As I mentioned in my last post, I attended the International Food Bloggers Conference last weekend in Seattle. One of the best things about the conference was, of course, its location. Food lovers flock to Seattle for its abundant local ingredients, its world-renowned chefs and for the sprawling, chaotic Pike Place Market.
The Pike Place Market offers stall after stall of freshly caught seafood, stunning fruits and vegetables — some of which are hard to find outside of the Pacific Northwest — and eye-popping flowers. For a food lover like me, a trip to Pike Place Market means weaving through throngs of tourists to gawk at beautiful, covetable food that I would absolutely, 100% buy…if only I lived here. But when you are in town only for a weekend and staying at a hotel with no refrigerator, it is a kind of exquisite torture to look at, but not be able to buy, these amazing raw materials.
Fortunately for out-of-towners, Pike Place Market also offers a wide variety of restaurants and vendors selling prepared foods. So that even if you are not grocery shopping, the Market is a worthy destination for food lovers looking to have a great meal or snack while they walk and dream about buying those enormous mushrooms, the stunning berries and the menacing crab claws.
Armed with recommendations from friends and fellow conference attendees – and I was fairly confident that my fellow food bloggers would not lead me astray — I skipped out of the conference on two different occasions (bad Emily!) to sample the best that Pike Place Market has to offer. Here are some of the places that I tried that am still craving a week later.
Piroshky Piroshky Bakery: “Have a piroshky for me,” chirped my friend Dora on one of my Seattle Instagram posts. Saturday lunchtime found me standing in line at the Piroshky Piroshky Bakery furtively looking at Yelp reviews on my phone so that I would know what to order when my turn came. Having only recently found out what a piroshky was – think Russian empanada — I was overwhelmed by the choices, both sweet and savory. When the moment of truth arrived, I decided on a smoked salmon pate piroshky and a fresh rhubarb roll.
In an unexpected bit of whimsy, the smoked salmon pate piroshky was shaped like an oversized anchovy. The first bite, from the tail, was almost all dough – a disappointment. But the subsequent bites lived up to the hype. Faintly smoky salmon mousse spiked with dill encased in flaky pastry – there was nothing wrong with that. I polished it off and turned my attention to the rectangular rhubarb roll topped with streusel. As good as the savory piroshky was, nothing had prepared me for this revelation. The doughy exterior coated my hands with powdered sugar as I lifted the roll to my mouth. My teeth met faint resistance from the crunchy streusel before sinking into a pocket of smooth, tart rhubarb. Startled by just how good it was, I looked down at the half-eaten roll in admiration. Then I greedily devoured the rest.
Elleno’s Real Greek Yogurt: To say that Elleno’s serves the best yogurt that I have ever had in no way conveys how delicious this stuff is. It doesn’t even seem to be yogurt. The texture, for one thing, is smoother, creamier and more lush than mere yogurt. It lacks yogurt’s tongue-coating sourness. Elleno’s yogurt is spoonful after spoonful of sweet, pillowy creaminess swirled with luscious flavor. The first day I tried the chai flavor. The second day, marionberry and that was even better than the first. I can’t possibly convey to you in words how astonishingly good this yogurt, as they insist on calling it, is. I don’t even really like yogurt. But Elleno’s served the best thing I ate in Seattle and I told my husband that when he travels to Seattle next month, this should be his first stop. As it should be yours.
The Crumpet Shop: While at IFBC, I shared a room with Heidi, a cool, down-to-earth chef who hails from Victoria, British Columbia where her cooking classes and culinary tours invariably sell out. After hearing Heidi lovingly describe how the The Crumpet Shop fashions its light, airy crumpets from an heirloom sourdough starter, bakes them fresh each day and then toasts the crumpets to order, I was sold.
I stopped at The Crumpet Shop on Sunday morning shortly before leaving town. I wanted to buy some plain crumpets to take home but they wouldn’t sell me (or the woman in line behind me) a six-pack — I’m not sure why. Was it too many people waiting and not enough crumpets? I settled for a crumpet topped with smoked salmon mousse and cucumber slices to eat for lunch. Alas, I didn’t get to try any of the sweet toppings like lemon curd and ricotta. The crumpets themselves are taller than you would expect if your only frame of reference is a typical English muffin. These crumpets are filled with pockets of air that make them light and fluffy – a worthy vessel for imported jam or homemade lemon curd. If your crumpet word association is “tea,” then you are in luck because The Crumpet Shop also offers a tremendous variety of whole leaf teas. I had warm, sunny weather the whole time I was in Seattle, but I imagine that tea and crumpets at The Crumpet Shop would be the perfect antidote to that infamous Seattle rain.
Mee Sum Pastry: If you want to fill your belly on the cheap while ogling high-priced truffles and crustaceans, then stop in at Mee Sum Pastry, directly across the street from Pike Place Market and plunk down $3 for a BBQ pork Hom Bow. Bite into the slightly sweet, doughy exterior — it’s almost like Asian Wonder Bread — and wait for that jolt of hot, honeyed barbecue pork to hit you. By the time you have finished the bun, you will be stuffed. At least for the next few minutes. And then, you will be off in search of your next delicious bite.
Do you have a favorite place to eat at Pike Place Market?
