Weekend Away

15 Nov 2006

Holly and I went to Seattle this weekend. It was an amazing trip. We didn’t do a whole lot, but we really enjoyed it and plan to go back.

We took are time on the way down. We stopped at a little dairy on the way that is famous for its chocolate milk, ice cream and oddly enough, iced tea. Now, apparently the people who consider this place to be famous for its chocolate milk have not been exposed to nearly enough chocolate milk. It was okay, but nothing amazing. The iced tea was flat out disappointing. The ice cream though, mmmm the ice cream, was delicious! Served in almost every flavour you could imagine!

We also stopped in Bellingham for a while on the way down and did some shopping. We had a good time in the Kitchen-Aid store, since they have every possible contraption you haven’t even imagined yet. I am currently running some tests on their devices that supposedly keep your pop fizzy until the whole bottle is gone. So far one device has failed horribly, unless you want to make a Coke foam dispensing gun. The second device is showing promise.

Once we finally got to Seattle we drove around for a while looking for the hotel we were planning to stay out. Unfortunately when we got there it was completely booked (yep, silly us, no reservations). Then we walked around the area for a little while looking for a hotel. While doing so we were telling stories about the various hotels we had each stayed in during the past. I mentioned that I had never stayed in fancy hotel with a bell hop.

We came upon The MarQueen hotel. Lo and behold, it had a bell hop! Not to mention the swanky 50s show tunes music playing in the lobby. They had two rooms available and I decided we should stay. Holly thought it was a little expensive, but I am all for indulging in the good life once in a while.

We went up to our room and it was quite nice. It had a great room, bedroom, bathroom, kitchen and little den area. It was right on the corner above a coffee shop and always smelled like fresh brewing coffee. It had two TVs and a DVD player too. The entire suite had that 50s movie feel to it. It was a nice change of pace for both of us.

After short rest we ventured out for dinner. We went to a place called Racha - Noodles and Thai Cuisine.

We order the Banana Blossoms as an appetizer, and it failed horribly. Neither Holly nor I were able to handle it. It just tasted wrong and bad. And there wasn’t any banana in it at all, it was just the blossoms.

We then moved on to a soup, Tom Ka with chicken breast. Tom Ka is a hot and sour soup with coconut milk, fresh oyster mushrooms, shallots & cilantro. It was simply fantastic. I would give it a 9.5/10. The only thing it had against it was the cilantro. Cilantro is one of the flavour banes of the universe. It is EVIL! Through and through. The hot and sour worked their best to hide it, but there was still a faint hint of it in there.

Holly ordered the catfish, which was very tasty indeed. Even I liked it, and I don’t really like fish. I ordered the lemon grass chicken. After my chicken arrived I had a moment of clarity that made me fully understand why it is I don’t enjoy Asian food as much as North American food in general ( not in all cases ). It comes down to the quality of the meat cuts. If I had ordered lemon grass chicken in a North American restaurant, I would have gotten a boneless chicken breast cut up into pieces smothered in the tasty sauce. In an Asian themed restaurant, it means you get the left over chicken bits that we haven’t been able to use for anything else yet. The quality of the chicken in my soup, was far superior to the quality of the chicken in my chicken based dish.

If my lemon grass chicken had been made with a chicken breast I would have given it an easy 9/10. Unfortunately, the unrecognizable masses of meat that were sometimes very tough, sometimes very, queasily, chewy and sometimes perfect leaves me struggling to even give it so much as a 6/10, but 6/10 it is.

For a drink with the meal I tried my first hefeweizen (Holly’s beer snobbery is rubbing off on me, much as my water and pop snobbery is rubbing off on her). A hefeweizen for the uninformed is a wheat beer. The particular wheat beer I had was a Widmer Brothers Hefeweizen. Served with a wedge of lemon I would have to highly recommend it. It seems to hit me harder and faster than any other beer I’ve tried.

For desert Holly ordered a nice flavour combo of mango slices with rice smothered in a sweet coconut milk reduction. I ordered deep fried bananas with ice cream. The banana was rolled in coconut and then deep fried. It was served with coconut ice cream. I have to say, and this is from someone who doesn’t even really like coconut, that coconut ice cream is the most delectably divine ice cream in the world!

The next morning we checked out of the hotel and headed out for breakfast. Holly had come across a place called Top Pot Doughnuts in one of the travel brochures in the hotel room and wondered if I would like to go. Who am I to turn down fresh made and famous doughnuts?!? The doughnuts were in no way disappointing. In fact, I don’t know that I can ever eat another Tim Horton’s doughnut again… To start with the doughnuts were massive. Absolutely massive. Holly and each at one and a half and then wished we hadn’t eaten that last half. For anyone who knows me, that should really put the size of them in perspective. On top of that, the fillings actually tasted like they should. We had a lemon filled doughnut, and the filling actually tasted like the lemon from a lemon meringue pie, and not that soapy wish-wash in a Tim Horton’s lemon filled doughnut. And then there was the raspberry jam filled doughnut… mmmmmmmmmmmmm mmmmmmmmmmmm!

After the doughnuts we headed out to the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame (yes, I do have the coolest girlfriend). It was pretty cool to see some of the various sci-fi movie props up close, as well as Captain James T. Kirk’s command chair!

Our last stop in Seattle was for some lunch. I can’t even remember the name of the place we went to. It was one of those very fancy sounding names, so fancy you could never spell it. It was a French place that specialized in crepes and paninis. It was okay, as Coke in a glass and ham with cheese on bread tend to be.

As odd as it sounds, some of the most fun we had was stopping in at various grocery stores and wandering the aisles. Everything is subtly different in so many ways. It was really quite amazing. I found a bottle of water down there, that on that back said “If you are reading this, then you are a hydrophile.” I can only agree with it, I truly am. I picked up several different brands of water that I haven’t tried. I find my hydrophilia somewhat amusing. Growing up, I hated water. Loathed it even. I would never drink it. Now, one of my favourite pastimes is taste testing different varieties.

For the rest of the weekend we didn’t do anything too amazing. We went out for dinner on the Monday, and stayed in and ordered pizza on the Tuesday. We just watched movies and spent time together mostly. Punctuated by a detour to the vet on Monday for her cat Max. He wasn’t feeling well, but he seems to be doing better on his new food.

I hope the rest of you had a good Remembrance/Veteran’s Day weekend.