Crumble and Flake Bakery. YES.

Yes, it's a pain to get to Crumble and Flake at a time that is far too early, and find a long line, and yes your blood pressure rises as you realize you may not get the canelé or the croissant you're coveting, as you see the greedy backs of the people in front of you ordering them up like entitled jerks. You feel it can't be worth it, and you won't return, until it's (finally) your turn, and there's one last grapefruit macaron for you, and even a canelé and yes, one last buttery croissant and you get them all like the entitled jerk you are, and you feel the collective despair and disappointment in the line behind you as you get the last brownie, and you clutch your little bag of treats and take a first melting, ostentatious bite before you even start walking, in front of all those still in line and you say yes, yes, I will come back, yes I will. Yes.

Taylor Shellfish Farms

“As I ate the oysters with their strong taste of the sea and their faint metallic taste that the cold white wine washed away, leaving only the sea taste and the succulent texture, and as I drank their cold liquid from each shell and washed it down with the crisp taste of the wine, I lost the empty feeling and began to be happy and to make plans.” 

― Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast

Taylor Shellfish has been slaking seafood cravings since they opened their Capitol Hill outpost about a year ago, adding to the foodie dream that is the Melrose Market. (The Market boasts a wine store, a cheese shop, a fancy goods store, a flower shop, a sandwich spot, a cool bar, and two outstanding restaurants. The Market also holds a butcher, a baker, and only needs a candlestick-maker to complete the picture.)  

They've sustained our weeknight Dungeness crab hankerings, supplied pre-movie snacks of oysters and wine, and provided many a bouillabaise with clams and mussels.  They know their stuff. Taylor Shellfish Farms have been local growers of shellfish for over 100 years, and the expert staff is friendly and knowledgeable.

Taylor's has casual white tile, four or five tiny tables, with high stools for perching while slurping—it's more of a seafood deli than a full-fledged restaurant.  The hot oyster chowder bar is serve yourself, and you can grab your own rolls for dunking in chowder or buttering to go with your oysters or crab.

They have occasional seasonal specials; one day it was spot prawns, and the chatty man behind the counter dug them out with a net, and poured them into a plastic bag with some ice. Though I felt uneasy as the bag jerked around a bit on the walk home with the occasional twitching and thrashing.

As well as whole dungeness crab which you can have live, or cooked and cleaned, you can have  oysters, clams, geoduck, scallops, bread, butter, oyster chowder—decadent and heavy with cream, butter and herbs.

The oysters are sublime.  You can choose from several varieties of oysters, Kumamoto, Virginica's, Pacific, Olympias, and Shigoku, or get a mix so you can sample them all.

High quality beers, ales, and crisp white wines are on hand to sip with those oysters, and all chosen to pair beautifully with whatever seafood item you choose. 

Added bonus- arguably the best bakery in Seattle (Bakery Nouveau) sells their heavenly baguettes right by the register. Mr. Pants with his French-raised baguette fussiness has proclaimed these to be the most reminiscent of Parisian baguettes. 

There are times when patience is required, for shucking oysters takes time, even for pros like these. One of the crew, David Leck, recently won a major national oyster shucking contest (who knew there were such things?) The wait is worth it, for once you get your platter, and you begin to eat, you will indeed lose that empty feeling, begin to be happy, and make lots of plans.

Highlights: Oysters. Wine. Baguettes from Bakery Nouveau. Crab. Clams. Scallops. Spot Prawns.

Disappointments: Sometimes, they are just too popular and you can't get a seat when your oyster craving is at its peak.  Life is very, very hard.

Mr. Pants: Happy! Loves his oysters with wine, loves his oysters with ale.

Crowing over Il Corvo

Oddly located inside the tiny Procopio Gelateria in the hill climb behind Pike Place, Il Corvo (the raven, in Italian), feels like it could be someone's little secret. I wish it was only mine. But there's a steady flow of lunchtime pasta enthusiasts filling up this tiny space Monday through Friday.  

Il Corvo is only open for lunch, and is cash only. There's a total of three pasta choices each day, and every one I've had has hit its mark. Mr. Pants has yet to join me, as a lunchtime walk to the market is a little too long for my little workaholic.

The pasta is handmade on the large table by the door each day at Il Corvo's closing, which is 3pm.  I snapped a picture on my way out of the neatly-shaped Malloreddi pasta the chef was making. 

I have to love a chef who mentions (in his blog) one of my favorite restaurants in Florence, Osteria Del Cinghiale Bianco when he talks about pasta.  Mike Easton studied in Italy several years back, cooked at Lecosho on that other hill-climb, and was co-owner of Bizarro Italian Cafe in the past.  He knows his stuff. His pastas are perfect. 

