cascadian telegrams

restaurants: pair

we’ve been to pair a few times before and always really liked it.  Last night we went again with John, Jacki, Bea and Eric, and as I’m between gigs right now, restaurant outings are rare for us.  So I thought I’d quickly write down my thoughts.

pair is not a great restaurant; it is merely a very good neighborhood restaurant (as Susan described it last night).  We’ve been there 3-4 times and I’ve always come away impressed and satisfied.  The original plan was for lark (we’ve got a few coupons for lark), but their confusing website says ‘no rezzies’, you can go to rez.urbanspoon.com and indeed make a reservation, which I didn’t discover until Friday.  So rather than chance a 1.5 hour wait we made a reservation at pear instead.

The first thing I really like about pair is the space: Open with natural light and inviting, less cacophonous than Lark.  Last night they had the windows open and there was a lovely breeze blowing in which made the drapes billow, and a bright moon hanging in the sky.  As before the staff are attentive and friendly.

The next thing I like about it is the ‘small plates’ theme, where the food (although not tapas… I’d describe it more as “west coast nouvelle cuisine”) is served tapas-style on small plates to be shared around the table.  With three couples, you’re able to sample lots of dishes and it’s not too filling or overwhelming,  while still being enough food (we ordered five small plates per couple and shared everything) to satisfy.

We started with a round of French 75 cocktails, which I’d never tried before.  It was refreshing and a perfect start.

The menu itself gets a knock occasionally for not switching up the offerings, but really I haven’t noticed it.  The moules frites are delicious and a perennial there, as well as things you’d expect to remain the same such as the cheese plates.  But the scallops special were a first for me and delicious,  while the tempura-fried zucchini had a delicious cheese infused into the batter-coated zukes – that was probably my favorite dish of the night.  I can’t recall the exact name – ask for the special if you go :).

The total cost per couple was not too bad considering we drained a bottle of very nice wine (didn’t see the label as a tablemate ordered it, but it was delicious) with a glass of ruby port at the end.  To be clear:  pair is not inexpensive, but I think it’s reasonable for what they provide.

Finally I’d say the hallmark of a good restaurant evening is when you’re enjoying the food and company so much that nobody wants to leave; without noticing, we were the last table still seated, and we’d spent over three hours there.   We weren’t hurried along, and they thanked us on the way out.  Nice.  Of course, we’ll be back.

Pair

(206) 526-7655

University District
5501 30th Ave NE
Seattle, WA 98105
www.pairseattle.com

sea scallops with asparagus sauce

another nice recipe, this one courtesy of SimplyRecipes:  Sea scallops with Asparagus Sauce. 

The asparagus sauce is easy and delicious, it is just asparagus, butter and salt.  Susan amended the recipe to include some fresh-made fettuccine noodles, but aside from that it is as below.  We rounded it off with a nice, summery Portuguese vinho verde.  Three scallops per person is plenty BTW, they are very rich.

Sea Scallops with Asparagus Sauce Recipe

Plan on 3 sea scallops per person for a light dinner or appetizer, 5 scallops for a full main course. Many sea scallops come with a tough flap of meat attached to them. Just pull it off and either discard or use in a seafood stock. The asparagus sauce is a great way to use the spears of asparagus in case you’ve chopped off the tips for use in another recipe. You’re just puréeing them here, so you’ll never see the tips.

Ingredients

• 6 sea scallops*
• Salt
• 1 pound asparagus
• 1/2 cup warm chicken broth (if cooking gluten-free use gluten-free stock)
• 2-3 Tbsp butter
• 2 Tbsp canola or grapeseed oil or other high smoke-point oil

Sea scallops are the big scallops, about 1 1/2-inches wide, as opposed to bay scallops which are small, about 1/2-inch wide. Look for “dry pack” scallops, as they are not treated with chemicals to keep them fresh; the chemicals are not overly harmful, but they change the texture of the scallop and make them harder to sear properly.

Method

1 Salt the scallops well and set aside at room temperature while you make the asparagus sauce.

2 Steam the asparagus for the sauce. Use a potato peeler to shave the outer layer off the asparagus spears, up to about three-quarters of the way up the spear. This part is more fibrous and will not break down as well in the blender. Chop into 2-inch pieces. Boil the asparagus in a pot of salted water for 5-8 minutes. This is longer than you’d normally cook asparagus, but you want the spears to blend well later.

