Heaven Sent Fried Chicken

Whatever you do today, do not go to Heaven Sent in Rainier Valley. The newest branch of Ezell Stephens' fried chicken mini-chain doesn't open until Friday.

"Lord, they've been pulling on the door," says Stephens.

The first in-city location of Heaven Sent, which already has outlets in Renton, Everett and Lake City, is a joint venture with longtime Seattle pit master Willie Turner. Heaven Sent will share space with Willie's Taste of Soul at 3427 Rainier Ave. South, where Turner five years ago re-parked the smoker he'd been running for decades in Beacon Hill.

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Metropolitan Market at 1908 Queen Anne Ave. N. is closing, according to Queen Anne View. The grocery store will stop running in mid-July, citing the development planned for the area as out of its price range.

In other news, Seattle Met reports that Schooner Exact in SoDo is adding a brewpub to its taproom space. Patrons can expect a simple menu featuring cheese and meat platters, plus sandwiches.

Sean Hoops

Where there is pho, there are puns. In King County, which our Pho Filers are busily canvassing, there's a Just Pho You, a Jenny Pho, a Pho King and a trio of What the Pho?s. But the best local pho joint name by far is Pho Shizzle, which existed primarily as an urban legend until Alex Le opened his restaurant in March.

A photo of a storefront with a neon green Pho Shizzle sign first surfaced on the Internet in 2004, but it's unclear where the picture was taken. Although the term is commonly used to head Vietnamese restaurant reviews in alternative weeklies, and was briefly employed by an ad hoc pho delivery service at Oberlin College, very few restaurateurs have put the Snoop catchphrase on their businesses licenses: There are known Pho Shizzles in Yorkville, N.Y., Cambridge, Ont. and, now, Renton, Wash.

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Mississippi mudcake -- a heavenly combination of chocolate, pecans, and gooey marshmallows -- is plenty decadent as is. Medicate the stuff with marijuana, and you've got a delicious, high carb way to spell relief and tickle your sweet tooth all at the same time.More >>

The Place: Bastille Cafe & Bar, 5307 Ballard Avenue NW., 453-5014, BALLARD

The Hours: 4-6pm every day, 10pm - 12am Sunday thru Thursday nights.

The Digs: The Bastille style is obsessed with reclaimed, restored materials. According to their website, the architecture and decor at Bastille feature everything from an old French Church buttress, to a 19th century Parisian street lamp. Hours upon hours of research and decision making went into creating Bastille's look, and it shows -- from the giant Back Bar chandelier and the room-lining mirrors which reflect it, to the numbered pillars in the front bar, the entire space is detailed and gorgeous.

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The Truck: Snout and Co., with various stops on the West side. Locations listed on their website.

The Fare: Cuban with a South Carolina flare.

The Stop:
You will most likely see a long queue as you approach Lee Scott's prominent black truck with a red insignia, Snout and Co.

Cruising in several West side locations, the career chef combines Cuban food with South Carolina influence and his own culinary flare. Anyone with a long-standing allegiance to Paseo's legendary sloppy sandwich, the Caribbean Roast, may be forced to reconsider.

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Photo by Poncharee Kounpungchart

(left to right) Wiley Frank and Poncharee Kounpungchart ("PK")

Little Uncle took on many forms before it became the Thai take-out restaurant in Capitol Hill. Its chef and co-owner, Wiley Frank (formerly of Licorous, Lark, and other restaurants around town), made similar transitions along the way. Frank and his wife and co-owner Poncharee Kounpungchart ("PK") embarked on parenthood while developing their new venture Little Uncle, formerly called "Shophouse." Little Uncle evolved from a stand at the Columbia City farmers market to Monday night pop ups at Licorous and La Bête, before the term "pop-ups" invaded the local food scene. The business that eventually became the Franks' current take-out restaurant took on family recipes, a family member's nickname, and was developed to suit their family schedule, becoming what we can call a real "mom-and-pop" or better yet, just Little Uncle.

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Cuoco

This week, in celebration of the James Beard Foundation finally honoring Tom Douglas as the nation's most outstanding restaurateur, we're working our way through the Douglas portion of our favorite dishes list.

If everything's id upstairs at Brave Horse Tavern, a noisy beerhall where it can be tough to nab a spot at the shuffleboard table, Cuoco is the super-ego of the three-restaurant development Douglas last year opened in South Lake Union. Cuoco serves serious food, such as housemade agnolotti stuffed with rabbit meat and marjoram butter.

But the dish that many Cucoco fans consider the show-stopper is a dish that's now often consigned to potlucks and frozen food cases: Lasagna.

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Michael Lionheart

After a life insurance company refused to issue a policy for Peter Kaminsky, pointing to a blood sugar level heightened by such gluttonous habits as eating two slices of pizza a day, the food writer spent months drinking red wine, eating steaks and developing a cookbook featuring recipes for crepes and chocolate eclairs - and lost 25 pounds in the process. Sensing his miracle story was the stuff of a self-help book, Kaminsky formalized his weight-loss theories: His newly-published Culinary Intelligence: The Art of Eating Healthy (And Really Well) outlines how eaters can reconcile physical well-being with sensual pleasures.

Kaminsky is not a stickler (which may explain the loose grammar of the title, which recklessly puts an adjective where an adverb should go.) He loves beer, cheese, butter and bacon. But he especially loves them in moderation, which is why he believes that eaters should savor very small bites of very fatty foods, instead of loading their plates with white flour pasta slathered in cream sauce.

It's not a new idea: Viewers of Mad Men know Weight Watchers was preaching a similar message more than 40 years ago. Yet Kaminsky has the culinary cred to float the concept with eaters who would never buy a diet book. He appeals to fellow epicureans by validating their desire to try everything, a quirk that doesn't sound pathological when Kaminsky describes it. And he advocates dietary principles that owe more to Dean & DeLuca than Dean Ornish: Kaminsky suggests readers maximize their "flavor per calorie" count by eating umami-packed anchovies, Brussels sprouts, Parmesan cheese, caponata and dark chocolate cacao nibs.

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In honor of National Burger Day, Li'l Woody's on Capitol Hill will serve free burgers (see right) from 2 to 5 p.m. on Monday, May 28. But if you want a side of the neighborhood's finest "crack" to go along with your burger, you'll have to cough up some cash -- which SW's Mike Seely would say is totally worth it.