Seattle: boxty and oysters

We had the BEST time on Saturday!!! Meredith and I drove down to Seattle to meet up with Diane2 who was in town from Hawaii for the day. We had SO much fun walking around and eating our way through downtown Seattle

We met up at the original Starbucks on Pike Street (note that this was the second Starbucks that Mere and I had that day) Even though this was my first time meeting Diane and Starbucks was fairly busy, we recognized each other immediately and hugged like old friends. It was great :)

The Pike Place Market was busy and hot so we walked along the waterfront for awhile. When we realized that we were kind of headed no where we turned and went up the hill. I fell in love with the man hole covers there. They are maps of the waterfront and downtown!!!

When we got to Pioneer Square we met a very friendly gentleman who gave us his take on Seattle. We talked to him for probably 15 minutes. Unfortunately we didn't get his name or a picture. We hoped we would run in to him again but of course we didn't. We were considering taking the Underground Tour and he encouraged us to do so. He also suggested Elliot's for dinner. More on that later.

We bought our tickets for the tour but we had an hour and a half before it started so we went for lunch at Fado. I didn't realize until just now when I googled it but apparently it's a bit of a chain. We liked it because the logo is very close to the tatto that Diana in MD just got :)
The menu had something called "boxty" listed a few times. Our waitress was MIA until Mere went and called her over but we did manage to see on the menu that boxty is basically an Irish potato pancake. (it took me awhile to see that though :P) Anyways, I decided to have it and it was pretty good. Definitely something different. Our section of the pub was kind of "dungeonish". Very Harry Potter LOL

From lunch we headed back to Pioneer Square and joined our tour group. It started with a talk on the history of Seattle. Very interesting stuff. I realized that I know basically nothing about who founded the city or how it was formed. We were sitting on the back bench though and giggling a bit and we got some nasty looks until we settled down. Ooops! LOL The tour itself was cool. You can read the website for more information. I think my favourite part was the "sky lights". The picture above is taken with the lights off and no flash so it shows how much light is let through these squares (left). Our tour guide "Jerome" is the one in the ball cap with the coffee.

We decided that if you've been to Seattle a few times and are looking for something interesting to do (and don't have any small children or people who have problems walking on rough ground, or for that matter people who are claustrophobic (Mere didn't enjoy it all that much for that reason)) then take this tour. It's not a "must do" on your first trip to the city but it is a fun attraction.
From there we wandered through some of the shops, posed with the pig statues and made our way back to Pike's Place. Note the "flying fish" in the picture below :)

We also had a drink at The Fishermans's Restaurant & Bar.

Later in the evening, as per our "friend's" suggestion, we hit Elliot's Oyster House. It was one of the most enjoyable meals I have had in a LONG time. We had SO much fun. When we arrived it was pretty busy so we had a seat at the oyster bar which was impressive in itself. There were over over two dozen different kinds!

We had asked for "first available" seating and were lucky enough to be seated outside on the deck. Our waitress was incredible. She put up with our giggling and oyster ignorance (well, mine and Mere's Diane's a bit more of a pro). She walked us through our first raw oysters (as shown above) and waited until AFTER we had chewed and swallowed to tell us that "raw means they're alive because a dead oyster is a bad oyster". Mere was NOT impressed to hear that LOL

I was brave and went with oysters as my entree. I can't find a description of them but they were COOKED (LOL) and topped with bread crumbs and blue cheese. They were good and I ate most of them but after awhile it became too much. Looking back I should have had something more to go with them. Salad or something but it was an adventure. I also wish I had taken a picture of them but it's okay.

With the dessert menu we got a kick out of all the accent's (ague and a grave) and the "circumflex" (that's the hat like one) The waitress came back for our selection and we had to confess that we hadn't actually read it yet because we were trying to come up with the names of the accents. LOL It was good though because she explained the dessert that we ended up going with and she made it sound SO much better then the words on the menu. It tasted delicious too.
It's kind of hard to explain the easy camradrie we expeirenced that night but it was awesome. So relaxed and so much fun. Good food, good conversation, great friends. What more can you ask for? How about that Diane lived closer :wub:

~Heidi