May Lunch Club at Seatown
Often the creative spirit is best inspired by imposing structure and artificial limits. The beauty of haiku, sonnets, heroic couplets, and even limericks would be lost without their rigid forms.
It’s an idea that Tom Douglas had 20+ years to contemplate while waiting for the corner space at Pike & Western to come available so he could open his new Seatown Seabar & Rotisserie. Because the residences above meant no hood ventilation, the new space would have one very peculiar limitation: no stoves. For a restaurant. Makes iambic pentameter look like a walk in Vic Steinbrueck park, right?
Undeterred, against that barrier Tom and his team arrange best-of-the-season Pike Place Market offerings, and poetry it becomes. A cold seafood bar with icy oysters and sweet dungeness. Smoked sturgeon, cod, salmon, and trout. A fancy recirculating-vent thingamobab supports a rotisserie (as big as Tom himself) for slow-roasted, spice-rubbed, succulent meats. All the produce of the Northwest, plus inexpensive but delicious cask wines. Add a dab of the magic Asian fusion of chef Adrienne Lasko (formerly of Dahlia Lounge, and Seattle Foodies favorite and event veteran: Poultrygeist, Lovefest, and Dahlia Does Dim Sum), and things start to get really interesting. Especially right now, as the Market is bursting fresh with spring.
So you’ll want to experience Adrienne’s “poetry reading” for this month’s Seattle Foodies First Friday Lunch Club. As always, we’re putting together a special foodies menu and Adrienne is very excited to do a deep dive into spring and the ideas behind the dishes at Seatown. So far it looks like this (consider it a draft—she’s free to adjust to match what’s wonderful that week):
Penn cove oysters on the half shell ~ pickled rhubarb mignonette
Wild thing ~ dungeness crab, avocado, tobiko
Smoked fish sampler ~ baguette, plugra, black lava salt (trout, sturgeon, cod, king salmon)
Rotisserie chicken ~ market sides & spring accompaniments
Seatown cream cake ~ vanilla custard, theo’s chocolate mocha ganache, hazelnut crunch
And here are the details. Please email me if you’d like to join us!
Where: Seatown Seabar & Rotisserie
Address: 2010 Western Ave
When: Friday, May 6th, 11:30am
Cost: $35 (+ tax, tip, drinks), optional wine pairing TBA
See you there!
UPDATE: 30 36 people have already signed up (in less than four hours!), so don’t delay…
ANOTHER UPDATE: We have 43 people coming. Adrienne says she can handle two more, so if you want to come, it might not be too late! Email me to grab the last two spots!