Things to do in Pacific Northwest
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Montage
This beloved Creole nightspot under the Morrison Bridge has long, white-clothed community tables, aggressively oddball waiting staff, oyster shooters, streetwine cocktails and legendary macaroni and cheese.
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Powell's City of Books
The largest independent bookstore in the US, this place is dangerously addictive. Bank on your quick one-hour 'browse' turning into three. Fantastic travel section.
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Pike Place Market
The fishy-smelling, tourist-thronged heart of downtown Seattle is Pike Place Market. It's good theater, though claustrophobically crowded. The Main and North Arcades are the most popular areas, with bellowing fishmongers, arts and crafts, and precarious stacks of gemlike fruits and vegetables.
Tiny shops of all descriptions fill the lower levels of the market. It is open all week, though individual shop/stall hours do vary. Try a weekday morning if you don't like crowds.
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5 Spot
In Upper Queen Anne, everyone’s favorite breakfast and hangover diner is the 5 Spot. Good strong coffee keeps the staff ultraperky. Try a local legend, like the red flannel hash ($9.50), or get crazy with the wild-salmon cakes. On weekends, go early to avoid the lines snaking out the door – or go for lunch or dinner; this is an excellent place for a quiet meal featuring good American cooking.
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74th Street Ale House
A sibling to the Hilltop Ale House in Queen Anne, this is the kind of place that, if you lived nearby, you’d find yourself in several times a week. It’s immediately comfortable, to the point that you feel like an instant regular – plus there are dozens of outstanding beers on tap, and the food is miles above usual pub standards. The goat cheese salad ($9) is rightly famous.
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Bizzarro
With a name like Bizzarro you’d never guess that this Wallingford hotbed is an excellent neighborhood Italian cafe. When you learn that it’s actually someone’s garage crammed with kitschy art and weird antiques, the name makes sense. Deliciously buttery pasta dishes, a good wine list and frequent live music add to the experience.
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Paradox Cafe
A cosy favorite in the charming Belmont neighborhood, the Paradox whips up vegetarian and vegan treats like a tempeh Reuben that could win over the most devoted steak lover. (If not, though, there's also the organic, hormone-free beef burger.) Its kitsch decor includes a soda-fountain counter and blue vinyl booths.
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Salumi
Sure, you’ll have to wait in line. This is Mario Batali’s dad’s place, after all. But the line to get a Salumi sandwich is like its own little community. People chat, compare notes, talk about sandwiches they’ve had and loved…it’s nice. When you finally get in the door of this long, skinny shopfront, you’re further teased by display cases of hanging meats and cheeses. Sandwiches come with any of a dozen types of cured meat and a handful of fresh cheese on a hunk of bread – you can’t go wrong. There’s only a couple of seats, so be prepared to picnic. On Tuesdays, family members hand-roll gnocchi in the window.
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Black Bottle
The huge crowd congregating outside the front door of this new Belltown restaurant is your first clue that something interesting is happening inside. The menu has a lot more clues: octopus carpaccio, lemon-caper-squid salad, saffron risotto cakes, eggplant-mozzarella flatbread. It’s a spartanly decorated but warm-looking space, with friendly service and a chic atmosphere. Reservations are accepted, and might be a good idea if you want to avoid a wait.
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Agua Verde Café
On the shores of Portage Bay at the southern base of University Avenue, Agua Verde Café is a little gem that overlooks the bay and serves fat tacos full of lemony cod, shellfish or portabella mushrooms, plus other Mexican favorites. There’s usually a wait for a table, but you can have a drink and wait on the deck, or order from the walkup window. You can rent kayaks in the same building, in case you want to work off your dinner.
reviewed
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La Carta de Oaxaca
This lively place serves the cuisine of Oaxaca, particularly black mole sauce – try the mole negro Oaxaqueno, the house specialty. You can sample the same stuff on tamales or go for a combination of various small plates. Seating is mostly picnic-style, and there’s a full bar – handy considering there’s usually a wait for a table.
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Pink Door Ristorante
Beloved for its atmosphere at least as much as its food, the Pink Door is an old-school favorite – on a nice evening, stopping for dinner and drinks on the deck overlooking the market is hard to beat. The menu is traditional Italian, and the vegetarian lasagne comes highly recommended.
