You a fan of ESB? How about IPA Long Hammer? If beer is your forte, you should definitely head on out to Woodinville to check out the Red Hook Brewery. Like two beer-crazed enthusiasts, Bryan and I headed down here to go on a tour of the plant and “sample” a few beers for the mere cost of one measly dollar.

When I heard that Red Hook was in Woodinville, I thought it was a bit odd as most of the places in that area specialize in wine. But, if you’re a bit worn out from too much wine, (Fellas, do I hear a yes?) this place is a great change of pace.

As we made our way to the parking lot, you’ll be put in awe by the size of the place, as it looks more like a large home rather than a plant that brews beer. The large skybridge caught my eye as I figured they use that to ship the beer over from the plant to the shipping area.

As I passed by some people on my way to the door, I could smell that distinct smell of beer. Once we got through the door, we formed up in a large line with several other people, as Red Hook runs a tour every hour until 5pm. Crunched up against people, we finally heard six wonderful words that got our tour under way.

“Who’s ready to drink some beer!”

Of course, the crowd responded with a fervent “Hell yeah!” and up the staircases we went. I thought the tour would be something more on par with a scene from the campy 80’s movie,Midnight Madness sans the absurd frat guys, Scott Baio and a really young Michael J. Fox. I hoped to get an awesome look at how they brew their special beers such as ESB and Blackhook, but unfortunately we ended up funneled into a room that had an 80’s style ceiling where we would spend most of our time in.

As we all dropped a dollar into the bucket by the bar, we were all issued a small glass cup that also was a take home souvenir. It held about 2-3oz and would be our designated taster cup. Each of the five beers, Blonde Ale, ESB, Late Harvest, IPA Long Hammer, and Blackhook, were all available to try. The tour guide slowly takes us from one beer to the next with a little bit of history and lot of jokes added in, to educate us more about each specific beer.

The Blonde Ale is a light beer, a mix between an ale and a lager. The ESB (Extra Special Bitters) is their signature beer, first served in 1987. Unique in look and taste, the ESB is mix of bitter hops and caramel malting. The IPA (India Pale Ale) Long Hammer is a very hoppy beer that is an acquired taste. The Late Harvest is their newest beer to hit the market and we were some of the first people to test it out on the tour. The Blackhook is a dark porter that has a chocolaty aroma, coffee like taste, and very smooth finish.

The plant has several large tanks that brew hundres of gallons of beer every 4 hours and are then transferred to the fermentation tanks. Each tank is extremely huge and they said that if you were to drink 3 bottles of beer a day, it would take you roughly 33 years to finish just one of those tanks.

As a tip of advice, be sure to visit the brewery on a Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday, as those are the days the bottling center are open and running. Since we came on a Saturday, that part of the plant was not active and the doors were locked so we couldn’t even take a peak inside. The closest thing we had was a diagram layout of the room and a quick explanation of the whole process.

While it may not have been the most visual tour per se, it was quite informative. The guide does a fantastic job educating people about the history and story behind each and every beer. I would go a little more into it, but that would just spoil the tour for you. I was a little disappointed that we ended up staying mostly in the same room, but I still got about 10-12oz of beer for a dollar. Add on the fact I was drinking on an empty stomach I started to feel a little buzz by the end of the tour.

After the tour, we grabbed some seats at the restaurant on the first floor and ordered up some of the biggest nachos we’ve ever seen and a few more beers for good measure.

Fans of the Food Network show “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” may be happy to know that Seattle is going to be in one of the upcoming shows early next year. The show, which predictably features diners, drive-ins and dives, with host Guy Fieri, travels around the country looking for good grubbing in both the classic and most unlikeliness of places.

