Chez Shea (Seattle)

Mr. BW and I are in Seattle, vacationing. Last night, we dined at Chez Shea.

Mr. BW and I both started with the wild mushroom, carmelized onion & gruyere tart. The flavors and textures were amazing. I could have eaten two more!


I then had the roasted golden beets and bosc pear salad. It was light and refreshing, exactly what I wanted.


Mr. BW had the pate campagne with black mission figs. As you can see, the figs were part of the pate, not a side, which was an interesting and pleasant surprise.

I had the house made ricotta gnocci. The chanterelle mushrooms were delightful and the gnocci was lip smacking good.

Mr. BW loved his confit of muscovy duck leg. And when I say he loved it, I mean he didn't offer me a single taste.
His carrot yam puree was delicious, though.

We were so stuffed by the time dessert rolled around that we just opted for coffees. Everything was exquisitely prepared and the service was amazing. The hostess quadrupled as our waitress, server, and sommelier and never let our water glasses get below half full. A great experience -- you can't go wrong!

Harry's Restaurant

Harry's Restaurant / Saloon is a disgusting dive at the corner of 11th and F. Although the place looks far from clean, it's always jammed packed with people and the food isn't too bad.

I've enjoyed the burgers, sandwiches and salads before, but my personal Harry's special is the chili cheese fries!


I picked up an order of these bad boys the other day for lunch and I was in heaven! The food is cheap, the service is fat and good, and it's convenient to work. Harry's gets a thumbs up -- just don't look too closely at the floors or your surroundings!

Mia's Pizza

Mr. BW and I happened upon Mia's Pizza the other day, completely by surprise. We were out and about in Bethesda right around lunch time and thought, hey, what do we have to lose? We've tried both Pizza Paradiso and Two Amy's and while we love both, the endless wait time and the always crowded nature of both restaurants prevents both of us from ever wanting to go when it's just the two of us. Instead, we typically save our Pizza Paradiso and Two Amy's outings to dinners with friends from out of town.

The restaurant features a large dining room, with tables that are actually spread out far enough that you don't feel like you're eating with the group next to you. They also have a large patio (where we sat). By all appearances, the restaurant was extremely kid-friendly, tons of families, little kids, and an ample supply of booster seats.

Mr. BW started with the soup, which he said was delightful.

I ordered the chopped salad with beets, eggs, bacon, tomatoes, and blue cheese. The salad was refreshing, perfectly dressed (not too heavy), and ample enough for me to share with Mr. BW.

Because we're oinkers, we also ordered an appetizer's portion of meatballs and foccacia to share.
Both of us agreed that the meatballs were quite tasty - perfectly seasoned and textured. The foccacia wasn't bad either.

Because we ordered so many starters, we decided to share a pizza.

Our pizza was amply sized and featured pesto, onions, and olives. The crust was great -- must better than Two Amy's, which I found to be slightly undercooked, and the option of having pesto on top of regular sauce, as opposed to as a replacement sauce, was something I appreciated. While I do love pesto, I'm a pizza purist -- I demand tomato sauce and usually, lots of it.

We heartily enjoyed our lunch and will definitely be going back. The lack of the oppressive wait time and the overcrowdedness that plagues Pizza Paradiso and Two Amy's definitely makes driving up to Bethesda worthwhile.

I can't find a website for Mia's Pizza, but it's located at 4926 Cordell Avenue, Bethesda, MD 20814. (301) 718-6427