Shun

So this will actually be an amalgam of my many times at Shun, a Sushi place outside of University Village.

I started out with a vendetta against Shun. While in previous incarnations the building has been a KFC and a freaky vegan cafe, its most recent incarnation was as my family’s go-to thai restaurant, Thai Dusit. Furthermore, my first visit my food was forgotten. We went, we ordered, everyone at my table got their food. I asked repeatedly for my food, my family finished theirs, mine still was not there. I left hungry, bitter, and nostalgic for Thai Dusit, who had never, in all my many visits, left me unfed.

My parents, despite my bitterness toward the restaurant, returned without me. They told me it was actually pretty good, and it seemed to have gotten over its opening jitters. So I went back. And what a pleasent surprise.

Every time I am in Shun, I am served up beautiful, fresh, well cut plates of sashimi. The rice is a good texture on the nigiri, and they make a delicious and slightly more original seaweed salad than you see in your run of the mill sushi place. It is a great place to get what you want and keep the price down–you can get out of there with seaweed salad, sashimi, sushi, nigiri and sake for under $25 a person no problem.

In terms of service, I have to mention that on Valentine’s Day, with no reservation anywhere, we were able to fight our way through the crowd at the door, and be seated with in ten minutes. How many other places can do that?

My only issue I have ever had with the food would be that I was once served a piece of geoduck that maybe sat a little bit too long. But when you consider how often I eat there, only one bad piece of fish–and it wasn’t awful, just not perfect, I can’t complain.

Dahlak

I remember as a child, we used to go for Ethiopian food a fair amount. Mostly this sticks in my head because it was the only time we were not yelled at for eating with our fingers (which I’m pretty sure we did, regardless of cuisine). So when my roommate demanded I try this Eritrean place, I embraced the opportunity to use the one utensil that makes all food taste better–the hands.

Despite being hidden behind the Oh Boy Oberto factory store on Ranier, we found the little hideaway fairly easily and were seated immediatley in the small room. A full bar was stocked behind us and the TV was showing Eritrean television (which included Soccer and pasta-making, as I recall).

We ordered a vegetarian platter and Kitfo. The vegetarian platter was similar to what I remember from previous East African food experiences, only larger. I huge platter made of Injera, the spongy buckwheat bread, was dotted with a variety of vegetable preperation, often stew like and involving lentils. Now, I have to say, my biggest pet peeve is when people tell me they don’t like Ethiopian food because they don’t like Injera. Now, I know if you eat Injera on its own it is very bitter and dry and no good at all. But it has NO flavor when you wrap it around lentil mixes and veggies. It is simply a great tool for eating the stews as well as becoming a soft, yummy texture with the moisture. So don’t try that complaint on me, people. Every dish on the veggie platter was rich and delicious. Unlike other places, I never started avoiding certain spots. By the end, all that was left of the injera platter was little dots of color indicating the type of dish that had been there.

The Kitfo, which my roommate ordered for us may be the closest food has ever come to sex for me. It is raw ground beef with hot butter and berebere (a spicy spice mix) poured over it. It is served with a soft, buttery, whipped cheese. So you use your injera to pick up some meat, dab some cheese on top and eat. It is a lovely squishy, rare steak texture to it, while the heat of the berebere is set off by the coolness of the cheese. Sublime.

The service was in general very good. They checked back with us often, making sure that we had enough injera. At the end, it took a while to get our check, but that was because our waitress was very involved with a coffee ceremony, which is an extremely complex procedure involving incense on the table and a lot of ritual. She was forgiven, as we were fascinated to watch this.

Sam’s Sushi

So I have been to Sam’s before and have always enjoyed decent, even good, cheap sushi there. We went for the BF’s B-day, though and I was thoughroly dissapointed. Our sashimi was frozen. I could see the ice crystals in my fish. We pointed this out to the waitress, who took the fish back, switched that one fish out, and gave us a different kind. Not more, not switching out other types of fish (which were also frozen) but simply the one piece I had pointed out. She was also unapologetic. When you consider it was a birthday dinner, and we were spending over $100 for a two top, which I’m guessing doesn’t happen all that much there, you would think she could knock off a beer, or discount our sashimi or something. Nope. We paid a lot of money for frozen sashimi. Well. Guess I won’t go back there any time soon!