BigMal's World

Restaurant Week Shenanigans

October 24, 2012 by Mal·1 Comment

Well Restaurant Week is drawing to a close tomorrow night, it is probably a good thing for my waist line. I held back from indulging a to much but I still had some good opportunities to get out and try some amazing food at some of the best restaurants in town. For those who aren’t familiar with what Restaurant week is, it is essentially where all the top restaurants in a City (its not only in Seattle but many other cities like Chicago, New York, Miami, San Francisco) all come together and for a short period (in Seattles case 2 weeks) offer 3 course menus for Lunch or Dinner for a heavily reduced cost ($28 for dinner, $15 for lunch).

Now this concept just would not fly down in Australia, I have a feeling no one would get behind it. But it is a great concept and I love it! I am still a foodie at heart. I love to get out, experience new foods, new tastes, new restaurants but it also gives me a chance to do it on the cheap. The biggest bargain is always the lunch menus as they give some fantastic bargain lunches but that never works as its only ever run Sunday through Thursday (Friday and Saturday are excluded for obvious reasons).

Well this year I decided to hit up 3 places, and I had a good excuse with Ross visiting. The three places I ended up visiting were “Seastar Raw” in Bellevue, Steelhead Diner in Seattle and of course Preservation Kitchen in Bothell. The main one i wanted to try was Preservation Kitchen, it’s just down the road from me in Bothell, has a fantastic reputation as well. But they were pretty heavily booked (as expected when this lists and dates come out, the good places get booked solid pretty quickly), so I couldn’t go when Ross was here and instead had to book it for another night. Because of this Ross and I decided to go to Seastar during the first week as the menu was good, it was convienient to work (just across the street) and they had space (I wanted to try the Barking Frog in Woodinville but sadly it was booked out as well!). The last one was Steelhead, one of my favourite places in Seattle and gave me a good excuse to shout Ross to one final hurrah before he flew home. So here are the mini reviews with at least one photo from each.

Seastar Restaurant & Raw Bar Belleve – Menu Link

Fantastic sort of out of the way restaurant that you wouldnt even notice it was there as its surrounded by a Microsoft Building, Expedia, a Bank and just general looking office blocks. Yet it has this upmarket fine dining feel to it. Went here on a Wednesday night and although we couldnt be seated early they were pumping through the tables. The service was ok, a little bit rushed (as you sometimes get during Restaurant week where they try to turn out as many tables as they can. The food was damn good. I went with the Spicy Ahi Tuna Sushi Roll as I was desperate for some sushi lately, and followed it up with the Steelhead for the Entree (main for those aussies). The tuna was great and fresh and tasty and the Steelhead was just to die for. The pesto mash was ok but the fish was just amazing. The kicker of the meal though was this:

From Ross Comes to Visit

That is a White Chocolate Coconut Creme Pie. It was TO DIE FOR. I could of eaten a dozen of them and wanted more they were that good. I will come back to this place just for that dessert.

Steelhead Diner – Menu Link

This is still one of my favourites in Seattle, and it never fails to deliver. They are located right in the middle of downtown Seattle, pretty much in Pikes Place Market (right next to Post Alley actually). If you can see the Famous Seattles Best Coffee cup sign, turn around you will probably be standing right outside Steelhead. The food is a tribute to old school diner but with a modern twist and using mainly local ingrediants. Just what you would expect in the market area. Service was great and in the end, our waiter got a nice sized tip. It was a cold evening so went with the Soup and figured it would be a good start to the meal. The two hits of evening was something I was looking forward to. First up was the main. Steelhead never fails to deliver on tasty Entrees. I had the Pork Collar while Ross had the Salmon. Although they swapped out Ivory King Salmon for Coho as they had run out, Ross was still singing its praises and my Pork was just jaw droppingly tasty. I wanted to lick my plate.

From Ross Comes to Visit

The desserts were just *drool* I had the Pumpkin Spice Cake (i mean seriously everyone who knows me, knows how much i love pumpkin). This cake was just yum! Ross had the Chocolate Pecan Pie. I was glad he couldnt finish it cause it meant i got to 😉 That is their signature dessert I think using locally made chocolate and comes with Bourbon Chantilly Cream. Its always a treat imo.

From Ross Comes to Visit

Steelhead sealed the deal again for me and I will bring so many people back here just because I love the place. It is always a great one to visit.

