Thursday, July 26, 2007

Columbia City's finest

I love small neighborhoods with good restaurants. That's why I had to dedicate this post to Columbia City. One 1 block you have what I am starting to call one of my top 3 favorite Italian restaurants, a bar with tastey snacks and intimate atmosphere, a traditional wood fire pizzaria w/ good salads too, and some more ethnic cuisines that are tastey too.

Every time I go to La Medusa the food simply knocks it out of the park. A big reason why is because everything they use is very very local like farmer fresh local or imported from Sicily. That is the region their inspiration seems to derive from -- Sicily. So, we opened w/ 2 cheeses from the Olympic Peninsula region ($6 each), had the worlds greatest salad as a 2nd (I think it was $9) -- it had 2 different types of beets, arugala, roasted coconut tossed w/ corriander & cumin, finished w/ olive oil & balsalmic. Main courses were the market fish - monk fish that was just alright it didn't hit the rich flavor that fish carries, and duck that I still taste in my mind. F'ing awesome. Finished the meal sharing a canolo that seemed homemade which I say cause the shell was different than others I've had. Get a reservation and hold yourself to it cause it's some of the best food in Seattle and it will take you a year to share it w/ anyone else.

Kalaloos is very new and quite good. It's located just off of Rainier Ave South and just past Jones BBQ. My memory is a little "hazy" on what I ate since it was a little different cuisine for me and I had happy hour at Lotti's prior to. But it's a carribean cuisine using a lot of root vegetables I'm not familiar with, but were pan fried, sweet to the taste, and on the yummy side. We had a papaya salad topped w/ spicey shrimp. Hell Yeah! My main dish was Ox Tail braised in a curry sauce. Fuck yeah, and cooked perfectly. My gal ate the garlic halibut. I think her dish beat mine, but they both were awesome. The halibut was a nice and rich just the way that fish should be served. Don't pass up on their specialty cocktails either!!

Lotti's we are talking an intimate atmosphere and casual affair food. Sit at the bar and get some carbonara or anything from a list of pastas. I also love their breakfast burrito. It's fucking huge and only $4.50. Plus, they got a decent happy hour. What can I say I'm getting tired of typing...

Tutta Bella is the most well known restaurant in this block and they do a good job. Their job their is to serve smaller pizzas for $20/+ and they are wood fired. They are one of the few pizzaria that are Neapolitan certified pizzaria and they charge you for it. Yeah, it's a good pizza, but for value I'll go elsewhere. There salads are really good too.

Enjoy,
CrumbYum

8 comments:

ae.k.ae said...

my fella and i are still trying to go to la medusa (which is where you suggested we go for our anniversary, mr. crumbyum). we will definitely be going soon...the duck sounds very appealing...

damn i'm hungry.

kjade said...

ah, tutta bella. to be completely honest, i'm not crazy about that place. i was expecting some sort of pizza-potheosis by the way local reviewers and friends rave about that place. i think your assessment is pretty spot on: good, authentic ingredients, smaller pizzas, and premium prices.

i mean, sure, their pizza is good, and if i'm driving by and hungry (and it's not too busy), sure, i might go, but i'm not really drawn to it. if i were completely swayed by authenticity to justify premium prices, then sure, tutta bella it up! but (un)fortunately (for tutta bella), i pay top dollar for taste.

actually, i would rather drive to west seattle for a slice of simple aglio d'olio at talaricos, or if i'm patient enough, i'll wait for via tribunali (though also pricey).

my bottom line: tutta is not molto bella.

kjade said...

oh yeah, and ps:
Kallaloo


also, if you're into caribbean cuisine, my old faithful, casuelita's has two outposts in town. one is on western and vine in belltown, and the other is at 26th and s judkins, which is a cafe and more casual.

Casuelita's

CrumbYum said...

Ahhh, I was wondering while Kallaloo didn't have a website...it's cause I don't know how to spell. I hear good things about Casualita's but haven't been there yet.Caribean food is good.

Glad to hear it tail feather!!
Now, it's time to try out Moe's and make sure they know how to serve PBR.

Anonymous said...

Lottie's is owned by my old Tablet editor, Josh Davis. Say wassup for me if you ever meet him!

Anonymous said...

will do Lar. My neighbors are friends w/ him too...Rich, Maggie & Manny. He's not too bigtime to tend bar.

Unknown said...

Got take out last night from TB and my pizza was totally rad. The biance widdat ham on it. I totally grubbed, bros. Kendalls was close to total shit. She had the Margherita and it had no cheese and no basil and was crap and pewp all in one.

the tiramisu was gewd. the choclate gelatto was too much for me to handle.

It was expensive. Nothing seemed too bad until the total was $40 for pizza.

kjade said...

co-sign. it's like someone took a crap or a dump in the wood-fired brick oven.

tiramisu was good...not life-changing, though.