Coming Soon: Family-Friendly Wine Bar to Phinney Ridge & Vietnamese-Influenced Restaurant to Madrona
Winos, rejoice! Red Wine Bar & Café on Phinney Ave. N. is scheduled to open in March, according to PhinneyWood.com. Owner Ryan Campell got laid off last year and has a kid, so he's aiming for affordable and family-friendly - a $5 a glass sort of place. He also plans to include "simple" food like soups and salads on the menu. 
Over in Madrona, folks can anticipate a Vietnamese-influenced French restaurant by May. The Seattle Times reports that Portage chef-owner Vuong Loc just signed a lease for the former Cremant space. Loc says the new restaurant will be similar in style to his small French bistro in Queen Anne, but with a Vietnamese-flavored oomph. Sounds interesting.
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On the Ground: The Critic Goes Bar-Hopping
It was the ideal way to end a Thursday: drinks at the Athenian Inn inside Pike Place Market, knocking back tall beers in frosted glasses alongside the fishmongers and friends while watching the sun go down across the water. The place has been open for more than a hundred years, and has earned every wrinkle, every crack, every warp and the full length of its spotty reputation for good drinks, decent food and territorial regulars. Best view yet in a city full of great ones. And my glass was so cold that it froze the head on my draft.
Nijo Sushi Bar has got a view of precisely nothing (back alley, street scenes, lots of parked delivery vans), but the vistas inside were just fine. Pretty girls, flashing knives, fresh fish behind the glass and, at happy hour, a collection of all the neighborhood beautiful people. The sake list is impressive (everything from Jun-Mai Harushika at a hundred bucks a bottle to Asian Pear sake and bottles of Nigori Pearl), but because I am a savage, I drank Corona while putting away a double order of the dancing shrimp (five bucks a pop and addictive as hell) and enough fish to take the edge off my hunger.
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Moby Wants Your Steak
Going vegan is the new ... whatever. 
Everyone who is anyone is going twigs-and-berries these days. And just about everyone who does eventually writes an article, a book or a column for the Huffington Post all about it. Going vegan is the 2010 version of the backdoor political affair or adopting a bunch of babies—perfect fodder for getting your name in all the papers now that all the truly sexy diseases already have celebrity spokespeople, a way to look progressive and oh-so-of-the-moment without committing to anything truly out there like support of a flat tax amendment or the legalization of heroin.
It's a comfortable position to take, too. One that doesn't involve a lot of annoying research or conflicting issues, one where debate has a tendency to be quashed under the most simplistic of bumper-sticker ideologies. Animals = Good, Eating Then = Bad. And while yes, it is difficult for a proud omnivore like myself to assail the impregnable moral high ground of the vegan when I'm sitting there with blood on my chin and half a cheeseburger hanging out of my mouth, at the end of the day I will have eaten a nice, hot, greasy cheeseburger and the vegan will be going home to a bowl of cold tofu, which, to me, makes said vegan a Pyrrhic victor at best. In my world, the guy with the cheeseburger is always the winner. But that's just me ...
Denny's Free Grand Slam: How Long Would You Wait for a $5 Breakfast?
That right there is the best that a Denny's Grand Slam has ever looked. A straight-up Glamour Shot. The breakfast equivalent of a $400 haircut and a blast of that makeup that comes out of a power sprayer.
Everyone out there who has ever had one beer too many, who has stayed out just an hour too long, knows exactly what a Grand Slam usually looks like at Denny's. And tomorrow, they're probably going to look even worse because, as they did last year, Denny's burned about a bazillion dollars yesterday by airing (by my count) 37 different Super Bowl ads, all featuring screeching chickens, all touting their free Grand Slam breakfast deal happening tomorrow.
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Armed Robbery at West Seattle Jack in the Box, and Other (Cheerier) Morning Food News
Just weeks ago, the fast-food chain's SoDo location was named the "worst in the country." Today police are searching for two suspects, following an armed robbery that occurred at the West Seattle restaurant around 5:30 this morning, West Seattle Blog reports. No one was seriously injured. And the JitB is already back open for business, if you're craving a Jumbo Jack that badly. Just don't say we didn't warn you.
What are you smiling about, Jack?
'Nuff sketchy news.
The cute husband-wife duo (Alyssa and Patrick Lewis) behind Seattle Pie Company in Magnolia announced plans to open a second store in Tacoma's Old Town this spring, according to Magnolia Voice.
