Life After Work: Chihuly, Mario Batali and Food Trucks!

Yes, we had another busy day in Seattle. I know the title is somewhat confusing but it will make sense in a bit. The day dawned grey once again. People here seem quite used to that. We headed out early towards the Space Needle which is about a 15 minute walk from the hotel. It's part of Seattle Center which has a science centre, theatres, a museum and the Chihuly Garden and Glass gallery. Chihuly is a one name artist who has worked with glass blowing since the 60s. He's gone through many phases and has built amazing installations all over the world. I have to admit that I went in wondering how long it would hold my attention but it was a stunning display of glass pieces, some as big as trees. If you are ever in the Seattle area, you really should make every effort to get to this display.

This one and others like it were at least 4 metres tall!

There were also outdoor garden exhibits. Sorry for posting so many pictures but I just found this stuff stunning.

And, finally, you could get a digital picture taken in the display and mail it to yourself. This is our souvenir as there's no way I was trying to bring back one of the mini glass models. The cheapest one was over $2000!

We also saw the Space Needle. After living with the CN Tower for all these years, it was not a big deal. I took a few shots of it reflected in the glass pieces but here's one from the street.

The most interesting looking building was the EMP museum (Experience Music Project). We didn't go in as it was described as a kid friendly place and we saw a herd of daycare kids going in, but the outside was pretty cool.

We started walking back across the city to the market area. It was about a half hour walk and by the time we arrived, it was more or less lunch time. I had researched where the food trucks should have been but many weren't there. Eventually, we found a few and had a great lunch. Since we've tried so many food trucks, we are getting fussy. We try to find trucks now that make something different. Anyone can do pulled pork or burgers or poutine. Today we found Papa Bois, a Caribbean fusion truck. This is the Orient sandwich, made with pork loin and coconut lemongrass marinade. It had great flavours that we hadn't tried before.

The other truck was called Off The Rez and it was Indian (as in First Nations) tacos made with fry bread. Probably not diet food but it was also very good. Oh, we had the dessert fry bread with peach sauce too!

After lunch, we walked back to Pike Place Market. It is a very interesting place with tons of shops but it is massively crowded. It's more of a sideshow than going to St. Lawrence Market I think.
It was this crowded everywhere!

So, today is another one of those days where I didn't take a lot of pictures after lunch. It's going to look like we had lunch, walked a bit, then had dinner. Not so! We actually walked almost 15 km today and we did laundry in the afternoon. And we had a bit of down time during which I was checking my twitter feed. I noticed that Mario Batali was tweeting pictures of places we'd seen in Seattle. I wondered if he was in town. Turns out, he was and he tweeted a picture of a restaurant that he really likes. I believe he's friends with the chef. We thought if Mario likes it, we should try it. Luckily, the restaurant, called Palace Kitchen, was only about 5 blocks away. We walked in and got a great table right away. The food was the best we've had in Seattle. Thanks, Mario!
We shared an app of dungeness crab, tomatoes, avocodo, house made bacon and a cured egg yolk.