Archive
Ballard Restaurant News – End of March
Po Dogs officially opened on March 23. Eater Seattle and My Ballard has the scoop.
Voracious talks beer at Urban Family Public House.
Seattleite Magazine Sloopersizes their Happy Hour at The Sloop.
My Ballard and Seattle Magazine’s Sauced blog talk to the owners of The Gerald.
My Ballard has more information about the renovation of Zak’s Burgers.
The Counter unexpectedly closes. We will really miss their Parmesan French Fries.
My Ballard, Voracious, and Sauced all have pieces about our newest coffee shop, Ballard Coffee Works.
Mike Seely at Seattle Weekly waxes nostalgic about Hattie’s Hat.
Voracious has a nice look at Staple & Fancy during its slow times.
Nosh Pit has a list of places for Easter Sunday brunch which includes Ray’s Boathouse and Belle Clementine.
Speaking of Belle Clementine, Seattle Weekly reviews the food … and the communal dining experience.
Sauced visits Ballard’s newest small distillery, Captive Spirits.
The Stranger’s Chow Bio features MacLeod’s Pub.
Also at The Stranger, Bethany Jean Clement urges you to try Le Gourmand before it closes on June 2 and Nosh Pit gives some hints at what might be served at Le Gourmand before that fateful day.
In their on going list of favorite 100 dishes in Seattle, Voracious includes the chips and salsa at Senor Moose and the beef fat fries at Golden Beetle.
Ballard Restaurant News – March – First Half
Voracious gives one of my favorites, El Camion, a try.
Voracious also reports on Ocho’s happy hour.
RoRo BBQ opens in Zestos old building. The food was certainly a step up from what Zesto’s had served.
Wow. Class Magazine names not one, but four Ballard bars (Bastille, Copper Gate, The Sexton, and Macleod’s Pub) in their list of Seattle’s 12 Best Bars.
Voracious has MacLeod’s Pub serve up a Singapore Sling.
The Seattle Weekly reviews The Sexton. Not that I agree with them about the food.
Seattleite goes the La Carte de Oaxaca and The Amber Den.
Ballard’s outpost of Po Dogs to open soon.
The new restaurant review show, “Check Please! Northwest”, featured Golden Beetle on their inaugural episode.
Voracious talks to Greg Bye, the owner of Ballard’s newest food cart, Streetzeria.
Seattleite discusses pairing food with red wine at Ray’s Boathouse.
Ballard Coffee Works, located next to Cupcake Royal, has softly opened according to Eater Seattle.
Ballard Restaurant News – January
It’s been an exciting week for us. We’ve had two blogs pick up the story of this project and our Top Ten list.
Ballard Restaurant Project picks their top 10 of 2011 from My Ballard.
Couple eats their way through Ballard; reveals Top 10 restaurants in Ballard from The Ballard News Tribune.
A few Facebook pages linked to our Best of and Honorable Mentions lists as well: Tuesdays In Ballard, Cafe Mox, Sexton Seattle (#5 on our Best of list), The Twisted Geeks Postcast, and Card Kingdom.
Thank you to everyone who has spread the word about our project. We really appreciate it.
Zesto’s, one of our choices for worst meals of the project (post coming soon), closed and will reopen as a RoRo BBQ.
The Amber Den, a comfortable wine bar, will open soon just off the east end of Market Street.
A nice article from the Seattle Weekly that gives a more in depth idea of what innovations Belle Clementine is bringing to Ballard’s restaurant scene. Plus, the owner, David Sanford, offers a recipe for Brussels Sprouts and Apple Salad with Caraway Vinaigrette.
To warm up those cold, grey days, Bastille now offers a tropical cocktail menu.
A nice review of one of our favorites, The Monkey Bridge.
Kangaroo & Kiwi Pub will take Carnegie’s space that has been empty for a year.Once they open, cuisines from all the continents except for Antarctica will be represented in the Ballard.
Bitterroot BBQ now open on Ballard Ave and making the street smell like smoking meat. Our review will be coming soon.
Urban Family Public House opens next door to The Sexton.
Yozen, a self-serve frozen yogurt store, opens on Market St.
Our number 10 restaurant, Flying Squirrel Pizza, now offers a delicious looking meatball pizza.I know where we’re eating this weekend.
A nice little piece about Jay Kuehner, bartender at Sambar. Yes, Le Gourmand and Sambar are on the short list of Ballard restaurants outside the Project’s original boundaries that we will review in the coming year.
Another from the Seattle Weekly, a short profile of our number 5 favorite restaurant, The Sexton.
There you go. I’ll try to make this post a weekly thing since Ballard’s restaurant scene is changing daily it seems.
Honorable Mentions of the Ballard Restaurant Project 2011
This list of our next ten favorite restaurants is far more personal than the top ten. The top ten served us our favorite single meals of the project. The Honorable Mentions are a mix of nostalgic favorites, new-to-us restaurants that totally surprised us, and our go-to restaurants.
