Regent Bakery & Cafe is now open on Capitol Hill.

​On Capitol Hill, Regent Bakery and Cafe is now open at 1404 E. Pine St. The second installment of the popular Redmond-based restaurant features Chinese-style pastries and more substantial cuisine like hot pots and chow fun, as well as a full bar. Also in the neighborhood, highly anticipated restaurant Skelly and the Bean has announced plans to open on February 23 at 2359 10th Ave. E. on Capitol Hill. The establishment will feature gussied up comfort food like mussel po'boys, geoduck salad, and house-made tater tots.

In Green Lake, Ben & Jerry's reopens at 7900 E. Green Lake Dr. N. today, while in Greenwood, the Greenwood Market at 8500 3rd Ave. N.W. has closed.

In South Lake Union, The Wurst Place is now open at 510 Westlake Ave. N. The establishment specializes in both traditional and exotic sausage, as well as vegetarian-friendly options.

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​Biscuits are notoriously contentious down south, where squabbles over lard and White Lily flour have upended marriage plans and spoiled Christmas dinners. But baker Art Stone, a Tar Heel emigre, says Seattleites are generally broad-minded on biscuit matters.

"People are responding really well," says Stone, owner of Honest Biscuits, which this year began making weekly appearances at the West Seattle Farmers Market. Stone sells biscuits crammed with Beecher's cheese; filled with Theo chocolate and stuffed with Hempler's bacon.

"I learned from my grandmother originally," Stone says in what would count as a bulletproof defense in a heated debate over biscuit methodology. "She used to let me play in the dough, but I never got the recipe, because old Southern ladies don't have recipes. They just make biscuits."

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​Four months after the planned first firing of his new pizza oven, Al Calozzi's finally secured the permit to sell tomato pies at his eponymous Pioneer Square cheese steak joint.

"We had thought that we'd be starting sooner, but we're pumped up," says Calozzi, who started selling pizza last week. "We're having great reviews non-stop."

Calozzi makes his pies in the Trenton, N.J.-style, which means the hand-tossed crusts are thin and the cheese - sliced, not shredded - goes beneath the sauce.

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Sara Billups

​Get this: people in Seattle are having kids. All the time. True, the child-to-parent ratio is lower in Seattle than many other big cities, but in the past decade we've been trending toward a mini baby boom. 2010 population estimates tallied almost 94,000 youth under 18 and 32,000 children under five living within city limits. That's a lot of mouths to feed.

Welcome to Small Fries, a new Voracious column ready to leap over limp chicken strip and boxed mac and cheese joints and profile diverse, fresh menus that work for families and diners sans kids. Read on each Thursday to find eateries and watering holes that promote the greater good by expanding notoriously plain kid palettes and serving interesting, thoughtful food. First up: Travelers Thali House in Beacon Hill.

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​Wasn't frozen yogurt an eighties thing? (I vaguely remember something called Frogurt...) Well, it's back, with Menchie's Frozen Yogurt among many vying for world domination. I watch as kids and adults alike flock to the Queen Anne store, where the "mix, weigh and pay" self-serve formula brings smiles to those wanting frozen treats.

I had to try for myself. Thimble-like sample cups took me from flavors such as pumpkin to piña colada to pomegranate tart. Already feeling full, I settled for a purchasable pour of simple vanilla (versus "very vanilla") and then hit the topping bars. I felt like a kid in a candy store, basically because I was in a candy store, watching boys and girls pile on fruity pebbles, gummi bears, peanut butter cups, and rainbow sprinkles at the "snackage bar," mochi and cheesecake bits at the "chill bar," and then hot fudge and caramel sauce at the "sauce bar" (or whatever it's called). Spooning a few items from this smorgasbord onto my yogurt, I placed my cup on a table and laughed when I saw it said "We make you smile."

So what does a cup of Menchie's yogurt teach us about sex?

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​The Watering Hole: Mission, 2325 California Ave. S.W., 937-8220. WEST SEATTLE

The Atmosphere: Mission is like a little hideout smack dab in a residential neighborhood just a few doors down from the Admiral theater. It's a slender piece of unassuming property sandwiched between two other restaurants making it quite easy to miss. It's where you go when you don't want to run into anyone you know while you knock back a few strong drinks or catch the game on the flat screen. It's not uncommon for the bi-level Latin-inspired restaurant to host private parties in its upstairs loft, making the place a haven for boisterous fun and great people watching.

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​Two Seattle chicken icons are now peddling poultry from neighboring locations in Renton.

Ezell's Famous Chicken last November opened a store near the city's Civic Theater. A month later, Toshi Kasahara opened a teriyaki joint next door.

"We're kind of happy together," Kasahara says. "They serve fried chicken and we serve teriyaki chicken."

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Regent Bakery and Cafe

​Regent Bakery and Cafe is now open at 1404 E. Pine St., according to Capitol Hill Seattle. The second installment of the popular Redmond-based restaurant features Chinese-style pastries and more substantial cuisine like hot pots and chow fun, as well as a full bar.

Regent Bakery & Cafe is now open on Capitol Hill.

​On Capitol Hill, Regent Bakery and Cafe is now open at 1404 E. Pine St. The second installment of the popular Redmond-based restaurant features Chinese-style pastries and more substantial cuisine like hot pots and chow fun, as well as a full bar. Also in the neighborhood, highly anticipated restaurant Skelly and the Bean has announced plans to open on February 23 at 2359 10th Ave. E. on Capitol Hill. The establishment will feature gussied up comfort food like mussel po'boys, geoduck salad, and house-made tater tots.

In Green Lake, Ben & Jerry's reopens at 7900 E. Green Lake Dr. N. today, while in Greenwood, the Greenwood Market at 8500 3rd Ave. N.W. has closed.

In South Lake Union, The Wurst Place is now open at 510 Westlake Ave. N. The establishment specializes in both traditional and exotic sausage, as well as vegetarian-friendly options.

More >>

Sea Breeze Farm

​Last weekend's menu at La Boucherie, the restaurant at Sea Breeze Farm, featured house-made anglotti filled with farmstead ricotta and sweet potato mousse; seared Brussels sprouts with farm bacon and a crispy duck breast served with apple-potato hash. Blood, placenta and colostrum weren't among the selections.

But viewers of the Bizarre Foods segment on Sea Breeze, which aired earlier this week, could be forgiven for wondering whether the Vashon Island operation doubled as a den of offal debauchery. Although host Andrew Zimmern sampled George Page's cheese and sausage, more coverage was devoted to a few instances of culinary courage.

"To be honest, I was nervous about the show," Page's wife and fellow farmer Kristin Thompson writes. "Andrew was amazing and appreciative of everything he saw and did last summer, but obviously there was a desire from the show's standpoint to have a Fear Factor kind of experience. From the beginning, it was clear that was why they chose us."

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