Valentine's Day at Palisades

Happy Belated Valentine's Day to everyone. If you click on the photo you can see the heart shape in the watermelon.

Emi and I celebrated the 8th anniversary of our first date last Sunday on Valentine's Day. After enjoying a musical at 5th Avenue we went to dinner at our favorite restaurant in the world; Palisades. My cousin and her family gave Emi and I the best Christmas present ever with a gift certificate to Palisades so we have been saving it for a special occasion.

We've had some amazing meals over the year's at Palisades and have never been disappointed. We usually take out of town guests there or celebrate special occasions like birthdays and even the night of our engagement there. Palisades is well known for their seafood and prime rib and has a Hawaiian/Pan-Asian themed menu.

The restaurant is located right on the water in the Elliot Bay Marina and has a beautiful view of Puget Sound and Downtown Seattle. The restaurant has an indoor pond with fish in it which is always popular with kids.

We decided to really treat ourselves with this meal since we had a gift certificate to offset some of the cost, but also we thought "this could make a really good blog post". So basically the few of you who actually read this blog helped Emi talk me into buying the most expensive meal they had on the menu.

We love Palisades bread and sea salt butter. I usually avoid bread, but it's pretty irresistable with their salted butter.

Five Spice Peking Duck with Steamed Buns - this is our new favorite appetizer. The duck falls off the bone and goes great with the steamed buns, hoisin sauce, and green onions.

Of course we had to enjoy a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon with our decadent dinner. Palisades had a Valentine's Dinner special which included a choice of soup or salad, Wagyu steak and lobster tail for two, and dessert. Without my cousin's gift card and our readers we never would have talked ourselves into ordering this meal, but it was well worth it.

Emi's salad - Hearts of Romaine - Tender romaine hearts tossed with Palisade's Caesar dressing, housemade "GIANT" croutons, and shaved Parmesan cheese.

Butter Lettuce with Rogue River Blue Cheese - baby bibb lettuce with Rogue River Blue Cheese, smoked hazelnuts, crisp julienned pear with guava wood smoked butter poached colossal prawns. This is probably my favorite salad in the world. The smoky cheese, hazelnuts and giant prawns, mixed with the sweet pear and baby bibb lettuce is an amazing combination.

Right before we devoured the Wagyu steak and lobster.

The Wagyu steak was really good. I could taste the butter it was seared in to lock in all of the great seasonings. I usually don't order steak at restaurants, but this one didn't disappoint and was really flavorful. The steak was good, but the highlight of the meal was the lobster tail. We think it was poached in butter because it was both tender and already buttery. Of course I had to dunk it in the lemon butter for even more flavor. Emi came up with the idea to take a bite of both at the same time for an expensive flavor explosion.

Our Valentine's Day dessert, chocolate mouse, gelato, and chocolate covered strawberries.

If you have a special occasion to celebrate or want to enjoy a guaranteed amazing meal, go check out Palisades. It can be a little pricey, but the food is well worth the cost. It's nice to know that every time we go there we'll walk away completely satisfied and sometimes that can be hard to do for Emi and me.

Happy Belated Valentine's Day to everyone and I hope the photos do justice to how amazing of a meal this really was.

- Kyle