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Alki Bakery
This is a great place to grab a coffee and pastry, then sit down at a window seat to partake of the bakery’s free wi-fi connection while digging your beach-front view. Cinnamon rolls and cookies reign supreme, but you can also get takeout sandwiches and salads to eat on the beach.
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Spud Fish & Chips
The competition is fierce over which Alki institution has the best fish and chips, here or Sunfish. (Why not try both?) Spud gets the tourist vote, with its crisp, beachy interior, friendly staff and large portions of fried fish, clam strips and oysters.
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Pittock Mansion
The grand Pittock Mansion was built in 1914 by Henry Pittock, who revitalized the Portland-based Oregonian newspaper. It's worth visiting the (free) grounds just to check out the spectacular views - bring a picnic.
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Oregon Museum of Science & Industry
The Oregon Museum of Science & Industry, which offers hands-on science exhibits for the whole age range. There's also an Omnimax theater, planetarium shows and a submarine tour (all separate charge).
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Oregon Zoo
Don't miss 'zoolights' during the holiday season, when the zoo becomes a winter wonderland filled with lit-up trees and animal figures. In summer there are concerts on the zoo's lawns. Parking costs $1.
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Classical Chinese Garden
The Classical Chinese Garden is a one-block haven of tranquillity, reflecting ponds and manicured greenery. Free tours are available with admission.
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Ballard Fish Ladder
On the southern side of the Hiram M Chittenden Locks, the fish ladder was built in 1976 to allow salmon to fight their way to spawning grounds in the Cascade headwaters of the Sammamish River, which feeds Lake Washington. Visitors can watch the fish from underwater glass-sided tanks or from above (there are nets to keep salmon from over-leaping and stranding themselves on the pavement). Sea lions munch on the salmon while the fish attempt to negotiate the ladder. Just what to do about the sea lions has stymied environmentalists, anglers and the local Fish & Wildlife Department. The best time to visit is during spawning season, from mid-June to September.
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Experience Music Project
The Experience Music Project (EMP) is worth a look for the architecture alone. The shimmering, abstract building – designed by Frank Gehry – was inspired by Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen’s passion for Jimi Hendrix’s music and was initially intended as a tribute to Hendrix alone. It now houses 80,000 music artifacts, including handwritten lyrics by Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain and a Fender Stratocaster that Hendrix demolished. There’s also Janis Joplin’s pink feather boa, the world’s first steel guitar and Hendrix’s signed contract to play at Woodstock.
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Le Pichet
This tiny French café, bistro and wine bar is elegant and tasteful, and yet it’s casual enough to quickly become a favorite haunt. The menu features traditional French cuisine without the aorta-clogging heaviness that this often implies. Breakfast is simple and delicious, and small snack plates of olives, almonds or various rillettes (potted meats) are available all day. For a treat, order the roasted chicken with celery and potatoes ($34); it’s made only on request and takes an hour, but is worth the wait.
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Beth’s Café
The best – or at least biggest – hangover breakfast in the world is at Beth’s, and you can get it all day long. Key words: all-you-can-eat hash browns. You can’t smoke in here anymore, which, depending on your view, either ruins everything or makes it possible to enjoy Beth’s infamous 12-egg omelet while breathing. Feel free to contribute a piece of scribbled artwork to the wall, preferably one that’s strongly pro- or anti-pirate.
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Hing Hay Park
If you need a tranquil spot to rest while wandering the ID, Hing Hay Park lends a little green to the otherwise austere district. The traditional Chinese pavilion was a gift from the people of Taipei. On Saturdays in August you can catch a free outdoor movie here beginning at sunset, sponsored by the Seattle Chinatown-International District, which also runs the summer Night Market here; for a full schedule, go to www.cidbia.org.
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Ivar’s Acres of Clams
Ivar Haglund was a beloved local character famous for silly promotional slogans (‘Keep clam!’), but he sure knew how to fry up fish and chips. Ivar’s is a Seattle institution that started in 1938. Forgo the dining room for the outdoor lunch counter; the chaotic ordering system involves a lot of yelling, but it seems to work, and then you can enjoy your clam strips or fish and chips outdoors on the pier.
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Pacific Science Center
This interactive museum of science and industry once housed the science pavilion of the World’s Fair. Today, the center features virtual-reality exhibits, a tropical butterfly house, laser shows, holograms and other wonders of science, many with hands-on demonstrations. Also on the premises is the vaulted-screen Imax Theater, a laserium and a planetarium.
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