Columbia City Farmers Market: GreenGo

The Farmers Market makes me so hungry. Even with arms full of produce ready to be taken home and cooked, it is hard to resist the exciting convenience of something fresh-made and healthy and ready for immediate consumption.

Today at the Columbia City Farmers market I got some food from GreenGo, whose byline is "Fast Food with a Conscience." One way that they express this presence of conscience is by preparing their food with local, organic ingredients, and another is by using compostable bowls and cutlery. They also offer a $0.50 discount for bringing and using your own dish.
Their menu is straight forward: they routinely make grilled polenta and serve it up with varied seasonal toppings. Today it was served under the name of the "Caballero," and came covered in azuki bean chili and served with a fresh crisp slaw that was made from all sorts of good tasting plants. It cost $5 and was delicious.
I also ordered the "Sweet Cakes," which consisted of grilled polenta covered in a rhubarb, apple, raspberry sauce and a little locally made hormone-free whipped cream. It was tart and rich and only a little bit sweet- a wonderful dessert that didn't overwhelm the healthy feel of the rest of the meal.
My meat-eater companion ordered the third and final element of the menu, the Organic Beef Cheeseburger. I don't usually get excited over the smell of a burger, but this one smelled outrageously delicious. He enjoyed it too.

The only complaint would be that the servings were just shy of enough.

I look forward to venturing down on Wednesday afternoons and sampling the various seasonal polenta toppings as the summer progresses!

Green Go
Columbia City Farmers Market
4801 Rainier Ave S, at S Edmonds
Wednesdays, 3pm - 7pm,
April 30 through Oct 22

Green Leaf

The tableware at Green Leaf made our meal look special from the moment the waitress brought out the tea, which came in larger than normal pretty ceramic cups, and no pot. All of the dishes were beautiful Asian pottery, and the chopsticks were attractive dark wood.
We ordered two appetizers: the vegetarian spring rolls, and the Green Papaya salad. The spring rolls were beautifully presented, and we were each given our own peanut dipping sauce. There was something special in the spring rolls that made them stand out... it was some sort of little crispy fried something or other, not enough to make them feel heavy, but just enough crunch to make them taste extra good.
The Green Papaya salad was gorgeous also. It can be ordered with a choice of shrimp or tofu, and we ordered ours with tofu. The salad was a beautiful pile of shredded green papaya and purple cabbage, and it was heavily garnished with crispy browned shallots and chopped peanuts. The sauce was tangy and savory, not sweet, and the fish sauce in it was so light I could barely notice it (I still wasn't quite able to eat my share, but I tend to be especially sensitive to fish sauce)*. It wasn't spicy in the least.
The tofu that came on the salad was wonderful. It was fresh and firm and quickly grilled, then covered with some sort of delicious fried garlicky lime-y bits. A member of our party who doesn't usually like tofu enjoyed it so much he wanted to order it next time for himself.
The vegetarian main dishes exist but represent a small portion of the menu, and I chose the vegetarian soup. They didn't seem to have a vegetarian "pho", but the soup I ordered was similar (minus the tray of sprouts and basil etc). This particular bowl was full of rice noodles, bok choy, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, green onions, basil, fried tofu strips, fake ham pieces and a generous sprinkling of black pepper. It was garnished with the same fried onion pieces that were on the papaya salad, and they added a welcome richness to the soup. I was presented with a small plate of lime wedges and jalapeno to add as I fancied.

As one member of our party put it, these guys really know how to use fried ingredients. Every dish we ordered had a tiny amount of some delicious fried garnish: onions, garlic, shallots, lemongrass, whatever was in the spring rolls... not enough to make it feel greasy or heavy, but enough to add some intrigue to the otherwise very fresh and light feeling fare.

Green Leaf is a small somewhat cramped restaurant, but the ambiance remains pleasant. In addition, the staff was especially friendly and accommodating.

*I don't usually eat fish sauce, but this is the second time I've made a semi-exception for Green Papaya salad. I wonder if Araya's has a vegan version... I bet they do.

