Seattle's Best Food Trucks

Seattle is definitely a little behind on the food truck game compared to its sister city to the south, Portland, and California was wayyyy ahead of the game. But lately we definitely feel a larger presence around the city and we are even starting to get some decent sized pods popping up around town. Which is exciting, because who doesn't love more casual and delicious dining options? If you just raised your hand, we kindly ask you to leave this blog. We don't want food truck haters here. After all the saying goes: Peace, love, and food out of a truck. 

If you are curious where a few of the "hubs" are you can check out this website as a resource. 

Here is part one of our "Best of Seattle: Food Trucks". Let us know in the comments if we missed any of your favorites! We have tried a ton, but not every one, so speak up! 

Nosh

Nosh serves up British/American grub and let us just say, everything they make is DIVINE. Yep, we just used that word and it was in a serious manner. We've been to the UK and are okay saying their fish 'n chips are the best we have ever had. Best. Ever. Other awesome menu offerings include the Caprese Baguette and the Roasted Bone Marrow.

RoS Insider Tip: Always use eating at Nosh as an opportunity to say "Cheerio chap!" in a British accent as you get your food.

Napkin Friends

Have you ever looked at your sandwich and thought, "Wow I really wish someone would take this to the next level."? Enter Napkin Friends. They looks at that sad, plain, tasteless bread you put on either side of your sandwich fixings and decided to replace it with two deep fried latkes aka a potato pancake. Our favorite is the B.L.T.G.A. Imagine two hash brown patties and then stuffed bacon, lettuce, tomato, gouda, and avocado in between. Hungry? 

Delfino's Chicago Pizza

Delfino's has a brick and mortar location in University Village and to everyone's delight a food truck too. They serve up Chicago style deep dish pizza as personal sized pies. Honestly we always wish we had like 1-2 more slices, but if you're craving pizza, this will hit the spot. 

Off the Rez

If you aren't familiar with Indian Fry Bread, well then you haven't been living. Off the Rez is famous for their version of tacos. They start by deep frying dough for the "shell," it comes out puffy and soft, but a little crispy. Then they top it with sweet or savory goodies! You absolutely cannot go wrong getting a couple 10 hour slow cooked BBQ pork tacos along with a nutella sweet taco to top it off! 

Where Ya At Matt?

This southern/creole inspired food truck is great when you are looking for some flavor! The smothered chicken Po'boy and the Shrimp and Grits are hard to stray away from. The spice is just right and leaves your mouth and your stomach smiling! 

Photo by Mark Gsellman

Bomba Fushion

Bomba Fushion lets you do a create your own bowl/burrito/taco style meal. They combine Korean and Mexican foods to bring you mind-blowing delciousness. Think nachos covered in spicy pork bulgogi. Or if you want something a bit more traditional you can get a colorful Bibimbap bowl with our favorite part, the perfectly fried egg!

El Cabrito Oaxaca

If we had to pick one food to eat for the rest of our lives, it would probably be tacos. So this food truck gets a lot of love from us. El Cabrito makes traditional style Mexican food for a great price. The taco plate is where it's at. $7 for four street tacos. yes please! We recommend piling them with the carnitas or al pastor because this places knows how to cook pork. 

The Tallest Drinks in Seattle

The Smith Tower's Temperance

The Smith Tower got a facelift this year! For those of you who haven't been to the new and improved Observation Deck yet, we highly recommend it. Along with the all-time favorites like the lever-operated elevator, The Wishing Chair, and the incredible views at the top, the experience now includes a much higher amount of educational content and a speakeasy style bar! Seems so obvious now that the space was always missing a bar, how did we not figure this out sooner?!

The staff was incredibly friendly and helped us land on a delicious cocktail named Serenity for our drinking pleasure. In true speakeasy fashion it was strong, but good. And you can sip it in comfy chairs as the sun sets on Seattle. It really is a beautiful space with a wonderful view.

The Smith Tower is 35 stories tall (462 ft.), placing it in 3rd place on the list. It might not be the tallest, but something about standing amid all the buildings that have sprung up since 1914 is pretty magical. 