I was tempted by this toothsome ravioli, stuffed with cauliflower and sunchokes, with marjoram brown butter.  

Another day, I opted for this lovely Papardelle with black trumpet mushrooms.  I had a brief moment (I must have been in some sort of food daze) when I forgot I was in public and swiped my finger in the remaining sauce after I was finished to lick it off. 

Highlights: Pasta. All of it. Very drinkable wines by the glass, and gelato for dessert. 

Disappointments:  Small portions, so you might feel a bit peckish afterwards. Not a lot of side dishes or accompaniments.  Luckily, there's gelato and espresso! 

Mr. Pants: Not there.  Eating office fridge-sludge in front of his computer, working (looking at Facebook). 

Pants in France IV: Normandy and Brittany

Sadly, Mr. Pants had to return to work, so we parted at Gare St. Lazare, and I caught the train to Mom and Aunt Patti in Normandy.

Normandy was slate-grey, full of war memorial beaches, rainbows, and squalls sweeping in from the sea.  Lots of old churches on hilltops, and castle ruins.

Normandy was also full of oysters, mussels, apples, Calvados and Cambembert. Our best meal there was at Aunt Patti and Bob's house. Mom and Bob created a massive seafood feast of fresh oysters, fried shrimp, braised fennel, cod, and tiny thumbnail-sized mussels that are likely the best I've ever had. Thank you Bob!

Bob, top chef, on the battlements at Chateau Pirou, above. 

We visited the well-preserved Chateau Pirou, clambered over mossy battlements into old stone rooms with massive hearths, and passed by the moat under the gate with the weathered seal of Richard the Lionhearted.

We went to bed far too late for our early morning road trip to Brittany, known for megalithic tombs, rugged coastline, and a balmy microclimate.

Megalithic chamber, La Table de Marchand exterior, Brittany.

Interior, with carvings, Table de Marchand, Brittany, dating from approximately 3,800 BC. 

(I was nervous about Brittany.  I'd been there several years back with Mr. Pants and his family. A small, cheap rental house made out of particle board seemed like the perfect base for a masochistic visit to the sinisterly named Gulf of Morbihan on the stormy Breton seaside, barely visible through horizontal rain. Microclimate my ass)

This time, it hardly rained at all.
We piled into the car and headed for the witchiest corner of France. We forgot all our maps. Luckily we had Simon, a GPS system we so christened because of its upper crust English accent.

In Quimper, we saw this, probably the most charming public toilet in the world. At least on the outside.

Britanny is rather witchy; we saw Megalithic tombs, appropriately butter-colored cows lounging in fields next to prehistoric standing stones, and an unnerving number of black cats.

One of about a thousand black cats that we saw. This one at Carnac.

Superb Langoustines in Trinité Sur Mer.

 We discussed superstitions on dark country roads, where our headlights found a roving herd of wild boar.  A huge bat fluttered over our heads as we walked to dinner on the waterfront.  We downed two bottles of lemony Muscadet served to us by a dreamy-eyed waiter, at Le Quai restaurant in Trinité sur Mer where I managed, in muddled french, to order cold langoustines with aioli, a buttery sole meuniere, and a custardy prune-heavy Far Breton (local cake with a flan-like texture)  for dessert.

Another wonderful castle, Chateau Fougères.

Bretons seemed like my people, with Celtic noses, salt-spray squint, and penchant for butter.

Highlights:  Langoustines, seafood, dark country roads, megaliths, and Muscadet.

Disappointments: Our time was short, so there was no time to hit every castle or megalithic passage grave, or even every Breton village with stone houses and blue shutters...

Mr. Pants: Back home and working! But he did pick me up at the airport, muttering about traffic. Home at last.

Pants in France III: Alsace

We wound our way to Alsace along the twisting, mountainous Route des Vins. Nikos (Mr. Pants' father) drove. I maintained composure by digging my fingernails firmly into the vinyl of the backseat and stared wide-eyed at the views of the steep drop-off and tiny, church-steepled villages with names that sounded like Snuffleheim and Fluffernutten.   

We stayed overnight in the home of the stinkiest cheese (Munster) and had a room across from the church where storks were nesting amidst the turrets.  We ate like portly kings.  Alsace is all cream, white wine, dumplings, meat, and decadent goodness. We shaved years off our lives dining on cheese dumplings in a cream sauce WITH bacon, below.

We made it to Strasbourg, and its impressive, rosy-stoned cathedral.  Winding streets spiral out from the cathedral, from whose heights you can see copper-topped roofs of other churches, and steep-slanted roofs of houses with tiny windows.

Sadly, this picture is blurry (blame it on the Cremant D'Alsace) but I'm showing it anyway. This large copper pot was completely misshapen, beat up, and well worn. We had no idea the portions would be so large. OH well. 

