Thursday, August 13, 2009

Molly Moon's!

If you were to ask me where to go for the best ice cream in Seattle, I will tell you in a heartbeat, Molly Moon's. It's the best ice cream parlor that I've ever been to.

Location in Capitol Hill, Seattle

What's special about Molly Moon's is that all the ingredients come from farms within 100-mile radius, not to mention that the ice cream is made from scratch in an "ice cream factory" adjacent to the store.


View Larger Map

The illustration of the dog is Molly Moon's own dog.

So after our gift-exchange dinner, we skipped the dessert at Purple, and went straight to Molly Moon's.

Molly Moon's is located in Capitol Hill.

This was our first visit to the store and it was after our dinner, so it was pretty busy. The line was about 15-minutes long!

I did try red currant on the following visit and it was good!

Waiting in line was over and now and we were inside the store. It was very well decorated with cool accents like the milk bottle lamp, black board, etc.

Notice the modern/rustic combo interior design.

I had went on her blog and watched her video featured on a Seattle based tv show. She said that salted caramel was the best seller, so we just had to try it! The other flavor that we tried was vanilla bean.

Look how bit it is!

To be honest, salted caramel was too salty! (Although I found myself craving it days later). Vanilla bean was also an excellent choice! The amount and quality of ice cream that you get is worth the money spent.

Notice the heart on the waffle!

Trying red currant and vivace coffee on the 2nd visit.

The store uses environmental friendly compost materials for all the disposables, including spoons, napkins, cups and papers. In addition to that the waffle cone is actually made on spot. The waffle is baked, wrapped around a wooden cone, then left to harden.

This is how waffle cones are made at Molly Moon's!

For a single scoop with a waffle cone, it only costs $4! If you haven't visited this place, you have to! The place is open 'til 11pm! Although I've only been here four times, my favorite flavors in order are the following: vivace coffee, strawberry, vanilla bean, red currant, raspberry mint sorbet, honey lavender, and maple walnut. I would love to try ginger!

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Gift exchange!

Since neither of us was ready to present each other a gift, we went out to the city to exchange our gifts! We explored Bell Town for romantic restaurants, but to no avail. We went straight to Purple at University St. and 4th.


View Larger Map

Photographer Christine

I've always wanted to go to Purple, and my wish was granted that day! As soon as we enter the gigantic double doors, we were greeted by friendly staffs. The hostess kindly told us that we had to wait around 30 minutes.

Purple with matching designs.

The wait turned out to be only about 15 minutes and we were then seated by the floor-to-ceiling windows. Everything matched in this restaurant, from silverware holder to chairs to patterns of the ceiling.

Menu and silverware

Spiral wine staircase

Did I mention that this is a wine cafe? There is a whole pillar of wines with stairs going through it. Too bad, I'm not into wine just yet. Of course, I had to have a good beer (as a beer connoisseur), so I went ahead and ordered the German Franziskaner Hefe-Weiss beer.

One of the best beers I've tasted!

For starters, we ordered from the specials: Bacon wrapped rabbit tenderloin w/ house made lamb sausage.

Rabbits are good!

For entrées, Christine ordered Gorgonzola and Pancetta. Pennini, walnuts, roasted red peppers, scallions and gorgonzola cream sauce.

Gorgonzola and Pancetta

For mine, to go with beers, I ordered a Lamb Burger. Red onion, parsley, kalamata olive tapenade, roasted garlic sherry aioli and sweet potato fries. Oh man... the sweet potato fries!

Done medium-rare for that tenderness

Canon EOS 30D / EF 50mm f/1.4

You could never get tired of these.

The food was phenomenal and so was the beer. Speaking of which, I ran out of my hefe-weiss, so I went ahead and ordered De Koninck from Begium. It was an amber ale; slightly bitter, but not too much so.

De Koninck

And of course, this was our gift-exchange dinner, so we exchanged our gifts!

Wrapped in Urban Outfitters catalog.

Canon EOS 30D / EF 70-200mm f/4L

Christine being happy!

She gave me an American Apparel hoodie, and I gave her a Dior Chérie perfume. After our extraordinary dinner, we went for dessert: the most-famed local ice cream parlor, Molly Moon's in Capitol Hill. This post is getting way too long now, so I'll write a post on Molly Moon later. Ciào.

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Excessive heat!

I've lived in Seattle for just over a ten years now and never had I experienced weather as this hot. For several days, the temperature is hitting record highs. Rainy days are long gone now.

Today (July 29, 2009) officially marks the hottest day of summer, 2009.

It's 10:30 in the morning, and it's in the 90's.

Look's like Washington state's is being fried.

Photo courtesy of weather.com

Guess who's hittin' the pool today?

Update: it's 3:30pm and it's 102 degrees!

Photo courtesy of weather.com

As you can see below, the heat wave doesn't want to leave at night either.

Photo courtesy of weather.com

71 degrees is the low, at five in the morning...