Restaurant Week - Poppy

My friend was in town visiting from San Francisco, so we wanted to catch up over a nice dinner during Restaurant Week. We decided on Poppy which is located off of Broadway in Capitol Hill. Poppy's head chef and owner is Jerry Traunfeld who we learned from our waiter was on Top Chef Masters. His inspiration comes from the "thali" which is a platter that holds multiple smaller dishes.

Emi started with the beet, oregon blue and bacon salad with spice bread croutons. The salad was a little tart, but the bacon and blue cheese helped bring the savory back to the dish.

My friend ordered the poached oysters with sorrel sauce. Poppy specializes and focuses on Pacific Northwest foods, fresh herbs and spices and this dish was a good representation of that. Don't think baked oyster Rockefeller, but yes poached soft oysters. Very delicious.

Personally I thought my dish was the best. I went with the Beechers cheddar and apple souffle with cress and spiced walnuts. So amazing, a little crispy and cheesy on the outside, but warm and soft on the inside. A perfect blend of savory and sweet. After starting out the meal with a delicate first course like this one, I knew we were in for a good meal.

The main course was almost like a seven course meal in one. Each thali came with multiple small, unique side dishes to enjoy with your "main" dish. This was Emi's green roasted halibut with carrot and fennel. It came with a beet and yogurt soup and all of the multiple side dishes.

Emi's currently in season halibut.

I went with his "famous" (he cooked it on Top Chef Masters and it was a favorite of the judges) lavender duck leg with blackberry sauce. Mine came with a truffle soup, orange spiced sweet potato mash (a little tart, but the orange was really different), swiss chard crispy topping dish, pickled radishes with smoky onions, and poppyseed naan bread (which I dipped in the soup). The duck was very unique, it was tender and fell right off the bone. It also had a very aromatic lavender aftertaste. The berry sauce was more tart than sweet, actually not sweet at all and sort of masked the flavor of the duck (probably just not in season), so I stopped eating the berries. Everything else was amazing though. A great combination of flavors and you really stop and enjoy your meal when you have smaller dishes and portions to enjoy.

My friend's spiced berkshire pork ribs with apricot spring onion relish and all of his side dishes. We were full after eating everything, but still had our "third" course to enjoy.

Emi went with the exotic chocolate chili ice cream with dolce de leche. Not really my thing, but definitely different, you could taste the spicy chili aftertaste which was an interesting combination with the chocolate. Emi really liked it.

I went with the popular dessert of the night (said our waiter) the hazelnut coffee buttercrunch ice cream. Decadent, rich, and sweet would be the best way to describe this dessert. Not what I normally I order, but I wanted to try something different as well. With such a light flavorful meal, it was an interesting way to end dinner because of how strong the sweet flavors were. The buttercrunch topping was really good, sweet and crunchy, but not too hard like an almond rocha.

My friend ended with the staff favorite hot date cake with butterscotch and salted pecans.

A fun restaurant and my fourth Restaurant Week dinner of the year. I would have to say out of Mamma Melinna, Quinn's, Toulouse, and Poppy, Poppy was by far my favorite. I always enjoy Restaurant Week because it incents Emi and me to try some new places and Seattle really does have a lot of great restaurants to offer.

Since we were already stuffed, what did we do next? Went out to get more food. We had to check out Brave Horse the new Tom Douglas gastropub in South Lake Union, which is located next to Ting Momo. It was a fun spot, with great beers on tap, and special hand made pretzels, with a wide variety of sides. We went with the peanut butter, smoked bacon, and honey. Amazing. I can't wait to go back to try out some of their other options.

Where were some of your favorite Restaurant Week meals?

- Kyle