Bakery Nouveau – Review 2

Restaurant: Bakery Nouveau – Review 2

Cuisine: Bakery/Desserts
Last visited: January 31, 2010
Area: Seattle, WA (West Seattle)
4737 California Ave SW
Price Range: $10-20

1: Poor 2: OK 3: Good 4: Very good 5: Excellent 6: Tres Excellent!!

Food: 6
Service: n/a (I wasn’t actually there)

Ambiance: n/a

Overall: n/a

Additional comments:

• Pastry chef William Leaman
• Pastries baked several times daily
• Famous bakery in Seattle
• Gourmet bakery
• Traditional desserts with a gourmet/West Coast twist
• Breads/Desserts/Pastries/Chocolates/Jam/Lunch
• Award winning desserts
• Natural ingredients
• Seasonal ingredients
• Gift baskets available
• Daily/Weekly/Holiday specials
• Dine in/Take-out
• Mon-Thurs 6am-7pm
• Fri 6am-9pm
• Sat 7am-9pm
• Sun 7am-7pm

**Recommendation: Blueberry Pistachio Cake, Double Baked Almond Croissant

I am so lucky to have friends that love me! To get desserts from Bakery Nouveau twice in one month is seriously something to brag about! My friends went down to Seattle and recalled my post about Bakery Nouveau and with my “must go there” push they decided to stop there for lunch. They were happy, I was happy and I still am happy.

My 1^st review for Bakery Nouveau.

On the table:

Pumpkin Bread 4.5/6

• Super moist like a moist banana bread would be. It’s more like a cake than it is bread.
• Very buttery and a bit oily so you can see it on your hands. But it’s good!
• Very strong cinnamon taste, lots of canned pumpkin. I think there is lots of clove in there and maybe a little nutmeg too. It almost seems like all canned pumpkin in taste and texture because it’s so moist.
• It marbled with a brown sugar walnut crumb streusel. It’s almost paste like.
• It’s quite sweet, and even a bit salty. They definitely added that pinch of salt to bring out the flavours, but I could actually taste it a bit more than I wanted to.

  

Snowball Cake 5/6

• I don’t have the exact description but it had a custard bottom, cake layer, milk chocolate caramel Rum like layer, another custard layer, another cake layer and it was all covered with freshly dried coconut shavings. Probably around $5.50USD. It's quite expensive here.
• I love the coconut shavings! This cake was very custardy with a Rum taste. I think they use a very potent Vanilla Rum extract so it almost taste like there’s actually Rum in it.
• It’s creamy and very sweet, but good!
• It’s like a coconut vanilla custard trifle in taste and in texture it was like a tiramisu (without the cheese taste). It had egg nog like flavours, especially in the cust ard and there are real vanilla bean seeds in it.

  

• You can hear the moistness when you cut through it with your fork…sounds gross, but it’s really good. The cake layer is quite wet and soaked/
• The whole cake is spread with vanilla custard or a cream that’s a bit thinner than pastry cream before it’s covered with coconut.
• The chocolate layer is a bit too sweet. I think it’s a very low % of cocoa powder and it tastes like melted milk chocolate spread.
• It’s a bit too sweet and I wouldn’t want a whole piece. I needed to eat it with a glass of milk. It was still excellent though.

Twice Baked Almond Croissant 6/6

• My friend meant to order the Twice Baked Chocolate Croissant but by mistake called out Twice Baked Almond Croissant – which I tried last time.
• I actually started writing about it and how disappointed I was that there was no chocolate…until I realized…lol
• No changes, still delicious. Except I didn't like how oddly shaped it was, the one I had last time was better looking.

Bakery Nouveau

Restaurant: Bakery Nouveau

Cuisine: Bakery/Desserts
Last visited: January 15, 2010
Area: Seattle, WA (West Seattle)
4737 California Ave SW
Price Range: $10 or less (USD)

1: Poor 2: OK 3: Good 4: Very good 5: Excellent 6: Tres Excellent!!