Space Needle's SkyCity

SkyCity is the high-end, rotating restaurant at the top of the Space Needle. The restaurant is the shape of a donut, wrapped around the Space Needle right beneath the observation deck. When you exit the elevator you are led to a table along the outer edge; definitely try to get a table against the window -- watching the city circle below you is a ton of fun! When you eat/drink at SkyCity you also get complimentary access to the Space Needle's observation deck, so make sure to factor in time to head up before or after dining.

At over 500 ft. tall, SkyCity sits in second place on our list of tallest drinks in Seattle! 

Insider Tip: Going to SkyCity does comes with a food and beverage minimum. Dinner is a tad pricey at $35/person, but they have a promotion right now for Sunset Hour with a lower minumum of $25. For comparison a ticket to just the observation deck is $22, so we think this is the way to visit the Space Needle! From 2:30 - 5:30, Monday - Friday, you can go to the top, have a drink while the sun goes down over the city, and visit the observation deck. It ends December 16, 2016 though so hurry on over! 

Columbia Center's Sky View Observatory

Columbia Tower is the tallest building in our skyline and also has the highest observation deck in Seattle (we covered it here). Your ears will pop as you ride the elevator up to the 73rd floor. When you arrive, you will be granted beautiful 360-degree views of the entire area and this is the only observation deck that includes unobstructed views of the Space Needle and the floating 520 bridge. On clear days you can see as far as Mount Hood in Oregon. 

Their cafe/bar is a bit lacking compared to the other places on this list. It's the Panera Bread to the Space Needle's McCormick and Schmick's. But, they have local beer and wine and happy hour, which is exactly what we were looking for when we visited after work at 5:00 PM. We sipped on a Naughty Nellie from Pike Brewing Company and a red blend from Chateau Ste. Michelle.

At 900 ft. this is the tallest you can be in the city while sipping on an adult beverage! 

The Tallest Geographic Point- 35th and Myrtle

Well what do you know? The tallest geographic point in the city is not in Queen Anne, it is in West Seattle in the Delrigde neighborhood at 35th and Myrtle St. We wouldn't recommend drinking here though (do as we say not as we do), as the city frowns upon opening beers on street corners, but we found a really great bar, The Westy, nearby where you can enjoy a nice taplist along with wine and cocktails.

This one is obviously a bit off trend from our previous three, but we thought it would be a fun one to include-- now you know a little piece of Seattle trivia! 

Standing at the tallest geographical point in Seattle!

Alright folks. That concludes our drinking in tall places post. it was random. It was fun. We raise our glass to you for reading Rain or Shine's recommendations! 

Cheers!

Seattle Brewery Tour: Capitol Hill

By now you probably know we are working our way around the city to taste all that our local breweries have to offer. Here are the results from our trek around Capitol Hill. 

Optimism Brewing 

Quote by the bar at Optimism Brewing

Optimism is an intriguing new addition to Capitol Hill breweries. This open beer hall is the creation of a Microsoft/tech power couple who were tired of software. Naturally, they decided the next step in their lives would be to open a humble, 16,000 sq ft. brewery in one of Seattle's hottest neighborhoods. 

When you walk into Optimism you feel the openness of the massive space, their brewing operation is front and center and they have communal seating. The yellow paint and large windows give off a light feeling. Perfect for drinking a beer with some friends. 

Many beer enthusiasts will pause in confusion when reaching the bar to order though. Optimism's owners have been clear they want to bring beer drinking back to the "every day (wo)man." So instead of calling it a Stout, they describe and label their beers with more general names (Ex. Black: bold, coffee, nutmeg). 

They state beer is "not something that should be intimidating, pretentious or expensive. For this reason, we try to make beer approachable to everyone by describing our beers in ways that everyone can understand without beer-geek jargon."  

It's a nice thought. Not sure if it really works though.

Regardless of how they name the beers, we've found that they do indeed know how to create beer that tastes good, which is more important than anything else. Dive into a sampler and you'll agree with us.

Sampler at Optimism Brewing

In addition to the good beer, the no-cash checkout is speedy which means you'll never wait in a long line and the food truck pod in the back brings delicious food to their door. You can also bring your own food in to enjoy with their beers. 

