There is just something about the word Brunch that I detest. Part of it is the need to take two words, that are just fine on their own, and smoosh them together to form a new word when either of the old words would have worked just fine. It also strikes me as some pretentious activity taken up by the country club set after a rousing round of golf. I love breakfast, one of my favorite meals of the day really. Lunch is normally my first actual meal of the day, since I tend to sleep in a little later than I should and I end up running out of the house snacking on a piece of dry bread. With those criteria, one would think that I would love brunch. I like the concept, just not the name.

The name normally brings on a big fuss over something that should be very simple. Breakfast should be simple. Pancakes. That is a breakfast. Eggs, potatoes, some sort of fried pork and toast. That is breakfast. Simple, easy breakfast. Brunch is something like this: “Bob’s Red Mill “mighty tasty” hot cereal vanilla-pear compote, Bellwether Farms fromage blanc, crunchy pecans $10”. That is really just freakin oatmeal with cream and nuts, but with the “brunch” tag on it, it is some how now worth TEN DOLLARS. You could buy an entire silo of rolled oats for ten dollars. Yesterday morning I had a four-egg omelet, with cheese and bacon, a side of pancakes, and hash browns for $6.75. Sure, I did not get to eat that in Belltown. There you pay for the view. Like watching a junkie nod off on a bus bench on 3^rd Ave. No, I had that breakfast at Young’s.

Young’s is a family owned dinner on 16^th just north of Roxbury. It is the kind of place that brings you the newspaper after the last guy was done reading it. The waitresses will know your name after you have been in there a couple of times. Omelets are less then eight bucks, and the booths are comfy. They also serve Chinese food, that I have never tried. Own of the daughters told me that when they opened 35 years ago, they just did Chinese food, and some one suggested that they try breakfast. They moved into a bigger spot a few doors down, and thought they would give breakfast a try to pay for the bigger space. Mr. Young did something right, because he is turning out the best breakfast plates in town. Huge. Low on the grease, and simple. Breakfast does not get better than this. Brunch might try. but this is the pinnacle of breakfast.

Young’s 

9413 16th Ave SW
Seattle, WA 98106
(206) 762-3438

Tues-Sat 8 am-5 pm, Sun 8 am-3 pm CLOSED MONDAYS. Cause Monday is starve White Center day.

(Google Street View added Saturday evening – their photo’s from some months back, though)
Ok, so I said it was going to be a Thursday thing. I lied. My camera isn’t working for some reason, and life just got in the way. I did find something new and yummy in White Center though. Queen’s Deli. It is in the space that was taken by Caleza Express, a Filipino lunch counter. Their sign says “Authentic Khmer food desserts appetizers”. I have to be honest, even though Seattle boasts a lot of different asian foods, this is the first that I have come across advertised as Khmer, and I spent the entire lunch with the Dead Kennedys song ‘Holiday in Cambodia’ stuck in my head. This worked well with the TV showing Cambodian pop videos. One featured a cover of “I Will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor, all in Cambodian.

Now, I know the first thing about eating at a different ethnic restaurant is going to be crossing that language barrier. The menu is a bit confusing here, but the women running the counter speak perfect English, and are very patient when helping you with your order. They told me they have been open about a month, and seem to get a brisk lunch trade. I actually skipped the menu and orderd of the steam table, which is set up cafeteria style.

Knowing jack about Khmer food, I am going to say this is very similar to Thai and Vietnameses. I went with the beef Satay and beef stew with bread. The satay was marinated and rubbed in lemon grass, tamarind, and other spices that my western tongue was not identifing. I asked what it was, and the woman told me that it was Lemon grass, and stuff. Like I could even reproduce this on my own even if I had been given the recipe. I would like to. I could of eaten poiunds of it, and making it myself would probably save me from having to leave home ever again. Lean beef with just the perfect amount of spice to highlite the meat, and not over power it. There was just enough char on the meat to caramelize all the taste and really make it pop.

