What I Ate in Seattle

A couple of weeks ago, I made my first trip over to the US West Coast for a conference in Seattle. I was only there for about four days, but I made sure to squeeze in as much touring and eating as I could in between conference sessions!

I know Seattle isn't the most exotic place, but it is known for having a great selection of food options and local beer, so I thought it was worth sharing my experience on the blog!

We were staying downtown just a few blocks from Pike Place Market, which worked out perfectly because that was the one tourist spot that I really wanted to see while I was there.

I absolutely loved the market area; there was so much to see and so many treats to sample that I had to keep coming back to make sure I got to try everything that I wanted to!

On my first visit to the market, I passed by Cinnamon Works, a bakery that I had heard about that offers plenty of vegan and gluten-free options. While they are famous for their cinnamon buns, I had my eye on their giant cookies instead! It took me probably twenty minutes to make up my mind on what I wanted, but I finally settled on the pumpkin cookie. I found the texture to be a bit too dry, but I loved the flavour!

I never got the chance to go back for one of their cinnamon buns, because I only had time for one breakfast at the market, and I wanted to make sure I tried The Crumpet Shop, where they make crumpets fresh every day and top them with a variety of sweet and savory combinations.

This time I didn't have as much trouble deciding what to order - I knew right away that I wanted the lemon curd and ricotta crumpet, and it was even better than I was expecting! I never liked crumpets that much as a kid, but it makes a big difference when you try one freshly made and topped with creamy lemon curd! I also tried a bite of my sister's pesto, tomato, and cheese crumpet which was amazing too.


I still had some room in my stomach after the crumpet so I went around the corner and found a greek yogurt place that I had also heard good things about - Ellenos Real Greek Yogurt. With flavours like marionberry pie, passionfruit, lemon curd, latte, and caramel, you're basically getting a treat that tastes like a decadent dessert!

I got the lemon cheesecake flavour, which had swirls of lemon curd and crumbles mixed in and it was heavenly! The yogurt is super thick and creamy while still tasting fresh and natural. I'd definitely recommend checking this place out if you're in Seattle - you can also try samples of any of the flavours!


While I loved the crumpet and yogurt, my favourite treat from the market was the famous piroshkies from Russian bakery Piroshky Piroshky. I had the chance to go there for lunch on our last day and when I saw the huge lineup, I knew that was a good sign!

While waiting in line, I could see the pastries being freshly made and you could definitely taste the freshness when you bit into them! I got one savory and one sweet because I couldn't decide what type I wanted and both of the ones I tried were so soft and still warm from the oven. On the left is a potato and cheese stuffed piroshky and on the right was a rhubarb cream filled piroshky - not the healthiest lunch but I'm so glad I tried them!


Also on the less healthy side were these doughnuts from Top Pot Doughnuts that we went to one morning for breakfast. I'm not really much of a doughnut fan, but we had to try this place because we had read a lot of good reviews about it and they were voted best doughnuts in Western Washington!

I tried a blueberry cake doughnut and a lemon glazed old fashioned. They definitely had a lot of flavour, but they were a bit too sweet and cakey for my tastes, so next time I would go for one of their other options.


Of course, I didn't just eat pastries the whole time! The conference actually provided us with some pretty healthy lunches. The vegetarian options over the three days were a veggie-filled wrap, a salad, and a caprese sandwich, each time accompanied with fruit and a dessert.

I also enjoyed a few nice dinners, two of which were at Tom Douglas's restaurants (American chef, cookbook author, Iron Chef America winner, and James Beard Award winner). I had a delicious beet and goat cheese salad as well as chesnut gnocchi at his Italian trattoria called Cuoco.

My favourite dinner was this potato and rosemary pizza at his more casual pizza restaurant, Serious Pie. If you like handmade, wood-fired pizza with a perfectly crisp thin crust, you should give this place a try!


Overall, I loved the city and found the people there to be so friendly. Of course, they had also just won the Super Bowl, so the happiness and excitement level all around was probably a bit higher than usual!

I'm sure there are plenty of other local landmarks, food shops, and restaurants that I missed on this trip, so feel free to share more recommendations in case I ever get the chance to go back (or for other readers who might be planning a visit there soon)!

What I Ate in India

  

The past month or so has been a busy one for me, since I've been lucky enough to squeeze in two international trips to different conferences, and the latest one took me all the way to India!

I've talked a lot about my love for India on the blog before, especially the food there. Not only do I love the flavours and variety of Indian dishes, but I can't think of another country that I've visited with such a high prevalence of vegetarians and vegetarian options at restaurants - quite different than my experiences in other countries like Japan!