Food: 6
Service: n/a (I wasn’t actually there)

Ambiance: n/a

Overall: n/a

Additional comments:

• Pastry chef William Leaman
• Pastries baked several times daily
• Famous bakery in Seattle
• Gourmet bakery
• Traditional desserts with a gourmet/West Coast twist
• Breads/Desserts/Pastries/Chocolates/Jam/Lunch
• Award winning desserts
• Natural ingredients
• Seasonal ingredients
• Gift baskets available
• Daily/Weekly/Holiday specials
• Dine in/Take-out
• Mon-Thurs 6am-7pm
• Fri 6am-9pm
• Sat 7am-9pm
• Sun 7am-7pm

**Recommendation: Geez...almost everything. The blueberry pistachio cake, double baked almond croissant, German chocolate cake with coconut, passion fruit macaroon.That's basically everything I tried and I recommend it all. When I go back I'm definitely trying the Phoenix and Praline Dream.

Have you ever liked something so much you were literally using your licked fingers to squeegee down the plate? This was definitely one of those times, and I had no shame doing it. I don’t know – maybe part of it was me knowing that I couldn’t easily get these amazing desserts again.

Nouveau Bakery is a Parisian bakery in Seattle – again Kim was kind enough to bring back some goodies for me to try…and thank god he did. This bakery is known as one of the best bakeries in Seattle. Winner of numerous awards the pastry chef William Leaman is also the 2005 World Cup of Baking Gold Medal Winner.

Holy crap I don’t know what I did to deserve Christmas all over again. I’m not sure if you’ve noticed but I think could be the 1^st time I’ve given a restaurant 6/6. I did only try 4 things, which to me is a decent sample, and everything was equally amazing…I don’t know how many times I “OMGGGGGGGG” – seriously food orgasm coming up!

I looked at the online menu because since I wasn’t actually there to do the ordering I didn’t know exactly what I tried. It markets itself as an authentic Parisian bakery, and the majority of their items are very French – however there definitely are some global influences in there. I don’t know many, if at all any authentic French bakery that serves up pizzas, carrot cakes and Pistachio blueberry cakes! The last one is definitely a West Coast fusion thing that I would expect to see at Kreation Artisan Cake, a bakery in Vancouver.

Authenticity is a big deal to me, but did it bother me this time? No. Authentic or not, Nouveau Bakery has amazing cakes and pastries and I almost want to make the 2 hour drive to Seattle right now to try more things. If you’re not going to like something, I think it’ll be partly because you think you’ve paid too much for it…they’re quite pricey…but it is a quality dessert, so I think it’s worth it! They're very well thought out, well executed and presented.

On the table:

Double Baked Almond Croissant 6/6

• Our classic croissant soaked in simple syrup and filled with delicious almond cream. It is topped with sliced almonds and additional almond cream $3.85 USD

• It’s double baked to make a very chewy nougat like croissant. It’s very tightly packed layers of crisp flaky pastry.

  

• It’s sweet, but not too sweet and it's wonderfully nutty and dense. It’s almost like a giant almond nougat or almond caramel because the almond cream isn’t really a cream but almost like a paste – I think it’s made with marzipan and ground almonds.
• The middle is very moist and really not greasy at all. I’m surprised!
• The bottom is really browned because it’s double baked so all the sugars are very caramelized to give it a richer deeper flavour.

• I was literally licking the crumbs off my plate and off Kim’s plate. I actually want to lick the screen right now.
  

  

Blueberry and Pistachio Cake 6/6

• $5.50 USD
• If I’m going to die after eating something…it could be after this cake. If heaven tastes this good how to I get there sooner?! It’s so good I could almost give it a 7/6. Seriously I almost hate myself for being lucky enough to try it. Mind you I do love pistachio and blueberries…so the two together were a delicious concoction.
• I don’t have the exact description but I would say it’s alternate layers of Pistachio cake with blueberry mousse. It’s almost like a twist on a French style napoleon because it has a puff pastry like layer on top too.

