While I didn’t get any photos of the Islander because I thought I’d leave the camera at the hotel for a change and not look like a moronic tourist with a Nikon D80 draped over a shoulder, I will strongly suggest you check out the Islander for yourself for supper.

Nestled right down on Union St, overlooking the waterfront and Sound, The Islander claims to be a tiki style bar with an Asian style to the cooking.  It wasn’t a run of the mill chain place, and I didn’t feel like going back to Ivar’s or Pike Brewing from the last time we were here, as we wanted to try something new.

This place had no wait, and had outdoor tables overlooking the mountains and water as described on the website.  Mer ordered a fruity drink thing which was pretty good, because she ended up ordering two of them.  I stuck with a Kona Brewing wheat beer, not really knowing where Kona originated, but thought I’d go along with the tiki theme.

We ordered an appetizer of calamari, layered over a chipotle cream sauce which was excellent.  Mer at the little friend squid looking things, and I went for the rings.  I’m not a huge calamari fan, but like sushi, it’s good once in awhile.  This stuff was awesome, not spongy, fishy tasting or otherwise nasty.  It was very good, with a solid texture and not battered and fried to death.  The chipotle sauce was smooth with a little kick to it, but not overpowering.

For the main meal, Mer ordered a hunk of Salmon with a glaze over top if I recall, which she said was excellent.  It certainly looked good, and smelled good as well. (All of the plates that came out to surrounding tables smelled excellent, even in the outdoor air with a light breeze!)  My meal was a peanut crusted chicken breast with an asian peanut sauce along with a few other tasty spices added on top.  It was flavorful and very good.  Very light coating of the peanut crusting as to not overpower the rest of the chicken.  I also got a wad of the standard sticky rice, and that was also awesome.

The service was prompt and we were well taken care of.  The average plate was about $15.00, plus drinks, so our bill ended up being around $60.00 for the two of us, but we wanted to go somewhere nice and didn’t mind paying the little extra, considering the view we had and the great food.

I would certainly stop by this place again, while we didn’t get inside to look around, I did spot a full bar as I walked past the doors, and other seating areas inside as well in case of rain or other bad weather.

The Islander Restaurant
96 Union Street
Seattle, Washington 98101

Photo by Tim Dachtera

If you are looking for a decent place to grab some awesome food and beverage with a good atmosphere in Seattle, give this place a try.  It’s under the Red Lion hotel, and is accessible street side.  They feature a number of local Seattle beers on tap, as well as other tasty drinks.  Mer, Lori and I started in the bar with a nice waitress who took our orders, explained that ordering the ‘Top Shelf’ special gin and tonic wasn’t worth the price difference was attentive, nice and quick to take care of us.

Photo by Tim Dachtera

When we were able to get a seat outside, we squared up the tab, and got a good seat outside, away from the street and noise.  Our waitress Amber was quick to pick up our new drink orders and put an order in for some nachos (as the sushi just was not filling me up, especially at my rate of beer consumption)

More people showed up, first Lori’s friend Hazel, and then Billy, and we carried on with drinks and food.  This is where the evening starts to go downhill.  We get to the late night happy hour, and ask about the specials, and what is/not included for happy hour.  We all make our selections and continue carrying on, drinking and having a good time.  None of us had to drive anywhere (and our hotel was just upstairs 19 floors, so I intended to get my drink on.

Seeing as I was dealing with some time shift still, and getting a little tired, I was going to liven up the party by getting a Jager/Red Bull.  They didn’t have RB, so they substituted Rockstar instead.  I was cool with this, as it was something new to try.  When it arrived, it came out in a PINT glass, on the rocks, light on rocks.  Wholly crap, I expected a shot, not a sipper drink, was our waitress trying to get me drunk so I’d not notice the horrendous bill she was about to deliver?

Mind you, we’ve spent about 5 hours total at the bar, eating, drinking, ordering more drinks etc.  Our bill came, and here is the fun part.  There were 5 orders for Captain/Diet (only 1 of which I ordered) they totally missed Mer’s Crown/Diet and two other rum/punch drinks, Yes, they are still one drink over if my math is correct.  They charged full price for the second order of nachos we inquired about AT happy hour.  They also messed up on one other drink we didn’t order.

When brought to the attention of our waitress, she seemed confused, astounded and slightly hostile that we were trying to cheat her our of drinks.  She got the manager involved who was even more apathetic, and was pretty rude to us, and told us that WE had to tell the waitress we wanted in on the Happy Hour deals (Now, doesn’t inquiring about what’s on the happy hour menu, and then ordering a farking happy hour rail drink constitute wanting in on the happy hour action??)  No, I guess not.  In the end, the manager re-rang the captain/diets under the correct items, comped one of my drinks, gave us 10% off one of the nachos (and we used a freebie voucher on the other plate of nachos, from the last time they messed up an order for Lori)

All in all, we were discounted about 20$ from the total bill, which was actually on par with what we should have been charged.  I ended up leaving an extra 10$ for the tip because the waitress kinda got jacked (for obvious reasons) on the tipping.  All in all, she did a great job keeping our drinks full and food in front of us, it was just the last 20 minutes of the interaction that blew ass.  In their defense, we could have asked for separate tabs to start with, but they could have asked us if we wanted it split it split, as clearly did not have matched pairs.

