The convention center in Seattle has some pretty interesting lines...love all the windows.

Moby's also had a salmon sandwich. VERY good. The cream cheese was good although i ended up eating the bun/cream cheese separate from the salmon.

Closup of the Rainier Tower...the pedestal that it stands on is so small. Supposedly all kinds of tests were done on it and it's considered one of the safest buildings in Seattle. Either that means that this building is really safe or just safer than most of the buildings in Seattle.

Lola is a Greek-inspired place that's one of the Tom Douglas restaurants. I ended up going to 2 of his restaurants while I was in Seattle.

Lola
2000 4th Ave
Seattle, 98121
(206) 441-1430

Pita! With a minty barrel aged feta spread.

Smoked trout, minors’ lettuce, rhubarb

Pacific octopus, ramps, green garlic, yogurt, white beans...now usually i don't like white beans, but this dish had a flavoring that made them SOOOO tasty. Almost a smoky flavor. Anyways, ramps are wild leeks.

Dolmades with lemony rice, mint...I'm not a huge fan of them...way too vinegar-y.

Lamb kebab, caramelized garlic, red wine glaze...mmm mmm good.

Smashed garlic fried potatoes...oh these tasted very very good as well. These were simple dishes that got pushed up a notch in terms of flavor.

Caramelized broccoli, kasseri cheese

Oregon country beef hanger steak, pickled pepperoncinis, feta ...VERY SPICY.

Slices of lamb with cilantro

The Lola sampler - Chermoula squid kebab, crispy chickpeas, marinated olives, dolmades, tzatziki, red pepper spread, and pita. I usually don't like chickpeas but crispy chickpeas are pretty good.

Wild pacific prawns kebab, curried muscat glaze

Washington chicken kebab, yogurt, dill

Eating at Wild Ginger in Seattle was something I had to setup days in advance. Even called their meetings/banquet manager. I'm glad that I took the initiative to do so though...definitely ranks as one of the best group dinners I've ever had. I got us a private room and that made all the difference.

Wild Ginger Asian Restaurant
1401 3rd Ave
Seattle, WA 98101
(206) 623-4450

We had a pretty hectic day that day so it was a welcome relief to just let the server choose our food for us. Pretty tasty dumplings to start off...

Peasant's Chicken - Free range chicken marinated in curry and coconut cream is skewered and seared over a flame. Served with a spicy peanut sauce. Not terribly great but tasty nonetheless.

Crab Cakes!!!

I had a huge portion of this since most people seemed to not enjoy raw tuna tartare as much. Too bad for them!

Emerald Prawns - Large prawns are wok-fried with garlic, cilantro and black pepper. The Chinese relative to Italian pesto. The breading was light which was great.

Seven Flavor Beef - Flank steak fragrant with the seven flavors of lemongrass, peanuts, hoisin, chilies, basil, garlic and ginger is quickly dry-fried resulting in a complex, intensely flavored beef. So awesome over rice.

The green beans didn't get much love but could you blame us?

Black Pepper Scallops - Hong Kong specialty. Hand selected scallops are quickly seared and coated with soy and black pepper. Oh these were sooooo good. I got so stuffed though that when they took away the plate there were still a few pieces left thtat I just couldn't finish.

Fragrant Duck - Succulent, fresh duck with a fragrant skin spiced with cinnamon and star anise. Accompanied by six small steamed buns, Sichuan peppercorn salt and sweet plum sauce. Wonderful tastes!

Pow Wok Lamb - medallions of lamb tenderloin are flash cooked in our smallest but most versatile wok. Hoisin, sesame oil, garlic, and chili enhance the natural flavors of the lamb. A little too much sauce but I loved these all the same.

Is that beef?

Looking at all the food...

Another dish?

Panang Beef Curry - Dish that typifies the sensuality of thailand. Slices of flank steak are served in a seductive curry of cardamom and coconut milk with thai basil and fresh pounded peanuts.

Dig in! Anyways, the rooms have a minimum charge but well worth it if you feel that everyone is going to be spending $50+. After a day like that day (sorry no details), we ate and drank with wild abandon. GREAT way to relax and unwind.

One of the exhibitors is Hershey's. We got boxes of candy...

It felt like it was Halloween again.

