Today we really hit the ground running. We had a full itinerary. Luckily our bodies are on east coast time so it wasn't that hard to get moving and Nancy is good about getting up when she has to.
First stop was the Chateau Ste Michelle winery. Julie is a big fan of their wine and we didn't get to go there the last time she was in town. While checking out their website for what time they opened I saw they had a garden tour Tues and Thur at 11am for only $10. You can do the regular winery tour for free but Nancy and I have already done it and we thought this would be a great way to get in some walking. We really enjoyed the tour, instead of being with a large group of people it was just us 4 and our tour guide Ann who knew so much about the winery and the foliage all around the winery. I was only partly listening but Nancy can tell you all about the trees and bushes all of the winery if you need an informal tour. It really a beautiful and informative tour and we all enjoyed it.
Now my original plan was to buy stuff and do a picnic lunch at the winery since their grounds are so beautiful but just never got around to the store to get some food but Ann came up with a brilliant alternative, lunch at The Barking Frog! It was two minutes away from the winery and the food is fantastic! Since we knew we were going to be eating a lot for dinner we ordered some salads and apps so that we wouldn't get too full. It really was the perfect amount for all of us. They're famous for their grand marnier prawns so of course we had to order them, as well as penn cove mussels (my family goes to penn cove to harvest our own mussels, this is a lot easier), beef tartar, a baby spinach salad and a dungeness crab and bacon prawn cobb. My fave was the cobb salad, oh my goodness it was so good! Only Nancy and I liked the tartar, it was too strong for the other gals (the beef heart tartar at Damn the Weather is much better, that will be a future blog post) and while the mussels were good, I liked the ones at Toulous Petit more. We all walked away sated and satiated and quite happy with our lunch.
By the time we got settled it was time to get ready for dinner. I know, we just finished lunch! Keep in mind there was travel time to Seattle, 4 girls getting ready in one bathroom and we were making a stop to visit Adam on our way to our event. We checked in to our place at 3:30 and were out the door by 5, that's pretty dang good.
While surfing the web trying to figure out what to do in Seattle while the girls were in town I came across a food event that was happening, Guest Chef Spectacular, a charity event with over 40 local restaurants, wineries and distilleries. Tickets were $85 but I knew my fellow foodies would be as into it as I was and I was correct.
Sorry I don't have pictures of the food, our hands were too full to take pictures. I think the event lasted until 9:30, we tapped out long before then. When you get there they hand you a plate and an empty wine glass and you just proceed to eat. Everything is bite size but it adds up quickly. I was ditching anything non-essential, like bread. Stomach room is precious. Some of the highlights would be pistachio sundaes made with nitrogen, 72 hour braised short ribs, smoked oysters, salmon tartare, loco moco, firecracker shrimp, savory crepes, Japanese cheesecake with passion fruit, crab cake with crab claw on top and more! I didn't even try the sausages which looked good but if I have a choice between seafood or sausage, I'm going seafood!
Next time I do something like this, I would wear more comfortable shoes. I had on flip flops and even tho they were thick, they didn't offer up enough support for hours on my feet. We were all full and exhausted by the time we rolled out of there but we grabbed another pistachio ice cream on our way out, it was so freaking good!
Once we got back to the house, I was ready for bed, it was a late 9pm lol but Julie got us up and motivated so we all changed and went for a 3 mile walk around Green Lake to try and work some of that ice cream off. I would have rather ended the night with a massage but it was a wonderful walk and a great way to end the day.
