- Oh my gosh.
This is the craziest place in Seattle.
- [Both] That was just the start.
- Oh my God, this cheese is so good.
It's so lovely.
And you've just set the bar really high.
(upbeat music)
I'm in Seattle, and I'm so so excited to be here.
I'm meeting up with my friend Linda
also known as saltyseattle.
She makes the most gorgeous pastas
and she knows all the best places to go,
and she's gonna show me how to eat like a Seattle local.
Let's go meet her.
(upbeat music)
- Alexis! - Linda!
- Welcome to Seattle.
- It's so good to see you.
- God, we always eat so much when we're together.
- My favorite type of friend.
- So, we're in Pike Place Market.
Part of Pike Place Market is Beecher's Cheese.
That's where I'm gonna take you first.
- Best way to start the day.
- Let's do it.
- My name is Jon Gougar.
I work at Beecher's Handmade Cheese.
We're based in Seattle, down in the Pike Place Market.
We have an urban cheese making facility.
At Beecher's, we bring in local milk
from two very high quality farms
and we produce that milk into very high quality cheese.
All of our cheeses are based on our primary brand,
which is Flagship,
an aged sort of a gouda cheddar combination,
lot of depth of flavor.
Well, what's really unique about Beecher's
is you can get the best mac and cheese on earth
and watch the cheese that's in it being produced.
The end product is just excellent.
So, the basic process is pasteurize the milk,
add the carefully selected starter cultures to the milk,
and when the vat's full, we set it,
and then we pump the curds and whey over to another vat
that we use to drain the whey off.
And then we start a traditional cheddaring process,
then we run it through a mill to mill it into curds again
so that we can then form it into blocks.
After the cheese has aged 14 months or longer,
it is converted into the triangle shape that you see.
- [Alexis] Thank you.
- [Cashier] Thank you so much.
- Let's jump into this world famous grilled cheese.
- Okay. - Let's get the cheese pull.
Almost, yes. - Almost.
- Cheers.
- What do you think?
- Oh my God, this cheese is so good
and it's rich and it's salty,
and you've got this buttery toast.
It's so perfect.
- It's everything that is right in the world
sandwiched between two pieces of delicious bread.
- [Alexis] This mac and cheese is so indulgent looking.
- See how creamy it is?
I want to actually tuck myself into a blanket
and warmly envelop myself
in this. - In the cheese.
- We could dive into that vat.
- Full of this cheese, slowly swim through.
Washington cheese, it's a thing, it's incredible.
If you're coming here, you've gotta go to Beecher's.
- I fed you really well because I think our next thing,
we just need to have a nice, solid base to get through.
- I have no idea what to expect, to be honest.
Let's go? - Be afraid, be very afraid.
You can see that I brought you to
probably the craziest place in Seattle,
our tourist attraction called the gum wall.
It actually has been here since the early 90s.
So, it used to be a concert venue nearby,
and before they went into the concert,
people would take their gum out and stick it onto the wall,
and initially,
they would also stick pennies and things onto the gum,
but that kinda fell out.
- I like the initial story.
That has some charm and grittiness, early 90s Seattle.
- They tried to clean in off completely in 2015,
it took over a week to do.
What we're looking at,
this is just the last three years of accumulation.
- That is so upsetting.
It's kind of like wax.
It feels like it's gonna be sticky.
- We gotta contribute, right? - When in Seattle, right?
- Yeah, stick it on.
- Yup. - Right by the bumblebee.
You can come here and spend hours
and sort of do gum graffiti art, and people do.
I would call this the opposite, not Tasty.
- I think we need a cleansing moment.
Shall we?
- Yes, let's do it.
So, we're here at Cafe Hitchcock.
- I am Chef Brendan McGill, and we are here,
downtown Seattle, Cafe Hitchcock.
We're down here in the Central Business District.
People come in for a quick bite.
We wanna make it about twice as good as what they expect,
so we're bringing local farm food,
independent restaurant craft.
We try to source things as carefully as possible,
and we cure and smoke all of our own meats.
Today, we're gonna make a rice bowl
as well as our chicken club sandwich.
Really delicious, but sort of guilt free.
- So, I'm gonna make our chicken club sandwich.
So, we use a potato roll, and this is a green goddess aioli,
and then it's gonna get some bacon jam,
this is chicken breast, we brine all our chicken breast,
and lettuce and tomato.
We're gonna make a rice bowl.
This is a basil pesto into the bowl.
This is a soft boiled egg, so it should have a runny yolk.
So, when you break into it,
it's gonna dress your rice bowl even more.
Purple cabbage slaw, roasted carrots, this is our kimchi,
turmeric pickled cauliflower,
a little bit of raw kale to mix in,
picked haricot vert, and fresnos.
- We like to have fun.
We want you to come in here and have fun too.
- The concept here is a little bit more vibrant
as you can see from our drinks.
We've got a turmeric latte.
- What is this?
- So, this is a blue spirulina.
It's a superfood that is a little bit of a pick-me-up.
- Post-cheese pick-me-up sounds perfect.
- It is!
Seattle, we really like to balance our indulgences.
- [Brendan] So, I brought you a rice bowl.
- Wow.
- [Brendad] One chicken club for you.
- Oh my goodness.
So, you can see it's really colorful and beautiful,
but it's also, it's gonna fill us up.
I think I'm gonna just go
straight in. - Go straight in.
(gasps) That perfect yolk.
- There's a hint of smoke in here,
and then delicious aioli that I want to actually just...
Tradsies.
- This feels so fresh and vibrant.
This is so good.
- Let's try some of these drinks.
Cheers.
- So good.
It tastes a bit like kombucha.
This is so nice to see a real local favorite.
- So, now that we feel so vibrant
and refreshed and colorful,
I'm going to take you on another
really cool colorful adventure before dinner.