The stew is where it is at though. Just like your mom used to make but completely different. Huge chunks of beef, carrots and onions. Once again lemon grass is a major component here along with chili and plum sauce. When I say chili, I mean flavor and not heat. This is not fire food. No burn, just flavor. It is served with a toasted baguette, so you can soak up all the juices. Unlike the satay skewers, this is not lean cuts of beef. These are fatty, tough chunks of meat that have been braised so long they fall apart in your mouth. Sure beef fat is not something you want to eat at every meal, but in this case it makes everything more tender and flavorful. Even so, this soup does not end up greasy, but maintains its heartiness.

Owning a dessert place myself, this is a little hard to say, but try their desserts. Deep fried little pockets stuffed with coconut and bean paste, and then coated in a fine sugar glaze. Cambodian donuts. I could make myself sick on these things. Before I got them, I watched the cook make them fresh and pour them out onto the steam table. I had two different kinds, and wished I had gotten more.

Once again, like a lot of joints in the area, this place is cheap. I got Beef satay, fried rice, beef soup, a baguette, a cup of jasmine tea, and dessert for $7. I would get in there before they figure out what they got and start raising prices. Even at twice the price I would have left feeling I got a great deal.

Queen’s Deli

9808 14th Ave SW

Seattle, Wa 98106

206-767-8363

CASH ONLY

(just north of Big Al’s)

LOCATION:  El Paisano is located at 9629 -15th Ave. SW, Seattle 98106  They are just off the intersection of 15th Ave. SW and Roxbury (across the street from Bartell Drugs).

Phone:  (206) 767-5526

They accept credit/debit cards.

I really have not been writing enough for this blog. I can blame it on a lot of things; life, my new business, lack of sleep, the snow, etc, etc. Really it is just that I am a little lazy. I have to eat though. Actually I love to eat, and most of the time that I do it is in walking distance of my shop, which is most of White Center. So, I decided to start blogging about my lunches on Thursdays. This is my afternoon off. I go shopping, play with the dogs, and get ready for the weekend rush. Not really a day off, but a bit more relaxed then the other days.

First up is Rosticeria y Cocina El Paisano. I go here a lot. It is not the closest Mexican place. Not even the cheapest. It is one of the best though, and reminds me of home.  Consistently good. I know when they set a plate of food in front of me, no matter what I have ordered, the food is going to be good. That is almost the definition of comfort food.

The area I grew up in LA was predominantly Mexican, and poor. MY parents, and I swear this is true, would open up a paper when it was time for a new apartment, and just pick the cheapest place. We lived in Compton, Silver lake, Echo Park (before it was trendy), Santa Ana, even when we moved to Huntington Beach it was in the Hispanic area that was known as Slater Slums. In all those neighborhoods I became familiar with Rosticerias, even if it was an EL Pollo Loco. See, my parents are from the midwest, and if is anything they know well, it is their way around a yard bird and pork. We ate at all of the local chicken joints. Cesars on Atlantic and 65, Pablo’s on Alameda, Pollo Macho on  Wilshire, even Rosco’s ( which is not Mexican, but makes a mean fried chicken and waffle platter). When I first moved to Seattle, one of the things I missed most was Mexican food. I craved El Pollo Loco,  the bottom of the barrel in LA. Mama’s in Belltown, and Bimbo’s on the hill is crap food. Not just not authentic, just crap food. I was amazed when I found White Center. So much good food, in one little area, and the rest of Seattle had no idea it even existed. Rosticeria y Cocina El Paisano is the best in chicken. It is owned by the butcher shop two doors down. Sure, the carnitas is better at Del Rio. I can get an equal burrito at the bus for less. As far as chicken goes, Paisano is king.

Marinated in an adobe chili mix, and then flame roasted. Crsipy skin, and a juicy bird. The sides are simple, and plentiful. Rice, beans and a simple salad. Shining right next to that crispy bird is the house made salsas. Most Mexican places in Seattle seem to have a can opener as their main tool is salsa prep. Not these guys. I have become leery of Salsa Verde since moving to Seattle, but Paisano’s have nailed it. Flamed roasted tomatillos and just the right amount of chili heat from the peppers to compliment the food. They are now serving Breakfast as well as lunch and dinner, so the next time you venture out to eat, stop by this place.

