Monday, January 18, 2010
Queen Mary tea room - Seattle
After few weekends checking the Eastside Indian and Chinese cuisine, I have decided to go back to the old Europe and try something…let’s say British. So that’s how I got to Queen Mary Tea Room in Seattle.
Location is pretty easy to find, a little further away from university district, at approx five minutes from University Village. The sign is easily seen from the street and there is also plenty of available parking on the street. The place is exactly as described in the name ... a large room with around eight to ten tables.
Right at the entrance there is a big cage with a pair of the "royal pigeons" - the mascots of the room. The interior is decorated in the British style, with curtains, china cups and pots as ornaments on the shelves on the walls. The porcelain cups are Made in England, the cutlery on the tables look like silver although I cannot bet that they really are silver. On each table there is a small porcelain bowl with sugar whose granules are multicolored, besides that there is a small device with three small hourglasses or clepsydras filled with sand of different colors that are adjusted to flow to different concentrations for tea. For example for a stronger tea the hourglass would flow for 4 minutes, for a milder one for 3 minutes and so on.
Location is very busy and you should make reservations the day before. The service is excellent and the waiters have demonstrated good knowledge about teas. The menu is full of all kinds of tea, everything from Chinese tea, to Indian and Russian tea. In other words, this little tea house is a dream for tea connoisseurs.
As usual for food I ordered a number of items so I could get a better impression about the quality of cuisine. I had kidney and lamb in phyllo pastry and Westminster which contained different cheeses, ham and spinach. Both proved to have excellent taste, the kidneys had a delicious flavor and the Westminster was also a delight.
The tea room is mainly targeted to mothers, daughters, girlfriends and/or grandmothers, and although I was one of the only three men serving tea over there, I cannot for a minute say that I felt out of place in any way. It was a great experience and I encourage everyone to come and try to become a tea drinker.
Location - B +
Services - A
Price - B -(rather expensive)
Disclaimer - the pictures are taken of the Internet, are not made by me
Location is pretty easy to find, a little further away from university district, at approx five minutes from University Village. The sign is easily seen from the street and there is also plenty of available parking on the street. The place is exactly as described in the name ... a large room with around eight to ten tables.
Right at the entrance there is a big cage with a pair of the "royal pigeons" - the mascots of the room. The interior is decorated in the British style, with curtains, china cups and pots as ornaments on the shelves on the walls. The porcelain cups are Made in England, the cutlery on the tables look like silver although I cannot bet that they really are silver. On each table there is a small porcelain bowl with sugar whose granules are multicolored, besides that there is a small device with three small hourglasses or clepsydras filled with sand of different colors that are adjusted to flow to different concentrations for tea. For example for a stronger tea the hourglass would flow for 4 minutes, for a milder one for 3 minutes and so on.
Location is very busy and you should make reservations the day before. The service is excellent and the waiters have demonstrated good knowledge about teas. The menu is full of all kinds of tea, everything from Chinese tea, to Indian and Russian tea. In other words, this little tea house is a dream for tea connoisseurs.
As usual for food I ordered a number of items so I could get a better impression about the quality of cuisine. I had kidney and lamb in phyllo pastry and Westminster which contained different cheeses, ham and spinach. Both proved to have excellent taste, the kidneys had a delicious flavor and the Westminster was also a delight.
The tea room is mainly targeted to mothers, daughters, girlfriends and/or grandmothers, and although I was one of the only three men serving tea over there, I cannot for a minute say that I felt out of place in any way. It was a great experience and I encourage everyone to come and try to become a tea drinker.
Location - B +
Services - A
Price - B -(rather expensive)
Disclaimer - the pictures are taken of the Internet, are not made by me
Monday, January 11, 2010
Bamboo Garden restaurant review
It's time for another restaurant review - Bamboo Garden in Bellevue.
We came to this restaurant to the warm recommendation of a friend who told me that here I would find one of the best Chinese cuisine in the East Side. Said and done, I made time in the weekend, grabbed my friends and went there to see what's what. We went on purpose at around 6 o’clock which is a time when restaurants are not that busy so we can get a better idea of the service and the quality of food.
The restaurant was relatively easy to find, is in downtown Bellevue on some quiet roads and although we arrived at six o'clock, the parking lot already had some early customers parked there.
The interior looks like any typical Asian restaurant with bamboo plants planted here and there and red color drapes around the place. At the entrance we were greeted immediately by the hostess, and we were seated at a table in the middle of the place.
We ordered a bunch of items, planning to taste a little of everything so we can compare our opinions on different dishes. So we ordered mango duck, dried fried string beans, beef skewers (beef on the stick) and crispy sesame chicken.
The order has been taken by a waitress who spoke good English and wrote everything on a notebook. We were served with tea at first. After about 20 minutes we got the beef skewers that don’t really look like in the picture; however they didn’t taste too bad, they were crispy on the outside but a little greasy.