We love People’s Pub partially out of nostalgia … it was the site of our first date … and partially because it serves good, hearty German inspired food. The sausage plate is one of the most affordable and tasty Happy Hour options in Ballard and the crème brulee is divine.
A nifty idea for a café where you can sit and play any sort of game. Great atmosphere. Creative sandwiches and appetizers made with quality ingredients and one of the best Caesar salads in Ballard.
Our favorite sushi restaurant in Ballard. Fresh fish. Really good gyoza. The best Long Island Iced Tea in Ballard. And the best women’s restroom in town.
Ballard’s best hamburger. A creative list of toppings for a patty that tastes like it actually came from a cow. The sweet potato fries are delicious and every Monday they offer an awesome deal on their tasty buffalo chicken wings.
Tasty, Asian-fusion small plates served with good cocktails.
Great cocktails and bistro fare. The twice-fried French fries with white truffle aioli is divine.
A big surprise. Interesting appetizers … who would have thought that PB & J jalepeno poppers would be good. Really good sandwiches and entrees. Tied for the best Long Island Iced Tea in Ballard.
Another surprise. Delicious, fancy hot dogs with really good fries. A fabulous jalapeno margarita.
Very good Indian food. I put it on this list because I really like India Bistro whenever a craving for na’an and Chicken Tika Masala hits.
Bad Albert’s came back from the grave with an updated interior but most of the old favorites. Great breakfasts with a really good fried egg and bacon sandwich and outstanding huevos rancheros. Lunch and dinner are pretty good as well.
Other Honorable Mentions:
Portalis. The Hi-Life. The Market Arms. The Monkey Bridge. Pho Big Bowl . Uma Thai Cuisine. Staple & Fancy.
Next up: The five worst restaurants.
Ballard Restaurant News November & December
There’s been a flurry of activity in the Ballard restaurant scene in the last few weeks. A couple of places are about to open and one Ballard institution is closing after 10 years.
Thaiku is closing on December 23 after 10 years.
Bad Albert’s opens … finally.
Belle Clementine, a family style, subscription restaurant to open this week.
Golden Beetle starts serving family style dinners.
The Sexton to open in Madame K’s old space this week.
Reuben’s Brews, a micro brewery and taproom, to open in Ballard.
Urban Family Public House to open in Sutter Home & Hearth old space.
A note about the project itself and a couple of restaurant openings. We added The Sexton to the list with the hope that we can get there before the end of the year/project but, after looking at the information for Belle Clementine, we’re keeping it off the current list. It will only be open 5 nights before the end of the year and appears to be more akin to a supper club/subscription restaurant. Granted, once the official project is done, we are going to continue to visit and review new Ballard restaurants as they open so we will get to Belle Clementine eventually.
I’ll post more about our plans once this project officially ends before the end of the year.
Ballard Restaurant News – August
It seemed like there was quite a bit of Ballard restaurant news in August so I thought I would gather it into one post.
Seattle Weekly is having a Neighborhood Snack Down, pitting the restaurants of differing Seattle neighborhood against one another. Check their website to keep track of Ballard’s standing.
Ballard’s Walrus & Carpenter made Bon Appetit magazine’s list of Best New Restaurants, coming in at #3.
It looks like Bad Albert’s (one of our favorite places in Ballard) will reopen soon. They seem to be renovating the interior.
The owner of Cafe Mox, Dan Tharp, is the focus of a Chow Bio in The Stranger.
Renovation at Red Mill Totem House is moving along. They hope to be open sometime this month.
Benito’s Chicago Eatery is coming to 15th Avenue this month.
A new Cuban food truck has been sighted in Ballard. Even though food trucks aren’t counted in the Ballard Restaurant Project, I’ll post a short review whenever I try their food.
The Sexton, where Madame K’s used to be, looks like they may actually open. The window has been painted with their name and “2011” so they’d better open before the end of the year.
And Sunny Teriyaki is open once more.
Updates to the Blog
I spent some of this past weekend making updates to this blog in order to make it easier to view and use.
- I changed the format to make the posts easier to read with darker font and a simplified format.
- Added an “Email Subscription” widget on the right to make it easier for people to subscribe to the blog. As it says, you’ll be sent an email whenever I post something new.
- There’s also a RSS feed thing on the right and a button linking the blog to the Facebook Page. I’ll have a Twitter feed going sometime soon.
- I’ve made an extensive Tag Cloud to make searching much easier.
- I’m updating past posts with photos and updating the tags as well.
- The posts will not only be tagged by the type of cuisine and what meal we had there but with information like what other meals during the day places offer, whether they’re 21 and Over or have a Happy Hour, etc.
I’ll have a couple new posts up this week. Including opinions from our first quest reviewer.
Ballard Restaurant Project 