Zócalo "hopes to open by May 5"

An article in yesterday's Puget Sound Business Journal quotes Zócalo owners Joe Bisacca and Greg Smith: they hope to open by May 5. The 7500-square-foot restaurant is scheduled to be a music venue for Upstream Fest on May 11, so my fingers are crossed that they'll hit this date. Previous missed dates include "late March or early April" (Seattle Times) and "the first week of April" (deleted Monster.com bartender job posting).

As I mentioned in my February 14 post, the PSBJ article says the restaurant wants to avoid Tex-Mex and create "something different and better than just rice, beans, and tacos."

Chef Jeffrey Hunter says he'll start with Mexican cuisine, but looks forward to adding "cool things going on in Argentina, Chile, Brazil and Peru."

On the way into the office today, I was chatting with a co-worker that I feared Zócalo would have the same lack of focus as its sister property, Cherry Street Public House (waffles, quiche, Persian stew, and BLT?). The chef's inspiration here -- Mexico, plus most of the South American continent -- doesn't assuage me.

"Opening soon: Elysian CEO and developer Greg Smith team up for Zócalo restaurant (Photos)" (subscription required, or the ability to parse the hidden parts of the article out of the HTML)

April 26 and 27: Radici

[Closed June 13, 2018]

I walk past Radici on the way to work every day, yet I've always thought "it's too expensive" or "it's mainly a bar with Italian food as a side thought." I was so wrong.

I'd stopped in here a few weeks ago, not for lunch, but for the happy hour. The steamed manila clams were some of the best I've had, with cloves of garlic in the broth so flavorful and delicate they nearly dissolve on the tongue and are worth trolling the bowl for. The crispy polenta bites with honey are like little puffy cornbread squares, slightly crisp on the outside and rich and gluttonous in the middle. But that was happy hour. How's lunch? We went here to celebrate our hard-working admin, and...

O.M.G. I ordered the $9 "Rudy's Red" spaghetti, no meat, and they knocked this one out of the park. The pasta was cooked perfectly, al dente, not the slightest bit mushy or crunchy. The sauce didn't commit the sin of wateriness; tomatoes are mostly water, but it's important to cook it down, filter it out, or (scandalous!) add a thickener for a good American-style spaghetti sauce. It's also very possible that any small bits of residual liquid were absorbed by the pasta, another reason to very slightly undercook it. A few flecks of basil sprinkled across the top presented the best spaghetti I've had in months. It looked, smelled, and tasted so good, I didn't stop to take photos.

My co-workers had a meatball sandwich ($12, "heavenly!"), italian sausage ($11, "really good"), and a Lyonnaise salad featuring a breaded poached egg ($12, "it's great; I don't know how they did this!"). Service was attentive but not intrusive. A full bar is available, although the waiter wasn't sure what pilsner was on tap.

This may have jumped to the top of my list of places to suggest for informal business lunches. Il Terrazo Carmine was great, and for fancy Italian, sure, it's not a bad choice, but the food's just as good, and the prices at Radici are significantly lower.

(April 27: It was so good, I recommended it to another team of mine for lunch today. I had the meatball sandwich. Not quite as good as the spaghetti, but maybe in the top ten meatballs I've had.)

Radici
314 2nd Ave S.
April 26: Spaghetti and a drink, $15 plus tax and tip
April 27: Meatball sandwich, $12 plus tax and tip

April nibbles

Nibbles: quick reviews of new places for which I didn't take time to write a full review.

Raney Brothers pulled pork and fries

Raney Brothers BBQ: This food truck frequently appears on the north side of Occidental Park. The pulled pork with the regular non-spicy sauce was pretty good. Shoestring fries were very slightly overcooked, but spiced with black pepper and a specialty salt of some kind. The pork had a few chewy charred chunks in it, which I really like, and didn't encounter on my visit the previous week to Hole in the Wall (where I'd again had the Hole Pile and devoured it). Raney Brothers Sandwich and fries, $11.00; Hole in the Wall Hole Pile and bottled Diet Coke, $13.49

Post Alley Pizza: My return visit on Good Friday was as good as the first, except their specialty pizza of the day was "pepperoni". An excellent alternative if the line at Pizza Professionals is too long, or if you're in the area. Two slices and a fountain drink, $9.25

