Lunch at the Elliot Bay Cafe by Susanne Rankin, Palace Kitchen
The subterranean Elliot Bay Cafe is located below the Elliot Bay Book Company in Pioneer Square. You can enter through the bookstore. But this route will lead you on a path of temptation and so, unless you forgot your book at home, I suggest you enter through the door located at the bottom of the staircase dropping through a hole cut in the sidewalk on South Main Street. Watch out that you don’t fall from the weird ledge lying in wait for the unsuspecting patron who fails to heed the “Please Watch Your Step” sign as he or she walks through the door. For those who do fall and tumble dramatically into the cafe, suspending activity within, I would prescribe a cheerful attitude and a resolution to consider the import of warning signs more carefully in the future.
Once inside the danger is considerably lessened and you can investigate at length the menu resting on the podium standing in the middle of the room. You place your order at the counter with the chipper young woman who will ask your name. After a short while a sad-eyed gentleman with the voice of an angel will call to you over the loudspeaker and you can go to the counter to collect your lunch. And what tasty lunch will you have today?
Perhaps you will try the grilled cheese sandwich. Fontina, goat cheese and spicy red peppers make tender three-way love between two sheets of toasty artisan bread. House-made potato chips or couscous salad watch the action from the side.
The macaroni and cheese is just as naughty, bubbling away with multiple fats beneath a layer of crunchy breadcrumbs. You might complain that it’s served in a bowl rather than a barrel. But I would urge you instead to exercise self-discipline and to eat your mac and cheese slowly, one bite at a time, and when you finish it twenty minutes later you might find yourself full and utterly satisfied.
Salad is, admittedly, a virtuous genre, but the mound of power vegetables in the Almost Raw Salad is virtuous enough to justify a bad habit for at least another week. Kale, cabbage, and beets of many colors jostle in a bowl studded with pine nuts and pumpkin seeds. The vegetables are cooked just enough to bring them to the edge of tenderness without sacrificing any natural snap. As you mop the last of the citrus dressing with the crust of your rosemary bread, you fancy you can feel the phytochemicals marching through your blood where they will right all previous wrongs.
Suddenly, you hear your name invoked over the loudspeaker in deep and sonorous tones. Are you being called to a higher purpose? Summoned to a greater task? No, it’s just time for you to get the red velvet cupcake and mocha with whipped cream you ordered earlier. But with Almost Raw still in your mouth and voice of the angel still in your ears, you can think for a moment that your journey will be more than what it is.
(Editor’s note: not long ago, the Elliot Bay Cafe underwent a major renovation, and reopened with the esteemed Tamara Murphy, chef-owner of Brasa, as its chef.)
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