I'd been to Seattle many times before but this was the first time with the company. Different perspective...better rooms. :-D I got a corner room so my views were pretty cool. That building in the middle has one bottom side carved away. That's the best way I can describe it. All I know is that I wouldn't want to work in that building.

See that I mean?

My view of the Space Needle wasn't anything to write home about though. This was the first trip to Seattle where I made no attempt to go to the Seattle Center.

They didn't have much space for a convention center so they decided to build it right over I-5. Pretty impressed with how it turned out. It even has a park. We should all cover our freeways like this. :-D

Obviously seafood is a major part of eating out in Seattle. Eating at "Shuckers", we had to try some oysters. I think 4 different kinds and I can't remember them all. I do know that we had Kumomotos and Hama Hama. All were great!

Shuckers
411 University St
Seattle, WA 98101
(206) 621-1984

Clams in White Wine/Garlic Sauce

Lump Crab Salad

Seafood Chowder...all kinds of seafood inside. It was cold in Seattle so this definitely hit the spot.

Steak Sandwich. There's this restaurant called Moby's in the convention center that served really good food. Freshly made too. The food was horridly expensive but well worth the price.

Moby's Restaurant
725 Pike St # 10
Seattle, WA 98101
(206) 447-0507

Jim shows us the future of conference registration.

This head was on display in the mall where our restaurant was located in. It's amazing what a person can do with wood.

The Palomino is a chain...they have one in SF but I haven't been. Should take Emily there sometime. Their bread is great and even come with awesome jam/butter just like Arcadiana in DC.

Palomino Restaurant Rotisseria
1420 5th Ave # 350
Seattle, 98101
(206) 623-1300

The calamari had 2 different sauces (marinara and garlic-lemon aioli)...besides that, it was the usual.

The dungeness crab/artichoke dip was pretty good. I'm not that into flatbreads though. Still when you pile a heap of crab/artichoke on top of it, you simply can't go wrong.

Which sauce?

What will I have for dinner?

Parmesan crusted chicken breast - Wild mushrooms, almonds, caramelized onions, Brie, goat cheese

Asiago Crusted pacific Sole - Pan Seared with Asiago and Parmesan cheeses, fresh chive butter sauce

Bistro Steak - Herb chickpea fritters, baby arugula, balsamic ketchup...the her chickpea fritters were VERY interesting...never had anything like that before.

New York Steak Frites - Palomino signature steak, herbes de Provence butter, olive relish, roasted garlic

Anita and Meg

Braised Lamb Shank - Braised vegetable risotto, rich demi-glace....meat falling off the bone...oh it was soo tasty. In fact, Jim came back a few days later to have this dish.

The light fixtures definitely had an Art Deco feel to it.

Olympic Mountain Fresh Sorbet anyone?

This is probably Emily's favorite dish now. Not just at Golden Island but maybe of all time. It's a plum flavored sea bass. I was a bit doubtful about the plum flavoring but it turned out to be quite good. The juices are great over rice and the cilantro/green onions are wonderful with rice. We usually turn off the stove a few minutes in so that the juices don't boil off. It's THAT GOOD. Emily was raving about it for weeks until we went here again with her parents. Her eyes practically roll to the back of her head when she starts thinking about it and the drool is flabbergasting. :-D I'll also mention that this is also the first place that we ate at. EVER. Good thing it wasn't a Mickey-D's.

Golden Island 286 Barber Ct
Milpitas, CA 95035
(408) 383-9898

Gawd that was a small lobster...all the parts were there (I checked...you never know with these places) but definitely not very satisfying. The sauce was good though.

Huge hunk of greens. Gotta get that fiber you know?

The San Jose Museum of Art had a M.C. Escher exhibit which I had to go to. He's one of my favorite artists.

Some people don't recognize the name but they do recognize the art. He's the one who drew the pictures of the impossible staircase...

I couldn't take pictures of the exhibit but I did take 1 picture of people looking at the exhibit. Most of the exhibit were original prints but I would have liked to have seen some of the original wood blocks that he worked with. They did have a print of one of my favorite piece from him...

Hanging from the ceiling...I belive these are glass blown? Looks like something from a sci-fi movie.

A big booger?