Green Papaya
Neighborhood: International District

418 8th Ave S
Seattle, WA 98104
(206) 340-1388

Thaiger Room

My experience of Thaiger room is plentiful in quantity but limited in diversity: it is cheap and close to the UW, but there aren't very many menu options that can be made without fish sauce/shrimp paste (all curries and anything with peanut sauce can't be made vegan, nor can many of their speciality noodle dishes), so I end up eating the same dish every time I go.

The dish is Garlic Pepper Tofu, and I happen to like it, so my experience tends to be good.
I order it with soft tofu and specify no fish sauce. The dish amounts to a stir fry with veggies and tofu and rice, and comes loaded with chopped garlic and (on a good day) a visible dose of ground white pepper. The sauce tends to be flavourful without being too greasy, and is definitely not sweet. One problem is that the spice level doesn't seem to be consistent... I tend to order it 3 stars, a level which varies from burning the heck out of my mouth to being completely undetectable.
As a whole, there are probably plenty of better Thai restaurants in the city, but for me, this place has a specific function as purveyor of cheap, garlicky, non-sweet, non-fishy stir fry and that keeps me coming back.

4228 University Way NE
Seattle, WA 98105
(206) 632-9299
http://www.thaigerroom.com/

Roasted Corn El Oaxaqueno

I don't really know what's not to love in this rustic little corn stand. The experience starts with a Oaxacan man who pulls an ear of corn still dressed in its charred husk fresh out of a little red roasting trailer, then quickly shucks it and skewers it and garnishes it as you like it. "Everything" includes a brush of butter, a slather of mayonnaise, grated Parmesan and a good sprinkling of chili powder.
I ate mine with everything but the mayonnaise, and it was just right for me. Real slow roasted corn is always a treat... possibly not always the tautest of kernels, but the piping hot roast-y flavour makes one forgive that detail. The butter and Parmesan added richness, and the chili powder lent a slowly building heat on my lips that was a full on (pleasure) burn by the end.
Roasted Corn El Oaxaqueno is honest to goodness vegetarian street food. What a delight!

(In the parking lot of:)
MacPherson's Fruit and Produce
4500 15th Ave S
Seattle, WA 98108
(206) 762-0115

La Carta de Oaxaca

Braved the crowds at this popular Ballard restaurant for a recent birthday celebration. We joined the well-dressed pack waiting shoulder to shoulder in the standing-room-only bar, drinking tasty Margaritas from pint glasses almost as fast as the busy bartender could pour them.
Our patience was rewarded with a table, a basket of hot fresh salty chips and a bowl of guacamole. There is a salsa bar that consists of a half dozen really delicious salsas- pico de gallo, a green one, a light red one, a deep red one, a brown one... I don't know what kinds they were but they were outstanding, especially the brilliant red one which has a wonderful flavour unlike any salsa I've ever tasted.
The menu consists of dishes that were described by our party's La Carta de Oaxaca veteran as "not quite big enough for a meal" so we proceeded to order 2 dishes a piece.

Over the years, I've looked at the menu on the website probably a dozen times, totally excited about Oaxacan flavors and cooking, to find that the vegetarian options are really limited. I've always hoped that something else vegetarian would pop up (Vegetarian tamales? Molotes without sausage?), but the choices remain limited (and, I realize, probably more authentic for being so.)

My first dish was the Quesedilla Fritas, fried cheese quesedillas garnished with guacamole, Oaxaqueno cheese, beans and flavorful salsa. The tortillas were homemade and exquisite (would be worth ordering on their own)- warm, thick, soft, fragrant with masa. I sometimes get in over my head with quesedillas filled with stinky cheese, and was really pleased that the cheese used was mild and completely inoffensive to my sensitive little cheese tongue.
My second dish was the enchiladas, which I special ordered sans the typical fried egg on top. The Oaxacan enchiladas are different from the enchilada I am used to in that they aren't filled with anything. Instead, the fresh tortilla is dipped into a red chili sauce, folded over, then topped with onion, parsley and Oaxaqueno cheese (and a fried egg, if you like). I wasn't enamoured by the enchilada sauce- it was fruity and sweet and I would have enjoyed it more if it hadn't been.
All in all it was definitely a good evening, and it's hard not to have too good a time with large margaritas and a small fortune of salsas to choose from. But foodwise as a vegetarian, I felt a bit like I was eating from the kids menu. The food I had was good, but I felt like the meatless dishes were just scratching the surface of the wealth of the cuisine. I don't expect every restaurant to make numerous special concessions for the vegetarians, but seeing the dishes my meat-eating companions were relishing made me daydream more than a little.

