This tip comes from the busy forums at our partner site West Seattle Blog – White Center Now‘s own FullTilt gets a nod in Seattle Metropolitan Magazine‘s “Best Restaurants” feature, for the increasingly famous ice cream, which forum participants were busily praising. Way to go!

WCN’s FullTilt broke the news here when Be’s opened in White Center a while back. First comprehensive review I’ve seen is this one just posted by Tara.

Ok, so I promised sometime back to do a rundown of all the great places where you can get a Vietnamese Sandwich, which, next to Ramen, is the poor student’s sustenance.  There are as many Vietnamese Sandwich shops, as there are Pho shops and Asian markets, in White Center – which is to say alot.  So, rather than run down the list, I will share my personal favorite.  For my money, the tastiest Vietnamese Sandwich is, without hesitation, served at Banh 88.  The meat is always excellent, the dressings are fresh and the bread is always toasty fresh.  Load up some Vietnamese garlic hot sauce and you have a piece of heaven for a mere $2.75.  My personal favorite is the barbeque pork sandwich but all the sandwiches, including chicken, beef and vegetarian fare are excellent.  Nikki, the amiable proprietor, is an excellent cook and demands nothing less of her staff.  I have never been disappointed with any meal from Banh 88.  

I must add that besides the Vietnamese Sandwiches, Banh 88 does a full array of great Vietnamese salads, curries and noodle dishes.  This is the place to go with a crowd of people and try everything on the menu.  The curry dishes are likely the best in Seattle.  You can find Banh 88 at 9418 Delridge Way SW (98106), phone 206.768.9767, it is located just south of where Delridge and 17th Ave. SW diverge.  Hours are 11 am to 8:00 p.m.

That said, I invite cognerati to comment on their favorite White Center Sandwich Shop.  

From the county’s Food Establishment Closures list:

*Pho Thu Thuy* restaurant located at 9627 15th Ave SW … was closed by a Public Health food inspector on Sept. 8, 2008, 2:00 pm due to the imminent health hazard of no hot water available for handwashing. The establishment will be reopened by the inspector once confirmed that hot water has been restored.

We’ll let you know when there’s word of that confirmation and the restaurant reopening. TUESDAY AFTERNOON UPDATE: It’s reopened.

We are having the Paper Dolls, and Tom Matchett. It is going to be a good show. Tom is from London, and this is his only show in the NW.

http://www.myspace.com/tommatchett

http://www.myspace.com/therealpaperdolls

Also, we got a nice writeup in the PI. Comes out in the morning’s paper. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/food/377762_eat05.html

A group of very charming young people just came by the Cafe.  Their English was halting so I spoke to them in Spanish, to which they were thrilled.  They also loved our poetry wall with its emphasis on Pablo Neruda.  Turns out they are dancers from Argentina and are here to perform traditional Tango.  (As readers may know the Tango originated in Argentina.)  They will be performing in late September.   Please check here for more details.

Most people are not aware that we sit near a small store-front mosque.  Everyday, you can see Muslims from the Horn of Africa make their way to the mosque for prayers.  They are a very handsome people and carry themselves with regal bearing.  I find it fascinating that they have travelled so very far away to wind up in chilly Seattle (the Switzerland of America).  I am still waiting for the day, soon to arrive, when we can enjoy fresh falafel sandwiches in White Center.

If White Center is any indication, Seattle continues to be a draw for people from other parts of the country — especially the midwest.  The greatest number come from Michigan followed by the Chicago area and Minnesota.  Then there’s the couple from the Yukon (I know that’s Canada).

Just finalized plans for an exhibition and sale of Oaxacan rugs.  The rugs are made by a women’s collective in Oaxaca, Mexico.  Oaxaca is heavily indigenous and the rugs will bring that imprimatur.  We will likely have music to go along with the exhibition.  That should happen on September 24th of 25th.   Click here for more details.

Charanga Danzon will provide the music this Friday at the Cafe.  Charanga Danzon plays traditional Cuban music and is comprised of some excellent musicians.  Should be a fun performance.

