REVIEW: Golden Beetle

I finally made a visit to a restaurant I have been wanting to try for some time now. Golden Beetle is located in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle. It is owned by Maria Hines who is the winner of the 2009 James Beard Award for Best Chef Northwest. In 2005, she was named one of Food and Wine magazine's 10 Best New Chefs. Maria has competed on "Top Chef Masters" in 2010, and also appeared on Food Network's "Iron Chef America". Maria's first restaurant, Tilth, which opened in 2006, was named one of the top 10 best new restaurants in the country in 2008. Because of all of these great credentials, I had high expectations for my visit to Golden Beetle. I was not disappointed. First off, I loved the décor of Golden Beetle. It has a Mediterranean vibe with a lot of Moroccan-style lights throughout the restaurant.

 

Now for the food. I started with the Summer Greens and Pickled Cherry Salad. The salad was a generous portion of greens with sumac vinaigrette, feta cheese and chopped hazelnuts. This salad had the perfect flavor, and I really enjoyed the pickled cherries, something I had not previously had on a salad. 

 

Summer Greens and Pickled Cherry Salad.

For the main entrée, I tried the Fire and Honey Chicken. At first I thought this might be too hot for my liking, but I was feeling adventurous. To my surprise, it wasn't all that hot. It had the right amount of heat to make the dish very enjoyable and flavorful. Not to mention that the chicken was cooked perfectly and topped with some Freekah. The chicken came with a side of lemon cucumber and some greens. I would definitely recommend this entrée on your next visit to Golden Beetle.

Fire and Honey Chicken

For dessert, I tried the Chocolate Truffle Torte. All I can say about this dessert is that is was delicious. Just go in and try it for yourself, you won't regret it.


Chocolate Truffle Torte

I'm looking forward to my next visit to Golden Beetle. I also want to visit Maria Hines' other two restaurants, Tilth and Agrodolce.




REVIEW: Cicchetti

My best friend recently moved back to the Eastlake neighborhood. We have both lived in the neighborhood years before and have always loved the area, so I was very happy when he moved back. We decided to walk on over to Cicchetti, Serafina's sister restaurant. It is located directly behind Serafina. Cicchetti is a perfect addition to the Eastlake neighborhood. Cicchetti has great outdoor seating. On this visit, we sat at the bar. The bar is great. All the liquor bottles are shelved up against large windows that face West, so as the sun is setting all the bottles glow in the sunlight.

We arrived just in time for Happy Hour (5pm - 6:30pm). Cicchetti has a great Happy Hour menu with $5 specialty drinks. One of the drinks I tried is called "The Rumbler". It is a refreshing rum based drink.

Next we ordered some small plates. We started with the Truffle oil popcorn for only $1. I love popcorn and I love Truffle oil, so this was a match made in heaven. I could have easily eaten a jumbo-sized bucket of this stuff. We also tried the Kalamata olives with feta. These were also very tasty.

Next we tried the Margherita Pizza, which is only $5 during Happy Hour. The pizza was delicious. It is cooked in their wood fire oven. The crust was perfect!

Lastly, we had our main course of Hanger Steak. The steak was tender and juicy, and served on a light salad. I highly recommend! Overall, I love this place! Right off the bat, our Server was very friendly. Our Bartender was great. He made great drinks and always made sure we were happy with our food and drinks. The rest of the staff at Cicchetti was just as friendly. The place has a very laid-back vibe about it. Cicchetti is a perfect neighborhood restaurant/bar. I can't wait for my next visit to Cicchetti!