My last trip to India in 2010 (when I did an internship there) was mostly based in Mumbai, so I was excited to have the chance to visit the capital city of the country this time, New Delhi. It was a pretty short trip and most of my time was spent at the conference center (the amazing Taj Palace Hotel - highly recommended if you ever visit New Delhi!). I did have one full free day though, so I took advantage of being so close to the Taj Mahal and made a day trip of going to see it. Now I know why it's considered one of the seven wonders of the world - it is absolutely beautiful!

But on to the food, since that's why you came here in the first place!

This was my first meal the morning after I arrived in New Delhi. From my limited experience, Indian hotels tend to offer amazing breakfast buffets, and this one was especially good because they made fresh dosas to order! Dosa is basically a large, thin, crispy crepe that comes plain or with a filling. I got a masala dosa, which is stuffed with a potato mixture, and of course I ate mine with lots of coconut chutney (in the middle of the plate), which I love too!

I also love the Indian style coffee they serve for breakfast - it's extra milky and sweet, which makes it taste like a treat instead of just my regular morning caffeine dose!

Every day there were new items at the breakfast buffet, so I always filled my plate with lots of different things to try, which would keep me full for a long time! Above are some of the dishes that I tried - in the interest of keeping this post short, I won't explain what they all are, but I've labelled them so that you can look them up if you see something that interests you (or I'm happy to try to respond to any questions in the comments)!

For my first dinner, I was still pretty jet-lagged so I just went down to the hotel restaurant, which actually turned out to be really nice! If you're visiting India as a tourist, you can definitely get some attentive service at many hotel restaurants - I was never allowed to serve myself from my own plate, and I had at least 3 different waiters constantly checking on me, not to mention the chef himself who came out at the end!

I ordered the delhi chaat platter because I love chaats (street food snacks), and it came with an assortment of four different chaat items: palak patta chaat (fried spinach leaves topped with yogurt and chutneys), dahi gujiya (lentil dumpling soaked in yogurt and chutneys), ragda pattice (potato patties topped with a split pea gravy and chutneys), and raj kachori (crisp puri shells stuffed with a potato mixture and various chutneys).  I loved the combination of yogurt with sweet and spicy chutneys in each of the dishes! The meal also came with complimentary pappadums to start, mini naans with pumpkin chutney (top right), and a bite of sweet dessert!

The next day I travelled about 4 hours to Agra to see the Taj Mahal, as I mentioned at the start of this post. After a long day of travelling and sightseeing, I was starving by the time I finally got to sit down at a restaurant for a (very) late lunch! I stuck with things that I knew I loved - mulligatawny soup, freshly made butter naan, and a mango lassi to wash it down. It wasn't the best lassi I've had (since mango season is over), but the naan was so good!

We were also fed pretty well during the conference days. I looked forward to our morning and afternoon refreshment breaks because they always had delicious drinks and snacks waiting for us! My favourite drink was the masala tea (what we Canadians would call chai) - it was perfectly spiced and milky, and I liked the little clay pots that it was served in!

They also offered a different cold beverage each time, and it was always in a new colour! These were a few of the options - rose milk water (a bit strange), khus sharbat, and ginger juice.

I also enjoyed my vegetarian lunch box, which came with a salad, croquette, mini roti rolls filled with paneer, rice, and yogurt, with a sweet almond halva and a banana for dessert - pretty good for a boxed lunch!  I was a bit disappointed when they switched to a Western style lunch the next day...

On the first conference night, I was a bit tuckered out and not feeling up to venturing out in the city at night, so I ordered room service instead and was so glad that I did! Not only did I enjoy the elaborate table setup, but the khichdi that I ordered was really good too. Khichdi (a mix of rice and lentils with spices and tomato) is my idea of Indian comfort food and one of the only dishes that I learned to make when I was in India the last time - I'll have to post a recipe on the blog soon for you guys!

On the last night of the conference, we had a group dinner and I ordered the vegetarian set menu, which ended up being a ton of food! The meal started off with a tasty amuse-bouche of paneer with a pomegranate seed (top left), followed by a corn soup (top right), and two appetizers: a lentil patty and paneer tikka (bottom left). Plus we had a selection of pre-dinner appetizers - carrot sticks, mango pickle, and crispy pappadums with chutney (bottom right).

