Meridian Market, Where Have You Been All My Life?

The long awaited and much anticipated Meridian Market has finally opened its doors in the not-quite-Wallingford, not-quite-Greenlake neighborhood of Tangletown. Given that very few people seem to be aware of the moniker Tangletown (“you live where?“) I halfway suspect it to be an elaborate hoax, someone out there snickering that this silly word is making its way into our collective lexicon. The Meridian Market, however, is quite real and has been quickly embraced by a neighborhood lacking in any kind of grocery save the 50th Street Deli, a place perhaps good for a pit stop but not for any kind of realistic meal. When I mentioned my excitement to the friendly, laid-back cashier at the Meridian Market he said “yeah, a lot of people have been saying that. Excited for a grocery store?” Heck yes! The anticipation over this place has been mounting steadily over the past year as the building came to look more and more like a finished product. The owners, who also have the quietly successful Phinney Market on 60th and Phinney Ave N, could not have picked a better spot. Nestled under an apartment complex just across the street from the always crowded Zoka coffee and kitty corner from the Tangletown Brewery, the location was ripe for a grocery.

I stopped by around 10:00 on a Thursday evening the week of the store’s opening. I found the place to be adorably small, well-lit and warmly inviting. The Doobie Brothers crooned soothingly from somewhere overhead and a few late-nighters trickled in and out. There was an air of newness and subdued excitement. The deli was closing up shop but the store itself was open for another hour. For its size the place is very well stocked with upscale options: a case full of fancy cheeses, sushi, pre-made salads, very fresh, crisp produce (mangoes! Pineapple!), baguettes, a nice wine selection with hand-written recommendations, sake (including my favorite, Yaegaki Nigori! Hooray!) and a good selection of top-grade chocolate, very important. The focus seems to be on quality, not quantity, which is something I can get behind. The only thing I was really disappointed by was the lack of a good chèvre. I wandered about for a bit and was not challenged by anyone even though I must have looked suspicious with my slow meandering and copious note-taking. This seemed to fit in nicely with Meridian Market’s attitude of casual acceptance.

As I made my way home with my California Rolls (Sushi Master, $4.49 for a box of eight—pretty tasty, although a bit skimpy with the fillings) and recommended wine (Carchelo, a Spanish red, said to be “fruity and lively”, $9.99), I breathed the satisfied sigh of one entering a long and glorious relationship.

Meridian Market
2201 N 56th St
Seattle, WA 98103
(206) 547-5940
open daily from 6:00 am to 11:00 pm

I Like Drinks, Too

My absolute hands-down favorite thing to drink ever is a well made Thai ice tea. It’s the nectar of the gods. It’s like a caramel colored symphony in your mouth. It tastes magical, pure, restorative. It breaks my heart to see people order a Coke in a Thai restaurant. I just want to shake them! Don’t they understand what they’re missing? Nothing compliments good food like the appropriate beverage, and Thai ice tea is the perfect thing to refresh your palate after Thai food’s complex flavors. While best when made fresh, there are also canned varieties that can be purchased at Southeast Asian groceries. These don’t hold a candle to the real thing and mostly taste artificial and tinny. The best version I’ve found is Tisanes Thai Tea, which is convenient in a resealable bottle and has a smoother, richer taste than its canned brethren. It will do in a pinch.

Another favorite drink of mine is young coconut juice. This is not to be confused with coconut milk, which is the thick, pulpy stuff pressed from the meat of a fully matured coconut. Coconut juice is the water found in a young (not fully ripened) coconut and is often served with pieces of the soft young coconut meat floating in it. It has a very clean, delicate taste and is great on a hot day. Like Thai ice tea it can be found in any Asian grocery, and it’s hard to go wrong when it comes to brand. I prefer Foco Roasted Coconut Juice, which has a smoky, more complex flavor than the other varieties.

When I was in Japan last Summer some friends introduced me to Mugicha, Japanese barley tea. Summer in Japan is a hot, sticky affair, and while I was there the temperatures were in the mid nineties and the humidity was somewhere around 98%. Being a Pacific Northwest girl I am not accustomed to this kind of oppressive heat, but Mugicha, with its distinctive, almost gamey flavor, served cold, and conveniently (and bafflingly) found in vending machines on every street corner, was the best thirst quencher I could have asked for. I became addicted to the stuff and felt compelled to seek it out upon my return to the U.S. Happily, I found several varieties at Uwajimaya, Seattle’s sprawling Japanese supermarket.

