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Part II: The City

Saturday 2/21/09

We woke early, to return the rental car and took a leisurely stroll downtown. At the advice of a concierge in the mall, we headed to Red Fin - yes, a sushi restaurant – for what he called their “amazing brunch.” http://www.redfinsushi.com/ The only bad part of this experience was that we didn’t get to try their sushi. The eggs benedict and croissant with homemade blackberry jam was totally worth forgoing true Japanese fare. We finished up our breakfast and headed back to the hotel to pack supplies for the afternoon.

Onward to Wai-Ching in Pioneer Square. http://wai-ching.com/ Pioneer Square is an eclectic little area of older warehouse type buildings which, I’m told, is the oldest part of the city. The buildings themselves were interesting and beautiful, but the best part was the businesses they house: art galleries, coffee houses, strange spaces with “exhibits” of unknown intent on display, clothing designers… We buzzed Chrissy from Wai-Ching and she let us in to her loft inspired office building. As we arrived on her floor – “The Floor of the Cats,” with the signage and mewing vagabonds to prove it – we were greeted by a friendly tabby. Once inside her studio, Nick was in a hurry to get back out and I was left to the unbelievably insightful attention of Chrissy. She sized me up and gave me a few dresses to try on. We worked through all the, “I like this part but not that” and the “how bout we add some…” issues until we had a very good idea of how my completed wedding dress would look. Exciting!!! And infinitely better than the typical vultures-circling bridal shop.

Nick had text’d me his current location and I wandered around Pioneer Square a little on my way to 88 Keys http://88keyseattle.com/. This large open warehouse is a dive bar during the day and a dueling piano bar at night. We had a couple beers and decided that we needed to get going to continue our sight-seeing plan for the day. We walked uphill toward downtown and just happened to notice a sign in the window of an establishment we were passing: “Beerfest Here!” I assumed that said beerfest was happening sometime in the near future, so we quickly popped in to get a little more info. And there we stayed. For the whole afternoon. AT beerfest, at Collins Pub. http://www.thecollinspub.com/ Oops… in a good way. Have I MENTIONED my itinerary??

All I have to say is, Collins Pub rocks, with or without beerfest. It is super-awesome enough that we completely disregarded our plans for the afternoon and reworked our whole weekend just to hang out there and have flights (their idea of “flight” is insane here) of 9% alcohol barley wines and craft dark beers. Also, the food rocks. Nick and I ate rabbit, yes I did (DON’T tell Boo) and it fell off the bone into the puddle of brown gravy, potatoes and carrots at the bottom of the plate. Of course I also ordered mac and cheese made with conchiglie pasta, fontina and cave aged gruyere cheese, herbed bread crumbs and house Chorizo. Yum!! And omg, the drink menu in general at this place: http://www.thecollinspub.com/beverages_menu.pdf

After hours (yes, hours) of schmoozin at Collins, we (drunkenly) climbed the Seattle hills back to the heart of town and I promptly remembered that I had started my day with a coat. Back down the hills (a little less drunkenly) to Collins, yay, found the coat, and back up the hills (almost sober) to our hotel. Now mostly sober and 100% hungry, we tried to merge back into the flow of my itinerary. We contacted our friends Aaron and J to see if they wanted to have dinner, but instead decided to meet up with them after and walked down to Ivars Acres of Clams (#1) on the waterfront. http://www.ivars.net/index.php?page=locations_acres-of-clams. We were almost alone and it was a very romantic dinner with my hubby-to-be. Although Ivars is a touristy chain, the seafood was great and the view of the loading docks and wharfs was exactly what I picture when I think of Seattle.

After stuffing ourselves at dinner, we were happy to have a long-ish walk to our next destination. Aaron and J recommended the Black Bottle because I really wanted to go to Belltown and they like wine almost as much as we all like beer (Aaron brews his own). http://www.blackbottleseattle.com/

The Black Bottle touts itself as a “casual tavern” although I’m not sure if tavern is the right word. It is more like a loft: large warehouse doors on rolling casters, high ceilings, somehow industrial yet cozy with a mix (just like Seattle in general) of crunchy yuppies and urban supermodels. We had some great wine, great conversation and mentioned (again) how much we’d love to live in Seattle.

Since our Saturday night is never complete without a little bar hopping, we closed out our evening at Cyclops Cafe and Lounge. http://www.cyclopsseattle.com/. Part vinyl-boothed diner, part active art gallery and part Lydia Deetz’s livingroom, my wine-tipsy brain felt right at home. I don’t remember what we ingested, but does it matter in a place like this? Time to head to bed, tomorrow we have to make up for the time warp that is Collins Pub.

Stay tuned for Part III: Tourists!

Carrie Randall Aldente Ideas, Real Real Life 88 Keys, beer, Beerfest, Belltown, Black Bottle, city, Collins Pub, Cyclops Cafe, Ivars Acres of Clams, Pioneer Square, Red Fin, Seattle, Wai-Ching, wharf