I mention this because we were contacted a few days ago by someone on the crew of Page Productions who was essentially asking us for some recommendations for restaurants in the Seattle area to be on the show. We thought it was pretty cool for a show on the Food Network to ask us, so we happily obliged with a list of places below. So if you see any of these on the show next year, you’ll know who got them there! :)

• Dick’s Drive-In (We don’t need to tell you why)
• XXX (Triple X Rootbeer in Issaquah)
• Red Mill Burgers
• Beth’s Cafe (12 egg omelette anyone?)
• Gorditos (For those baby sized burritos)
• Ezell’s Famous Fried Chicken (Because everyone besides us seems to like them)
• Market House Corned Beef (Making their own corned beef since 1948 and on our must-review list)
• Dixie’s BBQ (”The Man” sauce is all you need to know)
• Paseo (We just went here and the review is up soon, but those Cuban pork burgers do live up to their rep)
• Fu Man Dumpling House (Handmade dumplings from scratch)
• Jade Garden (Arguably the most popular dim sum in Seattle)
• Top Gun

We even asked the crew member to send us some promotional materials that we can give away to you, our foodie readers, but we’ll see if they play ball with us. After sending a two-page, food passionate email, the production company returned the favor with a one-lined, “Thanks for the suggestions” email, ha! That’s like asking a waiter to list every recommendation across three menus and then saying, “Hmm… I’ll go with a hot dog!”

I guess I’ll refrain from the ripping unless we get some goods :)

Wow, we’ve just uploaded our next batch of updates! There are now over 100 new restaurants listed on Coffee.net, bringing the total to over 200 Seattle restaurants now. A few restaurants are lacking images and we’re working hard on fixing those issues, but we will have those fixes up pretty soon.

Another milestone that we’re happy to report is that Coffee.net now has a readership of over 10,000 visitors a month! It’s been a little over half a year since we officially opened our doors, so we’re happy to be receiving this amount of traffic already. Please let your friends know about the site and keep those comments and suggestions coming!

Ok, the title of this blog post is a little misleading because I actually *do* like Yelp (mostly). It’s a cool idea with awesome site design and tools (unlike the unslightly Citysearch), but has some sketchy ability to reign in its own users.

We’ll go straight to Exhibit A. This is from an Elite (cream of the crop) Yelp member from the Seattle area, who has created a list of top restaurants in the Woodinville area (close to our neck of the woods). The top 10 restaurants this person lists are:

1. Denice’s Place
2. Mongolian Grill
3. Garlic Jim’s
4. Samurai Sam’s Teriyaki Grill
5. Ezell’s Famous Chicken
6. McDonald’s
7. Maltby Espresso
8. Subway
9. Theno’s Dairy
10. Crystal Creek Cafe

If you’ve been in Woodinville, you know there’s also Purple Cafe and Wine Bar (our full review is coming in with our next update), yet it’s mysteriously gone from the top 10 list. However, if you scroll all the way to the bottom, you’ll see it listed at #25, one spot below Old Country Buffet and one spot above KFC. That is pure absurdity. Here’s what the review actually said:

“We tried to eat at this cafe and we were told that there was a 45-60 minute wait. So…. if you ever manage to get there when the wait’s not too long, maybe the food will be good.”

The reviewer left a one star (the lowest rating), based solely on the fact they had to wait an hour to find a seat at a fine dining restaurant. This raises the hair on my neck, let alone the manager of the restaurant who is likely fuming at the mouth at the absurdity of this review.

As food critics, we understand quite well that different people have varied taste in foods (apples to oranges, what makes you happy makes you happy, etc). That said, to be a discerning diner of fine gourmet, it’s mind blowing to possibly list McDonald’s as anywhere above Purple (or for that matter, half the list, even though it’s filled with fast food already). Even when comparing similarly styled cuisine, such as McDonalds vs Red Robin, the contest is a scathing no-brainer.

This is the problem with sites like Yelp, because they provide the sandbox for which to play, but they have no way of realistically monitoring the quality of the users. Sure, they can throw out the trouble makers and spammers, but otherwise are handcuffed against taking action against users who obviously have no business reviewing food. Yelp is close to a purist’s democracy of food, which means anybody and everybody can have their time in the sun. To this extent, we have seen a small but vocal contingent of reviewers that use sites like Yelp for their own personal soapbox and often, raging bullhorn. Yelp will tell you that bad apples come with the territory, but tell that to the restaurant owners who get slammed by these self-absorbed crusaders. (In case you are curious, Coffee.net has our own system of checks and balances for these type of things currently in testing.)