I spent a really long time at this exhibit called "Listening Post". Basically you have 200 or so little LCD screens that are hooked up to a computer. This computer scans the internet looking for words/phrases that people are using at the moment. There are a few patterns and ways that the screens display that information. It's pretty amazing stuff especially since they hooked up the whole thing to a surround sound stereo system.

This is from the Movement #7 "I Am" pattern... "The last 100,000 messages received are scanned to find 85 messages beginning with the words "I am." The phrases are then sorted by length, starting with short and simple-"I am 14"-to more complex-"I am confident in my assertions." With each cycle of the 7-part composition, this movement rotates in alternative phrases beginning with "I like" and "I love."

I pretty much sat in front of this thing for a very long time watching all of the movements.

2 days ago, a shooter killed 32 people including himself at Virginia Tech. Quickly dubbed the worst massacre in US history (definitely more than the Boston Massacre but I think still less than the Mountain Meadows Massacre...they probably meant by a single individual), it truly was horrific. The fact that the second phase of shootings happened in the engineering building at VT made the story somehow more chilling than when I heard about the Columbine shootings. After work, I was listening to NPR's coverage when they interviewed a custodial worker, who had the heaviest Southern accent I've ever heard, who claimed to have been shot at 5 times by the shooter. He then went on to say that he was a foreigner. When asked to clarify what ethnicity the shooter was, it came out that he was Asian. I was so shocked at that bit of news. It was like a badly cast movie where you can tell that the Asian character was mainly cast to balance a group's ethnicity out. It's not as if massacres don't happen in Asia...far from it, we have atrocities of our own. However, this has got to be the first time an Asian is responsible for committing something like this in America. Truly sad...one can only imagine the grief and pain of the victim's...and the killer's...families. My heart goes out to them.

jetBlue is such a great service. I think that whole debacle at the airport where people were kept at the gate for hours was regrettable but understandable. Who ever said flying was easy? I think people forget that we used to travel across this country in covered wagons.

Flew them for my one night stay in DC. Remember how a few weeks ago I posted pics of the jetBlue ad campaign with people on stilts? It was to promote their expanded legroom which I can attest to. However, not everything is at it seems. Apparently the FAA requires a flight attendant for every 50 passengers. the jetBlue planes originally held 153 passengers which meant that they would need 4 attendants. Instead, they decided to get rid of 3 seats to eliminate the need for an extra flight attendant. We win with the extra legroom but I wonder if service is slower with less flight attendants.

jetBlue has this really great snack. Blue potato chips!!! Much better than the snacks Southwest hands out.

How very interesting...it's not food coloring either. These chips are made from All Blue potatoes which are naturally this color. It's due to a chemical compound called anthocyanin which are the cause of pigmentation in all sorts of fruits and vegetables like beets and cherries.

We went to Arcadiana again for Cajun. Appetizers were as usual very appetizing. Louisiana Seafood Gumbo

Charbroiled oysters - garlic butter, parmasan romano cheese, warm french bread

Baby Spinach and Watercress Salad - oysters en brochette, creamy herbsaint caesar dressing...seems a little self-defeating to have a salad covered with cheese and accompanied with fried oysters...

Trio of Deviled Eggs - crabmeat revigote, shrimp remoulade, lousiana choupique caviar....but who am I to judge when I get deviled eggs. hehe These were awesome.

Thin-cut catfish...so Nawlins that it's not on the menu...Julie is from New Orleans so she knew enough to ask if they had it.

New Orleans Style Barbeque Shrimp - garlic butter, black pepper, worcestershire sauce

Blackened Yellowfin Tuna - cheddar spoonbread, creamed spinach, crawfish etouffee

Stayed at the Embassy Suites near the convention center this time...loved it.

I need to have something like that in my bathroom.

Frivolous pillows!!!

Seriously large room.

This is the lobby of the Crowne Plaza...it kinda has a Riverwalk feel to it.

For lunch we went to Capitol City Brewing Co...

Capitol City Brewing Co
1100 New York Ave, NW
(202) 628-2222

I have this dish to thank for enlightening me to the joys of the artichoke. Without the enticement of crab, I don't think I would ever have tried it. Who knew dip could be this good?

Pulled Pork Sandwich - sometimes you just have to go back to the basics.

Flying back...it was nighttime and everyone had their TVs on...

I just loved how the lights flickered on the walls/ceiling. Kinda reminded me of being in an aquarium.

