Serves: dinner. 823 Fifth Ave. N., 283-8800. LOWER QUEEN ANNEwww.eatatcrow.com
Le Pichet
David Newall
Café Campagne: Ceci n’est pas un parisien.
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Did you hate the film Amélie? Ummm... OK, if so, you may want to go grab a beer or check your e-mail or something while the rest of us talk about how adorable Le Pichet is. It's just a long slender room, with brown wood, brown leather, pink tulips, and slate tabletops on which they scrawl "Reserved" in chalk if you've phoned ahead for a table. Complementing this bistro's self-effacing charm is its similarly low-key pricing. Nothing's over $20 but the roasted chicken for two. Typically marvelous is the quail, served in a bowl on a bed of beans and sausage: hearty and superb, and artlessly plain but for a lifting infusion of lemon. The intensely cocoa-y hot chocolate, just on the cusp between liquid and pudding, is served with a generous pillow of whipped cream for blending in. There's a fine selection of small plates, too, if you just want a cocktail and a nosh. Come to think of it, with its entrancing unpretentiousness, this might be the place to bring out-of-town guests, rather than a destination restaurant like Rover's or Canlis, if you really want to impress them—as if to say nonchalantly why, yes, of course, in Seattle we eat this well all the time. GAVIN BORCHERT
Serves: lunch, dinner. 1933 First Ave., 256-1499. DOWNTOWNlepichetseattle.com
Maneki
For a 100-year-old restaurant, Maneki's looking pretty good: Relatively new carpet, decent lighting, walls covered in decades' worth of framed newspaper articles and prints. It's staffed almost entirely by women, who range from young beauties with spiral perms and glittery fake eyelashes to tiny 70-somethings with stooped shoulders and steely backbones. The best places to eat in the restaurant are the paper-walled tatami rooms, which require a reservation, or at the bar if you're willing to drink with your meal and leave when instructed. You can find decent sushi on every corner in Seattle, so skip it here—the most distinctive dishes at Maneki are the small plates and cooked dishes, which range from sunomono (pickled cucumbers with octopus) to nabemono (hot pots). If you're used to some of Maneki's younger competitors, be wary of the portions, too: A $6 dish of squid marinated in soy and ginger nets you two giant cephalopods, sliced into precise rings, and a $8.75 cured, grilled mackerel is bigger than the platter it's served on. Clearly, the grande dame of Japanese cuisine in Seattle knows how to keep her customers happy. JONATHAN KAUFFMAN
Serves: dinner. 304 Sixth Ave. S., 622-2631. INTERNATIONAL DISTRICTmanekirestaurant.com
May Thai
Intimate and pricier than a majority of its peers, May Thai's two-story teak house is elaborately decorated in bronze and mahogany. Inside the dimly lit dining area, servers go about their duties almost wordlessly and patrons converse quietly with their heads close together. Even the most casual noodle fare is served artistically. The pad thai is tucked inside a banana leaf and mixed at your table according to your spice and herb preferences. The curries are fiery and full of tender meat (try the duck), basil, and bamboo. The deep-fried sweet corn with tamarind sauce is intended to be an appetizer, but could just as easily pass for a dessert. You don't want to grab a quick lunch at May Thai. You want to luxuriate there for a few hours in the evening. It's ideal for a date—so much so that my sources tell me that the man who recently accompanied me there brought another girl there just a week later. I commend his choice of location, even if he is a bastard. ERIKA HOBART
Serves: lunch, dinner. 1612 N. 45th St., 675-0037. WALLINGFORD
Quinn’s Pub
Quinn's is Seattle's finest exemplar of the nationwide gastropub outbreak that has diners wallowing in recherché cuts of pork and ever-rarer microbrews. It's a gorgeous space, a mix of woodsy and refined; upstairs, you feel like you're in a century-old tavern, and downstairs, in an episode of Entourage. Over time, Scott Staples' fare has been tending more toward pub than gastro—the portions are growing and the flavors are becoming more straightforward. It's still the only place in town where you can get a pig's tail, but now there are buffalo-fried frog's legs served with a whipped blue-cheese spread, and the cult dish is the wild-boar sloppy joe, which, true to its name, spills over its bun, the spicy braised meat topped with fried onions and sage leaves. Quinn's is also one of the few higher-end restaurants in town where your waiter can provide tasting notes on any of the beers on tap; check the handles for Bear Republic's Hot Rod Rye and the Flemish red Duchesse de Bourgogne. JONATHAN KAUFFMAN
Serves: lunch, dinner. 1001 E. Pike St., 325-7711. CAPITOL HILLquinnspubseattle.com
STEP-UPS WE ALSO LOVE: Cafe Flora, Dinette, Ka Won Korean BBQ, La Medusa, Panos Kleftiko, Serious Pie.