When in Seattle, I still think this place is worth the stop, just be sure you are clear on what you want when it comes to happy hour, and maybe ask for separate tabs if you don’t want to have the end of your nice tainted with bickering over drinks with the waitstaff.

Elephant & Castle®
Red Lion Hotel
1415 Fifth Avenue
Seattle, WA 98101
Tel:  206-624-9977

Photo by Tim Dachtera

When I think of Sushi, the last thing I expected was to walk in and belly up to a luggage style presentation of plated sushi.  I was actually rather amused at the concept, and had expectations of fishy tasting sushi, odd things to choose and a less-than filling meal because I’d not like the assortment.  I’m not a huge sushi fan to start with, and when I do have it, it’s once every few months, which is plenty.

I was nicely surprised when I spotted some spicy tuna and dove into that.  They have a few different plate costs.  Each plate has 2-4 rolls on it, based on the type of roll it is.  Starting at $1.00, up to $3.00.  Yes - it was that cheap, hence my initial reservation on the taste.  

The overall taste of the food was pretty decent, better than I had hoped. Once I scarfed the two rounds of Spicy Tuna I could find, I had to wait quite awhile for something else to pop out, and found something else that looked harmless (it ended up being some skinned salmon with a carrot hunk in rice, same deal pretty much)

I ended up having two rounds of spicy tuna, and two rounds of this odd salmon thing, plus a round of potstickers.  I think my total price with a few refills of soda came to under $10.00.

I have not seen a concept like this here in Minneapolis, but think it might do well considering the other array of short order to sit down sushi joints around town.  If you do visit Seattle, I would suggest stopping by, even if for a snack of raw fish with a neat delivery concept.

Sushi Land

803 5th Ave. N

Seattle, WA 98109

Photo by Tim Dachtera

Needing a place to grab lunch today, we went down to Fish Take Brew Pub to get some lunch and try some of the local brew. I ordered the Organic Wild Salmon Pale Ale, and was described as a light bodied, crisp and well balanced brew coming in at 5.5% abv. The beer was excellent, just as described. It had a nice smooth finish with a light bitter aftertaste that was not overpowering. Overall it was a pretty darn good beer.

For the actual meal, I decided on the organic beef burger with bleu cheese and organic fries. Not typically choosing the organic things on the menu, I figured I would give it a try seeing as I was in ‘green’ country, and because I’m also trying to be a little more choosy about what I’m eating as I try to get healthier. While I wasn’t expecting a huge burger from a brew pub, when the food came out, it was better than I expected. The burger was one of the best tasting burgers I’ve eaten in ages, done just to my request (medium-well) It was moist, and very flavorful. The bun was your average bun, but it was good that it was boring and not some toasted kaiser thing to detract from the burger itself.

Photo by Tim Dachtera

The organic fries were a nice chance. Different from the fast-food chain salty, oil soaked fries, these were unsalted, not burned to a crisp, and just downright tasty. Mer had a sandwich with ham, apple slices and melted cheese that she said was excellent, and the grandparents had a rueben and BLT, both of which they said were very tasty.

On the way out, I picked up a growler filled with their Organic Amber, so I’ll be enjoying some of that later tonight with supper.

If you’re in Olympia and looking for some good local beer and great food, Stop by Fish Tale.

Fish Brewing Company

515 Jefferson Street SE
Olympia WA 98501 USA

Tags: Beer, Fish Tale Brewing, Olympia, Organic, Washington

Photo by Tim Dachtera

We started out our trip to seattle on a pretty OK point.  Arriving to MSP earlier than needed as usual, because I’m not going to be missing a flight on my watch, we checked out bags and made it thru the TSA checkpoint with little issue.  This was one of the first flights in many that I haven’t needed 4 tubs for all my crap, so I guess I really packed light this time only needing one tub.  I guess seeing as my luggage was only 28lbs vs. the normal 45 I guess I packed light this trip.  No need for business and casual attire, no need for jeans, long sleeves or anything.  I could have gotten away with a carry on roller bag, but now I have room to bring back any goodies I might find out here.

We decided to find some food before getting on the plane and stopped in at O’Garas right near out gate.  Seeing on the flight board that the 5:20 flight to SEA had been cancelled, we noticed a hoard of people milling around our gate for the 7:05 flight that had been bumped.  We ordered our food and a drink, Mer got a burger and a glass of wine, and I got a tall glass of Red Hook and the Selby Chicken, cajun style.

As the clock ticked on, we were still waiting for our food and decided to get it to go and go down to our gate as it was quickly approaching the boarding time, and since we had Exit row seating, we’d be first to hop on.