Click To Play

(video from today’s WCCDA open house added @ 4:45 pm)
The White Center Community Development Association is holding its open house today, Thursday 8/28/2008, from 11:00 am to 4:00 p.m. Check out the CDA’s new facilities and the great new members of the CDA team. Free BBQ and drinks! The CDA is locatedat 1615 SW Cambridge St., (corner with Delridge Way SW), Seattle 98106. You can phone them at (206) 694-8344. Stop by, chow down and say hi to the great CDA folks!

It took me a while to actually stop into this place. I had been to the Be’s Diner in West Seattle years before, and I kind of knew what to expect, but running an ice cream shop has left little time in my day to go out and eat.

So this morning I gave it a try. The place is huge, bright and clean. I never went in when it was Doc’s or Entourage, but the new owner told me she had to do some remodeling and a lot of cleaning. The food is great. Nothing fancy, and who needs fancy from a diner. I had pancakes and eggs, a giant plate of food for $4. You can not beat that. The pancakes were perfect, and the eggs grease free.

They have a large menu, and are doing breakfast, lunch and dinner. This is just what White Center needed. They have been open a week today, so go check it out.

Be’s just opened on 16th in the old Entourage space. It is the same folks who have the Be’s on California. I will post some pics and a review soon.

Now you can say you’ve seen a 200-pound halibut. Posing with it, Seattle-based fisherman Bill Curtin, husband of Village Green Perennial Nursery proprietor Vera Johnson. He’s back home from fishing in Alaska, and Village Green is selling some of the catch – plus inviting you to a halibut barbecue next month. They’re also selling red snapper (rockfish) – we stopped by for some today and followed Bill down to the basement freezer:

More of the story, just ahead: Read the rest of this entry »

Have you heard about the King County Food and Fitness Initiative? It’s a ten-year program, and White Center is one of the focus communities, along with the neighboring Delridge area in West Seattle. As part of KCFFI, volunteers have surveyed area grocery-store pricing and food availability — and today we have the results of the most recent findings, which include White Center supermarkets as well as others from West Seattle to Burien: Read the rest of this entry »

I miss Lou’s burgers. There, I admit it, I was addicted to their greasy little packets of nutrition. These were not the picture perfect chemical concoctions that passes for sustanance under the rubric of corporate fast food. Sure, White Center now has some genuine burgers. I’m thinking of the cheeseburger and onion ring platter at the Triangle Pub. And not too far away is Zippy’s, where they grind their own chuck. Lou’s satisfied a different need, that primal urge for grease. After consuming a Lou’s burger you knew that you would survive another winter. Plus they had these tasty things that were made from pods that they pull out of the ground in Eastern Washington. I think they call them potatoes. Yup, those were good little burgers.

If you didn’t see it in the left sidebar’s MORE LOCAL NEWS area (other sites’ White Center mentions) – check out this article declaring Thai Thai a “Dining Deal.”

By Kyla Woodall, New Start student

Over the course of six weeks, my classmates and I worked together to learn about the world around us. We discovered all about invasive plant life and how they affect our community. We broadened our minds in learning about new ways to help our environment by composting, recycling, and picking up the garbage that litters the streets. Even during the summer Samantha Rost came up to Ann Magyar (a teacher at New Start) and said “You know I am almost annoyed with you because now that I learned about native and invasive plants I really see them everywhere”, It was an engaging experience that helped us to develop an interest for improving our community. I feel that by attending this program, we have become more aware of our surroundings and how we make an impact on our global community and the future for our children and our children’s children.