For the main courses, we were each served portions of several shared dishes (vegetarian or non vegetarian depending on preference). My vegetarian choices (clockwise) included a vegetable mixture, creamy malai kofta, very rich lentils, creamed spinach with corn (not pictured) and biryani, served with a few different types of naan. Since everything was in the North Indian style of food, it was a bit too rich for me, but still very good!

And as if that wasn't enough food, we also got three different desserts: gulab juman (which tasted like an extremely sweet fried donut soaked in sugar syrup), chenna payas (cottage cheese balls soaked in coconut milk), and kulfi (Indian style ice cream served on a stick). The kulfi was definitely my favourite of the desserts!

Most Indian meals at restaurants end with a selection of mouth fresheners, which usually includes fennel seeds, sugar crystals, and other seeds. This tray also came with areca nut (which almost broke a tooth!) and paan leaves, none of which I was adventurous enough to try!

On the last day, I wanted to try something other than North Indian food (since I was still recovering from the previous night's dinner!) so I ordered a South Indian dish for lunch - uttapam! Uttapam is like a giant pancake made from soaked and ground rice and lentils, with extra ingredients like onion and tomato mixed in. I loved the pancake on its own, but it's even better topped with tomato and coconut chutneys and the sambar (spicy vegetable stew) that it comes with!


If you're still reading, thanks for sticking with me through so many pictures! If you love Indian food as much as I do, then hopefully you enjoyed seeing a reminder of what makes the cuisine so good! And if you're not that familiar with Indian food, then maybe you'll be inspired to go out and try some of the variety of dishes, or to try some Indian cooking at home!

I'll be back later this week with a new recipe inspired by my trip!

What I Ate in Japan

Thanks for your comments on my last post! Sorry I've been behind in my comments and posting, but I'm back from my trip to Japan now and still trying to recover from the jet lag (I don't know what it is about this particular trip, but I've never had such difficulty trying to adjust to different time zones!). 

Before I get back into regular posts, I wanted to share some of the pictures and experiences I had during my brief trip! 

Tokyo was definitely an exciting place to be, with tons to see and do and so little time to fit it all in! The biggest issue I had there was communication, but luckily the people there were so kind and patient and willing to help as much as they could!

As for food options, I'm a bit embarrassed to say that I didn't try a whole lot of authentic Japanese food while I was there. I knew going in that it would be difficult to find vegetarian options, but that difficulty was compounded by the fact that so many menus were in Japanese only (with pictures of the items, which did help a bit), and I didn't really feel comfortable choosing dishes without knowing what was in them. But at least I did manage to try some amazing udon noodles, soba noodles, and a few other delicious treats while I was there!

My first "meal" after arriving in Tokyo in the evening was actually at a Thai restaurant, since it was the first place we found with English translations that wasn't a pizza or pasta restaurant. I had a delicious coconut drink and this avocado salad with sesame dressing that was so good. Too bad it was also so tiny!

My first actual Japanese meal was my lunch the next day at a cafe in the Mount Fuji area. They offered lots of different udon noodle dishes using the local fresh udon noodles, so I ordered a bowl topped with vegetable tempura. I found it a bit difficult to eat with my limited chopstick skills, but these were definitely the best udon noodles I've ever had!  I also had a fresh peach juice made with the local peaches - a nice refreshing drink to go with the hot noodles. 

As I mentioned, I also tried soba noodles once as my last meal before leaving the Narita airport. One of the only vegetarian options on the menu was plain cold soba noodles that you eat with a dipping sauce (in the little pot), and some tempura on the side (I just gave the shrimp away to my fellow diners). This wasn't a particularly memorable meal, but it was a nice light and refreshing lunch to have before a long flight!

The only other authentic Japanese meals that I had while I was there were my bento lunchboxes during the conference that I went to, which were full of different items, some of them new to me like the lotus root. It was fun to explore and taste everything without knowing what some of them even were!

Another one of my lunches that I enjoyed was at a vegetarian restaurant that my sister Natalie had looked up for us ahead of time to make sure I'd be able to find food that I could eat (she deserves most of the credit for the planning of our trip). They had a small menu, but it was nice to be able to order anything I wanted! 

Nat had a soy based veggie burger, and I had the same burger but on its own with sauce over a bit of spaghetti, kind of like a giant meatball. When combined with the side dishes of miso soup and pickled veggies, along with a Japanese style iced tea, this became more of a unique fusion style meal. 

We also ate at a couple of themed restaurants in Tokyo. We only discovered that these existed once we were already there, and we had no idea there were so many cool places to eat! This was my meal at an Alice in Wonderland themed restaurant, where we ate in our own private tea party room, the host was dressed as the mad hatter, and the waitresses were dressed in Alice costumes. 