Lastly, Italian eatery La Spiga on 12th Avenue is hosting a Haiti fundraiser this Wednesday. Capitol Hill Seattle Blog says you get an Italian buffet dinner for a suggested donation of $25. Haiti gets 100% of the proceeds. Sweet deal. Make your reservation now.
Versus: After Midnight
The exact origins of the Medianoche Cubano (Midnight Cuban) sandwich remain unclear. The sandwich was popularized in the early 1900s by Cuban cigar-factory and sugar-mill workers looking for a filling, simple meal they could eat quickly on the job, though whether the sandwich was first developed in Cuba or Florida is still a mystery. 
Paladar's Midnight Cubano
But back to what we do know: the Midnight Cuban is a sweet Cuban roll (Cuban bread is, in a genius move, traditionally made with lard instead of oil) stuffed with an improbable combination of roasted pork, ham, Swiss cheese, mustard, and pickles. It's also a well-known, albeit unfortunate, fact that there's a shortage of these puppies in Seattle. This week, Versus taste-tests the only two Midnight Cubans known to be available in town (If you know of another, let us know in the comments!) from Greenwood's Paladar Cubano and Fremont's Paseo.
Bottomfeeder: Rizzo's One-Sandwich Focus
After the second time of being overly sassed by a sold-out Lunchbox Laboratory (yes, I gave you one more chance), I got in my car and hungrily pulled out into traffic, only to swerve back over to the side of the road half a block down after seeing the words "French Dip" on a restaurant called Rizzo's.
Rizzo's serves this one thing only: the dip. They roast the meat and make their own au jus. Let them know how much you want on your sandwich; otherwise they'll soak it with the stuff. For some this is key, but I prefer to do what the sandwich says and dip.
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Skillet May Pop Up in Georgetown
Found this little nugget (all sic) in Skillet's weekly newsletter: 
"there is a good chance we will be opening a quasi pop up restaurant in our commissary cafe in georgetown in the next couple of weeks. would be mon-thur during the day from 8am-3pm serving up all kinds of skillet goodness.....stay tuned."
I have an e-mail in to Skillet's owner, Josh Henderson, for some more info.
UPDATE: I just heard back from Josh, who writes: "I believe we are going to begin next week.. But that is not confirmed. Our commissary is in the pacific market center on 4th ave. ... We have a little cafe attached to our commissary that we can use and will be doing up some skillet goodies and selling bacon jam as well. I'll be sending out specific info in our newsletter later this week...."
Rhyme of the Day: Sip. Chef Cody Reaves Leaves
After opening Sip. at the Wine Bar and Restaurant November 20th, Cody Reaves has left his post as Executive Chef. His last day was yesterday. He's being replaced by Cameon Orel, most recently of Fall City Roadhouse. Before that, Cameon spent 13 years as the chef at Yarrow Bay Beach Cafe.
Cody is leaving to become the chef at Flat Iron Grill , which is described as a new "Chophouse and Sandwichier" in Issaquah's Gilman Village (in the former home of Iris Grill). The grand opening is Wednesday.
Who Knew Selling Imported Oranges Could Get Costco in Such Deep Shit With Anti-Semites?
Clementines are a type of orange that Costco sells, and some of the clementines Costco sells come from Israel. BFD, right? 
Israel haters don't find these oranges to be so darling.
Well, not to one prominent anti-Israeli group, which has launched a noisy campaign to boycott Costco as long as it continues to sell Jewish fruit.
Twisted Cork Changes It Up (Again)
The space at 900 Bellevue Way N.E. has really been seeing some action over the past few months. Beginning as the 0/8 Seafood Grill (a Solstice Restaurants concept), it was announced in January that things weren't going the way the owners had hoped with their side-by-side restaurant/wine bar plan, so 0/8 was being the shown the door and the entire space re-branded as Twisted Cork, a "Northwest Bistro" (and another Solstice concept, from a list that also includes STIR Martini and Raw Bar, opened in Bellevue in July of 2009), which would combine the full menu service once provided by 0/8 with all the grape-juice kicks of the original Twisted Cork wine bar.
This was all well and good, and the turnaround happened fast (like, inside a month). A new chef, Erik Carlson, was announced to take over the grub side of things and things moved ahead as planned.
Countdown to the Robot Uprising: Now They're After Our Fast Food
Oh, Engadget ... Is there anything you can't turn into a nightmare-inducing reminder of the coming robot uprising?