And can we just get on a soapbox for a minute and say that the way they've done their bathrooms is how EVERYONE should be doing bathrooms. Seems so obvious. Thank you, Optimism.

Our favorites? Amplify and Zest

Elysian Brewing Company

Night Owl Pumpkin Beer at Elysian 

Elysian. Ohhhhhh Elysian. We used to all love you without question. You made great beer. You were Seattle's pride and joy. Then you sold to Anheuser-Busch. You went corporate. And now we are all confused. 

We will try to put on our unbiased reporting hat for this review though.

Capitol Hill is Elysian Brewing's original location, which opened in 1996. For the most part, it's your classic brewpub (their food is decent). There isn't any trendy logo or minimalist design like these hot new kids on the block. It's a more traditional atmosphere with exposed timber and dark, heavy curtains hanging in the windows. 

As for the beer. It's delicious. They might have sold out, but they didn't change the recipes that have made them big enough to gain interest from the largest beer company in the world. Right now they have their famous pumpkin beers on tap, which go well with the rainy, chilly weather!

Our favorites? Space Dust and Super Fuzz

Outer Planet Brewing

A "One of Everything" sampler at Outer Planet 

Another new brewery to Capitol Hill! Outer Planet opened in 2015 and is a small operation, but it has a great vibe and some good beers. With their live music performances and huge pile of card and board games you can always bank on entertainment while you drink. 

Their taps are also fun to say, with names like The Meddling Monk and Galaxy Girl it will make you spark up a conversation with the brewery owner to find out what inspired them. 

Oh, and did we mention they just recently started serving pizza? I mean why wouldn't you go check this place out? 

Our favorites? Kumbaya Supernova IPA and Spacetrucker Brown

Standard Brewing

Photo from Instagram by @nathaniel.stott

This small brewery up on Jackson St. is wonderful. It might technically be the Central District, but we wanted to include it here because it's not too far and you gotta know about this place!

With what seems like a million breweries opening up around the city it's hard to accomplish a unique vibe. So many are starting to blend together in look and feel. We think Standard's ability to do something a little different is what drew us in. And fortunately for us they are doing a pretty good job on the beer front too. 

With 12 beers on tap you'll have plenty of options, regardless of what you like you'll find something good here. If you need help choosing a truly exceptional one though, they have two award winners from the WA Beer Awards this year, the Imperial IPA (bomb.com people) and the Brett Earl. They don't serve food but allow you to bring it with you, so hit up a food truck and head on over. 

Our favorites? Imperial IPA and West Coast IPA (We like IPA's okay?)

Seattle's Best Dumplings

Din Tai Fung

In our humble opinion, Din Tai Fung is the king of soup dumplings. The wait at this restaurant is always obscene, but it's worth it. Our tip? Don't go with a party bigger than two. Then when you arrive, try to snag a seat in the bar area. Same delicious food, 1/8 of the wait time! 

What to order? Pork XiaoLongBao and Spicy Steamed Pork Dumplings (Foodie Tip: the sauce the spicy dumplings come in is also great poured over fried rice)

Fu Man Dumpling House 

Fu Man Dumpling House is famous for their garlic dipping sauce. It is CRACK. Probably full of all sorts of bad stuff, but who cares. Indulge, pour it all those steaming, delicious dumplings and enjoy how happy your mouth feels. 

What to order? Fu Man Boiled Pork and Vegetable Dumplings 

Judy Fu's Snappy Dragon

Judy Fu is literally making your dumplings in the back room. She gets mad respect from us because even though these dumplings are misshapen and, compared to others, quite skimpy on the stuffing, they are so so good. We could eat 20 alone (we aren't saying we HAVE, but you know...we COULD). 

What to order? Pork and Vegetable Jiao-Zi, the handmade noodles are also to die for! 

Little Ting's Dumpling House

Little Ting's has great dumplings which are made fresh every day before each shift. They also add to the great dumplings with their friendly service and cute decor. 

What to order? Pork and Chive Dumplings and the Pan-Fried Scallop and Chive Dumplings