Frank Bruni, former restaurant critic for The New York Times, gave the Pacific Northwest’s cuisine a once-over in the June 10 issue of the publication of which he now an Op/Ed contributor.  Focusing mostly on Seattle and its surrounding areas, Bruni praised the inventiveness of PNW cuisine, noted the region's want for artisanal food preparations and commented on the region’s abundance of local food resources, particularly fish.  

First of all, let’s be pleased that the most venerable of all publications, The New York Times, decided to write about us at all.  Whether or not a review from the newspaper can make or break a restaurant, a book or concert tour, any review from that paper means that you are no longer a backwater joint, only known to the few locals that have found you.  

And that’s one of the funny things about Bruni’s focus on the Ballard neighborhood’s the Walrus and the Carpenter—it’s so hard to find.  Not to say that the restaurant isn’t beloved by locals—it is—just that it doesn’t seem like it wanted to be found by Seattlelites, New Yorkers and everyone in between.  The restaurant is buried way off of the main street in Ballard, far enough that if you are walking from the main drag, people you bring will invariably ask, “did we miss it?”  It shares a building with a bike shop.

But Bruni found it. He also found the region’s abundance of oysters and Dungeness crabs.

As for the rest of the article, I will never understand why writers find it necessary to make generalizations about entire regions.  Bruni says that people in the Pacific Northwest fit the cliches. They like bikes, flannel and tattoos, progressiveness and humanitarian causes.    We’ve heard the before. The newspaper even uses a photograph of a waiter wearing a curled mustache, cap and suspenders holding a plate of oysters at Seattle’s The Walrus and the Carpenter restaurant as the cover image. Don’t worry New Yorkers--that’s what we all look like! Can’t you stick to generalizing about the crabs?

But he won me back with his Seattle restaurant picks.  He somehow found Knee High Stocking Co., a make-believe speakeasy hidden in Capitol Hill, housed in a tiny space without a sign on the front door.  

He also visited Revel, a new Korean fusion restaurant in Fremont.  He compared the restaurant to Manhattan’s hugely famous Momofuku, which was an unsurprising course of action, but also praised the bibimbap he found there.  

He calls Ballard “a traditionally unglamorous neighborhood being embraced by fashionable restauranteurs,” as if the neighborhood, one of the city’s hippest and most established, had just recently been discovered. He mentions much-loved Seattle chef Maria Hines’ Middle Eastern attempt, Golden Beetle, along with the Walrus and the Carpenter.  The Walrus and the Carpenter was his favorite restaurant, maybe ever.

Overall, the article was complimentary towards the Pacific Northwest. The New York Times is often quick to judge anything outside of the east coast as a whole-hearted, but childlike, attempt at something NYC had already perfected, but the article was rarely condescending. But foodies outside of Seattle should really be seething--where was Portland?--the article should have narrowed its focus just to Seattle and surrounding areas.  Overall, thanks to Bruni, I have some interesting new recommendations in the San Juan Islands to try.