My brother from another mother Adam’s Clinton Hill taqueria Cochinita is opening soon — check it out in all its glory on Grub Street!

Finally checked out ABC Kitchen with my dear Gab, and had our first fiddleheads of the season, alongside pickled ramp puree with dabs of goat cheese on toast, which got me excited for grilled ones, any day now…Along with a basil-lime daiquiris and a salted caramel sundae, it was a good night out indeed.

A pastrami sandwich & poutine, Montreal-style at Mile End

Happy New Rabbit Year! I celebrated at Ft Greene’s No. 7, where Baohaus chef Eddie Huang took the reigns and prepared a massive feast, served family style. After a dinner like that, I am more than ready to say goodbye to the aggro year of the tiger and enjoy a chilled-out bunny year filled with great food, new friends and plenty of wine.

Though I did some on-the-fly reporting, here is a rundown of the rest of the great things I ate in Seattle, inspired by this invaluable tipsheet on Gridskipper plus locals’ recommendations. I got in late, but right on time for a fab cocktail at Bathtub Gin & Co. in Belltown, near my downtown hotel. Enjoyed custom-crafted cocktails of the bartender’s choice in the purposefully ramshackle speakeasy barroom. The next day, after a requisite Pike Place Market wander-about (where sadly, they were not throwing fish due to construction), I stopped into Tom Douglas’ Seatown for a fabulous crab snack. Douglas is a local culinary hero who really knows how to work the Northwest’s bounty…My first real dinner out was at Quinn’s Pub in Capitol Hill. Ate Wild Boar Sloppy Joes, Oxtails w/Marrow, and a fantastic Seared Foie Gras, which helped soak up the rest of the night’s bar hopping around Capitol Hill…The next day, hurting a bit, I went to Nettletown in Eastlake, for what couldn’t have been better comfort food. With a focus on foraged and wild foods, this cute little cafe made a Black Fried Rice w/Bacon, Yellowfoot Mushrooms and Dill that I am still dreaming of, and can’t wait to emulate and a Beef Salad w/Chiogga Beets & Walnut Dressing that was so filling yet fresh. I’d move to Seattle just to eat there constantly, it was that good…For a fancy parting dinner, I sat at the bar at Book Bindery, a new haute spot with only ten tables, and great cocktails and food. Everything was flawless, particularly the “Flavor Curve” rib eye, which a fellow diner informed us it’s the “best beef dish in Seattle.” Even with limited knowledge thereof, she may well have been right. We ended the evening and trip with a nightcap at 9 Million in Unmarked Bills in Fremont, where I tried a “Mushroom Tea” hot whiskey drink steeped with a dried morel mushroom. And of course, made sure to grab one last Stumptown on the way to the airport the next day.

Last night braved the storm for Kaz An Nou: an adorable French Carribbean restaurant on the Park Slope/Prospect Heights border. They just updated their menu, and while the flawless jerk chicken and West Indies burger are still in full effect, they’ve fortified their offerings with curried escargot, cheesy crab-stuffed chayote and a signature riff on Niçoise salad that brings smoked whitefish and okra to the mix. For dessert, we had a Galette des Rois, or King Cake: a traditional French pastry typically served on January 6, the Christian feast day of Epiphany, that contains a bead somewhere inside that turns the lucky recipient into a king (or queen) for a day. Although Kaz An Nou’s take on the cake didn’t include such a bead, I felt particularly regal after the meal. 

Photo courtesy of kazannou.com

Last night I was having an after-work Hudson Buck (or two) at the Vanderbilt, paging through the new Brooklyn Bread Press (basically The Noise meets Patrick McMullan of the BK food nerd world,) and I came across not one, but two photos of yours truly (see page 28) from a recent Kimchee & Korean Pancakes class I took at Purple Yam in Ditmas Park. I kept meaning to share what I learned, waiting until I got around to kimchifying a couple of cabbages chez moi. I haven’t gotten there quite yet, but here you have pics from the fun Saturday afternoon we spent making cabbage kimchi, radish kimchi, brothy kimchi, kimchee stew and tasty pork belly and Korean pancakes to eat with it. 

I sometimes forget that I am one-eighth Dutch. My Irish half I bring up whenever I’ve had too many drinks or I crave corned beef and cabbage; my Italian quarter comes out when I speak NewYorkese, make gravy on Sundays or otherwise act like a guidette; and my Polish eighth was alive and well when I lived on Manhattan Ave in Greenpoint. Dutch self-identification has eluded me, perhaps because I don’t know much about the food or culture. I aimed to remedy this last night by stopping into Vandaag, a new Dutch/Danish resto in the East Village. Here we had some inventive plates made using Hudson Valley produce washed down with refreshingly sparse Genever cocktails — all in a serene minimalist setting. Goede times.

Hipstamatic Aligot at Ambassade d’Auvergne

Here’s the first of a few Paris posts on deck…After a long day of touristy gallivanting at Versailles and the Louvre, I stopped into L’Ardoise, the name of which is French for “slate,” a reference to the daily specials written in chalk. I ordered the pre-fixe with a snail, mushroom and cream pastry to start and the rabbit braised en cocotte for my main And for dessert, a grapefruit and tropical fruit millefeuille. 

Taberna Loredo had the most delicious seafood I sampled in all of Madrid. Embarrassingly though, I heard about it on one of those in-flight travel shows on the way over. Despite that, it wasn’t the least bit touristy and both the food and wine were superb at a fine price. Next time I visit Madrid, I’ll definitely be back.

Here we have a chicken parm sub from Sheepshead Bay’s Circles Bistro, a resto known as much for the red sauce specialties as the Betty Boop-inspired decor.

Dropped into The Crow’s Nest on the eve of Hurricane Earl and got seated right away — a nice change of pace indeed. It was dark and just a little drafty, in a fun weathering-the-storm way.