Rain. Rain. Rain with sun. Rain. Rain. A little drizzle. What did I forget? Oh yeah, some more rain.
It’s remarkable that the ground is not super-saturated, due to the amount of rain that covers this dear mother earth. Now I understand why the whole place was super-green back in July when I first started contracting for a well-known outdoors chain.
The sheer amount of rain can be very draining on a person’s soul, especially in the shorter days of winter. It is the primary reason I moved to Phoenix in the first place (with the secondary being the nice comfortable heat during the summertime… mmmm, 125 degree sauna…) Just to minimize the days where I would have the kind of rain that would chill yourself to the bone.
With Portland, we would have those drizzles — the little tiny baby rains, all wanting to be a grown-up, wanting to fall in a big time city, but can only be qualified enough to fall on a small step-sister of a town to the south. Only the big time raindrops are allowed in the big city — the city of Seattle has earned this honor of receiving the big drips. Perhaps it’s the coffee here, with three Starbucks for every tiny downtown mall that brings the biggies? One can only wonders, as their lives cease to exist as they splatters among themselves in a sea of moisture, only to find themselves in a lake or a bay within minutes. What is the point of the rain when it land back into the water again?!
One can only wonder.
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Izumi Sushi
12539 116 Ave NE
Kirkland, WA
In Phoenix, when someone says “51st and Baseline” — the only question you had to ask was “Ave or St?” Anyone who drove around Phoenix long enough to memorize approximately 15 street names would have it made, with the ability to find their way anywhere.
On the opposite side, Boston is perfection in getting yourself lost. Not only do you have to clearly say the following, “trust me on this direction,” you have to put out a life insurance policy for the poor souls you try to give directions to, just in case they get buried into the abyss and starve to death.
Seattle, on the other hand, is a devilish soul with a permanent smirk on its face. Finding directions from downtown to the above sushi place produces a simple list of directions: Go North on I-5, Go East on 520, goes north on 405.
But if you care to ignore the following directions as far too many men do, and only remember the street number, you are bitten by the devil. Instead of Exit 20B, there is Exit 20A which is 116 Ave NE. Hey, that takes us to the sushi place, right?
No.
You must take the 124 Ave, and then take a right on 116 Ave. That’s right, a numbered street crossing another numbered street. They do this in Tempe, just to placate the poor emigrant souls that visit ASU, and would find themselves eternally lost unless their crossing streets are properly numbered. But for the rest of us, this sheer insanity of crossing numbered streets only give cause to provide poor user interface with the grand world of our. Phoenix is a pure sense of Grid Computing. Seattle? Well, they have Microsoft, so that is understandable.
I asked a group of fellow Seattle citizens for their favorite sushi places, and Izumi was recommended as a cheaper form of Shiro’s – widely considered as the best in two categories: high quality Sushi and wallet’s weight loss plans. However cheaper Izumi may be, the hit to my wallet was still significant — $53 for a 14 pieces meal with a glass of beer and a small bowl of edamame – served lightly prepared and cold. Yes, it includes the obligatory $7 tip.
But this is Seattle, after all – San Francisco wannabes prowl the streets here.
The biggest hit was the Toro – fatty tuna. The fish itself was decent, but the preparation was quite weird – instead of giving us the fatty goodness, the chef decided to trim it all out much to my disappointment. The highlight of this meal was the horseshoe mackerel with a dash of lemon juice. It was sublime, and worked quite well. The regular mackerel was quite disappointing – I have had better mackerels for half the price in Phoenix. The rice was nothing special to write home about.
The meal was an average middle-in-the-road sushi meal that should have cost at most $30 including tips.
* * *
La Creperie Voila
707 Pike St
Seattle, WA
Seattle Police have all the fun, I swear. Just the night before, someone decided to have a Formula 1 race on the streets of Seattle, with the Police all too happy to oblige. Part of the joyride led them through the streets and sidewalks surrounding the Washington State Convention Center. As a result, right next to Cheesecake Factory, a poor young tree found itself shredded, and the support pole was cracked (but not damaged too much).
Fortunately, the race was ended soon after, and the racers delegated themselves to the nearest police station for a small discussion of the race.
This observation of the damaged wall led me to pay a bit closer attention to the smaller shops around the center, where I discovered a diamond. This delightful hole-in-the-wall shop, La Creperie Voila, is stationed within one of the half dozen small shop-huts built to maximize the convention center’s use of their massive space. As the name of the shop indicates, they do serve crepes, a delightful French cooking style of thin pancakes and variety of confections laid in between the breading.
I had the smoked salmon with lemon juice, spinach, and a little mystery sauce to kick the entire meal up a notch. The pancake was folded in half, with the salmon, and all the toppings added on top, then everything was folded up and served in a small pouch that you can eat on the go, a classic Parisian style. The dough was unique, yet delighting. It was a wonderful fast meal for a slightly higher price than you would get a burger meal for.
I also took advantage of the little spying of the Nutella jar, and had them make me Nutella crepes with banana. It was a refreshing memory to have, as my fond memory of Paris is this very thing being served (san banana) in Paris that one lunch years ago.
I do hope I will get the opportunity to go back to this place again before I fly out on Thursday.
* * *
Uwajimaya Inc (Kinokuniya Bookstore)
600 5th Ave
Seattle, WA
I have been to the Kinokuniya bookstore in Sydney, Australia. It was a delightful place, chock full of a wide variety of foreign and domestic books, including manga in three forms – Japanese, Chinese, and English. It was a sight to see of the long rows of Japanese manga, only to turn around and see the other long rows of Chinese manga. Despite them having most of all published English manga in the past 5 years, the roster is paltry compared to the former two categories.
This particular Seattle’s Kinokuniya bookstore doesn’t quite meet up, but that’s only due to its space constraints. The one in Sydney spans two very large floors, while this one is aligned in a corner next to a delightful Asian supermarket. No matter, it was enjoyable to browse the aisles, and spotting all the unique books, manga, and films. Too bad, they were closing a hour earlier than usual (due to this being Sunday), or I would be able to spot several more nifty stuff to horde.
As with that crepes place, I hope I will find the time to browse this bookstore, along with the rest of the market sometime this week.
* * *
All, in all – a good day.
Except for that fricking rain.
