Last night in Seattle

Fine dining at The Dahlia Lounge, but not before we have a minor misadventure at The Seattle Center (aka the space needle). We arrived at the Seattle Center, which is an impressive architectural landmark, only to find that the restaurant was booked out. Ah well, no 360 degree views for us that night. (I had this weird feeling about the local surrounds of that place that were later confirmed for me by Dain that it is really freaking dodgy! America seem to have a habit of putting expensive, tourist-attracting buildings smack in the middle of ghettos. It's really weird.) We wandered out and caught the recently built above-ground monorail: the budget panoramic view of Seattle. It was actually pretty cool gliding in between the old buildings; retro-futuristic. I then led us in circles around 4th and Pine in search of a restaurant that I had picked out of the guide book simply by name, The Dahlia Lounge. It wasn't that difficult, because the restaurants were called The Grill Bar, or Sammy Jay's or something equally moronic. The Dahlia Lounge turned out to be beautiful. It had a seductively red tone to the decor, predominantly lit by lanterns strung across the ceiling complemented by mosaic columns and a timber ceiling. We sat in a booth next to a street-level window and ensconced ourselves in the atmosphere. The music, which is so often painfully neglected in otherwise tasteful venues, was pleasantly old-fashioned and non-invasive; early-mid twentieth century jazz vocalists and the like, adding to the faintly Parisian feeling of the place. Our wines were lovely, locally produced, I think. For an appetiser I had seared hamachi, new crop Akane apples, chanterelles, warm pancetta vinaigrette: the flesh was silky and firm, giving you just enough to chew on and the flavours from the, err, sauce were delicious and fairly strong. Sautéed Alaska halibut, cranberry bean succotash, sweet corn, green herb sauce, radish, citronette was my main dish and though it didn't have the aromatic impact that the other dishes had, the flavours were delicious. The side dish of carmelised broccoli, chili, garlic smelt great but was a little overcooked. Our wine was great too, can't recall where it was from.

Sophie and I talked about deep and meaningful stuff that we hadn't had a chance to talk about in ages and it all felt very... gezellig.