This all started when Mark Farrell, a King County Education Employment Specialist and New Start partner, received a grant from the King County Natural Resource Stewardship Network with funds from The King Conservation District, the Forest Service and King County. As a class, we identified the invasive plants in Salmon Creek Park and removed them. Besides removing the invasive plants, we also did a lot of our own planting in our school’s raised bed planters. Soon New Start and its neighbors will have a crop of tomatoes, bush beans, turnips, beets, and other produce. Throughout the program we worked with people whose careers focus on the environment. People who came to see our final presentation stated, “In the beginning it looked as if it would take five years to finish what you guys accomplished in 6 weeks.” I feel that we really did quality work. We did everything by hand; it was very hard but rewarding at the same time.

Also in the class, we learned about this wonderful thing called compost. Before the program many of us had no prior knowledge as to what compost was, and after completing the program, we were all motivated to have our own compost at home. It was satisfying knowing that we could help to improve our environment just by separating our garbage. We did our part by reusing plastic bottles to drink water from, and when we were down at Salmon Creek Park we looked for trash to separate and recycle.

Some of us are going to return this summer and help build the native plant nursery, to help benefit the community even more than we already have. The New Start nursery will be part of the classes, and the plants will be transplanted to Salmon Creek Park. The students are also going to be doing a composting program on the school campus.

This program has really helped to shape us as individuals, as well as team members. It was a very engaging and worthwhile course that opened our eyes to new experiences and different ways that we could help our community, in more ways that we ever thought possible.

So I went down and tried Al’s beers when everything was quiet. At the moment he has two offerings, an Irish Red, and an Abbey Wheat. Both are non-traditional styles, and it is nice to see something different from a Northwest brewer.

The Abbey Wheat; This is not a pale ale. I think it is awesome that someone is brewing something a little different. Personally, I love Abbey beers and I found this one very light and drinkable. By that I mean I could see drinking a lot of them on a hot day.

The Irish Red; I don’t know a lot about this style. It is very malty and seems more like a brown ale to me, but the only other Irish Red that I have had was a crappy Busch version of the style, and the only thing red about that was the label. Al’s beer is big but not over powering. That is a hard line to walk and he seems to have done it just fine.

The outside is pretty much the same as the old Pac Rim. Not that it’s a bad thing. I loved the Rim, and missed having a patio that I drink on. Inside, it is still a little sparse, but I am sure that will change. The lovely wine accent paper is gone. I wished I could have salvaged it before it went into the dumpster.

So all in all I give Big Al a big Thumbs up. He is having his first tap night at Beveridge Place in West Seattle tonight. Go down and ask him when he is going to make an IPA.

Beveridge Place Pub – Brewer’s Night

big al and the crew will be at Beveridge starting at 7 pm tonight, 8/14/2008. This is Big Al Brewing’s first event outside the brewery, and we couldn’t be more excited. We’ll have both of our beers on tap and there will be raffles for big al give aways.

Location : Beveridge Place Pub map
When : 7 pm until Big Al can’t take any more!

In reply to some of the comments regarding my post on the search for the Great Burrito, here is my reply.  Sam, as far as Vegetarian fare goes, almost all Mexican restaurants usually have some nice dishes that fully fill the nutrition bill.  Guaymas has some excellent veggie dishes and also serves whole black beans so that would be my first choice for Veggie food, although you will find some good tortas at La Fondita (taco trailer).   I agree that some of the other restaurants have excellent food as well but I was really interested in the “grab & go” variety.  Given that the burrito is perfect for this purpose, and that I love them, I focussed on them but there are other Latin American restaurants that serve great fare, most prominently  the Salvadorean Bakery. No disrespect meant for those not mentioned.

In my next search I will explore the Vietnamese cousin of the burrito:  the Vietnamese Sandwich (that which feeds those of us with quarters snatched from the sofa cushions).   I invite your observations on the best Vietnamese Sandwich in WC.   Let the games begin!

If there’s anything that I am an expert on it is burritos: the kind of Tex-Mex hearty burritos that come wrapped in white flour tortillas and do not have the pretense of yuppie “wraps.” Hell, I was eating burritos when I was a baby. My mom would dump a cheese & bean burrito into the blender and then feed it to me with a side of jalapeños. Later I was inaugurated to tripe and brain barbacoa burritos. So I know of what I speaketh.

