your fate is my toilet

chicken liver mousse by 'the walrus & the carpenter'

rating: part 2 of my traveling food adventures / 10.0

MY PURE AND INNOCENT AND VEGAN AND MACROBIOTIC AND PERFECTLY HEALTHY FOOD ADVENTURES on the road - PART 2

wow u guys! u all look so good! all my readers look beautiful and good and pure all the time. thank you for always looking pure and beautiful. i promise, you will not regret all that time you took to look this beautiful okay! 

welcome to america!!! (pretend you are in america okay.) terrence malick, jim jarmusch, david lynch, tom waits, BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN!!! can you feel it whispering through you? flannery o'connor, william faulkner, mark twain, SUZANNE COLLINS!!!! this is america. the soul of the world!!! lol, jk. but whatever. my food journey through america begins in seattle. patient zero of global epidemic disease crisis known as starbucks. home of other towering commercial babels microsoft, boeing, SUB POP!!!!! can you feel it yet? haha no but seriously you guys, Pedro The Lion are from seattle and they are actually one of my favourite bands. i know that may not be very cool, but i like them okay.

~ SEATTLE MUST TRYs ~

1.) skillet's 'bacon jam' and 'caramelized grapefruit' and 'daily fresca' (or 'the burger')

the first place we went to when we entered seattle was skillet. they were street food pioneers of this area and now have a beautiful restaurant in the 'hip' hood of capitol hill now.

i had pork belly on a waffle and also their daily fresca (strawberry and basil and other things i don't remember) and ginger beer which were both great too! 

but for a 'must try' it would be their caramelized grapefruit! (it's actually pretty simple to make at home if you want, just google the recipe or something)

they also have a counter near the space needle, and i had the burger which has bacon jam and arugula and brie and it was the best!

you have to try the bacon jam by itself too!!!



their daily fresca that day was like orange, pineapple and mint and it was the best juice ever literally!

2.) piroshky piroshky's 'bavarian sausage piroshky'

pike market is the place you are obligated to go as a tourist because you will be shot to death otherwise. one of the market's gems is the bourdain-ordained 'piroshky piroshky,' which is literally the kind of food you must eat before you die. 

bourdain, i think, had the 'beef and cheese' as well as the 'bavarian sausage.' if you only want to pick one, i'd go with the 'bavarian sausage.' smoky and yummy and the pastry makes you want to quit life and become like one of the many homeless people around pike market. 

i'm not trying to be offensive, that's just how i feel after i eat at 'piroshky piroshky.' it's really good.

3.) salumi's 'charcuterie platter' (if sandwiches are sold out)

lots of my seattle food picks were bourdain-ordained actually so i am sorry, but i am like a disciple of the guy. he is great and this place 'salumi' was great also! 

i arrived in the afternoon which is obviously too late to get a sandwich because they always sell out by this time, so instead i got a charcuterie platter. the charcuterie is really good, but as good as it is, i must confess i actually prefer 'the black hoof' charcuterie platter a little more. sorry guys, this stuff was fantastic (and i'm no charcuterie expert), but my heart is still at home with the hoof.

4.) caffe umbria's 'iced coffee'

historic pioneer square actually has a lot of good coffee around. among the best is caffe umbria. they began their 'vast coffee empire' right in this square. 

lol, 'vast' was a joke. i think they have not expanded as fast as those other people affiliated with herman melville, but they got a spot in seattle and another in portland.



and they make great italian coffee and expresso for everyone who is beautiful (such as you probably because all my readers are beautiful) ;-)

5.) zeitgeist's 'iced americano'

i really like iced coffee so i am sorry if all my must-try beverages are iced coffee okay. 

this place is a nice place to hang out because it also exhibits artists and stuff inside it and it has nice high ceilings. 

it is also a part of the historic pioneer square of seattle. this place is for young and beautiful people who want to be hip and signed to SUB POP! lol, not really, but their name sounds like it, so just pretend it is.

6.) sun ya's 'dim sum'

seattle's chinatown kind of sucks tbh, but this place is open at night and has decent dim sum so go here if you are scared to explore chinatown at night (which you probably will be). this is not a must try but if you have like a medical condition where you will die if you don't eat dim sum or something like that, then you should probably go here.

7.) the walrus & the carpenter's 'raw oysters' (barron point, skookum inlet)

so this place is hidden behind an unassuming bicycle cafe that is closed at night. (which makes it somewhat hard to find since the walrus only opens for dinner). 

this long hallway next to the cafe brings you to the back of the building where you find the place chock-full of yuppie groups and very likely a small line to get in. (no reservations, so just show up early or something)

when i was there i had all sorts of things like chicken liver mousse, fried oysters, smoked trout, grilled sardines, steamed mussels, oil poached coho, and they were all nice, but they will be utterly vanquished to nothingness in your memory after you eat the raw oysters. 

those oysters! things of lachrymose grace and beauty. they have all sorts of them from beginner level oysters (barron point) to like advanced level oysters (treasure cove) which from what i've heard, just feels like swallowing sea water. 

but they are good and that is what you should eat when you go there.

missed.) revel's pancake with pork belly and kimchi and beansprout

wow so i missed one of seattle's coolest neighbourhoods, fremont. but whatever. this place 'revel' has korean comfort food and sounds really good and i wanted to go there, but had no time. they have things like pancake with pork belly, kimchi, and bean sprout. if i go to seattle again, i will go there and eat really good food and tell you all about it okay.

