Quinn's

I kind of splurged on my weekend in Seattle, meal-wise. By splurged, I mean that I ate both well and terribly, averaging one good restaurant meal and one cappuccino/donut meal per day. Being that my super-sketchy Motel was next to Top Pot Donuts (Oh my lord, why doesn't NY have maple donuts?), I had to stop by every day, and the well-windowed room gave me a great view of the pouring rain on the sidewalks outside. Seriously, Seattle? You have to fulfill your every stereotype by feeding me coffee during ceaseless rainstorms? Anyway, Quinn's. L took me here with the promise of Wild Boar Sloppy Joes, and while neither of us ordered it, that's exactly the kind of dish I'd want to hear about to entice me into a joint.

Yeah, tons of the kinds of dishes that strike my fancy: flamboyant ingredients like maple-bourbon marshmallows neighboring questionables like caraway spatzel. One of those anxiety-inducing menus where I have to narrow down my questions for the waiter so I don't come across as the most obnoxious PITA ever. I'm not a pretentious question asker; I just want to know what choucroute* is, even if I'm pretty certain I won't be ordering that dish. *sauerkraut
This place had a great beer and whiskey selection to match their game-infused menu. In case you couldn't guess, we ordered the duck terrine with fizzy grapes (they were shot through with Co2, and weren't the electrifying pop-rocks I imagined but fun nonetheless) and the venison sausage with the bourbon-mallow (melty rye goo) and the oxtail & gnocchi (of course, you say- gnocchi). And even though I'd just left the Bay, I got me a Pliny the Elder ale, cuz I can't find that stuff when I go back home. I figured I'd made up for it last weekend by getting a Pike's Kilt Lifter in Tamales Bay with E. A strange case of local brew-swapping. Ended the night wandering the Capitol Hill bar scene with L and thinking that I could live there, seriously if not for the rain.