Highlights:  Strasbourg's gorgeous cathedral, stinky cheese and insanely cute villages in Alsace. Also, storks! 

Disappointments: In Alsace: If you can have too much cream, then I guess, that MIGHT be a disappointment to some. We didn't stay quite long enough to explore more of the region.

Mr. Pants: Digging greedy spoonfuls of jam out of the tourist jam store samples, stomping around saying "I want Kugelhopf"(an Alsatian cake) in a mock Alsatian manner and enjoying the ridiculously quaint buildings and the cheesy dumplings. With bacon. 

Provence

We zoomed south from Paris on the TGV to a sun-and-wine-soaked tour of languid Provence, (Avignon, Arles, Vaison la Romaine) where we ate yet more ice cream.  Strawberry, raspberry, cassis and lavender were popular flavors.  

Mr Pants' little sister— born and raised in France, tagged along. She's in her revolutionary phase. I admit I'd zone out when they'd start arguing in French about Marxism. But hey, I didn't mind when I could enjoy this crispy-skinned, tender cod with asparagus mousse, because I'm just so bourgeois.

In Vaison la Romaine, our hotel was the wonderfully creaky Hostellerie Beffroi, full of wood beams and tile floors. This was one relaxed, remarkable town full of Roman ruins, a Roman bridge built in the 1st century AD, and beautiful winding stone streets. This was the view from our window.  The old bell tower still works. Even at 6 am.  

I found here, that Patricia Wells recommended some local restaurants such as Brin D'Olivier,  and La Baguette, (for vietnamese, right next to the roman ruins), and these were (not surprisingly) excellent choices. 

This was an "appetizer" of Mediterranean delights, at the tiny restaurant Le Bonheur Suit Son Cour, including mozzarella, tomatoes three ways, roasted peppers and hummus with nutty bread.  The mozzarella, served in small cups, was somewhere between a dense mozzarella ball and a foam, and called "clouds" by our waiter.  

Cheese! (waving my fists in an excited little dance). 

And nougat! Which makes Mr. Pants' voice go all high and girly like a six-year-old who REALLY wants some nougat. 

Provencal towns have ancient main squares, where locals take their evening stroll, children chase each other, people sit and drink Pastis (anise-flavored liqueur) at dusk and the men watch the women walk by and the women watch the men watching them. 

Highlights:  The whole town of Vaison la Romaine; The history- the Roman ruins and arenas scattered throughout Provence. Ice cream. 

Disappointments:  Not staying longer, like 6 months to a year.  

Mr. Pants: "This is awesome!" and "I'm SO relaxed" except when arguing with his sister.   

Me and Mr Pants- in France!

I had prepared for the Paris I remembered. Scowling pedestrians, autumn rainstorms, loud scooters, gruff waiters, and angry drivers.

Instead, the skies were pink each evening, confections were in many a shop window, and green chestnut trees fluttered amidst the greys and creams of Paris.  Scooters seemed muted as they zoomed past while we walked on bridges over the Seine. The waiters were jovial and patient with my (very) bad French. And hardly anyone was scowling. Hard to scowl when you are eating ice cream. And it seemed like everyone was eating ice cream.  We did too.

We drank silky espresso out of tiny cups, ate buttery croissants, followed a couple hours later by red wine and stinky cheese. 

We ate with celebrities, even! Gail Simmons from Top Chef sat right behind us at Le Verre Vole, where we had this lime-fragrant ceviche.

There was a late, dizzying lunch at L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon, where this generous and luscious hunk of foie just about made me swoon and had to be (reluctantly) shared with Mom and Mr. Pants.

We followed that up with a crunchy-tender sea bass with artichoke hearts and clams. 

And the famous Robuchon potatoes, or, would-you-like-some-potatoes-with-your-butter. I understand why they are famous. 

And finally this gorgeous passion fruit souffle with exotic fruit sorbet. 

At Le Baratin, we were glared at by the front-of-house man, then mollified by the unforgettable and simple food the woman in the kitchen created. Like this plate of artichoke hearts, beans and anchovy.

And this crispy, buttery skate. 

Mom and I made it to the venerable Brasserie Balzar, where the surprisingly genial waiters brought a massive bowl of chanterelles with garlic and butter, a beet salad and roasted chicken with frites, followed by post-lunch expresso. 

Then it was off to Provence, Alsace, Normandy and Brittany, so stay tuned for our next post! 

Highlights:  All of the above. Being with the remarkably insouciant Mr. Pants on his home turf. 

Disappointments:  Not having more time there. 

Mr. Pants:  Happy to be home and seeing his Dad and sister. Elegantly flouncing along with his fancy scarf, tied the french way, of course.