Clearly unable to experience as much of Seattle as I wanted with three square meals a day another dozen or so stops consisting of both sweets and savories would round out the schedule along with the Soundgarden Concert, Art Museum, EMP, and a lot of record store shopping – the first of these stops being Café Besalu, a bakery closed during my prior visit to the city and one that may as well have been closed this time as well given their odd policy on “only baking almond croissants on the weekend because they are so labor intensive” and instead serving overpriced Butter Croissants with a good shell structure but far too dense an interior to warrant a trip to Ballard. Call me crazy, but in my experience it seems that other bakeries both here and abroad are more than capable of baking better butter croissants AND almond croissants daily…
Continuing my travels through Ballard after coffee and thumbing through some vinyl my next stop would take me to “Hot Cakes Molten Chocolate Cakery,” though it was not the oft raved chocolate cakes that I had on my mind, but rather Autumn Martin’s slightly less highly acclaimed cookies…plus a cinnamon roll…and bread pudding (and if I didn’t have dual dinner plans I likely wouldn’t have stopped there.)
Cute, but with that decidedly rustic wood and brick feel prevalent throughout the Pacific Northwest, and featuring samples of various chocolates and dips plus everything from wine to coffee to ready-to-bake cakes and cookies my sampling of items from the former Canlis pastry chef began with the aforementioned cookies – one the amusing Bacon Oatmeal Raisin and the other a Salted Peanut Butter Cookie with Theo Milk Chocolate Chunks; the first all the evidence I needed that although it may have ‘jumped the shark,’ bacon can make anything better and the later tasting like fresh roasted peanuts and rich chocolate with a saline top note that begged for milk, or coffee.
Moving on to the made-to-order selections, more sweet-savory interplay arrived with the shockingly light Salted Caramel Potato Cinnamon Roll; the pastry a yeasty cloud shellacked with rich salty caramel and leaving most of this for the following morning (almost as excellent rewarmed) I turned my attention to the Bread Pudding, a custard soaked spice cake paired with fresh sautéed apples and pears dowsed with rich, sticky Maple clove Butterscotch and crowned with a melting ball of vanilla ice cream that served to smooth out the otherwise pronounced sweetness – a nearly perfect bread pudding that was simple in composition yet complex in flavor and nearly as much pudding as bread; by far the best dessert I had in Seattle (Canlis included) and a contender for my top five bread puddings, all time.
With a bit of time to waste as the rain came down I stopped at Fonte given its proximity to the Art Musem and a good experience on my last visit but unfortunately this time found the service to be rather rude as the barista barked at me that they “offered table service” if I wanted to stay and essentially refused to give me my Americano unless I took a seat and let her bring it to my table – strange policy, but fine – the coffee was good with a nice caramel top note and light acidity, but table service or not the young woman would have gotten a better tip if she’d have been a bit more friendly and simply let me drop it in the tip jar.
Speaking of killing time on a rainy day, another stop at Paul Allen’s beautifully renovated Cinerama as the rains came down harder than prior brought not only Zero Dark Thirty with perhaps the best sound system I’ve ever heard outside of ArcLight but also the best popcorn I’ve had in a decade – a chocolate, salt, and butter composition that literally permeates the air throughout the lobby and delivers as hot and crispy as opposed to thick and heavy given the fact that it is sprayed with a sort of glaze as opposed to being dipped in chocolate – at $3 for a small it is also quite filling, and in cinema terms a veritable bargain.
Next up, breakfast on day two was a three part affair beginning with the much praised Crumble and Flake and arriving early at Neil Robertson’s Capitol Hill location I was fortunate to find the shelves stocked, though lacking the canele (only made on weekend) thus relegating me to five other selections including three of the bakery’s signature items and two less raved options; all exemplary beginning with some crumble in the form of a moist and decadent “Heart of Darkness Cheweo” featuring dark cocoa cream filling a dense chocolate cookie followed by the crackling Irish Coffee Macaron formulated with a light Irish Whiskey shell surrounding True North Coffee ganache before moving on to a buttery brioche cinnamon roll unraveling in soft golden layers tinged with butter but not heavy in the least.
Moving onward to the flake, a still-warm butter croissant with shattering arcs of pastry surrounding yawning caverns of butter would prove the best in the Pacific Northwest by some degree while the restaurant’s signature kouign amann, an item often known to sell out within hours of opening, proved equal to any I’ve had stateside as the caramelized pastry crackled to the tooth yielding notes of butter and salt with each layer separating nicely with a similarly satisfying crunch followed by more butter, more salt, and more sweetness – a masterful version of the Breton classic worth the early morning pilgrimage.
Pre-breakfast complete and moving on to actual breakfast I next found myself meeting a friend at Tom Douglas’ Brave Horse Tavern and after circling the block half-a-dozen times to find parking we arrived to find the restaurant empty – seemingly literally until a young server emerged from the back to suggest we seat ourselves anywhere we like; a seat near the front seeming as good as any as the cavernous restaurant spread both left and right with hardwood floors, exposed brick walls, plus a well-stocked bar and kitchen on full display.
