Review: How To Cook A Wolf

Pisco dropped by Ethan Stowell’s newest venture, How To Cook A Wolf (awesomely useless site) for a late dinner and walked away with a good vibe. The venue is small (30 seats, perhaps?) and high-end cozy: perfectly dim lighting, ample use of warm tones in the copper wall accents and cork-lined bar, and a marvelous installation of light-toned bent-wood panels from mid-height to the ceiling, which immediately gave me the sense of sitting underneath a mutant Eames lounger. It felt rather thrilling.

The room was full when we arrived just before 10pm, but the hostess graciously offered to call us when a couple seats became available. We gave a mobile number, and then strolled over to Sorrentino, where Fabio poured a great Campari aperitivo at the bar. We chatted briefly about La Spiga, where he used to work, and commiserated about its decline into incredible snobbery popularity after its move to ritzy, high-ceilinged digs on 12th Ave. C’est la vie.

We return to Wolf after the call came that seats were available, and sat down at the bar, just a few feet from Ethan as he calmly threw some greens into a bowl. He has an air of comfort and competence around him; Pisco wishes that more people were that good at what they do. Competence is a truly beautiful trait to behold; it’s a shame that this world provides so few opportunities to see it.

The menu is midsize – perhaps twelve appetizers, six mains, and five desserts. We were informed that they had run out of the soft-boiled eggs with anchovy, which ruined my plan to get the eggs and another appetizer; nothing else sounded appealing at that hour. Luckily there was a tagliatelle bolognese on the mains list; my friend A opted for the frisée salad.

The pasta was a simple, lovely dish, not overly large, but certainly filling enough for most guests. The tagliatelle ribbons tasted fresh, were light on the palate, and perfectly al dente. The ragù was rich, moist, and much better than the last sample Pisco ordered (appropriately enough at La Spiga).

Pisco only had one taste of the salad, but it was remarkably flavorful – a tart, rich bite from just a couple leaves that will remind him to order it next time.

The bread that accompanied our entrées was fresh, having a crunchy crust and light, elastic crumb (center). The olive oil was refreshingly light; both were refilled as we practically inhaled the first plate.

The crowd was reasonably diverse, with upscale patrons ranging from older couples, young women at the bar, and an assortment of Upper Queen Anne hipsters passing through.

Overall, it’s a great new place – Pisco would return solely on the fact that they nailed the lighting, but the experience is overall quite pleasant. It’s appropriately priced too, with appetizers from $5-15, and mains from $12-20. Go there with your friends, lovers, family, or when jonesing for a fresh late-night pasta.

Food: A
Service: B
Ambiance: A
Value: B
Overall: B+

How To Cook A Wolf
2208 Queen Anne Ave. N. [map]
+1 206 838-8090

Review: Joule

A friend of Pisco’s recently went to Joule. Here’s her review:

Salut Pisco, yes we did visit Joule and enjoyed it enormously. It has more of a casual vibe (one big room with kitchen on a raised platform in the middle — weird but seems to work), but the food was exquisitely prepared and served. We special-requested a tasting menu ($75 for seven courses, $35 for wine pairing) which consisted of the following:

1. Savory egg custard served in an eggshell with a tiny sliver of shitake mushroom and dollop of caviar — most of us liked this one but C didn’t because he thought it was too “egg-y”. Served with a Cremant

2. grilled prawn salad with watermelon radish and sweet chili vinaigrette — awesome, the dressing was slightly spicy and complemented the giant poached prawn perfectly. Served with a (Oregon?) chardonnay

3. baby ravioli with ricotta in a light cream sauce (can’t recall the fancy name now) — this one was delightful and all of us scrapped the plate clean. We couldn’t really discern the “asian” element in this dish but they certainly do pasta very well! Served with an unfiltered sake

4. grilled octopus with braised fennel — this was the one dish three out of four of us did not like because the octopus was too chewy. The slice of braised ennel bulb though was delicious… Served with a funky green fennel cocktail — we had mixed reviews of this particular pairing.

5. Kobe beef with kalbi-styled sauce and pureed kambocha squash — all of our eyes rolled backwards in ecstasy over this one… served with a (Chilean?) Cab

6. Blue cheese “creme brulee” with quince jam — a very interesting and flavorful take on the cheese course, imagine something that looks like creme brulee with the burnt sugar topping but underneath a savory creamy Stilton-type of “creme”. Served with a Sautern-like sweet white Bordeaux

7. Espresso chocolate mouse with “ice cream”made with condensed milk — pleasant but not terribly special IMHO, served with a port.

I’m going by memory right now (we’d saved the menu but I’m at my parents’…) but I hope this helps! The neighboring table ordered some sort of potsticker thing that looked good, also a whole grilled fish that i’d get when I go again.

Sounds like a great experience – Pisco looks forward to a Joule visit soon.

Joule [map]
1913 N 45th St, Seattle, WA
(206) 632-1913
www.joulerestaurant.com/