There was plenty of food news last week on the Voracious blog (seattleweekly.com/voracious), beginning with a story about Huong Ok Kim, Seattle's most enthusiastic (and least understandable) peanut vendor, and continuing with the tale of the nationwide McRib rollout and the announcement of the winner of this year's Seattle Weekly Home Brew Competition (congratulations to Nate Muller for taking Best in Show). We then wrote about free cupcakes from Trophy (to celebrate their first Eastside Customer Appreciation Day), free donuts from Mighty-O (they're donating all their unsold donuts to the University District Food Bank, which is awfully damn nice of them) and totally not free crème brulee and chocolate from Marie Holtz, pastry chef at Cafe Flora (2901 E. Madison St.).
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Our new Eatside (sic) columnist took us on a trip to Couzin's Cafe (12861 N.E. 85th St. in Kirkland) for chicken-fried steak and cinnamon rolls. The Seattle Food Geek produced an infographic on how we Seattleites spend our money on food (apparently we really like Starbucks and fast food, despite all our strident claims to the contrary). The Surly Gourmand took on that notoriously partisan libertine and bow-tie aficionado, Christopher Kimball—author and host of America's Test Kitchen—who happened to be in town for a book event last week. Then there were status reports about Kailash, a high-end vegetarian restaurant scheduled to open at 1333 Fifth Ave., and Showa, a new izakaya from Taichi Kitamura at 701 N. 36th St. If you're in the mood for Japanese bar food, Showa is open right now, but vegetarians are going to have to wait until spring for the debut of Kailash.
After that, things got kind of weird. Top Five took on the five McDonald's meals to buy when price, shame, and social stigma are not considerations. We discussed terrible fake ice creams (and one good one) for people who need their dessert dairy and/or gluten free. A list of 100 of the greatest cult restaurants in America by the webmag Poor Taste included Seattle, but failed to mention any of the restaurants that actually are considered to be cult favorites. If you're way into chocolate-chip cookies, our new cookbook columnist found the best recipe for them—sifted out of the 1,400-plus recipes included in The Essential New York Times Cookbook. We then made fun of the seven worst food fails of all time (including Coors spring water and toaster bacon).
With the week winding down, we focused on the eternal question: Who would win a douche-off between Guy Fieri (of Diners, Drive-ins & Dives) and Adam Richman (of Man v. Food)? And would either of them be able to power through the massive burger at John Howie Steak, which was just the focus of both a potential lawsuit and a "name that burger" contest? Food Pairing for the Modern Sophisticate told you the "5 Ways to Be the Best at Dining Out"; suggestions included inventing your own cuisines and eating only in restaurants that don't actually exist.
Bacon soda, courtesy of Jones Soda and J&D's Foods, will be on the shelves in time for the holiday season. Our Dinner & a Movie correspondent decided that being buried alive with Ryan Reynolds wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, provided they had a six-pack to share. And finally, all Dick's Drive-In locations will be serving free burgers and cheeseburgers to veterans on Veterans Day, so keep that in mind if you happen to have a uniform or a military I.D.