Taco Del Mar: What can I say? It's my "I don't want to think about where to eat" destination now. Consistent. Solid. Heavy. Fox News is on the TVs, for what that's worth to you. Mondo burrito, chips, queso, and fountain drink, $11.18

Tat's Delicatessen: Disappointing this time. I ordered the pizza sub, which ended up with a watery tomato sauce, which didn't do the bread any favors. It comes with fries inside the sandwich, too, which is brilliant, but wasn't enough to sop up the puddle. Messy as heck, but even the 8-inch sandwich is a heck of a lot of food, especially when you add another "small" mountain of fries. At least I didn't get the 12-inch like last time. With fountain drink, $14.80

Wet Buns: It's a French dip sandwich, with the interior of the buns pre-dipped. Not as soggy as it sounds, but still a little gloppy. A good food truck choice if you're not craving Mexican, greek, fried, or salads. Shredded beef sandwich, $9.00

Jack's Fish Spot: Nothing new to add. Ordered the same as last time, just as good as last time. 3-piece fish and chips and a can of Diet Coke, $9.90

Zocalo, not yet open

Zocalo: That's the name of the new Mexican place downstairs, opposite Cherry Street Public House, and it's not open yet. The last report from the Seattle Times said it was supposed to have opened "in late March or early April," but that deadline's passed. They had the front windows open last week, and I snapped this shot of the interior. Not shown: an amazingly cool chandelier made of keys, and two more ceiling lamps made of pages that appear to have been ripped from old novels. They don't have much longer to wait, because they're listed as one of the venues for Upstream Fest on May 11-13.

April 12: The Great Northwest Soup Company

My social media stream was full of #NationalGrilledCheeseDay posts this morning, which gave me a craving. So, internet, where's the best grilled cheese in Seattle? The consensus seems to be the Cheese Wizards food truck, which was in Bellevue, so that's no help. The runner up is Beechers, which I found to be disappointing last October. Ballard and Capitol Hill have a few spots, but the former is too far and I just don't feel like taking the light rail and wandering the Hill. Surprisingly, no recommendations for Grand Central Bakery, which I avoid because it's an expensive place with long lines.

That leaves The Great Northwest Soup Company. Confusingly, their website lists locations on Eastlake and Westlake, but the recommendations I saw were for their hole-in-the-wall location in Puget Sound Plaza, right above the University Street bus tunnel station, and across the street from Seattle's best cheesesteaks at Calozzi's.

The line's a bit long, which gives me time to look at the menu. There's ten soups on the menu, several cold sandwiches, and two hot sandwiches, one of which is a Spanish grilled cheese, with chipotle aioli. Sounded good. I ordered combo number 1, a whole grilled cheese and an 8 ounce tomato basil soup. How could someone get a grilled cheese and not get tomato soup? Anything else would just be wrong. I also grabbed a glass-bottle Coke from the cooler. They struggle for a moment to find a bottle opener, but the cook has a well-loved one on his keychain, which opens the bottle after a few attempts.

My order's up a few minutes later. Seating is virtually non-existent. Three fixed stools are in the each corner of the building lobby, and a few metal tables are outside in the rain. I'm lucky enough to get a stool and dig in.

The cheese is a white and yellow blend, probably cheddar, swiss, maybe colby and provalone? Their web site mentions an eight-cheese blend, which seems like overkill, but it was mild and smooth. The oozy strings of cheese between the sandwich halves snapped off at just the right distance, and the sourdough bread didn't suffer the flavor of burnt grill scrapings like I had at Beechers. The bread was, perhaps, just slightly underdone, more spongy than crisp, but not really bad at all -- just 15 more seconds on the grill would have made it a tiny bit better.

Most bites of the sandwich made a visit into the soup before I ate it, the way it should be. The soup was thick, almost a tomato cream, with confetti-sized lumps of creaminess. The basil is subtle, nothing like the overpowering spaghetti sauce I bought a few weeks ago (Paul Newman, your food is disappoint). Once the sandwich is gone, I spoon out the rest. Really, really good.

Wait a second. Chipotle aioli? Where was that? Turns out the Spanish grilled cheese was different than the combo grilled cheese. But I didn't miss it at all. The best grilled cheese in downtown Seattle? Found it.

The Great Northwest Soup Company
1323 4th Ave, in the Puget Sound Plaza
Grilled cheese, tomato basil soup, Coke, $12.09