Seattle diary: houses and eating at Chiang's Gourmet

Scallion pancakes at Chiang's Gourmet

We recently spent nine days in Seattle visiting family and eating a lot. And because we are considering moving there, we went to a bunch of open houses to get a sense of what the housing market was like. Expensive. Whew. The cost of living is considerably higher than where we presently live. We currently live pretty cheaply in a paid-off house that we purchased for a low price many years ago. We can get rid of everything we own, downsize, and live a more austere life, but there are certain things I need — like a decent working kitchen with room to store my kitchen equipment. Not one of the houses we looked at had that.

In one house, just after I asked the realtor why none of the stove burners would light, my husband asked why there were space heaters in every room — and why was she wearing a coat? She giggled. In another, the kitchen was too small for a table and there was no dining room. “Well,” said the realtor, “you could put a narrow table along that (living room) wall. Or you could take away the TV and put a small round table in that (living room) corner. Right. My favorite house of all was listed as a (quaint, I believe) three bedroom with a studio in the yard. Oh yes, the studio was fabulous — the studio of my dreams. I’m serious. The studio was amazing, but the house had issues. We saw one bedroom, living room, dining room and “kitchen." It was the size of a toy kitchen with minimal counter and cupboard space. There was no dishwasher and no place to put one, and the refrigerator was a compact under-the-counter model. You really couldn’t put a real refrigerator anywhere, which explains the tiny one. To be fair, there was an extra, tiny refrigerator and a little freezer outside. On the porch. Outside. We went outside and discovered a charming patio and steps leading to the basement. In the basement was a bedroom and a sitting room, along with a washer and dryer and workshop space. It was clearly a basement, but I was imagining how the bedroom could be a guest room and the other room an office. (I was obsessed with the studio and not in my right mind.) But when we looked for a way to go upstairs, we realized that you had to go outside to get to the main house! I had visions of a guest down there in the celler, in winter, waking in the night and discovering the only way to the bathroom was to go outside and up to the house. (Locked, of course.) Any Seattle readers out there who have insights about housing? Houses? Rentals? Condos? Neighborhoods?

You can really work up an appetite running around looking at houses all day, so we all had dinner at Chiang's Gourmet restaurant. They have a separate vegan menu with very interesting choices. (I've blogged about Chiang's in the past.) On this trip we had eight people, so there were lots of dishes to try. Here are some of them:


Pea vine


Homemade noodles with broccoli and brown sauce


Homemade noodles with tofu, greens and peanuts


Barbecued taro ribs (a vegan, house specialty)

These "ribs" are made completely of taro so you can eat the whole thing. Now, I'm not suggesting that Chiang's is a healthy place to eat, but it sure is a tasty one. Everything looks and tastes great, and you will get a big dose of veggies.

Another restaurant I had been wanting to try in Seattle is Silence-Heart-Nest — kind of a New Age diner run by followers of Sri Chinmoy. It is vegetarian with vegan options. I love places like this. We went there for lunch with our son Aaron and his gf Erica, and it was really good. I had a very creative and tasty version of beans and rice, my husband had a cup of soup and Aaron and Erica had a neatloaf sandwich and neatloaf with mashed potatoes and gravy.


Beans and rice at Silence-Heart-Nest


Neat loaf with mashed potatoes and gravy (disclaimer: may contain eggs)

Eating out in Seattle

There are more vegan and vegetarian restaurants in Seattle than I can believe. The choices go from quirky to gourmet and we've dined in the whole range of options from the weirdest to the toniest. You can find many vegan Chinese and Thai establishments as well as vegan sandwich shops, pizza places and bakeries. We've had an elegant dinner at Carmelita and a wedding brunch at Café Flora. We've enjoyed Chinese food at Bamboo Garden and sandwiches from Hillside Quickies. One of the oddest places (said fondly) we ever ate was a throwback to the sixties called Good Morning Healing Earth and was owned by a Vietnam veteran named George. George did the cooking and joined in the conversations in his one-room converted first floor of a house. He had sound equipment in one corner for open-mike music nights. I'd describe the food as hearty American-style vegan with ethnic overtones. George had a Vitamix that he used to make amazing all-fruit ice cream that he served over waffles. He once told us that his dream was to save some money, sell the restaurant and move to Hawaii. Sadly, that never happened. George died some years ago and the restaurant has changed hands and names several times. We've never been back since George died, so I don't know what it's like now.

We ate out three times in two different places on this visit. Sunday night in Seattle we passed on our usual vegan favorites to eat at a neighborhood Chinese restaurant that serves mostly Asian diners who order in Chinese from a Chinese menu. (We had an infant with us and wanted to be conveniently close to home.) N, who has been to China, said the food is pretty authenic. In addition to the regular menu and the Chinese menu, they have a vegetarian menu. (Yay Seattle) The first night we went there we had ma po tofu, home-made noodles with veggies, szechwan eggplant, dry-cooked string beans, and yuba wrapped mushrooms. Unfortunately, I forgot to take photos before we gobbled everything up, so we had to return a second night. Oh darn. The photo above is my plate on the second visit. It has Chinese broccoli with enoki and black mushrooms, tofu with broccoli and the mushroom stuffed yuba, which, in addition to the noodles, we had to get again.

When we tried to order Chinese broccoli the first night, the waiter talked us out of it, saying Americans don't like it because it's too bitter. We knew he was wrong about us but we went along with his suggestions. Our waitress on the second visit didn't question our choices, and this time we got it. Yum. We also had pea vine, but the photo is kind of scary, unlike the actual dish, so I'm posting only the Chinese broccoli. (above)

The thick and chewy homemade noodles are definitely on my list of things to try at home. I used to make noodles often and it's really not hard. I was also very fond of the tofu (below) but deep frying at home is not really my thing.

The last dish I want to try to make is the yuba wrapped mushrooms. Yuba is also called bean curd sheets or bean curd sticks and is made by skimming off the film that forms on the surface of heated soymilk, and drying it. You can find it in Asian markets as sheets, or rolled into long tube shapes — bean curd sticks. I've used the sticks before but not the sheets - something new to learn.

The restaurant is in North Seattle and is called Chiang's Gourmet. Try it if you're in Seattle.

We visited the vegan lunch buffet the following Saturday at Araya Vegan Thai Restaurant. I kept forgetting to photograph my beautiful plate of food, and when I went back to the buffet to take pictures, it was so crowded I couldn't see the selections. So, I have photographed my dessert, which I didn't like and didn't eat. It was some sort of mooshy banana thing with coconut cream that looked good. I put some slightly sweetened crispy noodles on top and those were actually very good in an interesting way. You did notice that I said vegan Thai buffet? No joke.
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