Joule

I think I have finally found a restaurant in Seattle that serves very good value for your money. Owned by a husband-and-wife duo, one of which competed in Iron Chef America, Joule is a Korean-French-American restaurant that combines flavors of our native Northwest and flavors abroad.

We went early on a Tuesday evening. There wasn't a lot of people in the restaurant, which made the atmosphere a lot more peaceful and relaxing. From our table, we could see the chefs busy preparing our food.

Although there were a lot of items on the menu that we wanted to try ala carte, the family dinner was also very hard to resist. At 35$ per person for 7 courses, not to mention 2 desserts within those 7, we just had to go with this option! And I'm glad we did.

Our first course was a salad that had peas I could eat a whole bowl of because they are so sweet, crunchy and very refreshing. It also came with arugula and turnip. The dressing on this salad is very simple and tasted like some sort of vinaigrette. It helped keep the flavors of the vegetables intact.

The second dish was probably my favorite entree, though I don't think B would say the same. This is pork belly with pickled onions and black beans. The pork belly was crispy and very rich because of all the fat, but it was so delicious it reminds me of roast pork from Master BBQ in Vancouver.

I was blown away by the next dish. It was an interesting combination of pasta and chinese sausage that worked really well. Who would have thought that you can mix in chinese sausage with your pasta? It also came in a very light and flavorful cream sauce, nothing like I've ever tasted. It tasted like there was something Asian about it, but also tasted very much Italian.

The last of our entrees was a huge piece of sockeye salmon with its skin grilled to perfection. It was a bit too big for me because I grew tired of eating it after a while, maybe because my stomach was already full from the first few dishes. Nonetheless, it was enjoyable.

The salmon came with some chinese broccoli garnished with candied walnuts and lemon zest. It had a bitter taste to it that I didn't quite like. What I did like though was how it was cooked. The leaves were crisp and fell apart after a bite. It was like the vegetable was deep fried.

Finally, dessert came! The first of two was fresh mangoes with mint yogurt and black rice puffs. The black rice puff was very interesting. It was like rice crispies, but made from black rice. It was very crunchy and went well with the sour taste of the mint yogurt. I kept saying that Joule should win best original dessert on our list because I really liked how this dessert was presented.

Although I enjoyed the first dessert more, this one wasn't too bad either. It is a thin slice of banana cake that tasted like it had some caramel mixed into it. As you can see chocolate syrup was drizzled all over it and it was sprinkled with some kind of candied nut that we couldn't quite describe. If I remember correctly, the ice cream on top was almond gelato.

Overall, this meal is rated very high on my list, simply because for 35$, I felt like I got my money's worth! I would definitely plan another visit to Joule in order to try the other entrees and desserts.

Joule
1913 N. 45th Street
Seattle, WA
206-632-1913