Recently I had had lunch with a friend at Local 360. This is how Local 360 describes itself:
Local 360 is a sustainable restaurant and food producer, based in the heart of downtown at the corner of 1st and Bell. Our emphasis is on local sourcing, with the majority of it falling within a 360 mile radius of Seattle.
We ordered the special there: chicken fried steak with an egg over grits. It was excellent. A bit on the not-so-light lunch side of things, but the chicken was moist and flavorful. I’ll have to visit for dinner.
Recently I had the opportunity to dine at couple of Italian restaurants in Seattle. My stand on Italian restaurants has been generally along the line “I am paying too much for below quality food”. Lately I have been a little more relaxed and I am trying to checkout some of the local restaurant to really assess where they are at.
A positive note came from Volterra. The restaurant serves a more contemporary Italian food. The menu has a good selection without going crazy with the number of dishes. The appetizer (marinated calamari) was on the overpriced side and not too good (too much citrus…could not taste the calamari). The pasta was much better, although the quality was not consistent among the 4 pastas we ordered (there 4 four of us and I ordered wild boar):
Linguine with clams sauce (Linguine alle Vongole): This was just OK. This is not a difficult dish to make and with good ingredients usually a sure hit. I found it a little plain with the pasta just a bit undercooked. I would not reccomend it.
Fettucine with Shrimp and Pesto (Fettucine alla Genovese): The sauce was good. The fettucine were definitely undercooked. I mean you could taste the flour in the middle.
Wild Mushrooms and Truffles (Tagliolini Tartufati): This was a fantastic dish and the best of the entire dinner. I would highly reccomend this one.
I did not order pasta and went for the wild boar. It’s something I don’t get to eat too often and I just love it. The dish called for a gorgonzola sauce. Unfortunately I am not a gorgonzola fan. I asked if I could have a different sauce and the chef accomodated my request and I was able to get it with the wine sauce that they use for the medallions. The sauce was on the stronger side for the wild boar, but it was pretty good overall.
Overall it was a positive experience. The price was on the higher end (I think we paid about 40USD each, but we also ordered couple of bottles of wine), the service was standard good and the food good (could be very good with a little more attention…maybe that night they were rushing it a bit).
Note: at the time of this post the appetizer is actually off the menu.
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