With menus present on the table and service essentially one-to-one it took mere moments to place our order and aside from a ruptured paper filter on the coffee machine leading to a heavily sedimented first cup of Starbucks Italian Roast (comped, along with refills) the breakfast was actually quite good with my friend opting for the Pretzel Banana Sandwich and myself selecting Cinnamon French Toast Pudding. Splitting both plates and passing on the leathery bacon (I’m told it was better than it looked) I started with the French Toast which was actually dense like a quick bread rather than a bread pudding but very nicely paired with griddled sweet apples and organic maple syrup that added a lot of sweetness, but also some balance to the rich bread. Moving on to the pretzel, crispy and salted with great chew surrounding sliced banana and cardamom spiked sweetened cream cheese, no complaints were echoed at all and I imagine those pretzels would be excellent on their own or with some cheese.
After a quick stop at Paseo where sandwiches were shared a visit to Mighty O Donuts for dessert proved requisite and finding the small, tidy shop still baking fresh after noon I was encouraged, my love of cake donuts and fritters rewarded four-fold as a batch of both were just ready to come off the cooling rack including the highly praised French Toast plus Organic Raspberry, Plain Glazed, and (after a short wait) the Apple Fritter.
Unbeknownst to me before entering the shop, Mighty O’s donuts are both organic and vegan while the shop, featuring reclaimed items, recycled t-shirts, and plenty of kitsch is so very “Seattle” and with friendly servers helping an ever present trickle of patrons I sat down at a small table with my friend to enjoy the donuts, each one surprisingly light with the French Toast tinged with maple and cinnamon while the fritter, virtually oil-free, was wonderfully flavored but in my opinion a bit less crispy than I’d have preferred. A nice place, particularly for the vegan/vegetarian sect, there are undoubtedly better donuts to be found in the Pacific Northwest, though perhaps none with better values or sourcing.
My last day in Seattle before heading back to Portland began like any other – a long run followed by pastry; a two-stop process beginning with Karen Krol’s pastries at Vietnamese Street Food locale, Ba Bar on 12th Avenue, at 7:00am just as the restaurant opened its doors. A large restaurant with an expected urban-chic interior and large dining room to the left that opens for breakfast at 8:00 the it was the pastry counter to the right that grabbed my attention – the “un-Besalu” presence of a Twice Baked Almond Croissant on a weekday and a rarely seen Brioche Bostock instantly grabbing my attention along with the Apricot Pistachio tart and Chocolate Nutella Macarons; a $10.50 total for what would turn out to be a steal given the quality – definitely a place I’d head back to for lunch or dinner next time I’m in town.
Beginning first with the Bostock and Croissant and saving the egg-custard-like tart and macaron for the car so as to avoid turning my clothing into a confectioner’s sugar mural the bostock would prove every bit as good as that at San Francisco’s Tartine with the eggy brioche dense and crisp, rich with almond and brightened up by light citrus, while the almond croissant was not-surprisingly still warm and although slightly more dense with frangipane than I tend to prefer, still crisp on the exterior with a supple center rich with butter.
Advancing to later in the day, after a (arguably) proper breakfast with a friend at The Original Bakery, I unwrapped the tart while driving along the I-5 only to find it crumbled and unset but undeterred I made the best of it and found the flavors to be quite delicate and balanced while the macaron proved to be slightly more dense in the shell than I’d have liked; a bit more chew than crackle, though the flavors were spot on and not overly sweet thanks to the dark cocoa in the shell balancing out the pure nutella center.
Having already mentioned “The Original Bakery,” a location in West Seattle that was close to my friend’s home and mostly along my route back to Portland, I was intrigued to find out that the restaurant had been around since the 1930s and after checking out the nearby ferry dock we sat down to a cup (or ten) of well made Café Vita light roast coffee and four of the classic bakery’s best items – at least according to the young girl behind the counter – plus two standards in a Buttermilk Bar and a Maple Bar; both good, but neither anything to write home about.
Amongst the recommended items we started with a peanut butter cookie that was dry and far more sugar and flour than peanut before moving on to more impressive selections as a stream of locals trickled in the door, each one placing a very similar order and making it quite obvious that at a bakery touting itself as classic the best items are those doted on by the locals and true to form the critically raved Friday-only Applesauce Donut was light, fluffy, and rich with apples and cinnamon while the Sourcream Nut Horn reminded me of something my Hungarian Grandmother would make each Christmas – nostalgia at best, though hers were better. Most impressively of the group, a Raspberry Almond Bear Claw with fresh raspberry puree and light cream cheese frosting drizzle was at once rustic and delicate, decadent and light. Perhaps not a ‘destination bakery’ but certainly a place worth checking out if in the area or looking for a stop between PDX and the Emerald City.