(206) 782-8722
5431 Ballard Ave NW
Seattle, WA 98107
www.lacartadeoaxaca.com

P.F. Changs

http://www.pfchangs.com/

On a recent cross-state drive, I found myself needing dinner whilst in the middle of one of the countless and contagious stretches of country containing an explosion of chain restaurants and box stores and little else. In this hungry and road-weary state, it was a relief and a pleasure to spot the majestic cement horse statue that marks a P.F. Changs.

No matter where you are, the P.F. Changs menu seems to stay the same. To my fortune and delight, it includes a sizable vegetarian selection that promises the same dependable vegetarian choices even in areas of the country where tofu might not be popular.

The shtick is dependable too... your waiter will arrive at the table with an attractive tray with glass bottles of soy sauce, vinegar and hot oil, and small cups of chili sauce, pot sticker sauce, and horseradish-y Chinese mustard. He asks how hot you like it and like a magician combines the ingredients before your eyes.
I've found an item on the menu that I really enjoy, and I enjoy the predictability of its availability no matter how far into cattle country I've wandered. I order the Ma Po Tofu. It comes standard with the silken tofu fried (but they easily accommodate my request for steamed instead) on a big pile of steamed broccoli in a not-too-salty, not-too-sweet Ma Po sauce that is rich with garlic.
You can choose white or brown rice.

One interesting thing I noticed while looking through the PF Changs website later on, is that many of the vegetarian dishes include vegetarian oyster sauce, which includes no animal products. The existence of such a product was an exciting discovery for me (though I do wonder if it is just a fronting name for liquid MSG?), and I am pleased to see that PF Changs is going the oft-considered-subtle-extra-mile and acknowledging the presence of oyster extracts as not truly vegetarian.

Kingfish Cafe

The Kingfish Cafe
602 19th Avenue East
Seattle, Washington 98112
206.320.8757
http://www.thekingfishcafe.com/

Southern food tends to be a tempting but inaccessible genre for my tastes as a vegetarian- everything looks delicious... but meat and pork fat seem to be everywhere.

The Kingfish Cafe has taken southern food and given it enough newfangled influence to make it accessible for a vegetarian. Meat eaters will find delicious looking versions classics like pork chops, battered catfish and fried chicken, but there are some real gems nestled in for the vegetarians too.

I started the meal with an appetizer of Fried Green Tomatoes. They came to the table coated in a light and gritty herbed cornmeal batter, and drizzled with both garlic and chipotle aiolis . Arranged on top were three plump hushpuppies... dense and moist and a little bit sweet, they had a deep brown crust and were outstanding. The entire plate was sprinkled with chopped tomatoes and parsley.
Next came the main dish. I ordered the Hoppin' John Griddlecakes. I was thrilled when they arrived and the plate was huge and half covered in massive green salad. The griddle cakes were delicious- black eyes peas and rice and roasted veggies mashed into patties and deep fried until crusty, then garnished with salsa and sour cream.
I am easily seduced by a large salad, and this was no exception. I felt like a rabbit in an endless garden... plenty of wild greens, no need to ration or hoard. My one complaint was that it was slightly overdressed, and by the end of such a joyous salad orgy, my tongue was feeling ravaged from so much vinegary dressing. I would ask for the dressing on the side next time.

I enjoyed the atmosphere, which while still casual, had the slightly giddy buzz of people dressed with a little more effort than what you usually see around Seattle.

In addition, there was a visually appealing bar, and a delicious looking dessert menu.

The Kingfish Cafe is a wonderful restaurant to have in the arsenal of places to go with a mixed group and ensure an impressive and satisfying meal for both the meat eaters and the vegetarians alike.