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

music review: st. vincent, wildbirds and peacedrums, fences at neumo’s

A lot has already been written about Annie Clark (aka St. Vincent); I don’t think I can beat this bit from Rolling Stone:

Tour-de-force arrangements encompass Euro-chanteuserie, rackety synth-pop beats and big, swooning ballads, often in the same song.

‘Tis true, but it doesn’t totally capture what’s going on here.  For one thing, she’s a wicked good, Berklee-trained guitarist with a very unusual playing and arrangement style.  During last night’s set I found myself fixated by her finger-picking and strumming technique – it’s very unusual.

For another, she’s surrounded herself with some crack musicians, who switch between wind instruments, keyboards and guitars.  The baritone sax work in Marrow had a crazy, kinetic energy that somehow reminded me of Berlin-era Bowie…  a very good thing.

The other interesting thing is how theatrical she is.  Much has been made of her good looks and expressive, doe eyes, but she has stage presence and confidence to go with guitar chops.  Probably she’s the most interesting musician I’ve seen in years.  Can’t wait until she comes through again.

 

‘Confidence’ really shone through from warmup act Wildbirds & Peacedrums.  They’re a two-piece, drums and timpani (!) band.  I thought they had an uninhibited animal energy, Susan thought they had “punk rock attitude” (a compliment, meaning they’re totally unafraid to experiment).  She scat sings very well, and boy, can that $!^^@ play drums – check this out:

 

a new favorite thing.

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.

david macualay's 'rome antics'

I've yet to meet a person who has been to Rome and not come away smitten with the place. Only most can't capture it in sketch and story like David Macaulay can.

TED Talk by David Macaulay (he of The Way Things Work fame and more) telling the story of how he developed what is really a love-letter to the city of Rome through sketches and conflated storylines... delightful.  It includes pigeon-eye views of the city and views from an imaginary dirigible piloted by a young girl and her dog (example: she lowers her dog from the dirigible in a basket with a list of groceries for lunch, and parks her dirigible by tying it to the Coliseum).

See his Talk

Buy his Book

music: radiohead 'in rainbows'

I've downloaded Radiohead's In Rainbows (you set your own price... I paid ten quid for the 160Kbps MP3 version... what did you pay? You can pay 'zero') and I must say this is a very interesting album.

It is an 'album' in the classic, Pink Floyd or Beatles sense of the term -- a cohesive whole, meant to be be listened to in the prescribed order I'd guess.  (Radiohead have had a high-profile battle with Apple over their refusal to sell individual tracks).

Jigsaw Falling Into Place is a beautiful pop single; Nude is the same beautiful-yet-sad groove they've been mining for years. And Faust Arp is gorgeous, elegiac... lovely guitar work and string section.

Of course Radiohead's distinctive sound is largely thanks to Thom Yorke's soaring voice and sometimes falsetto.  It is a strange instrument, his voice.  It is very expressive and rings clear like a bell, yet it always sounds as if it is about to break.  Sort of plaintive, but pleasant.  I think I'm going to grow tired of it but I never do... he always finds new ways to draw me in to his stories.

They aren't just treading over old ground here: All I Need is channeling Boards of Canada (in a good way) and the high point of the disc is Reckoner where they channel gospel and Moby but with Yorke's unmistakeable imprimatur.  A beautiful groove, and probably the most radio-friendly track on the album.

It's been stuck in my head since the first listen so it will take a little time to fully digest... but this is an album to be savored.

music review: LoveLikeFire "An Ocean Of Air"

 

Autumn has always been music time for me, and as we're just back in the States I'm taking the opportunity to discover lots of good, regional music. 

San Francisco's LoveLikeFire is a great start for me: Ann Yu's beautiful, ringing voice fills the tracks with naive and beautiful melody and she's ably-backed by a tight, no-nonsense band that knows how to rock a room (I can just see the crowd pogo-ing in place to the chorus of "Unlighted Shadow").   

To be crystal clear, I don't think they're cutting new ground here -- it's just slightly dark, lovely power pop -- but it's quite good for what it is.  A worthy release.

I've also picked up new discs by Portland's Charmparticles and Jonah  as well as The Album Leaf -- but haven't made my mind up on those yet.   Note:  if you listen to the tracks at these links, you'll quickly see where my head is at right now... autumn is a dramatic time for me, always!

It also gives me an opportunity to support Portland-based CD Baby when buying music... damn them, they're so addictive and cheeky:  I got the following email from them when I bought these discs:

 

Your CDs have been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with
sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.
A team of 50 employees inspected your CDs and polished them to make sure they were in the best possible condition before mailing.

Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over
the crowd as he put your CDs into the finest gold-lined box that money
can buy.

We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party
marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of
Portland waved "Bon Voyage!" to your package, on its way to you, in
our private CD Baby jet on this day, Tuesday, October 2nd.

I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby.  We sure did.
Your picture is on our wall as "Customer of the Year."  We're all
exhausted but can't wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Sigh...

Indeed :).