We at Cafe Rozella like to stock high quality coffee, (which is why we carry Lighthouse Roasters).  Today, however, I had the experience of tasting the most exclusive and most expensive coffee in the world, Kopi Luwak.  Good friend and customer, John Barry, brought some “weasel coffee” by, which he picked up when he trekked in Asia with his son.  When he offered to share some with me, needless to say I was game.  My review below but first a primer on Kopi Luwak.

The Civet whose dung produces the coffee beans

Kopi Luwak is literally the most expensive coffee in the world, costing upwards of $600 a pound or $50 for a cup of coffee.  “Kopi” is the Indonesian word for coffee and “luwak” is local name of the animal which eats the raw red coffee beans that make up this coffee.  The Luwak is rodent, a civet, which eats the ripe red coffee beans and then excretes the beans. The civet dung is then harvested and dried and processed like regular coffee beans.  There are various theories as to why the digestion of the beans by the civet yields such exquisite coffee beans.  One theory holds that the civet only picks beans that are at peak maturity and hence perfect for harvest.  A wiki article explains the process as follows:

A popular and intuitive hypothesis to justify this coffee’s reputation proposes that the beans are of superior quality before they are even ingested. At any given point during a harvest, some coffee berries are not quite ripe or overripe, while others are just right. The palm civet evolved as an omnivore that naturally eats fruit and passes undigested material as a natural link to disperse seeds in a forest ecosystem. Where coffee plants have been introduced into their habitat, civets only forage on the most ripe berries, digest the fleshy outer layer, and later excrete the seeds eventually used for human consumption. Thus, when the fruit is at its peak, the seeds (or beans) within are equally so, with the expectation that this will come through in the taste of a freshly brewed cup. As this may be true for the beans derived from wild-collected civet feces, farm-raised civets are likely fed beans of varying quality and ripeness, so one would expect the taste of farm-raised beans to be less.

Further research by Dr. Massimo Marcone at the University of Guelph (CA) has shown that the digestive juices of the civet actually penetrate the beans and change the proteins, resulting in their unique flavor.

Civet Dung

I am generally not shy about trying exotic foods (heck I live in White Center), so when John offered to let me taste some “weasel coffee” I naturally took him up on his offer.   The fact that the coffee comes from civet dung was of little consequence in my mind.  Hell, most people eat testicles and other parts of the animal that horrify me.

Ok, so is it worth $50 a cup?  Well, I liken it to a very good wine.  Would I drink it every day, no but I might splurge and try it on a special occassion.  That said, the coffee was exquisite.  First, the coffee has a velvety, almost chocolate consistency to it.  It is sweet, not unlike a good red wine varietal.  As well it is very smooth, with no hint of bitterness.  The richness of its flavor affects the whole mouth such that you can hold it and taste with every part of your taste buds.  Very pleasant and smooth.

After it goes down, it has nothing of the jolt quality that a regular cup of espresso would give.  Rather, there is a pleasant buzz, almost like you get from a fine cigar.  All in all, the best cup of coffee I have tasted.  But is it worth $50 for a cup?  Clearly not in desperate economic times.  But, next time I travel to Asia, I’ll make a point of picking up a couple of pounds.   If you would like to taste it, drop me a line and pledge a donation to the White Center Food Bank.  Winner gets a cup of the finest coffee in the world.  Cheers and bottoms up!

The end of the year means “best of” lists are everywhere. P-I food columnist Leslie Kelly has written her “best of the cheap eats” column and it’s full of White Center/West Seattle-area mentions – most notably for WC, Full Tilt Ice Cream. Read the list here.

Orchids and a Christmas tree, side by side near the front window in Pho 54. Have a great Christmas Eve and drive safely!

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.