A weekend in Seattle, WA — Finding Bouken

Due to logistics, we decided to head to Seattle for the weekend!

Seattle has been a place of interest for both of us for two big reasons: work and weather. The very short weekend trip is a test of sorts to see if we liked the feel of Seattle as a city should we ever need to relocate.

There was little to no planning for this trip. Besides making sure we stopped to get piroshki, a lot of our visits were done on a whim.

BREAKFAST AT LUDI'S

We quickly checked Yelp! in an attempt to find a semi-decent place to feed ourselves after arriving from our 6AM flight. We checked out Ludi's primarily for the Filipino breakfast food on their menu.

Ludi's feels like your local diner. It's family owned, busy, and quick. Hamu ordered the longsilog - longanisa (Filipino sausages), eggs, and garlic rice - while Usagi ordered the Russian Omelet. The food was good and portions were big, so much that Usagi couldn't finish her delicious omelet. Definitely a place to visit again!

PIKE PLACE MARKET

As expected, the area felt very tourist-y and lively most of the day. Lots of little shops, stores, and some cool things to see. There are street performers during the day, a lot of fresh fruit, vegetables, meats, fish, and the like. If it's coffee, fresh food, and baked goods, you're definitely at the right place. There's even a little shop to buy Chinese food from.

We stopped by a place called MarketSpice to buy some teas. They had a variety of teas to choose from. Some teas sounded like interesting combinations while others were more traditional. Most of the teas are in large jars on shelves propped against the store's walls. It's a great store to visit if you are a tea lover. They also sell a variety of tea related items such as teapots, tea cups, sugar spoons, and tiny cute tongs.

On Sunday morning, we stopped by a small Russian bakery called Piroshky Piroshky. Thanks to YURI!!! on Ice, Usagi had been curious at what a Piroshki (or Piroshky or Pirozhki) would taste like. Hamu got a beef and cheese while Usagi ordered garlic and cheese. If you have had a beef curry horn before, the flavor of the beef and cheese piroshki is similar. It doesn't have nearly as much spice, but very close! The garlic and cheese was also very good, so much that Usagi bought two and ate the second one the following day.

INTERNATIONAL DISTRICT (Formerly Chinatown)

The rail transit towards SEATAC from our hotel had a stop for the International District, so why not stop there on our way to the airport? We visited a multitude of shops and stores including the Kinokuniya Bookstore, Uwajimaya Market, and a cheap dim sum restaurant (they had Xiao Long Bao for $9 for 10!).

After walking around, it made a lot of sense as to why they changed the name from Chinatown to the International District.

CHEAP XIAO LONG BAO

We're all about dining on the cheap, but the result wasn't so great this time around. We visited Ping's Dumpling House, a hole in the wall store with a surprisingly cheap menu. Heck, $9 for soup dumplings? Might as well try it!

....it was very disappointing. There is always an expectation of failure when we go for cheap food, but we were secretly hopeful. The soup dumpling wrappers were thin so they fell apart easy. There isn't much to say about the place that has not already been left on their Yelp! page. It's cheap, but it's definitely a "you get what you pay for" situation.

As a side note, it was entertaining to listen to an old gentleman talk to one of the restaurant staff. He was comparing Seattle's International District to San Francisco's Chinatown. Something about disliking how the Chinese people in SF Chinatown didn't speak a lick of English despite being in the United States for over 30 years. At some point during their conversation, the restaurant staff he was speaking with clarified that the "Chinese" predominantly spoken in SF was Cantonese (the old gent didn't seem to care). By the end of our lunch, we discovered he owns some small hotels and his entire life story.

The lesson here folks? You'll end up writing more about what people talked about in the restaurant than the food when there's not much to say about the food. [sadface]