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Thursday, December 8, 2011

MAXIMILIEN FRENCH RESTAURANT PIKES PLACE

Whenever people would go to Seattle, they'd come back and go, "Hey Ron, man you're a cook, and you love food, if you ever go to Seattle, go to Pike's Place and check out all the good shit there, it's awesome!" Okay I always thought one of these days before I croaked on pork rinds, I'd be in Seatlte, in fact I drove into Seattle a few years back but just drove in and  drove back to Portland, it was a cool drive close to summer, but that Seattle visit... well that didn't really count.


Fast forward, to 2011, December 6. I had to visit my sister and her husband who live about 3 hours east of Seattle, and where was the first place we went? Pikes! It was so huge, that whole area, I need like a whole day to check that place out, and the fish market, I had to see those guys fly a salmon across the counter just to see it. I mean people travel thousands of miles to Maui where I currently live to see a luau, I had to go just as far to watch the mongers throw fish, cool! And the mongers gave us samples of salmon, smoked, peppered, with herbs, and the guy even spoke Pidgin English, "Broke da mouth brah!" Wow, nuts!


But I was traveling with my sister, Esther, and her husband John McKivor, and if there's any two foodies that knows their shit, it's Ess and John. John's a trained chef, and my sister worked in restaurants handling the books, in fact my sister, John and my late brother Harold were partners in a restaurant on Maui, a 9 year success in a dig called the Honokowai Okazu Ya, their star dishes were Mahi with Capers, Chow Fun w Black Beans, and all kinds of other dishes that well, Broke da Mouth!


As we were getting a tad hungry, John and my sister ran upon a little French food place called Maximilien, overlooking the pier, despite it being foggy I was thinking, "Nah this is cool, fog, nice, not bad, at least I'm not on Maui driving a shuttle full of tourists around being bummed out the whole day."


We were greeted by some dude with a French accent, "Elloo, how meny?" We sat down on a nice shiny wooden table, it was very small, in fact I started to stretch, I almost gave the lady next to me a freekin black eye. Nice though.


As I glanced on their small menu for lunch, I noticed Coq Au Vin, chicken in wine, but I went on to get the Northwest Pacific Salad, minus the crab meat, crab gives me gout, so I asked for extra salmon, salmon was the other meat so I doubled up on salmon. And it was killer! Every bite was flavored, with a nice vinaigrette, it had avocado, crisp greens, it was fantasic, and the small pieces of garlic bread made it filling.


John had the grilled salmon with a nice gourmet type of sauce, being a chef he reacted like it was the best thing, so I figured if you're ever at Maximilien, go eat the grilled salmon. My sister ate the Chicken Croissant with Brie. She raved over that too.


Then we  went walking around, it was cool, and it was F...... KING COLD!!!!!
Pacific Northwest Salad extra Salmon, no crab
Maximilien French Restaurant Pikes Place, Seattle, WA




























Photo: Ron Sambrano copyright 2011

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