• Unlike local bakery Boulangerie Cho-Pain their top layer of puff pastry is perfect! I could cut myself the tiniest slice with the fork without the mousse squishing out the sides or having to remove the top layer. It was nice and soft, and it's not even a puff pastry, but it's the easiest way to describe it.
• The pistachio cake is awesome with real crumbs of pistachio. The blueberry mousse was nice and light and made with real blueberries too. It’s nutty, creamy and rich in flavour.
• The bottom 1/3 of this cake tastes like a Pistachio Kit Kat bar! There’s a brown wafer like layer and it tastes like it’s made of ground up very crispy wafers, ground up hazelnuts and maybe even a little bit of chocolate although the chocolate is very subtle if it’s in there

• It's the texture of ground up Chinese egg rolls and gave the cake a crispy crunch. They weren't hard, but delicate and I’m so surprised they weren’t soggy either. It’s seriously AMAZING and pleasantly unexpected.
• No part of this cake needs adjusting.

  

German Chocolate Cake 2/6

• $5.50 USD
• I don’t have the exact description but it’s layers of rich dense chocolate cake with layers of coconut walnut caramel filling.
• This chocolate cake is an extremely moist chocolate cake and it was perfectly sweet for me. It looks much more sweet than it actually is. It’s not very bitter so was probably a 68% cocoa or so. It wasn’t a milk chocolate nor was it a dark chocolate cake batter. It’s a rather light cake with a rich chocolate taste that lingers.
• The layer of caramel coconut cream is amazing! They use loads of fresh coconut and tons of chopped walnuts in it. It’s almost like a thick chewy coconut caramel nougat with walnuts. It’s amazing.
• Eaten together nothing is overpowering and I tasted every single ingredient from the crunchy walnuts to the juicy coconut shreds. It made the cake extra moist.

Parisian Macaroons 4/6

• These traditional Parisian cookies are light and airy. They are rumored to be the best outside of Paris! Flavor choices vary by day and feature: Café, Passion fruit, Chocolate, Raspberry, Pistachio, Coconut, Caramel, Salt Caramel, Blood Orange and Cassis $1.50 USD (The description is from the website...it’s a pretty expensive macaroon and they’re pretty small though)
• Coconut 4/6
• The coconut macaroon tastes like almond macaroon to me. That’s probably because there is almond in it. I wouldn't have guessed coconut until I saw the listed flavours though.
  
• I think they could have used real ground up dried coconut in this macaroon. It's obvious once you know the flavour is coconut, otherwise it's hard to put your finger on it.
  
• It’s very sweet. For me a bit too sweet to the point of hurting your teeth. It’s the almond coconut cream in the middle that was very sweet for me. I like the macaroons from Say See Bon better although they are almost exactly the same. They’re just as chewy and they even look the same.
• The meringue isn’t as thin or delicate as Say See Bon because the crispiness is more like a cookie than it was a meringue.
• Passion Fruit 5/6
• Wow! This really tastes like passion fruit! Seriously when you take a bite and start chewing it starts melting away and it tastes like passion fruit juice! I loved this one and it was so unique I’ve never seen it before.
• Again it was a bit too sweet for me (but the coconut sweeter), but the flavour was so strong and so unique I would still recommend for people to try it.

Salumi Artisan Cured Meats

Restaurant: Salumi Artisan Cured Meats

Cuisine: Italian/Sandwiches
Last visited: January 15, 2010
Area: Seattle, Washington (Pioneer Square)
309 3rd Ave South
Price Range: $10 or less

1: Poor 2: OK 3: Good 4: Very good 5: Excellent 6: Tres Excellent!!

Food: 5.5
Service: n/a (I wasn’t actually there)

Ambiance: n/a

Overall: n/a

Additional comments:

• Opened by Mario Batali’s dad
• Specializes and famous for cured meats
• Gourmet home made high quality cured meats
• Famous for cured meats
• Popular for sandwiches
• Large selection of cured meats
• Small selection of specialty sandwiches
• Home made
• Gift baskets available
• Platters available
• 5 course lunch parties available Wed/Thurs ($40/each)
• Eat in/Take out
• Lunch only
• Beer and wine available
• Open Tues-Fri 11am-4pm

**Recommendation: Porchetta

Drool!!!! This sandwich was delicious. Well the Porchetta was…

Now let’s start again. I wasn’t physically there to try the famous Salumi sandwiches, but I’m lucky enough to know Kim. Kim was in Seattle for business and had intentions on visiting Salumi, so on his way back he actually brought 2 sandwiches for me to try. I had heard about Salumi doing my own research, from Sherman, as well as through other foodie friends. I haven’t actually tried them since I’m from Vancouver, but I was very eager to do so the next time I was in Seattle. I have to see for myself what the rave is all about.

