Pictures from Bhangra Bash 2008 last week, held at the University of Washington’s Meany Hall.

The UW’s own Bhangra Bash team

The UW team again

Team “ABC”, a team of 16-19 year olds from Seattle

All the Bhangra teams out on stage

As a result of partnering with the UW Indian Students Association for the top Indian restaurants in Seattle, they offered us two VIP tickets to their annual Bhangra Bash competition. Bhangra is a traditional celebration and folk dance of Southern India that involves lots of colorful outfits, movement and music. In it’s current form, Bhangra has seen it’s dance incorporated into modern culture, with hip hop and R&B taking quite a few queues from the style of Bhangra.

We had a great time at the show and it was great seeing the performances from all the teams. My personal favorite was the St. Louis team that could have second as a professional dance team with their choreography and near-perfect timing and coordination. If you get the chance, check out the show next year for an interesting treat- it was my first time at this type of event and I’ll be sure to go again next year!

Last week, Steve and I had the great opportunity to have lunch with the fun fellows over at MSG150 - Seattle International District Lunch Food. They’re a team of guerrilla food critics, scoping out and securing reviews in the International District one block at a time. Their goal is to eventually review every (yes, every) restaurant in the ID. Click to read the plan of attack for the International District.

We met with the MSG150 team last Wednesday at Sea Garden Restaurant. There, we met their entire crew: Geary, Adam, Emmett, Dave, Jeff, Erin, Rob, Joey and Doug. With nine full members coming out for a review, it made our normal coffee review team of three look paltry in comparison.

Luckily for us, we had arrived early enough at Sea Garden that the group was able to commandeer two large tables and join them together. Seating for eleven is not always easy. The servers at Sea Garden were quite hospitable to the group however and had two of them working the party for the duration of our lunch. It was a nice change to be treated quite attentively at a Chinese restaurant and Steve gave the service high ratings as a result.

It was interesting watching the MSG150 group at work, with Adam jotting down notes on a pre-made review sheet and writing down the name of dishes, prices, fortunes, table seatings, restaurant occupancy and even having a stopwatch for timing the food prep time. On their website, the team even posts links to the King County health code scores (0 being good, 100 being dangerous for your health) for each restaurant surveyed. They certainly don’t pull the punches, as Chinese restaurants, especially in the ID, are notorious for health code violations.

Going over the menu, the MSG team picked a large sampling of items from the lunch menu. Composed of individuals from a local startup, their goal with the MSG site is both an adventure and as a guide for workers in the area looking for lunch that is both tasty and a good value. Steve and I picked some dinner items, as per the normal Coffee.net style, so there was a good variety of dishes all around.

Over lunch, we bantered back and forth between the MSG guys who were all great hosts and obviously enjoying their food quest. Asking what motivated them to start, Geary simply replied that he thought it would be a cool thing to do and had no problem getting a following of co-workers to participate. When asked what they would do once their agenda was complete, they thought for a second and replied that they’d probably just go Eastward toward the East International District area, with all the Vietnamese shops and restaurants.

With almost 50 reviews on their site of restaurants in the ID, you’ve got to go and check out MSG150 for reviews, pictures and commentaries for lunch in the ID. Also, check out their own review for lunch at Sea Garden!

Thanks Geary, Adam and the rest of the MSG150 crew for inviting us to lunch and we look forward to meeting them again in the future sometime!