Preservation Kitchen – Menu Link

I had been looking forward to this one the most, but to be honest, it dissapointed me the most. The company was good and the main course was great and just looked fantastic and tasted just great, but overall it just dissapointed me. It didn’t live up to the hype. They had changed some things on the menu so it wasn’t to be expected. They had run out of the dessert I wanted (and it didn’t look all that busy). The other dessert choices to me were just “so so” One of them wasn’t even on the main Restaurant Week menu (linked above). The two savoury courses i was suckered into as they had 2 of my favourite things. The Starter i went with the Spinach and Beet Salad cause I love beetroot, but this was a non listed menu item so must of been added last minute. the Main i went with the Stuffed Delicate Squash (aka Pumpkin). I was told it was phenomanl and it was. It tasted just tender and soft but so savoury and it was a Vegetarian dish.

From Ross Comes to Visit

The dessert was just totally uninspiring and felt like it was on the list just cause they needed to have a third course. This is it:

From Ross Comes to Visit

Yep thats carrot cake. It tasted like Safeway Carrot cake. Totally totally dissapointing! So not happy with that choice. I don’t know if I will go back as the service was fairly non existant. Not sure if they deserve the reputation they have.

With that being said I will probably need to work out heaps to work off all the good stuff I have eaten in the last 2 weeks, so it will be a bit of punishment runs and training but well worth it overall!

(more photos here)

Ross Comes to Visit

Truckin It

October 21, 2012 by Mal·2 Comments

The truck did awesomely over the weekend and it handled the drive north with ease!. Had a fantastic time in Vancouver, catching up with my mate Leighton and just enjoying it, even though it was freezing cold and absolutely positively wet (at times).

I went for a run around the city on Saturday morning on what will now be termed the “Macgyver Route” as it goes past a whole heap of Macgyver Locations and ends up back at the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver right after a climb up of like 45 steps. It was a fantastic route and to top it all off, managed to knock a good 5 seconds off my best 5km run time. 27:55 is my new PB (that i can find anyway) and makes it all the more worth it (even though I kind of piked out on my run this morning and ditched the last mile for a 2 mile ride instead)

The rest of Saturday was filled with plane spotting, random walking around the city at night with Ross as I introduced him to Japadog and then we both went in search of what was reputed to be the best Gelati in all of Vancouver (and to be honest their Pumpkin Pie Gelati was pretty damn amazing) and also walking into a movie being taped on a wet, Vancouver saturday night. It was a pretty damn awesome Saturday night. Sunday was pretty easy as well, just a late wake up, hitting the road nice and late morningish to try and avoid the queues at the border (still took a good 45 mins) and then we did a bit of Outlet shopping before heading back home and getting home around 3ish (where i spent the rest of the afternoon doing all my normal Sunday morning chores, just condensed into less than 2 hours, something that normally takes me 4 or 5 hours).

I had a great time almost getting the truck to the 3000 mile mark, trying to drink my body weight in Tim Hortons coffee before recrossing the border and getting grilled by both Canadian and US Immigration (as usual) all in all a good road trip if you ask me!

Vancouver Road Trip

Road Trip Time

October 19, 2012 by Mal·0 Comments

Well this afternoon i get to take my truck for its first ever Road trip, the first time i get to drive it for a bit of a distance (ok its 200 miles or so which isnt much but it counts dammit).

I am heading up to Vancouver for the weekend so will be a little bit out of touch but will be back Sunday night! Shenanigans abound!

Book Review: Immediate Response

October 19, 2012 by Mal·0 Comments

It’s good to be back to real books for a while

This time the book is Immediate Response by Major Mark Hammond. This is an #avgeek book without a doubt. It follows Mark Hammond a Major in the Royal Marines (from the UK) who flies CH-47 Chinnoks on exchange with the Royal Air Force.

This is truly the kind of book I like, full of stories of bravery, hardship but most of all it shows the real side of the pilots out there in the world. It tells the truth of the situation.

Pilots have egos. They need them to do what they do and stay good at it. What this does is turn Adult males into children at times. Dirty jokes, bad language, stupid pranks. It’s all there, he doesn’t lie about it. He doesn’t disguise it. The truth about the way the pilots and crew act amke this book so much better.

The main thing about the book is it gives a different perspective to the Afghanistan conflict. The Chinook pilots rotate in and out for 2 months every 6 months so much shorter than I thought but when they are called on at any moment to fly in and pick up a wounded soldier, I guess it’s more appropriate than spending 6-8 months in Afghanistan flying the whole time, it probably keeps the pilots more “fresh”.

The one thing that it does show is also the humility of some of these pilots. The author received a DFC (Distinguished Flying Cross) for his efforts on one particular day flying 3 times in and out of battle to pick people up. Yet he didn’t see the situation as something that merited the award. He was more wanting to give it to the other crew who he thought deserved it more. Is this the other side of the pilots ego? When they know they have done something amazing to other people, is it just “another day in the office” to them?

I truly did enjoy this book and suggest everyone have a read of it.

