Everything on this plate was absolutely fantastic!
I have gone to "The Bite of Seattle" for years now, mainly for one reason. That reason is the little gourmet food section called "The Alley." Sure, there are other vendors all around with great smelling foods, but "The Alley" gives you the best for your money. Even if the food is not to your liking, at least it goes to a good cause, of feeding the homeless in Seattle.
I really feel it was smart of "The Alley" this year to change their menu around significantly each day. Usually they change only one menu item of about 7 to 8 items and the rest are all the same. This year, all but one item was different! Every day had the beat soup.
One small complaint I have is that the menu online and in the fliers were not accurate. So on some items, I am not really certain what I ate or from where. I guess I should have paid attention more to the people at the booths, but I figured since I had a paper insert and the menu online, I could figure it out. I have read other people's blogs to find out as well, but obviously some of them were not paying attention to what they were eating. There was no chili served on the 3rd day of the bite. A salad was substituted instead. I am not even sure if it was from the same restaurant or not.
I would have to say that the Pastrami sandwich from Roxy's was the stand-out item on the first day. Absolutely excellent.
The second day, the pork sausage stuffed with crab on a side of corn with mint from Palace Kitchen stood out, as well as the lemon and sugar crepes from Anita's. I was not crazy about the seafood mix from Salty's. However, they have presented crab cakes at a previous Bite, and they were good, so it is not Salty's that I don't like, it was the entree. My dad enjoyed it though. Both my aunt and I gave him ours.
The third day, everything on the plate was absolutely excellent! Sure it was the third time I had the soup, but it held it's own with the other flavors. I really liked how everything tasted different from each other on the third day of "The Alley." The Chocolate Mini Tower might have stood out a little more than the rest, but not by much. It was absolutely delicious, and was presented in a very pretty way.
If gourmet is not your thing, there are a variety of other foods to choose from at other booths. I saw booths that served prime rib, hamburgers, ice cream, various ethnic cuisines, and fried macaroni and cheese. Tempting to try, but no, I did not.
The Foster Farms chickens were there as well! Flying high were a couple of feathery balloons of the chickens, while on the ground there were some that you could have your photo taken with. They were there to promote "Say No to Plumping!"
If food isn't your thing, (but why wouldn't it be?) they have other activities as well. Like an area set up to see how far dogs could jump into a pool of water. It was more entertaining than I even expected. While some dogs jumped right into the water, there were several that absolutely refused to get wet! It was funny to read their body language as their trainers tried there hardest to get them to go in.
A feathery Foster Farm Chicken flying high by the Space Needle
If food isn't your thing, (but why wouldn't it be?) they have other activities as well. Like an area set up to see how far dogs could jump into a pool of water. It was more entertaining than I even expected. While some dogs jumped right into the water, there were several that absolutely refused to get wet! It was funny to read their body language as their trainers tried there hardest to get them to go in.
There was also some great entertainment at The Bite this year. I really liked the Seattle group called "Magnolia Road." They did several covers of dance rock music of the past as well as today's music. My dad liked "Rat City Brass," who does Herb Albert type music... I said "who?" They were pretty good.
Overall, I think it was the most fun I have had at the Bite, as well as the most time spent out there. Next year, I will probably go back down to just one day to go. It was a fun time though!
