Today promised to be such a nice day that I convinced my wife to take a drive out to Wallingford, get a bite to eat at Miyabi 45th and go for a walk around Green Lake.
Our first order of business was finding a parking spot around Miyabi. Much of Seattle near major commercial areas has strict parking ordinances that understandably favor residents. Get caught parking “illegially” and you get an expensive ticket, which we did when we had a wonderful omakase dinner last October. It was raining pretty hard, so we parked just around the corner and hightailed it to the restaurant, not noticing the parking hour restrictions posted on a nearby telephone pole, which turned out to prohibit street parking after 5pm. It wasn’t until a couple weeks later that we received a notice by mail for failing to pay the fine. What happened, I figured out when thinking about it, was the ticket under the windshield wiper dissolved in the steady rain and became unrecognizable lumps of paper. OK, cry me a river.
I so enjoyed the chyashyu seiro soba the last time I lunched here with my daughter. I recommended that my wife get it, while I ordered curry seiro ($12), with a side order of katsu (fried pork, $2). The dipping broth came promisingly dark, filled with bite-sized pieces of cauliflower, carrot and green bell pepper. So as not to taste thin on the dipped noodles, the broth has to be concentrated. Sipping it alone will seem too assertive and salty. This was a satisfying broth with excellent Japanese curry flavor, deep and not harsh. After finishing the noodles, pork and vegetables, there is enough headroom in the bowl to pour in hot water that the pasta was cooked in, served in a teapot-like pouring vessel. It’s when the broth gets diluted thus that it becomes more drinkable, straight from the bowl. Unfortunately, the pork slices were tough and hard to bite through, the only drawback in an otherwise very fine soba (☆☆☆). As good as it was, it doesn’t quite measure up to the superb chyashyu seiro, which I reviewed previously. My wife loved hers.
I was intrigued by the foie gras “tofu,” which I noticed on the menu the last time. Looking like a slice of freshly made tofu (cheesecake even), topped with a dollop of wasabi and honey roasted grape, it instead is a mousse-like cake of foie gras essence, floating in a pool of umami-rich dashi. It’s as if goose liver fat was whipped and combined with custard and truffle oil. How this bit of kitchen wizardry was performed, I’ll never know, but it was outstanding (☆☆☆☆), light yet rich, and at $9, an infrequent indulgence for sure.
Miyabi 45th’s zaru soba caught the attention of food critic Mimi Sheraton in her popular book, 1000 Foods to Eat Before You Die.
Miyabi 45th
2208 N 45th St
Seattle, WA 98103
206.632.4545
Green Lake
The path around Green Lake is used by walkers (with and without dogs), bikers, skateboarders, skaters, scooters and others on any number of wheeled contraptions. It took us about an hour to make the complete circuit, with a brief ice cream sandwich break in between. At almost 3 miles, it arguably is the best urban pathway in the city of Seattle, certainly the most heavily used. Among the numerous mature trees within the park, quite a few of them are coastal redwoods. At this time in spring, yellow irises were in full bloom.
zoomeboshi 
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