A local acting like a tourist – Day 3

October 14, 2012 by Mal·0 Comments

Wow… just wow… Today was one of the most unbelievable days since I have moved here to Seattle. I have had some amazing experiences, Getting onto the Tarmac at Paine Field and also at SeaTac to shoot photos, flying in a B-17 bomber, getting to buy my trio of dream things (truck, coffee machine, kitchenaid mixer) but today just adds another one to that list.

One of the first things I did back at the release of the 2012 NFL Season Schedule was check to see who was coming to Seattle for games, figuring I would go to at least one game, no matter who was playing. The FSM (Flying Spaghetti Monster) was smiling down that day, because when I checked.. my beloved Patriots were scheduled to play in Seattle. That day was today.

I had breakfast with Ross at one of my favourite places in Seattle, Skillet Diner. It has the food I like (old school yet modern) in a kind of atmosphere that I like (that Diner feel). Everything about it was just spot on. But this morning I was up for a little bit of indulgence. So I had their famous Cinnamon Rolls and they didn’t disappoint (I did have some granola, fruit and yoghurt as well, just to offset that sugary sugary goodness).

After filling ourselves full of morning goodness (and a few mugs of their awesome coffee albeit not as quickly topped up as I would of liked) we headed downtown, to park the truck and wander on over to Centurylink for the game. We did a small amount of exploring while we went hunting for Ross to get some Seahawks gear and then we met up with my workmate Melodie who helped me get the tickets in the first place. We had a good chat and caught up before the game and then we climbed all the way to the top to our seats. We may have had seats up on the 301 section but the view was still pretty damn good and gave a good overview of the plays. Sure it was right up the top and I would rather be closer to the action, but this was a pretty epic match up with Bradys first visit to Seattle.

The game was DAMN close, I almost lost my voice from trying to out cheer the Seahawks fans (and that is a tough call), pretty sure both Ross and I lost some of our hearing but it was SO worth it. The game was super close with Seattle scoring a touch down just inside the last 2 minutes clinching the game by 1 point. We just could not recover the ball and get through the Seattle defence in time to get a Field Goal to win the match. Even though we lost, I don’t mind. Just getting to see the game is a special thing and sure if we had of one, I am sure it would be all the more sweeter, but still it was awesome either way. Next year I am so heading East to Foxborough for a game.

test post

October 14, 2012 by Mal·0 Comments

testing the twitter link

A local acting like a tourist – Day 2

October 14, 2012 by Mal·0 Comments

Yesterday was a Big big day. Spent pretty much the entirity of the day out in the downtown area. After a bootcamp session in the morning and being able to shower, eat breakfast and clean a few things up in less than 20 minutes both Ross and I were out the door before 945, heading downtown. On the plans today was a few Seattle staples. Pikes Place Market, Columbia Center Sky Deck and Seattle Center. By the time we reached downtown after parking at Northgate and bussing it into the city (to avoid stupid parking charges) we headed towards Columbia Center first.

I stumbled upon the Columbia Center last year when I was on my big trip and it was a good find. It is essentially an office building with a Viewing Deck on the 73rd floor. What makes it different to the iconic Space Needle? Well for one its almost half the price ($9 vs $20) and 2 its higher. Way higher. Hell there is a Starbucks at the 43rd floor, which is free to enter, and has the same height views as the Space Needle. There is only one downside and that is it does not have 360 degree views of the city. I think i know which one i am staking still. What made this one even better, I picked up a 2 for 1 on living social a couple of weeks back. Total win!

The views from the Deck weren’t the best overall but they were still better than they would of been earlier that morning during the rain. Still a good way to start the day giving Ross plenty of perspective of the city and the Bay/Sound area from way way up. Even got to see Centurylink field getting prepped for the Huskies game. After Columbia Center we walked our way (we had decided to walk the day to work off the days indulgences) towards Pike Place market passing the Seattle Public Library (love that building) the Fairmont Olympic and a whole heap of Trojan Fans in town for the USC vs UW game.

We did the usual things at Pikes Place despite the crowds, the Bubblegum wall, Pikes Place Fish, the fruit and veg stalls etc. Ross bought some Prints as gifts for home, I bought some old school prints for the walls of the apartment, I showed Ross what he claimed were the best cinnamon donuts he had tried in Seattle (well the only ones but they were fresh out of the fryer) and we had a good time before heading over to Three Girls bakery for a Bite to eat. Now this place is hands down my favourite place to eat in the market. The most freshest sandwhiches I have had in Seattle and possibly the best sandwhich outright. The yummiest Dark Rye bread, fresh pastrami, fresh vegies all good.