Again, this isn’t meant to hark on Yelp (that was a bad pun), but to point that it’s broken in a way that is fixable. Both Yelp and Citysearch fail to understand the foodie by having no way to separate the various restaurant factors like service and food apart. Not all diners believe that eating out is a form of mind and body experience to satiate the soul. In fact, I would say true foodies will gladly make a matyr out of their ego in the quest for good eats. This is why we’ve implemented restaurants ratings based on your priorities: high service and ambiance for a good date; high food and value for down and dirty grubbing. If Yelp used this system, it would break their huge “star” brand, but it would also separate the service nit-picks from the would-be food connoisseurs.

Of course, it’s in our own interest as a competitor to Yelp, to see them go burning down in flames, but we’re not like that and know it’s not going to happen. Competition makes products better and as long as Yelp is around, we’ll have motivation to improve Coffee.net for all our wonderful Seattlelites.

Black cod, also known as sablefish or butterfish, has a naturally oily meat that flakes apart with buttery smoothness and flavor. I prefer black cod over over Chilean sea bass, especially due to the overfishing that sea bass has seen over the recent decade (grocery stores like Wholefoods offers sustainably harvested sea bass). Black cod is mainly fished out of Alaska and Canada, both of which have generally good sustainability practices for their fisheries.

One of my favorite dishes in the world is black cod kasuzuke. Traditional recipes marinate fillets of black cod for up to seven days in sake, mirin (Japanese cooking wine), brown sugar and miso. Like yourself though, the idea of marinating a meat for seven days, while appetizing, is a little too long for my taste (literally). In my experiments, I’ve found that you can achieve a restaurant quality flavor in three days and if you’re really impatient, perhaps even two days. To those of you who think you can get away with marinating for a few hours in the fridge - don’t even think about it (you’ve been warned).

Ingredient List for: Black Cod Kasuzuke

- 4, 3 oz black cod fillets
- 1 cup sake (I use sweet sake, you can use dry)
- 1 cup mirin
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 3T miso paste (I prefer white shiro)
- DO NOT ADD SOY SAUCE

On high heat, combine sake and mirin in a pot and bring to boil. Don’t leave the pot because it will boil quite fast. Once boiling, immediately turn heat down to simmer and let stand for 2-5 minutes. Depending on how strong of alcohol flavor you like to your fish, you can let it simmer for longer to take out more alcohol flavor or take it off earlier for a stronger taste. I like to take it off around 3 minutes.

Reduce to low heat. Add brown sugar, stirring until well mixed. If you don’t have brown sugar, then you can use white sugar, but only use 1/4 cup instead, otherwise you’ll be eating candied fish.

Add miso paste and mix in well. You may find chopsticks helpful to help poke apart the clumps of miso. I use white shiro, but that’s also because I have access to dozens of varieties since I’m within close driving distance of Uwajimaya. You can use most types of miso, so if you have some generic yellow miso sitting in the fridge, feel free to use it, but the general rule of thumb is: the darker the miso, the heavier the taste and vice versa. Because black cod is so buttery, I find a light miso works best, but your own taste may prefer a salty version. In any case, DO NOT ADD SOY SAUCE. Miso is made with fermented soy beans and is naturally salty, so there is no reason to use soy sauce as I’ve seen in some recipes.

Let the sauce cool, place fish in a wide, shallow pan or container and then pour in sauce. Cover with plastic wrap and then toss and forget in the refrigerator for three days.

Cooking Instructions

Place fillets on tray and bake in oven for 325 degrees for 15 minutes. While grilling might be possible, I don’t recommend it unless you foil your fish - otherwise it will come apart very easily.

Garnish with some chopped green onions and serve. Enjoy!

I almost forgot - if you’re too lazy to make your own black cod kasuzuke, Seattle is lucky to have a score of restaurants that make an excellent version. Here’s some restaurants to name a few:

• Ginza Japanese Restaurant, Bellevue
• Yarrow Bay Grill, Kirkland
• The Oceanaire, Seattle
• Ray’s Boathouse, Seattle
• Ponti Seafood Grill, Seattle (look for the “smoked sablefish”)

Copying the Dine Around Seattle format of 3-course meals for $30, NWSource has launched their own version called “New Urban Eats“. It features many new restaurants that haven’t been associated with Dine Around Seattle before. One of the reasons is that New Urban Eats expands beyond mainly the downtown and Belltown area to includes restaurants in the outer parts of Seattle like Queen Anne, West Seattle and even the Eastside (woot!).

