One Type Of Food Monster

It's good to be back.

I was out of commission there for a little while, owing to a really nasty combination of a kidney infection and really low blood pressure. I spent almost a week in a hospital in Wheat Ridge, Colorado, a city in which I know absolutely nobody.

Eventually, I was set free, after having endured multiple tests and injections. My dispatcher had me pick up a load going back home, and I spent a solid week at home relaxing and engaging in one of my favorite pastimes, namely, going to restaurants.

Lincoln and I both went off chain restaurants quite some time ago, for a variety of reasons. The first reason is that we actually wind up eating at them a fair bit when we have no other choice, me because it's often the only thing available when I'm on the road, and Lincoln because it's often the only thing open when he gets off work at 2 AM.

The main reason, though, is that Seattle in general and our home neighborhood in particular is just chock-full of great restaurants, featuring cuisine from all over the world. Take, for example, my favorite type of fast food, teriyaki. I would estimate that there are at least two hundred teriyaki restaurants within ten miles of my house. Okay, that's probably a slight exaggeration, but I'm not off by a lot.

The point is that Lincoln and I enjoy food from all over the world, and Seattle, a port city, provides ample opportunity for us to try new things.

Having dropped off my tractor at my sister's house, Lincoln came and got me, and the adventure began.

Made with love. Also, one million chili peppers.

Tuesday featured a stop at Southcenter Mall, or Westfield Shoppingtown Southcenter, or WestSouthenField ShoppingCenterTowne, or whatever the hell they're calling it these days. I don't care what the sign out front says. It's Southcenter, and you kids get offa my lawn.

There's a new food court at the mall, and it's surprisingly non-awful. Most mall food courts have the usual stuff: McD's; Ivar's; Hot Dog on a Stick; Random Mexican Place; Random Teriyaki Place; and so forth.

This food court has Thai Go, which features some good Thai food, including a wide selection of curries. Since the much-lamented demise of Curry King, Lincoln and I have been actively looking for new places to feed out curry addiction, and Thai Go can definitely help you out. Plus, they have that awesome Thai tea. If you've never had Thai tea, all I can say is that your life is incomplete.

Paneer Masala. I have no idea what that means, but it's delicious.

We must not have fulfilled our curry jones, however. (“Curry Jones” would be an excellent name for a videogame character, by the way.) On Wednesday, after a visit to the pharmacy, we stopped in at the East India Grill. I had seen the sign from the road, but we had never been in there.

This place is full of win. Lincoln and I were both a little apprehensive when we first entered; the place looked slightly too classy for the likes of us, with its elegant décor and cloth napkins and complete lack of angry notices, scrawled in Magic Marker, taped to the wall. (“YOU NO PAY PERSON CHECK WE CASH TAKE ONLY!”)

The server was also far too cute and charming for the sort of person that Lincoln and I manage to be, although she graciously didn't let on, even as she uttered the words which have always brought joy to my soul and a song to my heart: “And we have our lunch buffet right over there, all you can eat.”

Oh, wow. All you can eat Indian food. That's my favorite kind of Indian food, and this stuff had the added bonus of being delicious. One of my major problems with a lot of Indian places is that they seem to be trying to win some sort of macho wager, making vindaloos that melt dental enamel and burn holes in your jacket.

But East India Grill understands that spice is just that, spice. It's put in the food to enhance the flavor, not overpower it. The curries were spicy without being painful, and the rest of the foods were delicious, and the hot and fresh naan bread was some of the best I have ever had. Plus we got out of there for just around twenty bucks, which is certainly acceptable.

Our helpful and friendly staff will be happy to assist you.

Thursday I made lunch. I went to the store and got some fresh ground beef. I paid a little extra for the low-fat organic stuff, raised without growth hormones or any of the other stuff added. Just, you know, cow meat.

Lincoln and I went to the Kwik-E-Mercado and picked up some Mexican Cokes (no corn syrup, please), some nice lettuce and tomato, some whole-grain wheat buns, and some A1 sauce with Tobasco.

Then we went into the deli. The deli at the Kwik-E is staffed entirely by cranky Russian ladies. I love cranky Russian ladies, because they won't let you buy stuff if they don't like it. This actually happened.

I pointed to some cheese in the deli counter.

“Pazhalsta,” I said.

The lady leaned down and examined the cheese.

“Nyet,” she replied.

“No?” I responded, shocked.

“No,” she confirmed, tossing the offending dairy product back over her shoulder. “Is no good. You buy this instead.” She indicated another cheese that, for all intents and purposes, appeared identical to the first one. “Is much better. You see.”

It wasn't like I had any choice in the matter, so I bought a half-pound of a sort of white Russian Havarti, which the cranky lady wrapped in paper.

Then Lincoln and I went to the beer section and bought six bottles of beer from four different continents and some cinnamon cookies from Mexico.

I love the Kwik-E-Mercado.

Start with this.

We went home and I fried up the burgers, which turned out to be a little problematic. One of the things that makes burgers fry up so nice is their fat content, which is usually somewhere between ten and fifty percent depending on how much of a cheap jerk you are. This also makes them juicy and tasty.

Seven percent is, it turns out, just a little low for a good fry-up. I was reminded of trying to cook venison and elk burgers when I lived in Colorado. Next time I will probably add a little fat to the pan first, maybe a little unsalted butter, to help the process along.

The burgers were still pretty tasty. Lincoln and I had two each. Next time I will also add some red onion to bring out the flavor a bit more, and possibly a little horseradish.