I recently took a chance on a grass jelly drink from Taiwan. Expecting it to taste like the scent of freshly mowed lawn, my taste buds were shocked to discover it to have more of a sweet, root beer type of flavor. The closest comparison I can make is with those little A&W hard candies, the kind you like for about two seconds and then have to spit out. It was a little like medicine. The best part was the actual grass jelly floating in the drink, but it wasn’t enough to compel me to try this drink again.

Dear Pagliaccio Salad,

I love you so much, Pagliacci’s Pagliaccio Salad. Everything about you thrills me, starting with your perfect base of green leaf lettuce. How is it that you have such exquisite toppings? Your garbanzo beans–tasty, yet good for me! Your finely diced red peppers–marinated to perfection! Your shredded soft cheese–so mild, so creamy. Your cubes of salami–a salty accent to your lighter ingredients. Your diced red onion just doesn’t do it for me, however. I’m sorry, Pagliaccio Salad, but it is much to potent. I ask to have it left off. I do so love your dijon vinaigrette dressing, though! I want to dip everything I eat into it! So how about it, baby. You, me, and a couple of breadsticks. Let’s order in tonight. I know we’ll be good for each other.

XOXO

Salvadorean Bakery

When I mention White Center to people in Seattle I am usually met with confusion and disdain. “Wait, where is that again? It’s way down south, right?” Noses inevitably wrinkle. White Center just isn’t viewed as a “destination” place, and I think that this is a mistake. Unpretentious in the extreme, perhaps a little trashy yet possessing a charm all its own, White Center is a great place to get food. Businesses are mainly Mexican and Southeast Asian and this makes for some very good, cheap eating. It’s also relatively easy to get to, lying just outside of the Seattle city limits and abutting the south side of West Seattle.

One of my favorite places in White Center is the Salvadorean Bakery. It is, so far as I’m aware, the only place in the Seattle area to try the food of El Salvador. Only some of the employees speak English so it can be a good opportunity to brush up on your Spanish. This friendly, brightly lit bakery has an adjoining room full of booths and tables for eating in, but take-out is an easy option. A must try are the pupusas. These are akin to a corn tortilla, but thicker and pillowy soft. They are stuffed with a variety of fillings, fried, and served with salsa and a spicy, pickled cabbage dish called curtido. There are six varieties, three of which are vegetarian, and are a bargain at $1.95 each. My favorite is the revuelta, which has a pork, cheese, and bean filling. The pork is delicately minced and salted and the refried beans moist and flavorful. The queso con loroco, cheese with palm blossom, I find to be a bit too cheesy and greasy, but if cheesy and greasy is your thing you should like this one. There is an extensive menu beyond the pupusas, including tamales, soups, fried plantains, chile rellenos, and an entire breakfast section. On a recent morning I tried the pan francés con frijoles, queso y crema, a loaf of french bread roughly the shape and about half the size of a football, filled with refried beans, hard cheese and sour cream. The golden, crisp exterior of the bread encases a soft chewy middle and a lava floe of warm refried beans and sour cream. The firm bits of cheese act as a salty accent to the creaminess of the filling. The thing was giant, and a bit heavy for breakfast, but it was so good that I finished all but a few bites. Another breakfast item that caught my eye that I haven’t had a chance to try yet is the plátano frito con frijoles y crema, deep fried plantains served with refried beans and sour cream. I mean to get this the next time I’m there. On weekends only you can get atole de elote, a sweet, hot corn drink seasoned with cinnamon. Creamy and smooth, this would be the perfect accompaniment to a cold winter morning.