You're gonna be so excited that we may dance or skip.
- I can't wait.
- Let's do it.
- We're under an umbrella because it is now raining.
It was so beautiful earlier, what happened?
- This is Seattle, I know.
We're both so excited! (laughing)
- [Alexis] I'm particularly excited
because Waz was just nominated
as one of the 50 best restaurants in the country.
- This is gonna be a gastronomical dream.
- Adventure to cap off this incredible day.
- My name is Hiro Tawara.
I'm owner/chef of Waz Kaiseki Restaurant.
Kaiseki is a Japanese fine dining.
I'm from Kyoto,
so I'm trying to spread
Kyoto style kaiseki cuisine in Seattle.
I wanted to introduce a wide variety of Japanese food.
Every month,
I try to create a new menu
with Kyoto-style traditional cooking method
with local seasonal ingredients.
Kyoto-style cuisine, sometimes it's very old style,
and I'm trying to transform for more modern style.
That's my style.
- Hirosan, we are so excited to be here.
- We are so excited.
- We can't wait. - Thank you so much
for having us.
- Let's start with good sake.
We have crisp. - Wow.
Kanpai!
It's almost like a fresh glass of water.
- I know, it's really floral sake.
- I could get to the bottom of that dangerously fast.
- [Alexis] Really fast.
- So, four dishes today.
The hassun, kind of like an assortment of appetizer.
We put five food in one plate: king crab, hako sushi,
it's sushi rice pressed in wooden box.
- It's like your making us a little gift.
Wow. - Oh my God,
and it's beautiful. - Wow.
- The next one is Japanese style salad
mixed with cucumber and sea eel.
Braise the duck breast with mustard, miso vinegar.
Scallops seared outside and serve it with turnip.
The turnip cured with koji koji, it's fermented rice,
and the last one is (mumbles).
- [Alexis] Oh my gosh.
- I'm scallop sandwiching. - I'm going scallop.
- I need a minute.
I need a private moment with just this.
Is there a room that we could go into?
- The scallop is so fresh and it's sweet.
- It looks so simple,
but the nuances of flavor in that one...
- Are incredible. - There's so much depth to it.
- Okay, I'm going for the duck.
- Oh, it's so smoky, oh.
- All of these feel subtly sweet.
I'm going for the eel.
The crunch from the cucumbers is so nice.
- You have to use really exceptional ingredients to do that.
You should be proud. (laughing)
- And the next course is a sashimi.
Today, it's gonna be a local albacore tuna, live spot prawn.
My sashimi dish is assortment of local fish
and Japanese fish from Japan.
- [Linda] Now we really are gonna cry.
- Oh. - Wow.
I'm goin' prawn.
I'm gonna handhold.
- I mean, it is legitimately
the freshest prawn I've ever had.
It tastes like the ocean.
- It's crisp and firm,
but it melts at the same time. - It melts in your mouth.
That is the waves coming over you.
I'm gonna go for the tuna now.
All of this fish
may be fresher than the fish I had in Japan,
which is crazy.
On to the mackerel.
- I'm gonna say a little prayer for how beautiful that is.
Every flavor is so clean.
- I feel like I'm at a loss for words.
- There's no pretentiousness.
It's presented simply, beautifully, yet simply.
- Next course is a shinogi sushi course
with wagyu beef from Japan and graded A5.
I slice then lightly sear.
Originally, kaiseki not really have meat course,
but in here, the people really like meat.
This one from your left side,
that one is just salt and wasabi.
The other one was ponzu sauce,
grated daikon radish, and chives on top.
- I putting the whole thing in my mouth right now.
I have to just go for it.
It just sings on its own,
and to do anything more to it really would be...
- Sacrilege. - Yeah.
- The ponzu,
you've swqpped the spiciness for a little bit of sweetness,
and this is the highest grade beef on the planet,
and you can taste it.
- Meat in general's not something
that I include in my diet all the time,
and so when I eat it,
I wanna eat it as freshly and as perfectly as possible.
- Last one is yakimoni,
and today's yakimono is local Coho salmon
from Olympic Peninsula,
and it's mixed with a yuzu bushel sauce.
The grilles peach looks like a potato, so...
- We thought they were potatoes.
Those are donut peaches?
- Some customer is confused when they try the food
and it's very sweet.
- I'm trying to keep it together,
but this meal is transcendental experience.
- [Alexis] It really is.
- So, you would say a little bit of donut peach
with salmon at the same time?
- [Hiro] Yes.
- I've never had this combination of flavors before.
It's really really moving.
The salmon is cooked perfectly.
It feels like a palate cleanser, really.
- Dessert course, caramel ice cream.
We make ice cream in house and the seasonal brulee.
It's served with fresh brewed green tea matcha.
It's like a Japanese style affogato.
- I love the careful plating of everything.
- [Hiro] Please pour.
- I'm trying to get everything on one thing.
- Oh my God, the ice cream.
- It's cool and creamy and this kind of burnt caramel.
- The adzuki adds a double caramel to it.
- Really feels like there's been care and thought
into every single ingredient and preparation
that goes into this.
- Now that we're at the end,
from the very first thing I put into my mouth,
there's thought to the sequence.
- I think what's so special about this meal
is everything feels so intentional.
- Hirosan, you've made magic of this evening for us,
and for that, we're going to be grateful.
- Thank you so much.
- Arigato gozaimasu.
- Arigato.
I had so many awesome experiences to choose from in Seattle,
and now I get to choose how to pay for them
with it Pay It, Plan It from American Express.
- Seattle's magical,
but I think part of that is just
getting to share that experience with friends.
It makes Seattle special.
- I truly can't thank you enough.
- 'Til next time.
(upbeat music)