Pho Thanh

As a person moving from Guam to Seattle, the first thing I noticed was the weather shift. Guam is a tropical island with extreme heat and humidity. Seattle is in the Pacific Northwest with all four seasons - albeit mild seasons. The Vietnamese restaurants on Guam serve mainly stir fried dishes or pork chops but the noodle soups aren't as popular there.

All you Guamainians (yes, that is what we are called, I've heard everything from Guamish to Guamese) out there know what I'm talking about when I refer to the HUGE egg rolls served at the Vietnamese spots on Guam. Sadly, they don't serve them here. It's an amazing dish, you take the gigantic egg roll and wrap it in a fresh crisp romaine lettuce leaf and top it with bean sprouts and cellophane noodles. Wrap that up and dip it in a sweet, mild fish sauce, mmm my mouth is watering already. Instead the Vietnamese restaurants in this region offer a steaming, fragrant beef broth infused with anise stars (think mild licorice) noodle soup called pho. Think of the F-word but take the c-k out and you have pronounced this correctly. Excuse the innuendo but I'm targeting adult readers here.

This is one of my favorite foods to eat after a hard night of drinking or even when I have a cold. You can pick your choice of beef, I usually get a number 15, and its serve with noodles, cilantro, green onions and like all pho restaurants, you can put jalapeno, bean sprouts, Thai Basil, and a squeeze of lime to your taste. Of all the pho spots that I've been to, this is one of the best. It's situated along route 99 just after 145th st. The pho is great and the spring rolls are the best that I've ever tasted. I'm not too experienced in eating a lot of spring rolls but of all that I've taste, bar none, this is the place to get them. I know there are other places to get good pho, like the Brother's spot that offer the cream puff before you get your meal?! Which is ok with me because it showcases the French influence in Vietnamese food, but try this spot out and I hope you won't be disappointed.

Alligator Cafe (Creole)

If you like Creole/Cajun food then this is not a bad offering. Although the restaurant is in Everett along Hewitt street in the downtown vicinity, I was lucky enough to live in between Everett and Seattle. I brought along a buddy of mine that is actually from New Orleans, but sadly he doesn't even like Creole food, so he ordered something non-Creole and couldn't offer any insight as to how the food here compares with that of Cajun's hometown.

The restaurant was really colorful unlike something you would see in downtown Seattle, but my friend informed me that this is what its like in New Orleans only a lot more flamboyant. It was a hot summer day and he was getting bad flashbacks of the heat back in his hometown, except he kept complaining that at least there's air conditioning indoors back home. I asked him numerous questions on the Creole language in New Orleans. From his knowledge, its associated with fishermen and people living along the gulf. He doesn't know much about the pidgin language but I think he was somewhat interested in it. In short, I discussed the need to communicate between two different languages and the formation into one hybrid language in which people from different language backgrounds could exchange basic information in order to trade. The language with more power, politically/economically, the more that language will be present in the pidgin language. Then I think he got bored and the topic shifted. We discussed other things like crawfish and how its a huge thing in New Orleans. Everyone in his family ate it, possibly most everyone in New Orleans, and his family would have the whole extended family come over to his house and they would have a big crawfish boil out in the backyard. I love how food can bring people together and it can be the big event everyone looks forward to.

Our food arrived, I ordered the catfish gumbo. The plating looked nice, although its not easy to make something like gumbo look pretty. I did not get much of an aroma off the plate and decided to dig into the catfish first. The fish was crisp and was perfectly cooked. The gumbo was ok, but in all honesty I didn't finish the gumbo. I thought it was a bit bland and the color of gumbo is just not too appetizing. The cornbread was just not my cup of tea, it was a bit dry and I prefer my cornbread to be sweeter. The only thing I finished on that plate was the catfish. I could have been perfectly content with eating more of the catfish and a big side of rice (hey I'm Asian, most of my meals consists of rice). In all, I think I should have ordered the Jambalaya as it was cheaper and might have been better since I love spicy food, maybe next time.

