The Most Famous Fish Market In America

I'm still super busy at work, but I wanted to get at least one entry out there.

I spent 8 days in Washington and Alaska- my longest vacation in two years. I took more than 300 pictures and experienced some really beautiful and unique things. This was my first time traveling in the US past the Mississippi, and I must say I was extremely pleased with my first city on the Left Coast- Seattle. I like Chicago. I really like Boston. But so far Seattle has won me over as a super cool city.

For one, they are the ONLY city thus far that has heckled me in my Steelers shirt (a big kudos point from me- as lots of people apparently hate my team, but few dare say it to a fan's face! That took some chutzpah!) I remember looking out of the window as I landed and thinking how GREEN everything looked, just before the stewardess welcomed us to the "Emerald City". When I got off the plane, I immediately felt like I was out of shape and was killing the Earth: everyone there was thin, dressed like a 1990s J.Crew catalog, with biking gear in hand and a recycling bag in the other. They even have COMPOSTING at the airport. Seriously. Even though I felt like a fish out of water, I was in complete awe and excited to learn more.

Seriously.

Speaking of fish, one of the first places I stopped at in Seattle was the famous Pike Place Market. Now, the only prior knowledge I had of this place was The Real World: Seattle and a book I was forced to read (but enjoyed) at a part time job I once had. My godmother and I took the five minute walk from the Monorail to the market and I fully expected to see a bunch of fish and guys in bloody aprons throwing lobster tails around. There was some of that (well, they weren't bloody anyway) but there was SO much more! Pike Place of course has fish mongers, but also has fruit and produce stands, flower shops, cafes and diners, novelty shops, and all sorts of things made by local business owners like cakes, jellies, candies, even chocolate noodles (which I actually tried. They weren't bad, but I don't see how practical they are). Here are some highlights of my visit:

Sosio's Produce

This was one of my first stops in the market. Sosio's was the best looking produce stand that I saw, and they were generously slicing up peaches and mangoes for passersby to sample. I like fruit and all, but generally am not hugely pressed to eat peaches, and while I like mango flavored stuff, the actual mango itself has proven to be...unpleasant texture-wise to me. Not so at Sosio's! Before I could even say "No thank you," I had a huge chunk of peach in my hand that tasted...like candy! It was crazy sweet. I literally said "Oh my God!" when the woman who had given me my piece smiled and pointed to the sign posted above their peach display:

Apparently I wasn't the first to say that after tasting this fruit.

After my cruise (to Alaska...more on that later!), my godmother and I went back to Sosio's and bought peaches to take home with us. It was then that I got a chunk of mango that was melt in your mouth good. Seriously. From someone who doesn't even like mango. If I lived in Seattle they would be my exclusive fruit provider- not only are the products tasty, but they LOOK and SMELL good. And there is a wide variety- I saw huckleberries in real life for the first time (but I wasn't that brave to taste them as well) as well as homemade fruit candies and vegetables too. I really loved this place!!

We were starting to get a little hungry, and almost all of the cafes and diners were crammed with people, so we rushed into Le Panier for a quick snack and drink. I love food, but French food has been something that I just can't really bring myself to say I LOVE. And while French bread is tasty, the pastries I've had have usually only been okay. However, since we learned the market was soon to close (we got there around 4 on a Monday, and by this time it was nearing 5pm), I didn't have room to be picky. Most of the staff was friendly- even if you could tell they were a bit annoyed at the last minute rush of customers that my god mom and I were a part of. Not being very familiar with the scant offerings they had left, I picked out a pastry I had at least seen before (a croissant aux fruits abricots). I also tried a macaroon- even though I've had them before and can say that I truly am just not a fan but I was willing to give them another shot- and at an employee suggestion picked a pistachio flavored one.

My pastries

While I enjoyed the apricot pastry (allowing for a little hardness because it was the end of the day and they had been made early in the morning), I am still not a fan of macaroons. There were people looking to get into the shop after the employees had closed the doors, and that was when the staff  started to get a little sarcastic and borderline rude with the remaining guests. I personally felt very rushed as a guy sweeping right next to our table blatantly ignored my godmother as she asked him a question about the pastries. Not the worst service I've ever received (no, that honor still belongs to Marble House in Rhode Island) but it took away some of the magic of being able to say I ate at a quaint place in Pike Place.

What made up for it was being able to say that I went to the FIRST Starbucks just a few doors down. I picked up some coffee and mugs for friends that are coffee addicts- me myself if I drink two cups of coffee a year I'm doing a lot...I'm a loyal tea drinker. But I loved that it didn't look like every other Starbucks you've ever seen anywhere. No forest green fabric awning, no hipster music blasting out with CDs to be hawked at the register. It was completely unlike my normal experience with Starbucks, and I loved it!

But I can't mention Pike Place without talking about fish at all, right? Well, my godmother spent $300+ dollars on lobster tails and crab legs to be shipped to her home from one of the less famous fish sellers (who were nonetheless friendly and eager to fill her order), but the stand everyone knows about is the Pike Place Fish Market. I was hoping to get a recording of them throwing fish around and happily interacting with customers, just as I had read in the book and read about on travel site reviews, but since it was so late in the day there weren't many people buying fish and I'm sure they don't toss around their products just for non-buying tourists to take their photo. And they had a LOT of fish and seafood on display. One in particular was a weird flattened out looking fish that I wanted to get a closer look at. It had a sign above it that said "I am a monk fish". Just as I was getting ready to snap a photo...

It moved and a loud noise came from it! Those jerks at Pike Place fish had it hooked up to a wire and when unsuspecting folks walk by it they scare the begeebers out of you with that trick. Needless to say everyone around us looked at me like I was a complete fool because I yelled so loudly, but I'm not worried about that.

from http://erincooks.com/pike-place-market-hello-im-a-monk-fish/
That thing is terrifying!!

Well, I have quite a few more adventures to type up for you, and slowly but surely I will get them done! In the meantime, all of my photos are up on Facebook. Feel free to take a gander, and "like" my page while you are at it!

Thank you for reading my blog, and as always, I'll see you on the next adventure!