I tried the Porchetta and the Salumi Muffo – it’s interesting to note that Salumi is famous for their cured meats, yet the Porchetta sandwich (with no cured meats) was the clear winner for me. Next time I visit I would order the cured meats on their own to try separately. Probably better alone on a platter with some cheese than in the sandwich.

I just found out that Salumi is opened by Mario Batali’s dad. Mario Batali is one of my favourite chefs, so this is a big deal for me. However I’m not letting it affect this review because I wrote the review before I discovered this fact…so I’m literally just adding this paragraph in last minute.

On the table:

**Porchetta 6/6

• Salumi’s tribute to the pig. Pork butter-flied and stuffed with our own sausage meat and spices $9
• The description of the sandwich doesn’t really make sense to me, that’s not how I would describe it because it’s not what it looks like.
• This was an amazing sandwich though! It’s served hot so I had to bake it in the over before trying it again since it had traveled for 2 hours before hitting my mouth.
• The porchetta didn’t taste really salty, even though it usually is. Instead it was just so flavourful, it’s amazing.
• This sandwich is loaded with nice big chunks of porchetta (boneless pork roast). It’s as tender as pulled pork, but it’s actually chunks of it in the sandwich. It’s 90% lean with little bits of fat, but it doesn’t taste fatty at all. It was tender, juicy and had absorbed the wonderful flavours of the whole fennel seeds.
• There were lots of fennel seeds and it brought a beautiful licorice and black pepper flavour to the meat. There was also some garlic although you can’t see it. It’ s very subtle and the garlic flavour is more infused.

  

• The sausage meat was almost like meat loaf, but there wasn’t much of it. The mixture of the two meats just made for an extra tender sandwich.
• There was also a subtle and natural sweetness to the meat and this was thanks to the carrots and celery. The porchetta is supposed to be butterflied and stuffed with veggies, tied and then roasted, but that’s not what it looked like. I did see very small and minimal pieces of carrot, but the pork pieces were chunks.
• This sandwich hardly had any other ingredients or sauces and it didn’t need any. (I love sauce too!) It was simple and just great tasting slowly roasted pork.
• The bread was a baguette and it wasn’t too chewy. I could have eaten the meat alone that was definitely the star.
• FYI – I know a secret! At least I think I know part of it! I’ve never been there so I haven’t witnessed how they make it so may be no secret at all. But beside the porchetta, the secret is in the butter they use for the bread. It’s not butter! They actually use the pork lard (fat) as the butter. I can see and taste it! It has so much flavour and is SO bad for you, but it makes the difference and adds flavour!

Salumi Muffo 4.5/6

• With vegetables, olives, pimiento, provolone, cooked salami, and spicy Sopressata $9
• This is a slightly spicier sandwich but still savoury from the olive, sweet from the veggies (carrots, onions and maybe some celery) and tangy from the pimiento. It tastes like a cross between a green olive tapenade and an antipasto. It was very Mediterranean/Spanish and they brighten it up with some freshly chopped Italian flat leaf parsley.
• Sopressata is Italian dry-cured salami. The one here is made with whole black peppercorns and the slices are perfect. They’re nice and thin to enhance the best flavour, yet they taste thick…also because the quality of meat is so high. It had a combination of lean and fatty meat but the ratio was right, and when you bit into a black peppercorn it was just delicious and gave it that spicy kick. I actually could have used 1 more slice of each salami because the bread is thick.
• The salami is savoury with a slight tang at the end and it really matched the tapenade. They make all the cured meats in house with old Italian family traditions. I really felt like I was eating meat and not crappy deli stuff.
• The ratio of ingredients was right on as well however I could taste the olive tapenade the most. The provolone was a hard provolone so it stood up to the cured meats without competing with them.
• The bread was Ciabatta bread and it was a littler too chewy and too hard for my liking. However it absorbed the oils of the olive tapenade really well.
• The sandwich was pre-made and out of the fridge, which is a bit unexpected. It was a really good sandwich, but not excellent. I felt like the olive tapenade could have used a few different kinds of olives and the bread didn’t work for me.