We in White Center are blessed with a bounty of Mexican and Latin American restaurants. Way back in time when White Center actually lived up to its reputation as Rat City I discovered Taqueria Guaymas on the corner of 17^th and Roxbury. Guaymas serves mission-style burritos which, strictly speaking are not actually a Mexican product. Mission-style burritos originated with California’s Chicano community. These burritos are defined by their hefty girth and the prodigious helping of rice and beans. In this regard, Guaymas makes the best mission style burrito around, Spanish rice, whole beans and your choice of fillings. Guaymas has locations in more upscale neighborhoods but the original one is still the best, especially when it comes to authentic meats.

At the other end of the spectrum is the taco trailer between 15^th and 16^th Avenue SW, otherwise known as Taqueria La Fondita. The burritos here leave good grease stain on your plate and hefty piece of lead in your belly. In other words, this is the real deal, Tex-Mex burritos as I recall them. Unlike mission-style burritos, these are not as packed with carbs but what they lack in grains they make up in flavor. You can taste this morning’s huevos rancheros in the grease they use to fry the carnes for your burrito. This is the stuff you eat when you need to cure a Tequila hangover. The salsa they use is nothing to write home about, but the side of grilled carrots and jalapeños is excellent.

More recently El Paisano, WC’s great Mexican butcher shop, has opened a restaurant by the same name close to the intersection of 15^th and Roxbury. The meats used are excellent and include my favorite barbacoa de chivo (goat meat barbeque). These burritos are more authentically Mexican. The red meats are succulent and leave no doubt that these were made with a very fine grade of meat. The roasted chickens are coated in a red adobo sauce that permeates the chicken with a subtle spicy flavor. The red salsa is excellent and is strongly recommended.

If you want to explore there are more Mexican and Latin American restaurants in White Center. I did not review these others, because they are somewhat outside of my orbit and are more in the nature of sit-down restaurants; these include Restaurante Del Rio and Viva Mexico (both on 17^th Ave. SW). In any event, it’s hard to go wrong when it comes to burritos at WC.

George White, the eponymous co-founder of White Center, could not have known that, in so founding this neighborhood, he was displaying an ironic sense of humor. White Center certainly has its share of white residents but what most likely defines it, in most peoples’ minds, is its amazing diversity. There are literally people from every continent who have as their primary tounge, the language of their native land. Alongside English you will find people who speak: Vietnamese, Spanish, Tagalog, Russian, Chinese, Japanese along with a couple dozen other languages. This rich diversity of cultures is welcomed by most and disdained by some. As some long-time residents of West Seattle said to me recently, “we live in West Seattle not in spite of White Center but because of White Center.”

I myself love the infusion of life that immigrants bring to White Center. You would have to travel many, many miles in most Seattle neighborhoods to find the rich diversity of food that you will find in the few blocks that make up this wonderful neighborhood. From papayas, prickly pair apples, mangos to rambutan (chon chon), durian (sau rieng), and sapodilla, you will find fruits and vegetables literally from every corner of the world. The same goes for chicharones, goat meat, brain tacos to Ca cuon fish rolls, Chao tome prawn paste, and mam salted catfish, snakehead and mackerels along with the necessary condiments, you will find them all in White Center. So next time your Greenwood friends start ragging on White Center, invite them over to an international dinner befitting a world traveler.

The big event this weekend is the

Pasefika Annual Festival

White Center Heights Elementary School

10015 6th Ave. S.W.

10 am until 5pm

Pasefika’s 5th Annual Festival. There will be performances by various Pacific Island groups. Also there will be drawings for gifts donated by vendors, sponsors and community partners, as well as food booths. Free admission.

Full Tilt is having Rat City Ruckus on Friday at 9pm http://www.myspace.com/ratcityruckus

and our first art opening with Chris Hunter Saturday at 8pm http://www.myspace.com/alkigypsy

If you have any events, news, or concerns, drop us an email at whitecenternow@gmail.com