The whole experience was really fun, including the food! I ordered a cocktail based on the fact that it looked pretty (there was no English description of what it was), and it came with a rose on top and a rose-scented mist that the waitress sprayed on it for me. For my meal, I got a cold tomato soup shot and a cheshire cat tail-shaped four cheese pizza that came with a rose honey to pour on top (at least I think that's what I was supposed to do with it!). 

The other themed restaurant that we visited was a bit scarier than the Alice one - it was called The Lockup, and the idea is that you're treated like a prisoner. When you arrive, one person in your group is handcuffed (I was the lucky chosen one) as you're led to your "cell". We actually got a nicer room to eat in compared to the people who had to sit on the floor of a tiny, dingy jail cell, but it was still creepy! 

We just ordered drinks, which came in neon colours in test tubes and beakers of various shapes and sizes, but the food menu was pretty funny to look through too!

There were plenty of treats to be found on the streets too, including lots of desserts! I was fascinated by the crepe places with their plastic displays of all of the filling combinations you could order. I finally tried one with bananas and ice cream on my last day there, and it did not disappoint! I'm still not really sure what the proper way to eat it was, but at least it tasted good!

Ice cream was also popular there.  I didn't try some of the more unusual flavours that I saw like purple potato and buckwheat, but I did try a vanilla and green tea swirl cone on a very hot afternoon. I also ordered an exotic looking dessert one night that came with a mascarpone mousse, ice cream and sorbet, topped with mango, pineapple, and starfruit.

There were lots of goodies around the more touristy areas too. These were some of the offerings on the street lined with shops in front of the Sensoji temple in Tokyo (the only temple we had time to visit while we were there). Apparently rice crackers are a popular snack and they come in tons of different flavours, from sweet to spicy. I bought a curry flavoured rice cake (top left) that was actually really good - it was much crispier than the airy rice cakes we have back at home!

There were lots of other food stalls and delicacies available on the streets and in the markets that I didn't have the chance to try, including some cute animal faces made of bean paste, but it was fun to look at them! 

Maybe if I ever have another chance to visit Japan again, I'll be a bit more adventurous in my food choices...but for now, I'm happy to be back home where I can eat lots of fresh veggies and salads - something I always crave after being away!

I'll be back soon with another summer recipe before the season is over!  In the meantime, feel free to read my sister Natalie's blog post about our trip to see some more pictures!

What I Ate in Kenya

Hello again! In case you missed my last post, the reason I've been absent for the past couple of weeks was that I traveled to Kenya for a workshop and then stayed on for a short safari vacation.  I had the greatest time - I can't even describe how amazing it is to observe wild African animals up close in their natural environment!

I won't spend this entire post describing my safari experience, because I know you are all here for the food!  Instead, I thought I would do another "What I ate in..." post to share some of the dishes that I sampled in Kenya.

As I found in Zambia, a lot of the food offered at our hotels was Western style, especially at the place we stayed in Nairobi.  We did get to try some of the local dishes though, and there also seemed to be a lot of Indian food available too, which was great for me!

Luckily, I never really had a problem getting vegetarian meals.  There were a few places where the vegetarian options were extremely limited, but at least I always had something to eat!  And the lodge we stayed at on safari served all the meals buffet-style, with plenty of vegetarian dishes to choose from.

I always looked forward to breakfast because of the variety of fruits available.  The bananas, mangoes and pineapple were always perfectly ripe and juicy, and I even tried a new kind of fruit - tree tomato.  Even though I didn't enjoy it at all, at least I can say I've tried it!

The rest of my breakfast would typically include toast, yogurt, tomatoes, potatoes, and sometimes mushrooms or baked beans - nothing special but I always ate a lot of it because we would wake up early and needed a big meal to keep us going until lunch time!

Of course, my breakfast would always include plenty of juice - while it wasn't always freshly squeezed, I loved the tropical flavours: mango, pineapple, and passion fruit (which I liked to mix sometimes too).

Looking at this photo of the mango juice I enjoyed by the pool makes me wish I was back someplace warm again!

Other than juice, it seemed that soda was very popular in Kenya.  At lunch, we were usually offered a choice of Coke, Sprite or Fanta (they even had a pineapple flavoured Fanta, which I'd never seen before).  I tried a couple of locally made sodas from the brand Krest.  One was a gingerale, and the other was this unique bitter lemon soda - it reminded me of club soda but with a nice lemon flavour.

As I mentioned, I ate quite a big variety of food while I was there, from Western to African to Indian, but I'll try to only share the local dishes because I know you've all seen stir-fries, salads, and curries before!