While the meals served at the Salvadorean Bakery are grand, the real excitement of visiting this place are the two large bakery cases full of lovely, lovely desserts. Being a total sugar freak my heart beats a little faster when these cases come into view. Everything in there is so pretty, so colorful, so…happy looking, it can be hard to know where to start, but I highly recommend the almond squares. These are little bites of heaven. They are made from a piece of unbelievably moist almond flavored cake that is dipped in chocolate, topped with sliced almonds and coated with a thin layer of glaze. They are so light and airy they will seem to just melt in your mouth. Other highlights include the leche flan, the borracho, a rum-soaked bread pudding (this one packs a wallop), and the sweet, jam filled empanadas. Opposite the bakery cases, on a small shelf by the door, are some very unassuming little loafs of cake wrapped in a clear plastic bag. Don’t let their ordinary appearance fool you. The chocolate cream cake, while unadorned and innocently shaped like a loaf of banana bread, is one of the best cakes I have ever had. It’s not heavy yet it’s very substantial, incredibly moist yet not greasy, and chocolate-y like nobody’s business. I’ve seen a small group of people take one of these babies down in under an hour.

So remember, White Center= good eatin’, and there are few places where this is truer than at the Salvadorean Bakery.

Salvadorean Bakery

1719 SW Roxbury St

Seattle, WA 98106

(206) 762-4064

Open every day, 6:30 am-9:00 pm

For a Good Time, Call The Pita Pit

I was recently made aware of the existence of The Pita Pit by a couple of Oregonian friends of mine, That’s What She Said and The Lovely Miss Q. We had gotten together for a Sunday afternoon stitch and bitch and needed some food delivered fast. “How about The Pita Pit?” Suggested the Oregonians. “We used to order from them all the time back in Eugene.” Apparently they deliver their pitas on a bike. A bike! How quaint! A quick perusal of the menu revealed The Pita Pit to have a layout similar to a sub shop. You take a pita, you choose from an extensive list of toppings, ie: meat, veggies, cheese, condiments. Pretty straightforward. While cheap, fast, and convenient, I believe that what really sets The Pita Pit apart are their hilarious stoner employees. A call made to inquire about their delivery options met with this response: “Um, well, yeah…I guess we deliver, but he’s on a bike so you have to live close by.” It was established that I live somewhere within a 20 block radius, but the stoner balked. “Oh, you mean way on the other side of the freeway?” (Four blocks on the other side, but who’s counting.) “Well, um…yeah, that might work…ok, let’s give it a try. It’ll probably work.” Fearing for the fate of our food, we decided to put our stitching and bitching on hold and go pick it up ourselves.

Once inside we were met by the same stoner that took our call. He went to ring us up but needed to take the delivery charge off of our bill first. “Um…wait. What’s $20.77 minus $2.50? Um…sorry, I just woke up and I really can’t do math right now.” It was about 6:00 at night. Having worked in customer service quite a bit myself, I have near infinite patience for people in the food service industry. It’s not as easy as it looks, folks. I helped him out with the math, and he promptly wandered off to help some new arrivals at the other end of the counter, leaving our money and ticket sitting by the register. He wandered back a bit later, and That’s What She Said and The Lovely Miss Q requested some sodas. As he was handing TWSS her cup, he suddenly and somewhat awkwardly said, “No, you’re not paying for this soda. Go ahead and have it”. Uncomfortable pause. Handing TLMQ her cup, “No–no, you’re not paying either”. It didn’t seem like he was trying to be nice per se–one got the sense that he didn’t want to be bothered with adding the soda charge to our bill. When I jokingly asked if I could have a free drink as well, my request went ignored. Of all the nerve.

Back at home, having been rung up at last by another employee who came over to bail out his incompetent coworker, we dug in. The pitas themselves were pretty good. I had the chicken breast with feta, several veggies, honey mustard, and ranch dressing. The chicken seemed a little…reconstituted, perhaps. Not as bad as a McNugget, but noticeable nonetheless. It was tasty, but in a fast food kind of way. Still, there were plenty of toppings and they didn’t skimp on the condiments. TLMQ was crestfallen that they had run out of hot sauce, which, to hear her tell it, attains almost magical levels of deliciousness when mixed with tzatziki. This disappointment aside, we all agreed that the pitas hit the spot. I would go there again the next time I’m craving something sandwich-y. I’ll just keep my expectations low regarding service.

The Pita Pit: pitas on a bike and hilarious stoners. How can you go wrong?