Canon Seattle – not just a whiskey and bitters emporium

Canon is a little cocktail bar in Capitol Hill next to Lark and across from Cafe Presse on 12th. It has wide blinds in the window and its bar-tops are rumored to be stained with bitters. On one of my runs as a wine rep, I came across this little hidden whiskey house and was intrigued from the get-go. You see, I love whiskey and bitters. My well drink of choice is Whiskey & Ginger (real ginger-ale, bar “ginger-ale” disgusts me) with bitters and a slice of lime. For a crafted cocktail, I love anything with whiskey and vermouth like a Manhattan. The bitter the better. I like old man drinks and Canon is where you can get one. No sweetheart, you won’t find some cheesy over-sugared “cosmo” on the menu here.

Seattle is really exploding with the whole speak-easy, prohibition style old-fashioned cocktail bars with bartenders in cute little vests to match. I read up on Canon and realized my intrigue was onto something as Jamie Boudreau, the mastermind running the canon, had been praised as the next best bartender/mixologist in America. But I was intrigued not just by his thoughtful inventions like the Vermouth experiment (a tiny 3 mini Manhattans with each a unique Vermouth including Punt e Mes) but I was curious about his food. After all, the cocktail is intended as either an appetite stimulant or an after-dinner digestive “remedy”. Bitters stimulate our digestive juices, they really do taste like medicine for a reason! If you have a good tummy warming cocktail, you should have some noshes to accompany them. Indeed, Canon is the best kept foodie secret. Pictured above was a Cassoulet, which is a type of is a rich, slow-cooked casserole originating in the south of France, containing meat (in this case, sausage)  and white haricot beans with a roasted chicken leg. It was truly flavorful, considerate and complex in textures. I like that there was this creamy rich sauce and then perfectly cooked buttery beans, herbaceous sausage rich in sage (I heart sage), and this crispy skinned chicken whose meat was super moist and creamy. And it was good enough for 2 and a steal at 20. We also had some other small plates like Ricotta Gnudi (a type of ricotta dumplings) and seared salmon with black truffle and leeks. These were simple, tasty and downright wonderful. Because food’s friend is wine (cocktails are food’s rebound), I found myself enjoying some unique and obscure French red wines. I highly recommend Canon- but make a night of it. Start off with some caramel popcorn, order a couple small plates and enjoy a glass or two of  a unique wine and finish with nice digestif cocktail like the Vermouth experiment. Cheers!

{New Seattle Spots: Seen and Wanted}

I haven’t been dining out much recently, which is why my blog has been a little quiet recently. A New Year’s “goal” of mine is to consume more healthy meals at home and to reserve eating out splurges for special occasions. In other words, I’m one of the 300 million Americans dieting after the holidays. Its okay, I admit it. Don’t pretend like you aren’t thinking about taking the plunge too or didn’t consider it before when you were sipping all that eggnog and butter holiday cookies. However, there have been a few spots I’ve been able to nudge a happy hour or small plate in over the last month or so.

SEEN:

The Innkeeper in Belltown: Highly recommend this. This is by the same brainchildren as Black Bottle, and if you haven’t been to Black Bottle, a wonderful wine and gastro bar, you should. I love the concept of The Innkeeper and that it’s Latin-inspired comfort food. The atmosphere is pretty laid back yet classy with a cherry wood and vintage detail kinda decor. The $-signs are extremely fair, the portions are not to leave you in hunger’s cradle and the flavors are very well balanced and thoughtfully executed. Imbibed they were: the padron peppers; which are like little roasted mild green peppers, savory beef Argentine empanadas that had a nice sweet compliment of golden raisins, and a Brazilian Slow-Roasted chicken thigh bowl w/ fried plantains that was served with half a bulb of roasted garlic. Yum! I have most recently discovered that the thighs have the most gusto for your buck and I was glad to see it in the form of “Brazilian Slow-Roasted” on the eats menu’. What I’d like to try next time is the Spicy Caribbean Goat Curry with Pigeon Peas & Rice. And you will most definitely find me there on repeat, as the bill also included a ticket for a courteous glass of bubbly good for the next visit. I’m really curious about their Happy Hour which includes $3 cava bubbly by the glass, $1 Kushi or Kumamoto oysters and $1 chorizo quesadillas.