Some of the restaurants include:
94 Stewart
Coupage
Crush
Moxie
Opal
Portage
Qube
Red Fin
Trellis
Yama

… just to name a few. We’ll be making our way through quite a few of these restaurants, no doubt. Hope to see you guys there! :)

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!

As editors of Coffee.net, trying to keep track of new Seattle restaurants, local news and the cultural beat of our rainy city is no easy feat. Much of our time is spend reading the news, chatting up associates and most importantly, reading blogs. It’s not an easy task, as the amount of information on the internet is so overwhelming. Sometimes, it seems that everyone from Fortune 500 CEOs to your 12-year old nephew is running a blog these days.

However, every once in awhile during our blog exploration, we come across a blog that really stands out from the crowd- one that makes us go: “Wow!” A truly remarkable gem, be it original or of remarkable qualities, these blogs represent (in our opinion), some of the best the web has to offer. We want to commend these blogs and their authors for their hard efforts, with a Coffee.net Editor’s Choice. Congratulations!

Best Food Blogs (Seattle)
To be announced

Best Art and Photography Blogs (Seattle)
To be announced

Best Geek Blogs (Seattle)
To be announced

Best News Blogs (Seattle)
To be announced

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!

English high school teachers always love to explain the difference between an assumption and a deduction. Let us clarify with a some examples:

Our assumption is that restaurants hate being called about sales.

This deduction is based on the amount of times we’ve been yelled at or hung up on.

The ironic part however, is that we’ve never once made a ’sales’ call to any restaurant. Being the restaurant guide that we are, it’s important for us to have accurate data on each restaurant. We simply assume that restaurants would be happy to share their information with us. It’s beneficial to them and we wouldn’t dream of charging for publicly available information. Things aren’t so easy, however.

“Hello, my name is Grant and I work with Coffee.net, a restaurant review and listing website. I was wondering if I could take a minute of your time to ask you or your manager some questions about your restaurant?”

This type of approach will guarantee one of the below:

• “We’re not interested.”
• “You’re part of what?”
• “Call back later.” (when the restaurant is closed)
• “You’ll have to talk with my manager.”
• “Sorry we don’t have time.”
• Hang up.

Ouch. This initial approach apparently seemed to generate feelings of hostility. This led us to believe that restaurants are often the target of solicitors, telemarketers or other unsavory characters trying to sell a product or service. If this was the case, we had to brush up that business and social IQ and try again.

“Hello, my name is Grant and I work with a restaurant listing service. I’d like to ask you a few questions about your restaurant that will only take a minute of your time?”

The changes? We dropped the part about identifying ourselves, as the identify of the organization calling seemed to have negative effect unless we were associated with a known brand like the Yellow Pages. In addition, we took out any mention of a review site, as that seemed to make people uneasy hearing the word. Last but not least, we took out mention of the word ‘manager’. That word alone seemed to immediately cause the person answering the phone to attempt to escalate the call or assume we were in sales.

The results:

• “Call back later.”
• “What kind of questions are you going to ask?”
• “Which service are you with?”
• “Uh, sure…”

Reactions are obviously far better than before, but we’ve still got a long way to go. Hesitation and uncertainty were some issues, as we could see that they were wondering about our motivations. It’s akin to a stranger on the street who says, “Can I ask you a question?” You’re thinking he might be asking for directions, so you don’t want to be rude, but he might also be asking if you believe in aliens. Time to refine and try again.

“Hi, my name is Grant and I’m gathering information on restaurants in the area. Can you start by telling me what hours are you open?”

In this even shorter version, we don’t even mention that we’re part of a restaurant listing service anymore. This seemed to be a hang-up for many restaurants in talking to us. Next, instead of passing the conversation with an open ended question that forces a decision, we instead pass a common, closed-ended question. This would lead to an easy segway into other questions, once we have initiated a conversation.

The results were beautiful. Restaurants answered without fail and we were able to hit them up with all our relevant questions after that short and simple opening. Only after our questions are answered do we get the questions of who we are or how we’re going to use the information.

We’re sure that any telemarketing specialist had a good laugh at our initial approach and can even improve our current method, but we’re pretty satisfied as-is. In the end, it was a neat experiment of sorts in the power of words.