So I was up again at 4 a.m. PST and couldn’t sleep. It was raining cats and dogs outside between snow flurries. I had planned on exploring Freemont and Ballard, two neighborhoods, but decided to stay in Belltown/Capitol Hill for the day and just chill out. I walked down 4th Avenue and turned left onto Pike and walked up to the 900 block of Pike. I skipped breakfast and chilled out with some coffee and a croissant at a local coffee shop on Pike. Seattle magazine raved about the Pike Street Fish Fry and I went in as soon as they opened. It is a small fish and chips place with about 4-5 different kinds of fried fish and veggie tempura. If you go to Seattle, you have to eat at this place. The veggie tempura was perfect with battered and deep friend string beans which brings the sweetness out. The fried catfish was great and the deep fried lemon wedge was an excellent accompaniment to it. I washed it down with a local beer and then spent a lazy afternoon reading Aravind Adiga’s “The White Tiger” at the Tully’s at Pike and Broadway.
I spent a good 3 hours there and finished the book, walked down Pike back to the hotel, and took an afternoon nap before my evening spa appointment. I had a quick dinner back at Shiro’s and they had the uni special. Uni is a sea urchin and its roe is prized and delicious. I had seen Ming Tsai do an episode of cooking with the roe. I asked for two salmon roe, two lumpfish roe, and the uni. It was bitterly cold outside and I ordered a hot sake. The uni was excellent and the sushi chef was entertaining with stories of how women in Japan dive deep to fish for them. He described the roe as sea chocolate and he was right- it has the consistency and the silkiness of milk chocolate without an overpowering fishy taste. It was served on the half uni shell and looked and tasted interesting. The salmon roe was perfect, just like Wednesday night. The sushi chef told me that they buy the salmon roe everyday at the Pike Place Fish Market. Instead of gobbling up the piece of sushi with the roe on top, I took my time picking up each egg with a chopstick and biting into it. Mmmmmmmm. Pick up salmon roe with chopstick, bite into it and savor the salty fishy taste, take a swig of hot sake, rinse and repeat!
It is said that Winston Churchill liked his martinis so dry that he never added any Vermouth in them. He prepared the martini with gin and then held his glass up in the direction of the Vermouth and acknowledged his glass to it and that was it! Shiro’s sashimi was so good that I didn’t need any soy sauce or wasabi. I picked up the piece of sashimi, acknowledged it to the soy sauce and enjoyed it. I used the gari as a palate cleanser at the end of each piece of sushi. I finished the meal with some hot green tea and walked out into the frigid night.
I watched Chris Matthews scream on the T.V. again and then went back to Ummelina’s for my appointment. I had signed up for the Crowning Glory treatment, which was a head, neck and shoulder massage, went through the sanctuary ritual and then was escorted back by the therapist who started by massaging rosemary oil into my hair. While that was taking effect, she massaged my neck and shoulders, and then drizzled hot rosemary oil for what seemed like 5 full minutes drop by drop on my forehead as the oil soaked my head and fell to the sides onto a towel. She then wrapped my head with the towel and let it stay there for a while and when I was done I took the 7 jet shower to rinse it all off. It was a short massage but the therapist told me how she trained in Ayurveda and has a bachelor’s degree in herbal sciences.
I floated back to the hotel with a bottle of Moet Chandon, toasted the Space Needle, and enjoyed the bubbly sip by sip as I watched the Bourne Supremacy on HBO. It was a quite last night in Seattle, but a fabulous one.
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