We ended up finishing off Pikes Place with that tourist staple, linig up at the “First” starbucks (even though it isnt really the first) and getting a drink (me a coffee, Ross a hot chocolate) before walking our way further north to Seattle Center. We were heading the Pacific Science Center to see the King Tut exhibition. We had picked up tickets cheaply at Costco a few days prior and I had wanted to see it eventually, Ross was interested, why the hell not. Couple of shots of the Space Needle while we waited for our entry but the lines were not to bad. The entry fee came with an audio guide which was ok I guess. Overall the exhibit was a little bit dissapointing. Yes it was crowded, it was a wet Saturday so I will not complain about that (even though I want to) but the dissapointing thing mainly was just they didn’t have the items I thought they would. They talk about the Treasures of King Tut the boy Pharoah. There wasn’t really all that much about it, it was mainly about the Pharoahs overall. But either way it was something to tick off the list.

By this stage we were both pretty beat, so we walked back from Seattle Center via Top Pot Doughnuts (i was hoping they had some pumpkin donuts left, they didnt though 🙁 ) and we headed back on the bus back towards home. We made a pit stop so I could do some shopping but when we stopped at a Vegie stand with plenty of pumpkin there was one last highlight of the afternoon. Seeing all the different fall pumpkins, the selection was a like a Demtel ad, “But Wait theres More”. We even saw a pumpkin that weighed the same as I did.

By this time we were back home and well and truly beat!

A local acting like a tourist – Day 1

October 12, 2012 by Mal·1 Comment

What a day… Today surely has been a great day. With my friend Ross having flown all the way over from Australia for a couple of weeks to visit and enjoy a free couch to sleep on. What it meant for me other than someone to talk to at times was I could get a chance to play tourist for a few days.

Day 1 was scheduled to be the true Avgeek activities. Since it is usually better to see the Boeing factory on a weekday we would do the factory tour first thing. Then the afternoon would be spent at the Museum of Flight. A good half day would be needed at Paine Field for tour time, spotting and allowing ample time to shop.

The tour was great and Ross really enjoyed it. It was my third time doing the factory so I had seen it all before but getting to see the aircraft half built and seeing them come to life is always amazing to me.

I was excited afterwards though for some spotting time. Plenty on the schedule with two Dreamlifters, some 777 movements and a 767 or two. What was unexpected though was a Ryanair 738 doing touch and gos and rejected landings and 2 brand new 787s on their first flight. What made it all the more amazing was the fact one of thosr first flights was this amazing beauty from China Southern

From Seattle Spotting 2012

After picking up my bike and grabbing some lunch on the move we spent a few hours at the Museum of Flight including their annual book sale (where I picked up a few titles i had never expected), Ross exploring the Concorde for the first time and the arrival of one more 787!

Damn good first day, loved it all! Tomorrow will be just as much fun I hope!

Running man…

October 11, 2012 by Mal·0 Comments

Something wierd has been going on lately with my running and I just can’t explain it. My average run (pretty much 4-5 days a week) is 5km (just over 3 miles). I usually average at least 31-33 Mins depending upon which of my running routes that I take, whether it is a flat or slight incline, twisty, curvy or just out and back no thought required. I feel thats a good pace for me, I can push myself to go the low 31s or I can rest my body a bit and end up in the high 33s. I have a number of running routes I use that allow me to vary my runs so that I am not doing the same route day after day. I have routes that are easier and some that I use for punishment (I even have an 8k and 10k loop that are for my punishment days when I have been just that little bit naughty).

But if you were to go into my running history on the Garmin Website you will see my fastest ever 5k was 28 mins and that was a proper race where I was pushing myself to the limits

As you can see, it is a really good pace and I am really happy with it. But as of late my runs on the same routes that were averaging 31-33 have dropped to be around 29-30. I can’t explain it. I don’t feel like I am pushing myself any harder (there are days that I do push myself though).

Take this mornings route for instance, here is a capture from one of my average times on the same route:

This run was barely weeks ago and to be honest, Its pretty average, not to fast, not to slow, a good pace in my eyes. But now compare this to this morning:

Same route (may not be the same direction but that shouldn’t matter with this route), Same day of the week. I don’t get it. Maybe its the colder weather forcing me to output better or I am running better in the colder weather? Maybe someone who is a pro runner can help explain it to me. Either way, I don’t feel like I am pushing myself harder at the moment, but maybe I am and just not realising it.

Photos, Photos and More photos

October 7, 2012 by Mal·0 Comments

What a week!

It has been a crazy week full of photo work, touching up photos not only from last weekends trip to LA for some spotting but also from Dreamliner Day on Monday and some time at Paine Field after my friend Kinny came to visit.

I did get some amazing shots though including the following:

From Dorkfest LAX Spotting

My First Ever 747-400 Combi and the 2nd of the KLM Asia schemes (i now have both a 777-300ER and the 747 Combi in this scheme, just need the 777-200ER and i have the full set).