3 Remove the asparagus from the pot. If you want to retain that vibrant green color, shock them in an ice bath. Put them in a food processor or blender. Add half the chicken stock and purée until smooth. (If you want an even smoother texture you can push the purée through a fine mesh sieve or a food mill.) Pour the sauce into a small pot and add the butter. Heat over very low heat until the butter melts, but do not let it boil, or even simmer. The sauce should be warm, not hot. If the sauce is too thick you can add more chicken stock. Add salt to taste.

4 Pat the scallops dry with a paper towel. Heat a sauté pan on high heat. Add a high smoke point oil like canola or grapeseed oil, and let it heat up for 2 minutes. The pan should be very hot. If it starts to smoke, move the pan off the heat. Lay in the scallops in the pan, well separated from each other. You might need to sear in batches.

If your scallops are thicker than 1 inch, turn the heat down to medium-high. Most sea scallops are about an inch. Let them sear without moving for at least 3-4 minutes. Keep an eye on them. You will see a crust beginning to form on the outside edge of the scallop, and the meat will begin to whiten upward. A good time to check the scallop is when you see a golden brown ring at the edge of the scallop. Try picking it up with tongs, and if it comes cleanly, check it – you should see a deep golden sear. If not, let it back down and keep searing.

5 When the scallops are well seared on one side, turn them over and sear on high heat for 1 minute (give or take). Then turn off the heat. The residual heat will continue to cook the scallops for a few minutes. Let the scallops cook for at least another minute, or more if you like your scallops well-done.

To serve pour a little sauce in the middle of the plate, top with the scallops, the more browned side up.

Serve at once. Garnish with a little chopped parsley if you want, and maybe with a wedge of lemon.

Art of The Table

As Malcolm was off with his best m8 Julian and family at Great Wolf Lodge for the evening (Happy 7th Birthday Julian!) we took advantage and had a nice dinner out at Art of The Table (just down the street in Wallingford) with Alan and Elizabeth.

Man what a great, funky little place this is, with a very creative chef and fixed-price, fixed course dinners.  The “theme” this week (each week is a different theme) was ‘sexy summer salads’, but rather than four courses of, well, salads, chef Dustin Ronspies riffed on fresh summer ingredients (all locally-sourced organic or grown in their kitchen garden) such as beets, locally-caught albacore tuna in a ‘salad nicoise’ variation, farro, eggplant and mint with elderflower syrup on the ice cream dessert (with an english bean salty sorbet as a palate cleanser before the final course… adventurous!).  For completeness, here’s the menu:

Supper Club Series of
Several Seriously Super
Sexy Summer Salads
July 16th, 17th & 18th, 2009

first
Local Farmers Market Salad
with Greens, Herb Marinated
Goat Cheese, Beets, Hazelnuts &
Apricot~Champagne Vinaigrette

second
"Tuna Nicoise Dustin's Way"
Local Albacore Tuna Two Way-Seared
& Confit, Braised Fennel,
Baby Potatoes, Fava Beans,
Tomato Provencal, Olives,
Fried Capers & Other Goodness

third
Cherry Wood-Grilled Chicken
with Farro Salad, Grilled Zucchini,
Japanese Eggplant, & Pesto

last
Summer Fruit Salad with
Elderflower Syrup,
Garden Mint Ice Cream &
Lemon-Lavander Wafers

door opens at 7pm
Supper begins at 7:30

Dustin introduced each course by banging a little gong to get attention and then described what we had been served, and each course was accompanied by a different, appropriate wine.  The wines weren’t locally-sourced – all from France or Italy – but perfectly appropriate.  It was lovely but low-key and informal in that nice, “Seattle hippie” way that always makes me smile inside.

The other thing we really liked was that they expected diners to stay for 3-4 hours and enjoy the ambiance… stretching out the evening like that was a pleasure.  It is much more like dining in Europe where you’re out for the entire evening, rather than the American pattern of trying to push you through in 90 minutes or so… it is not good service to be asked if you want dessert or more food every 10 minutes, and AOTT certainly stays well away from that!

It was 11pm by the time we left, but the arrival of food and good conversation with our friends was paced so adroitly that we didn’t even notice the passing of time.  Susan declared it to be one of the best restaurant experiences she’s had in Seattle.

A splendid evening, and we’ll be back.