Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Seattle Day 1/Ace Hotel/Umi Sake House/Daiso

I have to start out this post with a little side note about school, I got my 3rd essay back and I got an A+!!!! It was about cell phone etiquette and it was a little hard for me to write, so I am overjoyed. I haven't gotten anything less than a A in this class, so I feel really good. I am a little worried about how I am going to feel when I break this winning streak. Oh well, I feel really good right now!
So, back to Seattle. The train ride there was fun, and once we got into Seattle we had a two mile walk to our hotel. We checked in the Ace and loved our room.

We headed out and had a terrible lunch at a place called Ohana's. It was supposed to be Japanese-Hawaiian food, but was just garbage. Won't even waste more time talking about it. We were just starving and pretty much went to the first place we stumbled on that was open. Then we walked to Pike Place market and had Lavender-Honey-Vanilla homemade frozen yogurt waffle cones. They were so so so good! The market was crazy and I was itching to get to Dasio, which is right up the road from Pike place, in the Westlake Mall.
Here are some things I bought, many many more pics to come,sorry to overwhelm anyone with Daiso posts!



Then we went back to our hotel to chill out and get ready for our dinner later that night. The Ace is a beautiful hotel in an old brick building. The whole hotel is wired with stereo speakers everywhere, including the bathroom. They play beautiful music 24 hous a day everywhere except your room. Downstairs in the basement is a kitchen where they have gourmet coffee brewed 24 hours a day. That made me really happy!


They served a simple breakfast every morning: soymilk, O.J., toast, and granola. It was nice to have a little snack before we actually had real breakfast every morning, because we usually ended up walking about 2 miles or more before we ate. I really love the Ace, it is even pet friendly, but I was happy to have Andrew watch the dogs for us. That night we had reservations at Umi Sake House, a trendy Japanese place that was really nice, but very loud and a bit pretentious, but the sushi was totally amazing and the sake cocktails were very good as well. The building was a similar style to our hotel. I really loved Umi, but I would have to say, it is not exactly the best spot to have an intimate date. It was so loud that the waitress could not hear me order. But I am not complaining, because it really was the best sushi I have ever had. I snuck some photos in of our food, but I was shy taking photos, so they are really poor quality. I wish I would have been less ashamed to do it, so I would have had better memories of the wonderful sushi. We had fatty tuna, the underbelly of tuna fish.I have never had it before, but I had heard wonderful things about it. Once, in Portland, I tried to order fatty tuna and the waitress laughed at me, and pretty much told me to head to japan for it! So I was thrilled to try it, but since it is such a luxury, it is 10 dollars for one piece! This isn't too crazy, I know in Japan I could spend much much more on superb sushi, but I would like to wait until I am a little older to order fatty tuna without thinking about the bill. Maybe after college! We split the Chef's choice sushi platter, showcasing the freshest fish availible at the time. Woo boy, I have never ever tasted sushi that divine in my life! Even fish I am not extremely found of normally, such as Octopus, was amazing. We took our time savoring each piece, trying not to gobble the sushi away.
Here is what the platter included:

We also had a tempura platter, but it was nothing to rave about. I think they used Panko instead of tempura batter, so it tasted like greasy vegetables. Oh well, I cannot tell you enough, the sushi was AMAZING and it quickly erased the terrible lunch I had and the forgettable tempura from my memory.
The drinks we had were great, as I mentioned, I started off with a Pomergrante Sake Martini. It was made with unfiltered sake. Delicious! It took me this cocktail to have the courage to take a few photos. The next cocktail I had was a Cucumber Daiquri,and that was so refreshing and yummy. I would really like to try and make this this summer, not too sweet and not to bitter. Bunny had a Lychee Lemonade cocktail, it was excellent, and a Dragon's Toe, which was Maker's Mark, Ginger sake, and ginger ale. It was great, but it kicked our asses! I could handle bourbon a lot better in my early 20's. We shared our cocktails so we could get a variety of tastes.
For dessert(at this point I was pretty full and pretty buzzed!) we had Green Tea Tiramisu.It was made at a local Japanese bakery, that I wish I would have been able to go to. This tiramisu was so great, and I have had good and bad tiramisu. I think it is kind of a hard dessert to master? But this was amazing, heavenly, and every bite I took had so many different flavors and textures. I tried to savour as much as possible, but I had to keep up with Bunny, I was afraid if I took too long he would get too much! The meal at Umi was Totemo Oishii (Japanese highest compliment after an excellent meal)
We walked back to the hotel, pretty tipsy. Nowadays two drinks really gets to us! Thankfully it was only a few blocks away. We went to our room and sat by the window, drinking coffee and watching all of the drunks. It was so much fun! We are getting old and boring, and we were in bed before midnight!!!! It was a perfect evening!!!!!!! One funny thing happened after bed time. I woke up in the middle of the night and had to use the restroom really badly. Our bathroom was not in our room, but right outside the door, I ran to the bathroom and forgot our room key and got stuck in the hallway with nothing on but my robe. Bunny thought I was still in bed with him and the knocking was another room. There were people partying still all over the hotel. He finally answered the door and I was instantly back to sleep!

2 comments:

average rai said...

Great job on your essay! You'll be teaching that class soon. :)

I have to try a Cucumber Daquiri. That sounds amazing! Do you know what was all in it?

That hotel sounds so cool, except for not having a bathroom in the room. Is it like a bed and breakfast?

Looks like so much fun. Thank you thank you for all of the pictures!

bunbun said...

Thanks!!!!
I think it had Rum, cucumber and ginger juice. I probably will try to make it a blended drink, mine was more martini style, but I like cocktails that are like smoothies. I will probably chop up fresh cucumber and toss it in the blender. It will be interesting to try. I probably should have other fruit on hand just in case I screw it up!!!!!!!