Bite of Seattle

As I mentioned in my previous post, summer is for food festivals! This weekend, I took the bus to Seattle to experience this year's Bite of Seattle. Over the past couple of years, I've attended summer food festivals in Vancouver, Toronto and now, Seattle. I would say that among all these food festivals, the Bite of Seattle is by far the best. It doesn't have Asian food as good as the Richmond Night Market, but then again, I have always believed that no other place in North America can beat Asian food in Richmond. It also doesn't have Greek food as good as the Taste of Danforth in Toronto, nor does it have the neon colored ice slushies I had at the Taste of Lawrence (again, in Toronto). Compared to all these other food festivals, however, the Bite of Seattle is bigger than any of them, gets high marks for fun factor and has the best venue! It didn't focus on one type of cuisine, nor did it just focus on popular chefs in the area (like the One City, One Table event in Toronto). There were carnival food, desserts, Mexican food, Cajun, Thai, Chinese, heck, even the Philippines was represented. They also had separate food events catering to different tastes. They had a courtyard for wine tasting, a beer garden, and the reason I was there in the first place, the Alley.

The Alley is hosted by Tom Douglas and benefits food lifeline. Each plate costs 10 dollars and will be filled with samples from a variety of restaurants in the city. Different restaurants participate everyday this weekend. I went on Saturday and Palace Kitchen (one of Tom Douglas's restaurants), Al Boccalino, Seastar, Divine, Salty's, Daily Grill and Anita's Crepes were on the menu.

Clockwise: My plate consisted of a hand-carved steak sandwich served with BBQ sauce; grilled scallops, shrimp and smoked clams served over a house mixed Virgin Mary mix; Lemon and Sugar crepes; a cold soup with oven-roasted beets, balsalmic vinegar, orange juice scented with thyme; Dungeness crab and Berkshire pork sausage with charred corn and mint; a Tiropita, which is a triangular folder fillo cheese bites topped with pear relish; and Grilled and Chilled white shrimp with tropical cocktail sauce at the center. Everything was good, despite the cheese on my Tiropita hardening because I didn't eat it soon enough. My friend A wasn't too impressed with the cold soup from Al Boccalino, but I thought it was refreshing and had a good mix of flavors. And although I am a big fan of Tom Douglas (Serious Pie is one of my favorite restaurants in Seattle), the sausage from Palace Kitchen took second place over the grilled mixed seafood from Salty's in my rating chart.

The Bite of Seattle was held at the Seattle Center. And on a clear sunny day like yesterday, the Seattle Center is absolutely beautiful, with the Space Needle towering over us and the sun reflecting from the pink and blue and white facade of the EMP right beside it. I've also just discovered that there is a dome fountain near the Space Needle and had to stop myself from rushing towards the water, splashing along with the other kids.

That's the Bite of Seattle for you. For those who missed it, there is always next year!

Bite of Seattle
Seattle Center, WA
July 16-18, 2010
Fri-Sat: 11am - 9pm
Sun: 11am - 8pm