One of the foods that I was a bit surprised to learn was a Kenyan specialty was samosas.  I tried two different versions, and both were served with a bit of a twist on the Indian samosa.

The version on the left was filled with feta cheese and vegetables, with a tomato chutney.  I liked the filling and sauce, but they were too greasy to finish.  The ones on the right, however, were some of the best samosas I've ever had - the vegetables were done perfectly and they had lots of spice.  Instead of eating them with chutney, they were served with a squeeze of lime - a nice way to highlight the flavours of the samosa.

Two of the local specialties that are commonly eaten as staple foods in Kenya are ugali and various types of cooked greens.  Ugali is a side dish made from maize flour and cooked to a thick dough-like consistency.  There were two types - brown and white - and you're supposed to eat it with your hands together with vegetable or meat stews.

I first tried the ugali at a local restaurant that served authentic dishes.  Pretty much all of the options on offer were meat or fish, so my dinner consisted of the side dishes - ugali and lots of cooked greens! They offered three types of greens - I'm not actually sure what each one was, but they typically use kale, spinach, and collards.

Each one was slightly different - the one on top was called sukuma wiki and was mixed with onion and tomato, and the one on the left (my favourite of the three!) was more thick and liquidy.

I found them to be a bit on the bitter side, and they certainly didn't look very appetizing, but they made a tasty and filling meal combined with the ugali.

Another type of Kenyan dish that I found interesting was their versions of mashed vegetables.  I tried a dish of mashed potatoes that contained spinach and chewy corn kernels - it tasted good, but it was a bit odd eating chunks of corn in my mashed potatoes!

Another version that I really liked was the dish on the right above - I never figured out exactly what was in it, but it tasted like mashed potatoes with peas and actual pieces of cooked potato. The colour was definitely interesting!

Most of my meals also started with a vegetarian soup, usually cream-based.  I tried spinach, mixed vegetable, mulligatawny, asparagus, carrot-orange, and onion soups, but two favourites stood out.  First was this spiced pumpkin soup that I ate at a restaurant outside Nairobi.  It was a smooth and creamy soup with lots of squash flavour and I could really taste all the spices.

My other favourite soup - and possibly my favourite thing that I ate altogether on my trip - was a creamy peanut soup.  It was slightly on the sweet side, and had just the right amount of peanut flavour.  It was delicious on its own, but even better when I dipped my thick chapati in it!

Luckily for me, it was offered twice as part of the lunches served during our week-long workshop!  Here are a couple of pictures of what the lunches typically consisted of - a soup, beans, rice, and sometimes greens or other vegetables.  One day we got to try the brown type of ugali (on the left), and on the right is the rolled chapati - it was thicker than the chapati that was served at other restaurants I went to, but personally I liked it that way!

When it came to desserts, the choices were pretty similar to what you would find anywhere - fruit salad and various types of cake. I usually stuck to the fruit because I'm not a huge cake fan, but I occasionally gave one of the other options a try too!

One of the local specialties that I tried were the Kenyan donuts, called mandazi. I found them pretty plain - to me, they just tasted like fried dough - but I liked to dip them in my coffee!

Another more unique type of dessert that I came across a couple of times were baked goods made with pineapple.  One restaurant offered a pineapple pie, which was just like apple pie but with a pineapple filling.  I also got to sample these pineapple crumb squares shown below.

I loved both desserts - I don't know why they're not more common in North America!

That's all for the food highlights of my trip, but for anyone who is still interested in the safari portion, I'll end with a few highlights of the animals I saw during the few days I spent in the Maasai Mara reserve!

Since we were there during the end of the migration season, there were literally millions of zebras and wildebeest around.  We also got to see many giraffes, including lots of babies!  I loved watching the giraffes walk around - they are so beautiful and graceful.

We also came across a mother cheetah with her four cubs - the cubs were adorable and the mother was so sleek and gorgeous!

Out of the "Big Five" animals, we managed to see four of them: cape buffalo, leopard, lion, and elephant.  The only one we missed was the black rhino, which was really difficult to find, but the fact that we were lucky enough to see the elusive leopard made up for it!

I loved every minute of being out in our van searching for wildlife and being able to see so many beautiful animals right in front of my own eyes.

And now that I'm back to reality, I'm excited to get back into Fall cooking and baking and catch up on everything that happened in the blogosphere while I was away!

If you're still reading, thanks for following along with my Kenyan experience and I'll be back with an actual recipe as soon as I can!