Yesterday, I took the day off work so that I could participate in one of my holiday traditions, a full day of shopping, eating, and Christmas dinner planning with my mom and sister. Before dropping me off at my mom’s in the morning, Robert wanted to swing by Group 2 Motorsports to bring some doughnuts to the guys, one of his own holiday traditions. We stopped by Top Pot Doughnuts and I picked out a dozen for the guys and ordered two unglazed old-fashioneds for Robert and myself. Top Pot is the best doughnut shop ever. They started out in a small shop in my neighborhood, Capitol Hill, and now have a few locations in Seattle, each with it’s own unique atmosphere. I couldn’t wait so I immediately wolfed down my doughnut in the car on the way to the auto shop. It was sweet and crispy and would have gone wonderfully with some coffee if I had been smart enough to order some. Then, while Robert ate doughnuts and discussed new wheels for his car with the guys, I perused the old alfa romeos sprinkled throughout the garage.
After that, it was off to Ballard with the gals for shopping and lunch. Ballard is this really cool neighborhood just outside of Seattle with lots of artists, funky shops, great restaurants, old buildings and a large Scandinavian population. We are planning a Scandinavian dinner for Christmas this year so, of course, we had to check out Ballard’s various Scandinavian delis. For lunch, we went to La Carta de Oaxaca, a hugely popular restaurant that serves authentic Oaxacan dishes. It has a really stylish atmosphere with long, wooden tables (some are communal, an emerging trend here in Seattle) and tons of framed black and white photos of Mexico covering every square inch of the walls. The menu has about 15 choices, all small plates that are great for sharing. We started with warm chips and guacamole and chose 3 different salsas from the salsa bar. Then, we split the tostada de camarones (lime-marinated prawns and avocado on top of a freshly fried corn tortilla), mushroom empanada (spiced mushrooms grilled in a flour tortilla), and the enchilada with red sauce, Oaxaqueno cheese and a fried egg. Everything was very fresh, not too cheesy and very well executed. And, since we had gone for lunch, we didn’t have to deal with the hour-long wait that plagues the dinner crowd.
It was a long day of shopping and trying to figure out just what the heck that is in those jars at the Scandinavian delis so, for dinner, Robert and I decided to take it easy and stay very close to home. We did, however, try a new place in our neighborhood. A couple of blocks from our home is one of those haunted locations where a new restaurant is popping up every six months or so only to close down a couple of months later. Right now, it is a restaurant called Cypress. The menu features casual Mediterranean food and actually has really reasonable prices. Robert had the lamb burger with Greek fries which he enjoyed. I always have to be more complicated so I ordered the calamari appetizer as my main course, a fattoush salad and a glass of retsina. The retsina was a different brand than the one I am used to and it had a much tamer pine flavor. It was more like a very lemony wine. The calamari dish was actually pretty good - calamari sauteed with chickpeas and sundried tomatoes served on top of seared spinach. The fattoush salad could have been better. It had all of the proper ingredients - romaine, cucumber, tomato, scallions, mint and pita croutons - but there were very few pieces of pita in mine and, those that were present, were slimy and chewy rather than crisp. Also, for some reason, it was really hard to eat. It was as if the vegetables were chopped in such a way as to make them both unscoopable and unpierceable. Overall, the food was OK and worth the price but, they may need to make a few improvements if they want to last longer than their predecessors. I will be going back, though, because the polenta fries that are offered with their sandwiches sound quite intriguing.