inn blog readers wanting as much info as possible. Penn Cove mussels, billed as a “small plate,” were plentiful and fabulous. Its sauce of Pernod, cream, shaved fennel, and more capers than I’ve ever seen in one place required us to order even more bread than came with the appetizer so we could scoop up every drop.

But we didn’t stop there. Mike’s arrangement of seared salmon and a small sushi selection was fantastic, as were my grilled prawns with pomegranate, serano chile gastrique, and quinoa salad. The latter was quite complex, but I couldn’t name one ingredient that should’ve been left out. Yum.

Desserts such as chocolate bread pudding and some sort of fig tart were tempting, but we were too full to indulge. Besides, we had enough food to work off and only a short uphill climb in which to do it.

Full disclosure: the rain had pretty much stopped by the time we left the restaurant. Okay, It had stopped before we even went to the restaurant, but so what? We convinced ourselves that the walk home up the hill was nearly as much exercise as a run around the much flatter Green Lake path. It sounded good to us anyway.

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Ideas for Date Night #2: Richly Deserved Rewards

July 5th, 2011 by Shelley Goulding

Tonight’s activities were rewarding on so many levels. The cool, clear evening was the perfect backdrop for a little exercise. A little exercise justified a hearty, flavorful dinner out. At least in our minds it did.

It’s just half a mile from 9 Cranes Inn to Seattle’s Green Lake – walk east down the hill from Phinney Avenue North and you’re all warmed up for a run by the time you reach the water. The inner loop – frequented by dog walkers, stroller pushers (watch out for those double-wides), and seemingly everyone in Seattle on sunny days – is 2.8 miles (4.5 km) around the lake. For a lot more elbow room and a softer surface, the outer loop is 3.2 miles (about 5 km). Actually, by going later in the day, both paths are pretty clear, although you do miss the charming rows of turtles sunning themselves on fallen logs in the lake.

Cooling down from the run is somewhat more strenuous than the warm up, seeing as the way back to the inn is uphill. No matter, more calories burned means more calories earned. After a quick shower and pat on the heads for the pooches, we set out to try an Ethiopian restaurant we had recently spotted on Aurora Avenue, incongruously sandwiched between an IHOP and a Starbucks. Normally we tend to avoid strip-mall dining, instead favoring neighborhood places with a bit more, uh, character. But we love Ethiopian food and were eager to see if one so close to our place (okay, about 45 blocks, and yes, we drove) was any good.

It was. It’s name, by the way, is Lucy.

But first, the atmosphere – really different than any other Ethiopian restaurant we’ve visited. Not better or worse – just different. Most of the tables were comfortable booths; the lighting was modern and moody in a good way; the full bar sleek and stylish. The servers were friendly and helpful. In fact, we should’ve listened to ours who told us we were ordering too much food. But we insisted that we wanted all of those different flavors, so she smiled, shrugged, and overfed us.

If you haven’t had Ethiopian cuisine before, here’s the scoop: you scoop your food. Injera, the slightly tangy and spongy bread they serve in abundance, is your utensil. What you’re picking up is usually wet and saucy, be it veggies, lamb, beef, chicken, or fish, the latter which we hadn’t encountered in all of our other Ethiopian dining across the U.S. Yeah, it can get a little messy, and it’s a communal kind of experience, but tasty as all get-out. We like the veggie combo – various lentil concoctions, cabbage, split peas, chickpeas, tomatoes, and spices. So we gorged, noting that each item – though some contained the same base veggie and others looked very similar – had a unique and delicious flavor that we couldn’t stop sampling.

We were too full and not focused on partying to stay at what was turning into a dance club, so we waddled out to the car. Dessert anyone? Simple. We stopped at Safeway and picked up a bag of sweet Washington cherries, which I’m eating as I type. Somehow there’s still room.

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Ideas for Date Night #1: A Walk in Wallingford

July 1st, 2011 by Shelley Goulding

This is the first in an occasional series of date stories, told not just to wax poetic about our fun times, but to suggest things you might want to do while staying at 9 Cranes Inn. We see it as our moral obligation to check out local offerings so we can better guide guests who’d like advice on where to eat, play, shop, and such.

A pleasant downhill stroll from 9 Cranes Inn, the neighborhood of Wallingford beckoned. Not just because it was (finally) a lovely but not quite balmy summer night, but also because we had a Groupon for Smash Wine Bar & Bistro.  The sun was still high enough in the sky to warrant sitting outside, so we ordered cocktails to enjoy while taking in the humanity who had been waiting a long time for such an evening to get out and about. Mike’s cucumber Smashtini was just fruity and sweet enough to be summery, yet not so much as to be girly – very important when you’re a guy with a martini reputation to live up to.  Not one for fruity drinks myself, still, I gambled on the pomer Smashtini – vodka, probably pomegranate, lemon maybe, and something else. Anyway, very red and not overly sweet – fine, as long as you don’t spill it on your white denim jacket (I didn’t).

Food followed: an appetizer of deconstructed crostini – chevre, tomatoes, garlic, olive tapenade and related spreads. Simple, pretty, and utterly delicious. I don’t eat a lot of bread and rarely rave about it, but this snack struck just the right note for yours truly, who needed something prior to the entree so the drink wouldn’t go to her head. Then came paella and sablefish, both of which were tasty and not too huge, portion-wise. I mean really, how much do you need to eat, and are you really going to finish it later if you take it home? A nice wine of something or other – they have many options and are happy to suggest – finished the meal for us tonight, but with desserts like peach rhubarb crisp and bacon doughnuts, we’ll be back soon. Oh, and did I mention the very appealing happy hour offerings?

It was early yet, with plenty of daylight left. So we strolled 45th Street, well populated with a mélange of other restaurants, grocery and a drugstore, movie theatre, and coffee shops. We settled on Chocolati, a local chain with stores in Wallingford, nearby Greenwood, Greenlake, and at the downtown public library. Good choice. Not only are they open until 11 p.m. (Wallingford and Greenwood stores), but also they serve Lighthouse Coffee, roasted just down the street from 9 Cranes Inn at 43rd and Phinney Ave.

You shouldn’t have just coffee at Chocolati, though. As the name implies, it’s quite a bit about the chocolate. Handmade chocolates you can buy by the piece – delight in a tasty morsel without overindulging, or collect samples of many kinds because you can’t pick just one. From absolutely apricot, dark chocolate salted pistachio, to fish n’ chips (yes, a chocolate covered potato chip in the shape of a fish!), you can indulge for as little as fifty cents a bite. We toted our treasures up one story to survey the bustle of 45th street below, and agreed from our perch that it was a perfect end to a perfect date with a favorite person.

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