John Childs, Irene Genelin, Tom Blackwood and I went on a delightful urban Coker ride yesterday. The food section of this post is as long as the ride section and I’m including it just to aggravate Tom who had to leave before chowing down with the rest of us.
We met at my place in Crown Hill about 1:30 and took off for the downtown waterfront sometime before 2:00. The first feature is crossing the Ballard Bridge which links downtown Ballard, about 2.5 miles south of my place, with Magnolia. The linked photo shows the gang on the bridge. They look startled because they have to stare at me …I’m holding the camera. The bridge is navigated by a sidewalk with a tall (20") curb on one side separating you from the 40 mph traffic and a Coker seat height rail on the other side separating you from a 100 foot drop into the drink.
We proceeded through lower Magnolia onto the Terminal 91 Bike trail which links Magnolia to the two concatenated waterfront parks north of downtown. There is a posted speed limit on the trail which JC tried to overcome with his new GB framed Coker with Airfoil rim. JC managed to reach 14.2 mph, a new record for him. The rest of us of course easily broke the speed limit. Blackwood one-footed it.
From this trail, we entered Elliot Bay Park on the waterfront north of town where Irene did some frame stand chin ups showing her extensive athletic prowess at the fishing pier. Here, John and Tom show their athletic prowess at the same spot with downtown Seattle in the background.
We went through Elliot Bay Park into Myrtle Edwards Park, also on the north waterfront, and ended up here, at the downtown waterfront. The view of downtown from there looks like this.
We locked up the Cokers at the bottom of the Pike Place Hill Climb to the market, a long set of stairs and overhead walkways crowded with pedestrians and shoppers. At the market, some sampling and purchases were made at the Garlic Garden as well as some other spots. From October, when Andy Cotter was here, we have a video of Irene idling her MUni as the fish mongers toss fish to her on a different ride. I can only get it to play sideways and won’t post it until I get it upright, maybe JC or Andy will do it. Also, John was reminded of his childhood pet pig, Tonka, in this shot.
Rather than retrace our steps exactly, we took a different route and stopped at Fisherman’s Terminal underneath the Ballard Bridge where John spent some time doing what he does best: hamming for the camera. We finished up with a long climb back up Crown Hill to my place at about 5:00. Tom logged 15.2 miles for the ride.
John, Irene, and I (after copying some photos and managing to get rid of Tom) walked to the end of my street to the Thai Siam restaurant where we enjoyed a meal of Lard Nar, Phad Thai, and Phad Prig King. Irene works out alot and clearly this wasn’t going to be enough. We discussed some of the attributes of sushi with a reluctant John Childs and headed up to the Bento Sushi restaurant, a block north of the Thai place. We waved to the guys at Michaocan Mexican restaurant, an after ride chow house of the past, as we walked by.
At the Bento Sushi restaurant Irene goaded me into trying an eel roll. Eel is not my favorite but I was tempted by her promise that the head of the eel stuck out the end of the roll and I would get to (have to) eat it. I was both disappointed and relieved to find out that she was lying about the head. We asked the chef to also prepare us something of his choice which turned out to be a king crab roll lightly cooked tempura style. The little dessert was rounded out with a Tako salad, a sunomono type salad with octopus and a touch of red chili sauce. I was proud of John for sampling everything.
I promised Irene that the Greek restaurant up the street sold outstanding pita which she would be needing to deliver the jalepeno garlic sauce she bought at the Garlic Garden to her chops for her late night snack. We left Bento and trekked a half block north to Taki’s Mad Greek restaurant to pick up a bag of pita. As soon as we walked in, Taki, at the grill, turned around and saw me and said that he had VERY smoky and garlicy babaganouj that day. He knows I’m a sucker for it. I quickly convinced my partners that they needed to sample this mediterranean treat as neither had heard of it before. It was dynamite. We finally rolled out of the last eatery at 8:00 stuffed to the gills with ethnic delights. Eat your heart out, Blackwood.
