Tilth

If my cousin K were here for her long-promised visit, I would have taken her to Tilth, but since she isn't here, I went anyway. Tilth is located in Wallingford, an upbeat neighborhood in Seattle that always cries out to me as a cool place to hang out in . It features New American cuisine and only serves organic. The chef and owner is Maria Hines, winner of the 2009 James Beard award for best chef in the Northwest. After having tasted her cooking, I know that this award is well deserved.

I went for the grand tasting menu, an eight course meal that starts with soup and appetizer, followed by seafood, meat and finally, dessert. Before everything, we were given an amuse bouche of chilled onion soup and salmon on cracker. Unfortunately, I totally forgot to take a picture of this as I was too eager to eat. I took a picture of the bread though. I was disappointed that the bread wasn't anything special. It was just plain cold sour dough served with a cube of unsalted or lightly salted butter.

The first course was Chilled Billy's Gardens tomato soup. It was served on a wide bowl and poured over a tiny grilled cheese sandwich. B was right. The grilled cheese sadnwich should have been bigger because it was the best part of the dish. The tomato soup wasn't too bad either. I say this even if I don't like tomatoes. The tomato was sweet and blended very well with the basil puree that came with the soup. It was such a wonderful mix of  different flavors that I yelled out "this is better than Cafe Juanita!" without even thinking. As for whether or not that statement is true, continue reading to the end of this blog post.

The second dish was supposed to be a white corn flan according to the menu, but we were served a plate of figs, almonds and yogurt cheese instead. Come to think of it, this restaurant has a knack for serving food I don't really like. I'm not really a fan of figs. When this dish came, I had no choice but to enjoy it as much as I can. The black figs were great - firm and not too sweet. The white figs, on the other hand, I didn't quite warm up to. The almonds were the crunchiest almonds I have ever had and they seemed to have been coated with sugar or honey which is a nice touch. And of course, nothing could go wrong with cheese.

Next came the Oxbow Farm Potato Gnocchi. I love gnocchi, but some restaurants don't do it right that I sometimes hesitate to order it whenever I spot it on the menu. Tilth perfected gnocchi and made it special. The potato dumplings were tinier than what I'm used to. It was flavored with a drizzle of what tasted like lemon vinaigrette and mixed with chopped pieces of chanterelle.

At this point, I was already starting to feel full, but told myself that I haven't even had main course yet, so I pressed on. We had two seafood dishes in this tasting menu. One of them is the pan seared wild alaskan halibut. The other one is Pete Knutson's Wild Sockeye Salmon. The halibut was just average. It was too tough to my liking. The salmon was probably one of my favorite dishes of the evening. It was so uniquely prepared. The tapioca that came with it made the dish so memorable. I've only ever had tapioca in my dessert that I didn't expect it to be so good on a main course too.

If Tilth didn't have red meat on its menu, it wouldn't have rated well on my list. Good thing the menu includes the grilled eel river ranch sirloin, also B's favorite dish. Looking at the menu now, I was surprised I didn't notice the fried green tomato. There was something fried that accompanied the sirloin, but it tasted more like fried potato than tomato. The meat was nicely stack on a bed of cheesy grits. I know cheese is the keyword here, and I expected it to be good, but I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought. 

We were served next with a huge slice of Cowgirl Creamery Mt. Tam cheese, truffle honey and crackers. Now this type of cheese I really like and it was a good thing there was more than enough to enjoy. The crackers were just ordinary and weren't enough to accompany the cheese.

And finally, almost three hours since we arrived at the restaurant, dessert came. I tend to rate restaurants based on the dessert. At this, Tilth didn't rate high, though I could be biased because I am not a fan of bacon to begin with and the server did warn me that we were getting bacon for dessert. Yup, we indeed had bacon for dessert. It was more like candied bacon than typical breakfast bacon and it would have been good if it didn't taste so burnt. It was placed on top of a small dish of creme brulee - which is really only comparable to the other creme brulees I've tasted. BQuan could probably already make this in his red kitchen. 

So, to me, the meal started well, but ended not so well. Tilth could improve a lot on their dessert, but the starters are already almost perfect. I say 'almost' because I'd like to think that I haven't had 'perfect' yet. And after three days of thinking and comparing, I've decided that no, Tilth isn't better than Cafe Juanita. I would give it a 4 out of 5.

Tilth

1411 North 45th Street,

Seattle, WA

206-633-0801