Revelations and a slew of crappy pics

It's been so long ago that this actually happened; I think I can only talk about the major points here:

1. Tara had some savory tarts while in Spain that inspired us creatively. We created flat ones, cup-shaped and pop-tart style tarts, filled with amazing things.

2. Actual caramelized onion and/or fruit is delicious. Previously, I believe anything I've ever had that claimed to be caramelized was truly only greased up and warmed. Don't get me wrong: warm and greasy can be just what I need sometimes- but these pears! They were something else.

3. Regular pie crust dough can be used for tarts but must be rolled as thin as you can possibly stand it.

4. I can drink the crappiest champagne in the world as long as I have raspberries to muddle.

5. My phone takes the crappiest photos in the world. Especially when you have food smeared across the lens and don't realize until the end of the night.

You win some, you lose some.

Finished an otherwise excellent dinner tonight with a scoop of bacon ice cream with the Jocy & the Luis. Let's just say: some things are better off without a liberal dose of bacon grease. Many hours later and my gut is still feeling it.
Tapalaya verdict: Stick with the pulled pork and the steak specials and steer clear of any dairy/pork combos.

Seattle Hamburger Project: Skillet Street Food

The traveling Skillet van was on my hamburger list, probably due to this little creation: Bacon Jam.

I bought Noël one of these to help her with her waffle quest, and was a little disappointed to find out it wasn't an actual jam with a gelatin base, but more of a relish, made with onions, brown sugar, and balsamic vinegar.

But it was still pretty good on crackers and Noël's Christmas waffles, so I needed to find a time to get to the van. The problem was, that it travels around and usually in the Seattle area, not the Eastside, although I heard rumors that they came out to Microsoft some days. So to find them, I signed up for their facebook page, so I would get their locations before they went out, so I could plan around it.

Then one day in the Month of February, they posted they would be out in Woodinville for a wine tasting, so we organized a trip. After driving around Woodinville on some strange GPS generated wild goose chase, we found it and saw the line:

I hate lines. The hamburger better be good, to be worth standing in line with so many snobby rich eastside wine tasters. Over an hour in line, we finally got our order in.


I ordered the hamburger with some chipotle mac & cheese, and Natalie got the Vietnamese sandwich with fries. And I ordered us both the drink of the day with was cucumber, citrus, mint and Fresca all together. It sounded interesting.
It was a pretty good meal, you can see the photos below. The hamburger tasted like a homemade one, the patty was very good, with some blue cheese, arugula and the jam. And a really nice bun. Natalie's sandwich was good, and the mac and cheese as just a little spicy, to make it interesting. The drinks, tasted like ground up cucumber. It was good insomuch that cucumber is good, but the other ingredients didn't seem to do much.
Overall it was good, but worth that wait? I don't really think so. Order some of their jam online, and make your own hamburger at home without the wait....but then the prep time is longer than the wait...so who knows. It is quite the pickle.