85 Pike Street
Seattle, WA 98101
This is going to be a little bit of a different review. For this review, I'm not just trying one restaurant, but three food purveyors at the famous Pike Place Market. Yes, I know that it's a little weak to just limit myself to three spots, but we were headed out for dinner in a few hours, and I can't eat like I used to. My competitive eating/binging days are sadly past me. As hard as it was, I limited myself to three of the most popular eateries at Pike Place Market.
For those of you that have never visited Seattle, Pike Place Market is the longest continuously operating market in the country. This August the market will celebrate its 115th birthday. The market is the second most visited attraction in Seattle, with only the Space Needle getting more visitors through its doors. Naturally, fruits and vegetables are available here, but also seafood, arts and crafts, retail shopping, and food purveyors of all sorts abound through this nine-acre space.
Not only is the food a big star at the market, but there are other things to see here. The first Starbucks to serve coffee, and not just the beans is located right across the street from the market. The infamous Gum Wall is here as well, for better or worse. It was pretty gross, but we did our part by placing a piece of chewed gum on the brick wall. You also can not miss the fish mongers throwing fish around in the center of the market. There are also plenty of street performers all through Pike Place Market, looking to entertain you, so keep on the lookout.
So where to eat, since there was no way I could eat everywhere I wanted? I went to Yelp and found the three most popular places to eat at Pike Place Market. Not only did these three places have the most reviews at the market, but they were also among the most reviewed restaurants in all of Seattle. Not surprising when you realize that this market attracts 10 million visitors a year. So, now that I had a plan, let's see the best of what Pike Place Market has to offer.
Up first is Piroshky Piroshky. This is mere steps away from the first Starbucks, and almost always has just as long a line as their coffee hawker neighbor. Opened in 1992, Piroshky Piroshky wanted to bring a taste of Russia to the great people of Seattle. What is a piroshky? In its simplest terms, it's a handheld pie with sweet or savory items inside. They are handmade at the small Pike Place location, which offers over twenty varieties to choose from, almost all hovering around the $7 price point.
We went with what the menu called two of their best sellers, the Beef and Onion Piroshky ($7.26) and the Apple Cinnamon Roll ($5.25). The better of the two was definitely the beef and onion, which was nice and flavorful, but what made this for me was the dough encasing the meat and onion. It was flaky and light, and one of the most buttery things I have eaten in a long while. Really satisfying. The apple cinnamon roll is their best-selling sweet item. It's made with sliced granny smith apples, dusted with cinnamon, and topped with a glaze of lemon and honey. It photographed beautifully but was not sweet enough for my tastes. The glaze made the dough a bit stiff, which I was not too fond of.
Stop number 2 was the most reviewed Seattle restaurant on Yelp, Pike Place Chowder. With over 8,000 reviews and a four-and-a-half star rating, it doesn't get any more popular than this spot. Situated on Post Alley, just south of Pine Street, it might just be easier to find this place by looking for the long line of hungry chowder heads. When they opened in 2003, they were unsure if chowder would bring people in. That doesn't seem to be a concern anymore.
For our visit to Pike Place Chowder, I went with the Chowder Sampler ($16.95). The sampler is definitely the way to go when visiting here, as it gives you a great idea of what they are all about. Even if you are not a fan of anything but clam chowder, their other varieties will help to change your mind. We had the New England Clam Chowder, Lime-Coconut Chowder, Smoked Salmon Chowder, and the Crab and Oyster Chowder. Their signature chowder was really one of the best I have had, but I even enjoyed the other versions we encountered. I'm not a big fan of salmon, but the depth of flavor in each spoonful might make me reconsider my take on salmon. The oyster and crab were nicely balanced and popped enough to make it my favorite of the day. I got the lime-coconut on a whim, and even that one was good, but it did still finish fourth out of this quartet.
I also had to try their Connecticut-Style Lobster Roll ($29.95), because, why not, we were on vacation. The four ounces of Maine lobster was placed in a traditional lobster roll and topped with melted butter, a squeeze of lemon, and finished off with a sprinkling of spices and chives. Predictably, this was a very rich sandwich. The lobster was fresh and not rubbery, and the butter helped tie everything together. Delicious.
So, after eating breakfast, and the other two stops on our Pike Place eating adventure, we finished with just a Small World's Best Mac and Cheese ($7.99) at Beecher's Handmade Cheese. Beecher's opened at Pike Place Market back in 2003. In the 19 years since then, they had won numerous awards for their handmade cheeses, including in 2012, when they won Best of Show at the American Cheese Society's annual competition, beating out over 1,700 other cheeses.
The menu at Beecher's includes a trio of sandwiches, two kinds of mac, and three soups. We were so full, but this mac and cheese was hard to put down. They used penne, instead of macaroni, which adds a better surface area for the rich and delicious creamy cheese. The pasta was perfectly cooked, and this came out steaming. Definitely one of the better mac and cheese dishes I have had. Do not miss Beecher's.
If I did not have such a long list of restaurants that I wanted to get to while we were in Seattle, we would have come back to Pike Place Market another day or two. We barely scratched the surface on this visit. These are three spots that you should definitely not miss though. I even dare to say that they are iconic and well worth the long lines if you visit the market on weekends. I'll leave you with this from the great Phil Rosenthal, who says that in order to get a feel for the food of a particular city, you should first head to its food halls and markets. Pikes Place Market definitely felt like the heartbeat of food culture in Seattle.
For more information about Pike Place Market, head to their website by clicking here: https://www.pikeplacemarket.org/
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