I usually live for this two week stretch when it’s Restaurant Week(s) in Seattle. There are so many fancy Seattle restaurants to choose from and it is such a great deal for a night out with the hubby. ($28 for a three-course dinner or $15 for a 3-course lunch.) Often the price of just one entree at so many of the restaurants on the list are usually at least the same price if not more than a whole 3-course meal during Restaurant Week and a lot of the restaurants have reasonably-priced drink pairings too. I love to read the dreamy meal lists like a twitter-style novel in the weeks leading up to it and figure out where we’ll go. But this year restaurant week(s) don’t align well with babysitting so we will probably just end up with one meal out and this meal already happened and it happened with our kids.
When we eat out with kids, I look for restaurants with designated kids’ meals or I call to see if kids are welcome. The Art Restaurant at the Four Seasons is gorgeous and has a kids meal and though it’s spendy at $15 for meal, fruit appetizer and drink, it’s also adorably themed with Larry from Larry gets Lost in Seattle( and we love Larry and all his travels in this house!) We counted this meal as entertainment/babysitting AND a meal for the guys so it didn’t feel so expensive and it worked. They were totally thrilled with the fruit appetizer and activity book while the hubby and I got to chat almost kid-free for a little while.
I liked the vegetable crudite at the beginning of our meal and I noticed that all the tables had this as kind of an alternative to the bread basket you usually get at restaurants. It’s nice that eating out doesn’t have to mean a heavy calorie splurge from what you typically eat and anywhere we can get our daily vegetable and fruit servings in is absolutely fantastic.
The rest of the meal was quite good. We were a little rushed because we had other plans, but it was nice to be able to have a lovely meal together in such a beautiful setting. When we do lunch in this area, we always love to visit the market and pretend we’re tourists. The yogurt guys from Ellenos are always giving out yummy yogurt samples.
And the kids can’t walk by the fish stand without trying some smoked salmon. The crabs in these tanks are usually pretty entertaining too.
And even though we go quite often, we always find new things. This time, I noticed this flashy pig on one of the roofs.
And then we descended the stairs below the market, because the guys wanted to revisit the GUM WALL.
They still are plotting to buy their own gum to put on pieces of their own. I saw a piece fall off while we were taking a picture….it was revolting. But the wall in itself is definitely a spectacular sight.
Restaurant week is also on next week (April 13th-17th, 2014) and it’s a neat way to play tourist in our own town, often in restaurants we don’t usually eat at. Maybe we’ll get a chance to do one more. We’ll see. (Mistral and Llloyd Martin are on the list and those are two restaurants I’ve been wanting to try, but not with kids, so hopefully next time.)
Terumi Pong is a Seattle-based family travel writer and mom of twin teenage boys. She loves coffee and pastries, shopping local and looking for greener ways to live. She is also known as Scout’s mom (Scout is a 5ish pound little black yorkie-poo)