WAY better than KFC.

Friday was Lincoln's day off, so we went to Uwajimaya and Kinokuniya to see what we could see. (Okay, we went there to look at cute Asian girls.) We also stopped along at Aloha Plates, one of my favorite places in the excellent Uwajimaya food court, for some Katsu Chicken and Spam Musubi. The musubi were huge, much bigger than the ones I usually get from the deli, soe we saved those for later and took them home.

Chicken Katsu is basically a chicken breast, pounded flat, deep-fried, then sliced into ribbons and served over rice with katsu sauce, which is a fruit-flavored savory sauce that would probably work really well on pork chops or roast turkey, now that I come to think of it. Aloha Plates serve theirs Hawaiian-style, with a green salad and sesame dressing. Get one of the cold cans of guava juice to wash it down.

Gyros House. Great food, nice guys, I have nothing snarky to add.

Saturday, after Lincoln came home from work, we sat for a moment and discussed our dinner plans.

“I'm thinking falafel,” I said.

“Sounds good,” he said.

A few moment's tapping of the screen of Lincoln's iPhone revealed the existence of Gyros House in the Commons, which is what SeaTac Mall used to be called before they changed the name for no good reason. Why are we always changing the names of things? It was SeaTac Mall for, like, thirty years, and then they just up and change it? What else will we change? Are we going to start calling “right” “left?” Then what will we call “left?” I know! Let's call it “down!” And we can change the name of “down” to

(Sorry, guys, still working on getting his meds just right. We'll get everything balanced soon. -Ed.)

Ahem. So. We went to Gyros House, and had the Falafel plate, which featured... everything, as near as we could figure. Falafel, pita, hummus, olives, fresh onions, salad, tomatoes, and feta cheese, for about seven bucks each. I'm a huge fan of gyros and kebabs, and so is Lincoln, so we'll be back there again. The food court at SeaTac Commons, or whatever (twitch twitch), is another nice place that meets what I consider to be the concept of the food court quite nicely: loads of great food from all over the world, sold relatively cheaply. I end up there at least once per home-time visit.

Here's a cute Asian girl in glasses, for reference purposes only. Besides, I think we all know what a hamburger looks like.

Sunday I wanted Herfy's.

“I want Herfy's,” I told Lincoln when we got home.

“Okay,” said Lincoln, who is only combative when playing heads-up Gran Turismo 4.

Herfy's was closed, the Koreans who run the place having finally cottoned on to the idea of Labor Day Weekend. I thought the whole point of being Korean was that you never took a day off, ever.

Yummy Teriyaki, next to the Kwik-E-Mercado, was also closed, as was the burger joint next door, as was the taqueria.

“Huh,” I said. “How about Paul's?”

We had recently discovered Paul's Burgers and Teriyaki, stuffed back inside a strip mall in between a health club and the Gene Juarez Academy of Beauty. The first couple of times Lincoln and I went there we had both had stuff from the teriyaki side of the menu; this time, we decided, we'd see how the burgers were.

“If they're open,” Lincoln noted, running a stop sign in the parking lot. “They're Korean too.”

Not only were they open, but we had the place to ourselves, and the cutest little server imaginable. She was obviously a bit on the young side, but she was an adorable little pixie with glasses who cheerfully took our order and brought us out a couple of delicious burgers. We didn't chat with her much, mostly because we try to avoid the Creepy Old Guy thing whenever possible and partly because, for all we knew, that Asian guy back there in the kitchen with all the big knives was probably her dad.

But she was awful cute.

This is what you get when you do a GIS for "Yakamush." Sorry.

Monday was Labor Day, so we didn't have very high hopes of anything being open. We rolled down the hill into Auburn to visit a breakfast place Lincoln found on UrbanSpoon, but it was closed not just this particular Monday, but every Monday.

The Rainbow Cafe, however, was definitely open, so we went in there and had some yakamush, which is kind of everything you want in a breakfast, egg, potato, onion, and bacon, all scrambled together and fried, then slammed onto a plate with some toast. Dump a bunch of Chihula hot sauce all over the top and you've got some energy with which to face the day.

We spent the rest of the day rolling around the area, checking out weird and excellent grocery stores and looking for other restaurants and old Nike missile sites, both of which we found.

Towards the end of the day, we had to head back over to my sister's place so I could get the truck ready to return to work the next day. We were both ready for dinner at this point, and I wanted to eat something before going to the grocery store to shop for food for the truck.

Also known as Hardee's in the east, and as Burger Chef in Indiana circa 1975. Like you care.

I had an idea. I recently got the movie Idiocracy on DVD, and Lincoln and I had enjoyed it a lot.

“You ever eaten at Carl's Jr?” I asked.

They've opened a few in the Seattle area, including one very close to my sister's house.

The thing about Carl's Jr, even though it gets a bad rap in the film, is that the food is actually really good. They do some great burgers, and the fries are tasty, and the staff at our place were helpful and polite to the point of distraction. Lincoln and I both had the Six-Dollar Burger; he had the Jalapeno Burger, and I had the California Burger, and they were both good.

When I'm working, fueling myself is about as exciting and involving as fueling my rig. I have to get some calories so that my body will function. What form that fuel takes is not such a big deal. (Although lately I do tend to watch my sodium intake.)

When I'm with my family, however, eating becomes an adventure. We visit different places, try new things, and experience the joy of discovery together. Whether or not I'm the one preparing the meal isn't relevant.

What is is that journey and destination come together to form something unique, challenging, and, most of all, fun.