Marimba! - South American Restaurant

Restaurant: Marimba! - Restaurant Review

Cuisine: South American/Caribbean
Last visited: November 21, 09
Area: Everett, Washington (Waterfront)
1405 Hewitt Ave
Price Range: $10-20 USD (closer to $20)

1: Poor 2: OK 3: Good 4: Very good 5: Excellent 6: Tres Excellent!!

Food: 3.5
Service: 4
Ambiance: 4 (the huge dance floor + music, you want to dance!)
Overall: 3.5
Additional comments:

• Owners/chefs/cooks from South America (Ecuador)
• Specializes in a variety of authentic South American dishes
• Homemade/authentic menu choices
  
• Popular to locals
• Spacious
• Extensive menu
• Great for appetizers and drinks
• Great for large groups
• Weekly Salsa dancing (Fri/weekends)
• M-F lunch and dinner
• Saturday and Sunday dinner service - 4pm
• Happy hour 4-6pm ($3 selected appies)
• Catering/private party hosting available

**Recommendation: Papas Huancainas, Lechon, Mofongo

I was in Everette for a concert and wanted to find a restaurant nearby. I did my research and I wanted to find something that’s harder to find in Vancouver...at least hard to find well. I decided to go the South American route and discovered this restaurant – Marimba!

I heard good things about and the menu looks really different and authentic. I’m not too familiar with South American dishes, but I have a good idea about Spanish dishes. Most of what we ordered was Westernized versions of authentic South American dishes…but it everything tasted pretty decent still. I wasn’t disappointed, but I wasn’t blown away either. The dishes were interesting and the owners/chefs/cooks are from South America so the menu selection is authentic, but the recipes…I’m not so sure. If it’s still good, I won’t let the idea of “authenticity” bother me too much…but the food was overall a 3.5/6.

On the table:

• Papas Huancainas 4/6
• Cooled layered potatoes dressed in a yellow aji pepper sauce and topped with queso fresco and mint $4.99
• This was really good! I thought it tasted like a Latin version of American potato salad.
• The yellow aji pepper sauce is homemade and really flavourful. It’s spicy and made with probably a blend of those roasted yellow peppers (the kind from a jar in olive oil), egg yolks and mayo. There’s probably some jalapeño in it too. It’s very pureed so you can’t really pick out the ingredients. It’s served chilled on top of boiled sliced potatoes.They had some black olives on top and they could have included a few more of those.
• Causa de Yuca 2.5/6
• Our house version of this popular Peruvian dish--mashed yuca served in a yellow aji sauce with avocado and baby shrimp $5.49
• So I thought the Papas Huancainas was the Latin version of American potato salad...I take it back…THIS is the Latin version of American potato salad. This one really reminded me of potato salad…or even an egg salad.
• This one had lime juice in it because it was tangier.
• It was potato on the bottom layer tossed in a mayo dressing and then on top of it was what tasted like mashed up potato salad, but in this case it was yucca (which tastes like potato),
• They mash the yucca with that yellow pepper sauce again. It’s very creamy.
• Tortilla de Papa 1/6
• A thick slice of omelet prepared in the classic Spanish-style with potato, pepper, tomato, and onion $5.49
• This wasn’t good. For what it’s supposed to be it was a 1, but because I could still eat it it was a 1.5.
• I’ve had numerous tortilla de papa or tortilla de patatas because I lived in Europe with Spanish girls who always made it. I’ve had homemade and restaurant style versions. I was lucky enough to even try their mom’s tortilla in Spain so I know what it’s supposed to be like. Mind you I was in Spain and not South America – so their versions are probably different…but I have a pretty good idea.
• It’s supposed to be really tender and almost runny in the middle. This one was overcooked and tough. It’s almost fishy tasting or had the texture of overcooked salmon. You can tell it was overcooked by the picture. It was a very rushed version of tortilla de Papa.
• Tequenos 1.5/6
• Wedges of soft cheese rolled in pastry dough, lightly fried, and served with a special cream sauce $4.99
• This was basically mozzarella sticks. I don’t know if they’re made in house, but it tasted like how frozen ones would taste. Our server basically hinted to us that we didn’t need to try them, we should have listened.
• They were fried well and the cheese was ooey gooey, but they were just mozzarella sticks. The dip it came with tasted like tzatziki sauce but with more herbs like parsley blended right into it. Maybe even some cilantro. The dip was good, but the sticks were whatever.
• Lechon 4/6
• Pork slow roasted in a mix of herbs and seasonings until tender and topped off with sauteed onion. Served with red beans ,rice with pigeon peas, and tostones $12.99
• The pork was quite tender, but it was probably pre-cooked meat tossed with sauce and reheated. The pork was still good though and it cut with ease.
• It had some fat around it so it was nice and moist. But the fat or skin wasn’t crispy at all.