Lamp Steam Dumplings? Hmm mmm yummy lamps. This was at 5 Bread 2 Fish in Milpitas.

Garlic Chicken with Wood Ear Mushrooms...Great China's is better but this is much closer.

Eggplant with salty fish and chicken. Oily goodness!

I think I actually hurt the roof of my mouth eating these.

Took Emily to see Christina Aguilera at the HP Pavilion in San Jose...

Danity Kane and the Pussycat Dolls were the opening acts. Supposedly Danity Kane is a riff off of an imaginary comic book hero that one of the members had thought up. Urrgh...

Cameras were allowed at the show however they really meant "point and shoot cameras that will only give you blurry shots unless you're in the first 5 rows". So I was able to take pictures with my SLR all the way until Aguilera came on. As it happened, a man in a black suit came and asked to look at my camera. I showed it to him thinking that he just wanted to verify that it wasn't a video recorder, a common circumstance. Unfortunately, he explained that they didn't want professional cameras in the audience. Thus, I don't have any pictures of her onstage. Small loss though, her stage production paled to the likes of Destiny's Child.

The Pussycat Dolls have soul and style and are badass but they might not have class. Not so obvious Aguilera reference.

That girl on the right has a lot of hair/hair extension/wig.

What is the girl in the middle doing?

I had no idea the lead/sole singer was from Eden's Crush.

Yumm

iTunes?!!! Could they be just playing tracks from the CD? Suspicious...

People did the wave around the HP Pavilion in between sets. It was pretty cool to watch since we sat on the floor. However, taking this shot probably is what got me noticed. What was funny was how when I got to the security desk to turn in my camera for safekeeping, I saw 1 other camera there...and it was a point and shoot that just happened to be bulky. hahaha...

I caught one of the Dolls exiting...hawt mama! :-P

I'm moving to Mountain View this month...almost ended up a few blocks from Castro St at the Mountain View Avalon complex however the agent there was new and unknowingly had me put money down for a place that was in an eviction situation. They wanted to put me in a 2 bedroom until the eviction was handled but then I'd have to move twice. I ended up getting my deposit back but they were going to keep the credit application fee until I "gently" reminded them that they needed to remit that to me as well. I liked the feel of the place though...

I would have had vaulted ceilings...the trees were in full bloom. I'm now going to be living at the Americana, a few miles away.

This soup has become our favorite at Krung Thai...we always get chicken though.

Spicy Goodness

With Basil, almost anything becomes delectable.

Emily got herself a haircut which I think she looks absolutely beautiful with.

*adore*

:-D

Emily always gets the same thing when we go to Vung Tau, whether it's the Milpitas branch or the San Jose branch. I've been trying out some of their other soups...this is the Crab/Fish cake noodle soup.

99 Ranch's frogs. 99 Ranch is not a pet store...draw your own comclusions.

"What are you looking at?"

"Hey...did you catch the game last night?" "Nah, I was over in the corner last night."

Clear Clam Soup is always satisfying. That leafy green veggie...I forget what they were...are great with this kind of soup. (Edit: It's watercress, Emily says so.)

Usually I stop with just onions/mushrooms with my squid (which I even de-skinned for Emily...something I usually don't bother with) but Emily insisted on a few more veggies.

I've left Seattle and flying back to San Jose now...typing this all on the plane...there's actually quite a bit of backlog but I'm hopeful that I can get caught up before Boston.

I like both the Thai coconut soup and the spicy/sour clear broth one. One thing that I can't stand is too much lemongrass...it's just too hard.

Royal Thai Cuisine
467 5th. Avenue
San Diego , CA 92101
(619) 230-THAI

Hot Pot! Well, no, it's really just heating the soup.

From the looks of this...it seems like a green curry...i can't see any meat though.

A Red Curry with Eggplant...I can't see the meat either...I think I remember it was duck though.

I'm not into the Thai "pancakes".

For Oscar night, we all printed ballots and tried to see who could get the most right...the winner would win the pool which was more than $100. I got 14 right but was only good enough for 3rd (or was it 4th?).

Scott tabulated the results and played the part of the presenter. He seemed to really enjoy the role.

Somehow, a guy got into the Exhibit Hall without a pass and managed to gather so many freebies. Incredible skill. It's hard enough just with a real attendee badge.

