tourist Archives - Page 2 of 2

Since these two weeks haven’t been exactly the best, I always find myself thinking about my weekend getaway as that was the highlight of my month. So, let us flashback to my weekend in Seattle 🙂

After spending a long day walking around downtown, we were pretty hungry and tired by the time dinner rolled around. Walking around burned all the energy from our lunch at PF Changs. We also witnessed a ridiculous man who was going absolutely crazy, swearing and yelling at workers because their computer broke and had to close the store early. I’ve never seen someone so upset over gelato before!

After that incident, we were walking to the Cheesecake Factory and out of nowhere, this minivan starts honking for two minutes straight, because the car in front of her was dropping off an older man at the sidewalk when the traffic light was red and there wasn’t anything saying they couldn’t stop. WTF?! This is not including the creepy man on drugs who yelled at me at See’s Chocolate hours before but I don’t want to get sidetracked anymore LOL. People are scary sometimes. Anyways, we got to the main Cheesecake Factory location in downtown and waited about twenty minutes in line which was expected for a gorgeous, warm Saturday night.

Maki and Nigiri ordered the seared tuna tataki to start ($17.95 USD). Since it was $18 for a thinly sliced portion, I felt bad having some so I don’t have an opinion on this dish 🙂 But any dish with avocado and seared tuna is good in my books.

For the entree, Maki and Nigiri shared a pasta dish, which I can not remember the name of. Sorry 🙁 The portion was huge though, you can’t really tell from the picture but it is definitely an entree meant for more than one person!
The boyfriend ordered the classic burger ($11.95 USD) which came with a big piece of grilled onion, lettuce, tomato, and a side of fries. I was quite surprised he ordered a plain hamburger, but he didn’t want to over indulge since we were planning on getting cheesecake! To his surprise, he really enjoyed the hamburger and said it was delicious even without the cheese. To this day, he still brings up this burger and wants to have it again, haha!
I ordered the fried shrimp platter ($16.95 USD). I love my seafood, especially shrimp, and this one was no different. The shrimp were absolutely massive, I’ve never had shrimp that big before!

They were very crispy and flavourful. The fries underneath were pretty standard, and I didn’t try the cole slaw because I’m not a big fan of it. None of us enjoyed the special shrimp dipping sauce (the red one in the back), it had a very off putting flavour and was a bit watery and light. I ended up only eating half my entree because I was getting pretty full from the huge shrimp pieces, and plus I wanted to save room for cheesecake (duh).
Finally, the best and most famous part came! Maki and Nigiri decided to split the mango key lime cheesecake (all their cheesecakes have a set price, from $6.95-$7.95 USD). Yummmm!!
The reason why the boyfriend decided to skip out on the cheese for his burger earlier was for this slice of rich, heavenly indulgence, the Godiva cheesecake. One bite was more than satisfying for me, we all found this cheesecake to be very, very heavy and filling even though he asked for no whip creme.

I can’t believe I’m saying this but we felt that there was almost too much of a chocolate taste (I know, impossible right?!). We didn’t really taste the actual cheesecake flavour, just lots and lots of chocolate. I think this would be a good dessert to split among four people, but definitely way too much for one person. Needless to say, he ended up packing half of it back to our hotel because it was impossible to finish.
For myself, I ordered the white chocolate raspberry truffle cheesecake (Oh man, I felt myself gaining a few pounds just typing that out LOL). I had asked for no whip, but they forgot about it so I ended up scooping it off. At first, we were wondering why my cheesecake crust was dark, and thought that maybe it got burnt since the other two looked fine? T

Turns out, my cheesecake came with a chocolate crust. I prefer the original crust cause I didn’t taste the chocolate at all, and it tasted a burnt to me. As for the cheesecake, it was pretty good and rich, but I was hoping that there would be more raspberry to it. Nonetheless, I did enjoy my slice and ended up bringing half of it back to the hotel as well. Of course, we didn’t end up eating both of them and had to throw them out since they melted in the car after outlet shopping. =.=”

All in all, I had a lovely experience as usual at the Cheesecake Factory and am already looking forward to the next visit! There was also some sort of homecoming prom thing for high schoolers that day, and it was very cute to see nervous preteens all dressed up and going on dates with each other 🙂

Andddd, here is a bonus picture of a gorgeous view in Seattle 🙂 Thanks for the great visit, see you next time Seattle ♥

-Carmen

Four starving Canadians in downtown Seattle, roaming the streets for somewhere to eat. Compared to downtown Vancouver, I noticed that the food options in downtown Seattle were more limited. As our street count rose higher and higher, and the grumbling in our stomach got louder and louder, I noticed this “PF Chang’s” restaurant sign while we were looking for a place to eat.