L & L Bbq

Ok, so this is not the most appetizing looking plate in my entire blog, but in all honesty, looks can be decieving. This meal is from L & L Bbq in Lynnwood, which offers Hawaiian dishes. The restaurant is a chain made popular in Hawaii by serving "authentic" Hawaiian food. The reason why I put authentic in paranthesis is because most of the food served here is a mixture of different cuisines, from Japanese, Chinese, Filipino, and American. The last time I ate here was a while back, the food quality started to go downhill and their bbq combination plate tasted way too salty for my taste. But since I was working on this project I thought it would be perfect to showcase Hawaiian food for its multicultural influences. I think one of the best people can communicate across cultural and linguistic differences is through food, everyone has to eat. Instead of going for what I usually order, I went for a more authentic Hawaiian dish, Kalua pork and a popular local favorite Spam Musubi.

Spam has a history with the Hawaiian people and Guamanians alike. During the WW II it became difficult to provide the islanders with a constant source of protein. Spam provided the perfect solution, as long as it isn't open it will not spoil. Its already cooked so any additional cooking is to render off the fat. Since I grew up with this stuff, I love it. If you cut it thin enough and pan fry it till its crispy, it tastes just like bacon. Spam Musubi is a combination of an American product with a Japanese concept. Take plain white rice, shape it into the natural shape of Spam, cook a slice of it and place on top, followed by some seaweed sheet that is used in sushi. There version had some sweet teriyaki sauce and I gotta say it was really tasty.

The Kalua pork was surprisingly really, really good. Even though the pictures make it look like bland pork and cabage, it had a good smoky flavor throughout, and the pork was surprisingly juicy. I think I'm hook on this stuff now. It also came with a macaroni salad, that my friend always gets an extra serving of when he eats here. I could care less for it, its good but not too big of a fan of mayo and macaroni. The key to that side dish is the white pepper. In all, the price was good and the food was worth it. If you never had real Hawaiian food, try the Kalua pork. If you like Hawaiian style food then check this place out, if they had good beer then this would have made the top list among the places I visited for this project.

Although I talked about Cajun Creole language, I could not find a video to showcase that. Instead I have included a short Hawaiian pidgin language in the video clip below. Hope you enjoy it, and it does tie in to food because the Hawaiian guy talks about pupus, a Hawaiian appetizer.

Fiddler's Inn

And lastly I wanted to put one of the best aspect of living in the Pacific Northwest besides the food, beer. Generally when someone praises an alcoholic beverage, there are many generalizations that can be associated with that person talking. Some may think that person is an alcoholic, a drunk, or in my case, has a beer belly. Whiskey drinkers might be associated with southern rockers; vodka might be associated with Russians; jagermeister could be associate with party animals; and the list goes on and on. In my case, yes I do like to drink, no I'm not drunk right now, and no I'm not an alcoholic, I'm just a college student enjoying life. And I also like the taste of a good beer. Fiddler's Inn offers some really good beer that serves only locally brewed beer, so its as fresh as you can get it and the list usually changes plus its always handwritten (sorry the pictures are kinda blurry, I blame that on the poor lighting, I hate using the flash).

This quant little spot is located in Wedgewood, northeast of the University District. The atmosphere is cozy with most of the building constructed of wood. My buddy and I sat and ordered a pitcher of one of their IPAs (Indian Pale Ale) and ordered a 10 inch Stradivarius pizza. The beer arrived and we both poured ourselves a pint. One of the reasons why I love IPAs is for the floral, fragrant taste that the extra hops gives in this beer. One of the reasons why IPAs have an unusual amount of hops is because back in the 1700s, British brewers needed to overcome a problem of keeping beer from going bad on long ocean voyages to the East Indies. Adding extra hops prevented the growth of bacteria in beer, thus arrived a delectable delight.

Once the pizza arrived, we dove right in and ate every morsel. The pizza here is pretty damn good, I mean look at the perfect, slightly burnt cheese around the edges. Besides the beer, the pizza is another reason why I keep coming back for more. The entire price for the beer and pizza came out to roughly 30 dollars, but the meal and beer is extremely worth it.
One thing that I like about beer is for its social lubricant qualities. Normally I'm not too much of a talker to strangers but a little beer in me and I warm up and start breaking down the barriers of communicating with strangers. I ended up striking a long conversation with one of the ladies working there. We talked mostly on the classic rock bands and how she saw some of the legends back in her day. Great talk, I will definitely miss the Pacific Northwest (if I ever leave).