Took my family to an Italian restaurant for dinner when they came to visit me in San Diego. The Calamari Diavalo was very spicy which my mom liked a lot. They had just come back from the Antarctica cruise so it was kinda hard to get them something they hadn't eaten before. I should have taken them to pho instead. hehe

de'Medici
815 5th Ave
San Diego, CA 92101
Tel: (619) 702-7228
Fax: (619) 702-7236

Lobster "Oh yeah we had this all the time on the cruise" bisque. I didn't even realize that my parent's knew what a bisque was. 5-6 cruises and suddenly they're food connoisseurs.

This seems like an easy enough preparation...some corn, some asparagus. Mushroom cream sauce over a halibut filet.

That filet mignon was great! So juicy...hmm mmm.

Leave it to me to take a shot like this...well you can just see how much they put on this frutti de mare.

Apparently there are wedding photography workshops. I'm assuming this was the camera of the instructor since this was the best setup/camera of the lot. With that lens, he's obviously going for the blurred backgrounds. Some of the people were carrying really simple point and shoots. I really doubt any friends would trust them to take pictures with those.

Here comes the bride...kinda like an impromptu photo shoot since they were pretty mobile.

Went to a new place in the Gaslamp for lunch...Dussini's. The bread selection was more that what you're usually presented with...I think Dussini put out 4 different kinds.

Dussini's Mediterranean Bistro
275 5th Ave
San Diego, CA 92101
(619) 233-4323

And look at the free spreads they give you...pretty nifty.

I wonder what it's like at night.

Meg got a their lunch special...which was a soup/sandwich combo.

I got the flank...it was ok...little tough but great for lunch.

Isn't that the coolest salad bowl?

It was sunny only part of the time in San Diego...we experienced some of the storms coming down from the north. San Francisco even had a landslide.

I'm not a coffee person usually but they came out with this ultra-sweet concoction called Strawberries and Cream. This knocks my socks off and definitely perks me up for at least a few hours.

You can never go wrong with going to Lou & Mickey's on a trip to the Gaslamp. This place has family style portions which is great for large groups like us. I thought this seared ahi was overly crusted.

Lou & Mickey's
224 5th Ave
San Diego, CA 92101
(619) 237-4900

Artichokes!

Julie got this lump crab dish that was just amazing. What was even more amazing was that I got to eat most of it. lol Nothing better than to have some body else get crab meat for you.

"Hand over those vegetables!!!" Julia practices the intricate art of the dish-pass.

All of the steaks at Lou & Mickey's are extraordinarly well prepared. They know their steaks and they know their seafoods. The asparagus could use a little help with seasoning though. Same with the broccoli. Those suckers come uncut which is something I need change next time.

We hadn't ever done sushi for lunch before. Bill ended up being pretty high but we got a lot of high-quality items. Even this california and philadelphia roll seemed spruced up.

Sushi ITTO
409 F St
San Diego, 92101
(619) 237-1037

They even put a decorative cabbage under my seaweed salad.

Hamachi was sublime. Too bad Emily thinks so too...now I have to fight her for them. ;-P

These Indian restaurants in San Diego are really something...much more upscale than the Naan N Curry's up north. This restaurant group owns 3 in San Diego and now I've been to all 3 of them. Last trip, we went to the grand opening party for one of them. Their menu's aren't the same though.

Bombay Exotic Cuisine of India
3960 5th Ave
San Diego, 92103
(619) 298-3155

This one had a waterfall which was pretty neat.

...and elegant chandeliers.

It's in the Hillcrest area so I doubt we'd bring a huge group up there for dinner. It's nice to see that they have somewhat of a flair for aesthetics though.

Hmmm gourmet pakoras...these aren't the ones that you see in the Indian fast food place. These were much better and the sauce didn't look like it was 3 days old.

Baked naan with dipping sauce?

The Indian version of the Chinese Lettuce Cups was pretty good...I'm still partial to the Chinese version though.

Ooooh...bring it on!!! Emily would have loved this meal...it's SAUCY!!!

So creamy...so good.

So spicy...so good.

Lol...I call this Brendan's Russian Orthodox Pope hat. There's something about it that makes it Russian Orthodox...I'm not quite sure what it is...maybe they're shorter then the Roman Catholic Pope hat.