Why
I first had dim sum in Toronto, at a restaurant at Dundas and Spadina that I remember being called the White Elephant, in 1981 when I was 18, traveling through on a bus visiting friends the summer I graduated high school. I didn't make it a regular thing until about 2007. Living in the 'burbs East of Lake Washington, there's not many opportunities to enjoy good dumplings, but a short-lived establishment in a strip mall near my building at Microsoft pulled me in and got me hooked.A little over a year ago, I did a job move and started commuting into Seattle. Stuck in the new and decidedly uncool neighborhood of South Lake Union, I withered under the corporatized culinary disasters in the general vicinity (does anybody really prefer to eat at Veggie Grill or Specialty's or, god forbid, my company cafeteria?), until I discovered a company shuttle from my building to the light rail station on King Street, right at the edge of the International District.
Pretty soon, I was making it a habit to grab a shuttle for lunch, get some dumplings to-go, and shuttle back to eat beautiful spicy greasy bundles of unpretentious joy at my desk. At first, I stuck to my regular joint - Duk Li Dim Sum on Weller just East of Maynard - but after a while I decided that I would branch out. In fact, I decided to try every dim sum restaurant in the ID. A month or two into this quest, it occurred to me that I wasn't being very egalitarian, and I resolved to try, not just every Dim Sum restaurant, but every restaurant of every kind in the district. I recently completed a tour of every restaurant in Chinatown, an even 50 in all (see below for the specific criteria I used).
Pretty soon co-workers got wind of this and started asking me for recommendations. One suggested I post my findings someplace where others could get the benefit of my trial and error. The result is this blog.
How
The ID is traditionally divided into three sections: Chinatown, Japantown, and Little Saigon. Jackson street and interstate 5 divide these sections geographically, as you can see in this map from http://seattlechinatownid.com/
Unlike the Chinese cultural neighborhoods in other major cities - Vancouver, Portland, San Francisco, for example - there is little about Seattle's version to suggest the streets of Hong Kong or Shanghai, other than a single ornate gate at the West end of King street. The ID looks very South Seattle - dirty, industrial, and nondescript. However, hiding on every block are culinary treats waiting to be discovered.
The Ground Rules
In order to put some structure around my quest, I focused on Chinatown, specifically the blocks bounded by Jackson street to the North, Dearborn to the South, 5th Avenue to the West, and Interstate 5 to the East. Since I was pursuing this adventure on my lunch breaks, I further confined my exploration to restaurants open at lunchtime, and that offered food to go - actual entrees, and not just bubble tea or baked goods. Finally, I excluded the handful of booths in the Uwajimaya shopping center food court. There are a handful of exceptions that prove the rule - these will come out in the course of my writing.
I didn't know how many restaurants there were in this 19 block area when I started, but I knew that restaurants come and go. In fact, by the end of my tour, two new restaurants were on the verge of opening, but contrary to my worries, no new restaurants opened and no restaurants closed over the course of 50 meals, one to three times a week.
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| Seattle's International District |
Unlike the Chinese cultural neighborhoods in other major cities - Vancouver, Portland, San Francisco, for example - there is little about Seattle's version to suggest the streets of Hong Kong or Shanghai, other than a single ornate gate at the West end of King street. The ID looks very South Seattle - dirty, industrial, and nondescript. However, hiding on every block are culinary treats waiting to be discovered.
The Ground Rules
In order to put some structure around my quest, I focused on Chinatown, specifically the blocks bounded by Jackson street to the North, Dearborn to the South, 5th Avenue to the West, and Interstate 5 to the East. Since I was pursuing this adventure on my lunch breaks, I further confined my exploration to restaurants open at lunchtime, and that offered food to go - actual entrees, and not just bubble tea or baked goods. Finally, I excluded the handful of booths in the Uwajimaya shopping center food court. There are a handful of exceptions that prove the rule - these will come out in the course of my writing.
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| Target area (in blue) |
I didn't know how many restaurants there were in this 19 block area when I started, but I knew that restaurants come and go. In fact, by the end of my tour, two new restaurants were on the verge of opening, but contrary to my worries, no new restaurants opened and no restaurants closed over the course of 50 meals, one to three times a week.
The Fifty
(Alphabetical order)
- 663 Bistro
- A piece of cake bakery and cafe.
- A&B cafe.
- Asia Bar-b-que.
- Bun
- Canton noodle house.
- Crawfish king.
- Dim sum king
- Duk Li Dim Sum
- Eastern Cafe.
- Fort st. George.
- Fortuna cafe.
- Fortune garden.
- Fu Lin restaurant.
- Gourmet noodle bowl.
- Green Village.
- Happy times bistro.
- Harbor city
- Henry's Taiwan Plus
- Ho ho seafood restaurant.
- Honey Court seafood restaurant.
- Hong Kong Bistro.
- House of Hong.
- Jade garden
- Joe's bar and grill.
- Kau kau restaurant.
- King noodle.
- Kings BBQ house.
- Mike's noodle house.
- New Hing Loon restaurant.
- New Hong Kong restaurant*
- Ocean city.
- Pacific cafe
- Phnom Penh noodle house.
- Pho bac.
- Pho Hoa.
- Ping's dumpling house.
- Purple dot cafe
- Samurai noodle
- Shanghai garden.
- Sichuanese cuisine*
- Sub Sand.
- Sun ya
- Szechuan noodle bowl*
- Tai Tung
- Thai Curry Simple.
- Ton Kiang Bbq House.
- Tropics Thai.
- World Pizza.
NOTES:
* these three restaurants were outside the target area
I have not yet visited Bush Garden, since they declined to prepare food to go
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