This is the future—the terrible, chrome-plated future.
This time around, it's the Cornucopia—a new 3-D "food printer" prototype being tinkered with by two fellas at MIT who, I'm guessing, had some real bad experiences working in the fast-food industry at an early age.
According to Engadget, the Cornucopia is a "3D printer that precisely mixes foods and flavors from a number of canisters in order to produce something that's edible." Key word there being "edible." Packing peanuts are edible. Play-Doh is edible (and can be used to make cheeseburgers and bowls of ice cream by jacked-up ADD kids dressed like 1950's soda jerks). Even a Big Mac is edible (allegedly), but that doesn't mean I want to eat one. Ever.
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Judging the Sweet Stuff at Bakery Nouveau
Laura, my darling wife, is nuts for French bakeries. Some people, they arrive in a new town and they concern themselves with connecting utilities, finding the local grocery store and coffee shop. Others make sure they know where all the bars are, where to find Thai food at three in the morning and the number of the most reasonable bail bondsman in town.
Laura finds the bakeries. All of them, first thing. Even before we knew for sure whether or not we were going to be coming to Seattle, she'd already dug up a half-dozen names, found directions, committed to memory their menus and the brief bios of their staff. She takes this shit seriously, and if, someday, we get the chance to take our act on the road—doing the gig in Vientiane, Macao, the Leeward Isles or Mars—all I'll have to tell her is that our new apartment is right next door to a French bakery that was just named one of the 10 best in the world and she'll race me up the boarding ramp and onto the plane.
As for me, I'm not so nutso for the pastry as she is. I like a good croissant as much as the next guy, enjoy the occasional tart or mille feuille. And breads I can appreciate with the passion of a true devotee. But while her love of the stuff is deep and soulful and tinged with a bright, sharp edge of fanaticism, there is something about the patissiere's art that has always left me somewhat cold—some open degree of distance and alien flavor that I have never been able to close. Which is strange, because for someone with a wicked sweet tooth (and mine is just about the wickedest), Frog pastry is usually close to manna. Almond paste I can get behind. Bittersweet chocolate for breakfast? I'm cool with that. But lemon curd, French meringue, custard and raspberry jam and that sickly-sweet glaze that shines the strawberries becomes, after a bite or two, just too much for me.
Thus, I have developed a method for judging the relative excellence of the product from the various bakeries around town that I am always coming home to. It goes like this: Laura will go out, buy some crazy amount of tarts and bread and croissant and pain-au-such-and-such. She will call me, tell me the life story of the baker involved, the best hours to pick up bread, about how the shop smelled how this time she really has found the best citron tart in the world. Then I will come home, take one bite of everything, eat all the plain croissant, and leave the rest of it behind until the middle of the night when I suddenly find myself hungry, desperate for sugar and without anywhere to go to get my fix but my own pantry.
At this point, I will be faced with a choice: the bag of pastry left over from the day's excursion or the box of Entenmann's glazed donuts that are always on my counter. I could live quite happily for a very long time on nothing but sushi and Entenmann's donuts. Without both of those things available to me, I would not live long at all.
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Wine and Chocolate at Vermillion
Vermillion Art Gallery and Wine Bar invites Theo Chocolate and Renton's Unique Wine Company for a pre-Valentine's Day tasting in the gallery/wine bar. Unique's Cory Van De Ven will be pouring black muscatel and a chocolate-infused port to pair with the chocolates—some of which originate from Ghana and Madagascar—as well as cherry-almond and fig-and-fennel bars. $10 gets you two glasses of wine, small bites, and chocolate samples.
credit: theochocolate.com
The Streamline's Been Open Since Nat King Cole Was Still Gigging, But It's Throwing a Grand Opening Party Anyway
Queen Anne's Streamline Tavern (121 W. Mercer) is old as dirt. So why's it throwing a "grand opening" party tonight? Well, for one, because it's under semi-new ownership (a group that includes Voracious contributor Mike Lewis). For two, it now serves hard booze. And for three, it turns out a band called Massy Ferguson once wrote a song about the Streamline. 
That's the real excuse for this "grand opening," which begins at 9 and will feature a live performance of the long-shelved homage to Ozzie's scruffier, mellower (except tonight!) neighbor. Normally a band playing a bar wouldn't be a big deal, but if you've been to the Streamline, you know that actually fitting a band and its gear into the thimble-sized space is going to be a helluva challenge. So get there early and belly up.