We had to wait another 15 minutes to get the mango duck. It came on a huge plate, the meat was very fatty, soaked in a white sauce. The duck wasn’t hot at all, it was more like lukewarm and it tasted really greasy.
Fried dried beans were very good and tasty but I would have loved them a little crispier.
Crispy sesame chicken - after waiting for about half an hour we still didn’t get it. We called the waitress and she realized that she completely forgot about the order, so we dropped it.
Service - in a restaurant is inadmissible to forget the order - grade F
Food - unheated, hastily made – grade D
The indoor location - inexpensive unfinished cement floor, otherwise looks ok – grade B
I would not go for seconds.
We came to this restaurant to the warm recommendation of a friend who told me that here I would find one of the best Chinese cuisine in the East Side. Said and done, I made time in the weekend, grabbed my friends and went there to see what's what. We went on purpose at around 6 o’clock which is a time when restaurants are not that busy so we can get a better idea of the service and the quality of food.
The restaurant was relatively easy to find, is in downtown Bellevue on some quiet roads and although we arrived at six o'clock, the parking lot already had some early customers parked there.
The interior looks like any typical Asian restaurant with bamboo plants planted here and there and red color drapes around the place. At the entrance we were greeted immediately by the hostess, and we were seated at a table in the middle of the place.
We ordered a bunch of items, planning to taste a little of everything so we can compare our opinions on different dishes. So we ordered mango duck, dried fried string beans, beef skewers (beef on the stick) and crispy sesame chicken.
The order has been taken by a waitress who spoke good English and wrote everything on a notebook. We were served with tea at first. After about 20 minutes we got the beef skewers that don’t really look like in the picture; however they didn’t taste too bad, they were crispy on the outside but a little greasy.
We had to wait another 15 minutes to get the mango duck. It came on a huge plate, the meat was very fatty, soaked in a white sauce. The duck wasn’t hot at all, it was more like lukewarm and it tasted really greasy.
Fried dried beans were very good and tasty but I would have loved them a little crispier.
Crispy sesame chicken - after waiting for about half an hour we still didn’t get it. We called the waitress and she realized that she completely forgot about the order, so we dropped it.
Service - in a restaurant is inadmissible to forget the order - grade F
Food - unheated, hastily made – grade D
The indoor location - inexpensive unfinished cement floor, otherwise looks ok – grade B
I would not go for seconds.
Monday, January 4, 2010
Spice Route - review
It's time for another restaurant review.
This week I chose the route that brought me to the exotic Spice Route, an Indian restaurant.
The restaurant is very easy to find, is in Bellevue - Overlake plaza, right next to Chucky Cheese.
One of my pet peeves in regard to restaurants is the smell. I do not like restaurants that smell, whether Indian, Chinese, French or American. I just don’t like my clothes to smell of food when I leave the place. So, when I entered the restaurant and the smell of food was very subtle almost unnoticeable. We went for the buffet lunch, and maybe that was a factor or simply the very good ventilation, either way it worked great for me.
The food was excellent in my opinion, not too spicy but still spicy enough to give you an idea of Indian food. Service was ok, nothing extreme, but very discreet and polite. Customers were a mix of Caucasians, Asians and Indians, which is a good sign. My friends who came with me were Indians and when asked about their opinion they mentioned that the food is Indian style but bland, this usually means that no flames come out of your mouth . I am sure that you could get some hot, spicy Indian food if you order off the menu, instead going for the buffet.
Recommendations: lamb, chicken, naan (bread)
Also beware in the vegetarian section where I got a delicious pickled mango that unfortunately almost broke my tooth due to the fact that was sliced with the pit in and served as such.
On a scale between 0-10 for an exotic restaurant I give it a grade 8.
This week I chose the route that brought me to the exotic Spice Route, an Indian restaurant.
The restaurant is very easy to find, is in Bellevue - Overlake plaza, right next to Chucky Cheese.
One of my pet peeves in regard to restaurants is the smell. I do not like restaurants that smell, whether Indian, Chinese, French or American. I just don’t like my clothes to smell of food when I leave the place. So, when I entered the restaurant and the smell of food was very subtle almost unnoticeable. We went for the buffet lunch, and maybe that was a factor or simply the very good ventilation, either way it worked great for me.
The food was excellent in my opinion, not too spicy but still spicy enough to give you an idea of Indian food. Service was ok, nothing extreme, but very discreet and polite. Customers were a mix of Caucasians, Asians and Indians, which is a good sign. My friends who came with me were Indians and when asked about their opinion they mentioned that the food is Indian style but bland, this usually means that no flames come out of your mouth . I am sure that you could get some hot, spicy Indian food if you order off the menu, instead going for the buffet.
Recommendations: lamb, chicken, naan (bread)
Also beware in the vegetarian section where I got a delicious pickled mango that unfortunately almost broke my tooth due to the fact that was sliced with the pit in and served as such.
On a scale between 0-10 for an exotic restaurant I give it a grade 8.
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