We paid our tab and gave our Waitress a decent tip as she was very nice and quick with the service and to make sure we had everything we needed.  Not have eaten at the real O’Garas in St. Paul before, I don’t know if the service was on par or not, but I was happy, and that’s good for me.

We took our food out to the seating area and I was less than pleased with appearance of my food.  I was hoping for a decent size chicken breast with some cajun seasoning to it.  What I got, was a medium size wad of chicken, that looks like it was sprinkled with the 5lb jug of generic cajun.  The seasoning was only on one side and not evenly spread out.  The fries on the other hand, were pretty good.  Nothing to write home about (I guess I’m doing that anyways) but they weren’t greasy or overly salty so I was happy with them.

As it ended up being, we could have eaten out meal in the Pub, because they didn’t start boarding until 10 minutes before the flight was supposed to leave, oh well I guess.  We ended up leaving only 20 minutes late which I guess is OK.  First time I’ve left late for a flight in many flights, so considering the cancelled flight, I can’t complain too much.

Photo by Tim Dachtera

We arrived into SEA about 20 minutes beyond schedule, oh well - We got our bags and were shuttled off to Enterprise to pick up our car.  We had reserved a full size sedan, and were offered a Kia Optima… I asked what else they had - Mainly because I’m not a fan of Kia, and I wanted something a little more.. American make (or more american made)  We ended up scoring a 2008 Malibu.  It was nicer than I expected with great pickup, a smooth ride and decent options for a rental, and at 25-30 miles to the gallon we should be good to only need a tankful of fuel this weekend.

I fired up the new Garmin Nuvi200w I picked up this week and punched in the address for Mer’s grandparents in Olympia and headed down Hwy 5.  We pulled in about 11pm Seattle time, 1am MN time, and after saying a quick hello we headed to bed.

We woke up today in Olympia to a cloudless day and warm weather, so it should be a great opportunity to get out and about, hopefully all weekend.  The last time we were here in Nov. 2006, we visited during the rainiest month in recorded history.

I think for today, we are going to check out a local restaurant/pub with their own brews if I recall correctly, and try to get down by the Capital tonight for some photos.

Saturday will bring us thru Bremerton to pick up our friend Lori and take the ferry over to Seattle for the until Monday.  more photos, food, a ball game and Pike Place. 

Tags: Olympia, Seattle, Vacation, Washington

Photo by Tim Dachtera

Next week, Mer and I are headed to Seattle for 4 days, with hopefully less rain than the last trip we took in Nov, 2006 (rainy photos) with the Smith’s and Lori.  We’re going to visit some family as well, spend some time in Olympia, catch a ball game and hopefully just have some fun.  If anyone has suggestions of good places to eat out there, let me know.  We’ve been there a few times, and eaten at the Seafood place on the water, a good pizza shop in the downtown area, and had sushi.  I’m taking the D80 with me, as usual, so hoping to find a good opportunity to get up the Space Needle for photos of the night skyline or something like that!  

This weekend was the 2008 MS-150 bike tour from Proctor to Blaine.  I had originally a few pages of info posted that died, I’ll just post some pictures, say that the trip was excellent and I’m already looking forward to the 2009 ride.
 

Uploaded by Tim Dachtera

Waking up this morning to sunshine instead of the rain from Saturday made my day to start.  Even better, the temperature wasn’t too chilly, so I figured it would be a great day to save some gas and take the G-RAFFE to my photo shoot in Hastings.  I’ve always liked the bridge going across the Mississippi, and I love the little car, so I thought it would make a nice photo to combine the two.

I did find a fleece to wear, but it takes a lot to top driving on a sunny day with the top down.  No real point in turning on the radio, and all you’ve got to listen to is the wind and the road.

Hoping for many more weekends like this over the upcoming summer and fall months.  Also, with gas prices being as expensive as they are, it’s great to have this which gets far better fuel economy than my SUV, and it usually attracts some attention wherever I take it.

Uploaded by Tim Dachtera

Once again, I am starting to raise funds for the MS Society MS-150 Bike Tour.  I have been riding this tour for over a decade now, and look forward to it each year.  While I feel it is a good organization to raise money for, I also enjoy the opportunity to bike and camp for a weekend in the process.

Each year, our team changes with a new rider, or we lose an old one for a year or two, and this year is no exception. Those of us that are riding have a few other friends that we’ll try and hook up with for a bit, not meaning to ride with them all weekend, but just to say HI and catch up at a rest stop, or the shower-truck line.

Anyways, If you are interested in donating to my fundraising efforts, your support is very much appreciated.  You can donate by clicking here.

If you would like to see photos from the 2007, click here.

Tags: bike tour, Camping, fundraising, MS 150, MS Society, Recreation

I shall kick off the second nice day of the Spring season with a car pic. The Triumph is out, washed and aired up the tires. Looking forward to using it this weekend!