Loosen Your Belt: Dine Around Seattle is Back

From Sunday through Thursday, March 2-27, you can score a three-course prix fix for $30 at 58 Seattle restaurants. At some of them you can even score a three-course lunch for $15.

The restaurant selection includes icons like Ray’s Boathouse and Barking Frog; cult favorites Skillet Diner and Nishino’s and the always full to bursting Toulouse Petit and Peso’s. I’ve taken advantage of Dine Around myself before and through it discovered gems like Stumbling Goat Bistro and Eva. This time around Hunger 2.0 and La Bête look intriguing, but with so many options it’s hard to choose.

For more info. click here. Give it a whirl and please let me know which places you recommend, I’m always on the lookout for a new place to nosh.

A Mexican Food Find in Seattle

Mole Enchiladas at Baja Bistro

In Southern California, and Arizona and other border states, fresh, authentic, spicy, satiating Mexican food is as available as Starbucks in Seattle. Really available, like high quality taquitos at the car wash available. It was so available that I never thought much of it and it didn’t even make my top five foods list when I could scoop it up at every turn.

But since moving to Seattle, Mexican food has become my Moby Dick. Seattle has amazing Thai, Chinese, Indian, Vietnamese, French, Italian and of course, Northwestern cuisine. Its abundance of mouth-watering culinary options is staggering. But it repeatedly falls flat when it comes to Mexican food because the food is just plain bland.

While Seattleites are happy cranking up the spicy stars when ordering Asian cuisine, apparently they want no stars in their Mexican food – or at least that’s what the restaurateurs think. La Carta Oaxaca and Mexicaleria Oaxaca buck this trend, and now there is another restaurant to add to the bland-bucking list, Baja Bistro in Beacon Hill. Baja Bistro has heat. Not hot water gulping, heat, but enough heat to awaken your palette and remind you that spice is nice.

For my full review on Examiner.com, please click here.