Another note worthy new open in Seattle…

Revel: I’ve only been in once and it was for their Seasonal Hot Pot Soup which is no longer on the menu’, so I ponder the validity of the mention. However, it was a good spot that I will surely revisit and recount more lovely pots of Korean-inspired noodles. The hot-pot served 2-4 people although it was good for a very hungry dos. It was filled in a no-f%(&ing around Le Creuset pot (like a $300 cast iron perfectly-cooked every use pot) with thick squeaky silky shrimp, glass rice noodles, earthy shiitake mushrooms, daikon, fishcake and bok choy in a lightly pale fish broth. This place is neat because they serve you with a group of sauces you can add red miso, thick unknown soy-like sauce, fish sauce and hot sriacha-like goo to your soupbowl’s content. Next time I go, I will be intrigued to see how oxtail ragout does with preserved lemon and chili in a Korean noodle bowl, not that I know Korean food, the composition just sounds “cool.”

The Sexton in Ballard: This new little cutesy Southern small plates and cocktails nook seems a whole lot like the set up in the Walrus & The Carpenter. but with very strange wallpaper. The only orders were a red beans and rice ramekin and collard greens small plate. The cocktails were worth the trip and included thoughtful notes like cardamom bitters, plum syrup and house-made apricot brandy, but I can’t say I was impressed with the nosh. The greens were a bit watery and bland, they could have used some magical bibbity bobbity BACON. The Beans and Rice w/ (3 morsels of Andouille sausage) was like a Jambalaya flavored Rice-a-Roni box. I also though the whole shabang was a tad over priced. I’d maybe return for another drink and a slice of pie.

WANTED:

Bathtub Gin- Anything with the name “Bathtub” should get to the top of any list.

Canon in Capitol Hill- I’ve been here on a couple of occasions for cocktails, but I do need to try their food, especially the pork belly buns and the ricotta & shitake gnudi.

Clever Bottle- A new-to-me charcuterie-centric gastrobar that serves locally hand-crafted spirits such as Bainbridge Vodka in their cocktail program.

I hope to tell some more delicious tales, in like 3 weeks when I realize how ridiculous sweating by sunrise and eating kale and radicchio egg white and turkey bacon omelets for breakfast, is.

Skillet Diner- “Street” food: brick and mortar style

Sunday mornings should be spent in bed, and if you are forced out of one there should be something worth for such an awful separation. So for me, the motivation is brunch or the farmer’s market (which usually included munchables).

I have heard buzzings about Skillet Diner, they started out as a food truck and now they have a brick and mortar in Capitol Hill, as well as marketable retail goods like skillet bacon spread. This whole thing kind of irks me about “street” food in Seattle. Chefs start out something kitchy by stuffing it in a food truck, charging way more than the whole concept of “street” food is supposed to stand for and once they get to a certain threshold of popularity, they open a brick and mortar, still serving overpriced “street” food IN A FRICKEN RESTARANT!  And boutiquey “shop” marketed plastic jars of over-glorified Bacon GREASE? Give me a break. Vomit is officially everywhere. Suffice to say, I haven’t quite jumped aboard the food truck “wagon”.

But I just had to come to Skillet this Sunday brunch. I knew it would be good, from the looks its menu’ of pork belly and cornmeal waffles to a straight up “standard”. And honestly the last couple times I have tried to scope out the undiscovered hole in the walls at breakfast, I was a little hrmph’d for having separated myself from loungeness and p.js on precious weekend mornings for some crap on a plate I could have made 12 times better. And Skillet was a good bet after all. The wait is a little annoying, but not really because these marketeers got you waitees covered with a coffee station, where you can also purchase a jar of this bacon spread (how is this not called grease?!!). And chairs outside to make the time go by better with your warm bodied joe. The bar/diner seating is spin-able,bright and comfy. The prices are pretty descent as long as you stick with the 9 buck plates, which are usually the most belly filling and rib stickily like the homemade (cream-stricken meaty perfected) sausage gravy (oh mylanta…) and biscuits (buttery sweet salty carb HEAVEN!). The nice touch here is that they serve it with fried crispy sage on top. They have a seasonal rotating scramble that I was super tempted to try which was a duck confit grit something something fancy and rainbow chard. But my friend ordered the deconstructed hash which was basically french spiced root vegetables and meaty marbling steak chunks with an egg on top oozing a bright orange yolk. I’m not gonna sing skillet’s high praises and i’m not gonna rip it apart (other than about the general pretentiousness of “street” food in Seattle). I read the Seattle Weekly review and a few others, and they seemed to be a little underwhelmed, i believe due to preconditioned hype. My response to them is that Skillet Diner doesn’t require a microscopic analysis: its good breakfast. Its good because, its consistent, reasonable and interesting. And not 18 bucks a plate like Steelhead Diner. Plus, they have bacon salt bloody mary’s in mason jars (2 bucks cheaper during breakfast and brunch!)

Curious approves:)