~ BLACK HILLS and BADLANDS ~

budget foods.) mcdonald's, wall drug, target

with seattle behind me, the landlocked heartland of america offered me not much else but really cheap food. (i was on an azn bus tour, so stopping flexibility is a zero) i went to mcdonald's and could get a mcchicken and a side salad for a total of $2. I could eat a banana sausage (something great i invented where you take a long whole wheat bun and stick a peeled banana in it and put sade-inspired peanut butter in it)



and eat it with 5-cent coffee from this place near rushmore called 'wall drug.' that meal was a whopping total of 75 cents. 

if i wanted to go gourmet, i'd hit up target get a can of izze sparkling juice and 'chicken spinach & artichoke toasted flatbread' (which is actually really good btw) for a total of $3.

8.) yellowstone national park's 'bison chili dog'

#yolostone is cool because it feels so otherworldy and post-apocalyptic and you can also eat bison there. when i was there i had bison steak (yummy but super expensive), bison burger, and a bison chili dog.

when i stopped by rushmore academy to see my good friend max fischer (actually just went there to go see margaret yang because i'm in love with her, but please do not tell max. i hope he doesn't read this!) 

i went there and max showed me a report made by his new club, 'the bison appreciation team' and he showed me bison actually have way less grams of fat than other edible animals so you can maintain your slenderness and radiating beauty, which i guess is extremely important to everyone.

9.) mitchell corn palace street food fair's 'indian taco' and 'fried cookie dough'

the corn palace at mitchell, south dakota is basically a somewhat-nicer-than-usual restroom stop on the way back to the east from the badlands and black hills. it looks cool on the outside, but really has nothing on the inside. the coolest thing about it is the food trucks out front. 

i had an indian taco there which is like taco ingredients on this pillowy deep-fried batter. they complement each other so well i'm somewhat crestfallen all tacos have not converted into being indian because they would all taste so much better.

i also had fried cookie dough which is raw cookie dough covered in a funnel-cake batter and deep-fried and it was such winsome thing you would be surprised.

and the greatest attraction in the city of mitchell is its 'christian' food truck. i was somewhat disappointed they didn't really sell anything like manna or wine or herbs and spices, but how often do you see a christian food shack. lol. sorry it's really funny to me.

~ CHICAGO and ANN ARBOR ~

10.) le colonial's 'chicken wanton' and 'spring rolls' (chicago) 

one of my high school friends, jess, is a hip epicure and artiste of the windy city, actually studying at SAIC where Disney and Jeff Koons have studied before. the art institute of chicago is the second largest gallery, i believe, in north america, following the metropolitan in new york.

anyways this place she recommended, le colonial, is a somewhat pricey french vietnamese restaurant that has its most remarkable items on its appetizer menu. 

the main dishes i tried are like glorified versions of much cheaper vietnamese food. the ingredients are extremely good but taste pretty much the same as any decent vietnamese restaurant which sells food for a fraction of the price. the thing is cheap vietnamese food already taste so great, its really difficult to make it taste any better. there higher priced meals are really good, but again rather pricey. i had this filet mignon sate and it was really good, but was around $30. (btw filet mignon literally translates to 'cute fillet' heh.) the appetizers, however, taste remarkably unique and are in my opinion worth the price tag.

11.) sprinkles's 'chocolate peanut butter cupcake' (chicago)

i'm generally not into these kinds of 'quasi-franchise' places, but my artiste friend, jess, recommended this place to me as well, and all its hip designy tumblr-esque merchandising aside, it really does make impressive cupcakes.



moist and well dressed like a slimy but dignified alien in a debonair tuxedo. (another place like this is magnolia, but i personally don't like their cupcakes as much.)

12.) asia city buffet's 'sashimi' and 'raw bittergourd' and 'raw oysters' and 'pig ear' (ann arbor)

okay i'm not going to lie, i adored this place! mostly due to the fact jasmine zoo always goes there. she is, imo, the ultimate princess of indie. she wrote for altered zones and now writes for ad hoc.




she is a queen. studies at an ivy league school, reads the best books, listens to the best music, watches the worst movies even though she knows all about people from wes anderson to herzog, and appreciates the remarkable legend that is known as justin bieber. she also knows the best food because she is the best at everything.

so that's like basically it. america. food. life. peace.

bye ^__^