• The Rice: the rice was actually really good! It was cooked well, flavourful, and not clumpy.

• 
• Mofongo 4/6
• This Puerto Rican dish features your choice of pork, chicken, beef, or prawns, served over mofongo: smashed green plantains fried with chicharron and garlic. Served with rice with pigeon peas and black beans $14.99. Vegetarian $12.99
• This is the dish I came for. I took our servers recommendation and had it with pork and asked for it to be medium for spiciness. My pork was quite tender, almost like pulled pork, but overall the dish was a bit dry.
• The yucca and green plantain mash was dry and I just wanted more sauce. The mash was like the South American version of turkey stuffing. It went well with the pork because it was the complementary starch.
• This is a really hearty and filling dish. It’s good, but I think everything is more or less pre-cooked and they throw it altogether and bake it off before serving.
• Pabellon 2.5/6
• The national dish of Venezuela! Seasoned and shredded beef served with black beans, rice, and tostones $12.99
• This was very bland and my friend ordered it mild – no spice. It really needed spice though. It was basically shredded beef in a tomato based sauce with onions and dried and fresh herbs.
• It was almost like a South American shredded beef stew. The beef was either a brisket or chuck.
• The pork was more tender and better than the beef dishes.
• Bandeja Paisa 2/6
• A traditional Colombian dish featuring chicharron and a fried egg with your choice of seasoned ground beef or skirt steak. Served with red beans, rice, and tostones $13.49
• This is a popular South American fusion dish. It’s actually a combination of American/UK and South American flavours.
• I was a bit disappointed by this dish because it was so simple. It should have had way more sides than it had. It was definitely a Westernized version. We ordered it with skirt steak.
• Traditionally the dish includes 13 things: red beans with pork, white rice, a fried egg, avocado, Arepa (pita), ground meat or steak, chorizo, pork rind, plantain patacones (plantain patties), Hogao sauce (tomato & onion sauce) and black pudding (sausages of patties made of pork blood).
• The ones in bold is what came with Marimba’s version of Bandeja Paisa.
• Plantain Patacones: This was pretty good, fried nice and fresh. Served with a dollop of the same sauce they had with the Tequenos. Tastes like tzatziki sauce with blended herbs.
• Red beans: pretty good, definitely better than my black beans. It supposed to be served on the plate not in a separate dish. All the ingredients are supposed to blend into each other.
• Fried egg: was overcooked, the yolk wasn’t runny
• Arepa: it’s a pita made out of cornmeal, but I could really tell. It tasted like a Greek style pita. Nice and soft.
• Overall the dish wasn’t saucy enough and it was dry. The steak looks well done, but it was actually quite tender and good.
• It reminded my of the American steak & eggs with some Latin sides and a couple British sides. Or even the Hawaiian Loco Moco (ground meat & a fried egg over rice)
• Even if they didn’t include everything they should have included Hogao sauce…it needed sauce. It could have used more avocado slices too.
• Rice Pudding 1/6
• Rice cooked with raisin, evaporated milk, condensed milk, and topped with cinnamon. When available, served with either mazamorra (purple corn compote) or lucuma mousse (Peruvian fruit similar to an avocado) $4.29
• This wasn’t good. It came in a little bowl and I felt ripped off. The rice was really clumpy and there’s were chunks of rice in it. It was sweet, but not really too sweet or anything either. Rally one dimensional, I like Indian rice puddings better. The didn’t serve it with mazmorra or lucuma mousse either…and that was most disappointing because that was the whole point of trying the dish!