Seattle Restaurant Week

This week and next week is Seattle Restaurant Week, always a much anticipated event.   We stopped into a neighborhood favorite, Salty's, after the Mariner baseball game this week to test it out.  Restaurant Week participants offer a three course dinner from a pre-selected menu and a few of the restaurants also offer lunch.   Most of the restaurants offer three different appetizers, three entrees and three desserts to choose from. (Lunch is an entree and dessert.)  You can look on-line to see which restaurants are participating and what their menu offerings are.  It's basically a good time to go try out a place you've wondered about.  Dinners are $30 each which is a good deal for three courses and lunch is only $15.  Most of the places that participate are really good, high-end, quality restaurants like Salty's.  We've been there multiple times including our anniversary last summer so we know it's one of our favorites.  We thought it would be a good time to do Restaurant Week after the Mariner game on Wednesday since it was a day game and the game would be getting out around dinner time.  We took the water taxi over to the waterfront around noon.  

We saw the usual sea lions in Elliot Bay (photo taken by a drone,  not me!)

and today there were also several bald eagles circling above.  There have been a lot of bald eagles out this week.  We saw one flying around at my sister's house last Sunday during the Masters and there have been several at Alki Beach this week.  The water taxi is always a fun way to go to a Mariners game.  It drops you off at the waterfront near Pioneer Square and then it's an easy walk to Safeco Field.   It was our first Mariner game of the season.  
  

We've been in baseball mode lately since we had our Mariner ticket party at our house last week for the first time since 1998. (We moved to Idaho that year.) When we lived in Idaho, we still organized it but we had friends in Seattle host the party at their house. We continued going to games over the years, we just had to make that 500 mile drive each time.

We share season tickets with about 15 other people and every year before Opening Day, we have a Mariner ticket party where everyone comes and picks the games they want to go to.  

We have a very systematic way of organizing it and it works great and everyone loves our system.  People brought lots of food and Bruce cooked up some brats and hot dogs.  

This party is our rite of passage into Spring, baseball season is starting once again.

This year they have a countdown going on for Ken Griffey, Jr who will be inducted into the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.   

Even though we knew we were eating at Salty's after the game, we still had try some of our favorite baseball food at Safeco Field, like their Swingin' Wings. 

These are one of our favorite game snacks.  A well-known Seattle chef, Ethan Stowell, developed these finger-lickin' good wings for Safeco Field and they come in 3 flavors;  hot pepper sauce, honey serrano sauce or whiskey-spiked barbecue sauce.  We ended up picking a good game to go to because the Mariners won it with a walk-off pinch hitter home run in the 10th!  That was incredible! 
 

It was also our first win at home...The Mariners had been on a 5 game losing streak and we needed this win pretty badly.  It was deserving of a toast as soon as we got to Salty's.

Salty's is voted the best restaurant with a view of the city.  Of course, it's located just down the hill from our house...

To start off our meal, I ordered the Roasted Baby Beets with whipped ricotta, black pepper honey, cracked hazelnuts, and sherry vinegar and it was delicious!

But I could have eaten a whole main course of Bruce's appetizer of Fresh Oregon Bay Shrimp Salad with English peas, local radish, spring onion, pork belly, and horseradish yogurt.  It was hard to take just one bite of his.

My entree was Roasted True Cod with artichoke hearts, caper, castelventrano olive, oil-cured tomato, and saffron couscous.  Loved it.  

Bruce got the Apple-Wood Smoked Steelhead with firs, pancetta relish, pomegranate agrodolce, and creamy polenta.  You can't go wrong here, either.  (photo is at beginning of this post)  Salty's knows how to prepare their fish, what can I say.   I knew what I was having for dessert.  My most favorite cake.  It's their signature dessert (we had it for our anniversary, too, compliments of Salty's)  White chocolate mousse cake with raspberry coulis.

Bruce got one of his favorites of Stawberry and Local Rhubarb Crisp with vanilla ice cream.  

Gotta love Restaurant Week! I hope I can talk Bruce into trying out another spot next week before it ends. Lauren and her friends went to one of Ethan Stowell's restaurants called Goldfinch at the Four Season's downtown and she had rabbit for her entree. Like I said, it's a good way to try out something you wondered about. Or something you know is good and just want more.