I casually suggested it, as the building it was in looked nice and decent, and I was so hungry I didn’t even care if PF Chang’s was authentic Chinese food, let alone Chinese food at all. To my surprise, Maki and Nigiri had been to PF Chang’s before, absolutely loved it, and agreed to go. Okay, that’s all my starving stomach had to know.
The decor of this PF Chang’s location was very warming, clean, and had both Asian elements (the Terracotta warrior as seen above), Chinese artwork, and Chinese music contrasted against an open concept kitchen, stone tiled walls, and table set ups seen with Western restaurants.

At this point, I was pretty impressed with the fusion and friendly service. I decided to completely strip away my expectation of authentic Chinese food, and try this place as a new Asian-Western cuisine experience. Here is how that went.
For starters, I decided to order their cucumber strawberry limade ($3.95 US). I am a HUGE fan of adding fruits into my drink, those who have dined with me are used to it and I get made fun of all the time. Even though this came first, I decided to wait for my lunch entree before trying this as I wanted the full flavours of cucumber and strawberry to come out (yes, I have fruit water nailed down to a science..I love my fruit water).

I was in love at first sip. The tartness of the limeade went really well with the strawberry sweetness, while the cucumber gave it a really refreshing and crisp end. I also loved how the strawberries were fresh, and weren’t the syrupy ones.

The downside to this drink was that it’s not bottomless, as many of their drinks are. But that goes to show you how much fresh strawberry and cucumber is put into this delicious drink!
After taking a long time to decide on what I wanted, I chose their lunch special which comes with a choice of brown or white rice, a choice of soup (veggie or sweet and sour), and the entree.

I decided on getting the hot and sour soup. I didn’t really enjoy this dish as much because I felt that it had a strong soya sauce and teriyaki taste to it. I would have liked it more if there was beef, chicken, or prawn.

There was a good amount of spicy and sourness to it though.
To this day, I still miss and can’t stop thinking about their chicken-orange rice dish. I have been trying to find a way to copy the recipe so I can still eat it at home, it was that delicious. This was the main lunch entree, orange peel lunch ($9.95 USA) which came with fresh oranges, Hunan chili sauce, and garnished with sprouts.

This was absolutely delicious and I found myself conserving every last bite. The oranges were sweet, fresh, and juicy which mixed well with the spicy chili sauce.

The brown rice was cooked perfectly to my liking, and the chicken breast was lean and juicy. I also liked how my dish was filling, but I did not feel bloated or greasy afterwards!
Maki ordered the lunch bowl as well, she chose Chang’s Kung Pao lunch with choice of scallops ($11.95). I had a bite of this and liked how crunchy the cashews were. She also had no complaints about her food!

Instead of getting the soup for her side, she chose the salad which I really enjoyed. It came with a light, sweet and tangy taste and a variety of different dark greens, my favourite type of salad! Not to mention, the size of her salad was enourmous!
Another entree we got was the pad thai ($12.95). I didn’t try this, but Nigiri enjoyed this dish.
Da boyfriend ordered dan dan noodles ($10.95), which came with a spicy red pepper and garlic sauce, minced chicken and scallions, cucumbers and bean sprouts. He was not expecting his dish to look like this, but ended up enjoying his dish. I had a bite and I liked how the egg noodles had a bounce to them. We both agreed that although the sauce was very flavourful, but was very salty.

All in all, we made a good decision coming here and I left with a good, new opinion of Western-Asian fusion dishes. I’ve never really been a fan of Western-Asian fusion dishes, but PF Chang’s had delicious dishes and lovely ambiance. We had many questions about the menu and our server did a really great job in explaining everything patiently and informatively. He even gave us a sample of the black iced tea!

I wish that PF Chang’s will open in Vancouver one day, as my waiter told me every other Canadian customer has told him. #PFChangstoVancouver anybody?

-Carmen

The Cheesecake Factory, Downtown Seattle

PF Chang’s, Seattle