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I’m really bad with accents. Call it ignorance, call it American, call me hard of hearing – it’s something I struggle with. Especially at Thai restaurants, when I typically resort to pointing at menu items instead of insulting a beautiful language with my ugly attempts at pronunciations.

One such case where this is not necessary is Mae Ploy on 15th Ave and 65th. This little rinky-dink Thai assemble just passed its annual and seems to be holding down the fort as far as Thai goes in Ballard, despite their handful of tables that are rarely full even during peak rush hours. 

Inexpensive, fast, flavorful and above all friendly to non-Thai speakers, Mae Ploy offers family-style eats in not only the portion sizes of their entrees but in the way that the family owned restaurant is ran every minute their doors are open by every member of the family. Not once have I been there – be it Saturday night or Wednesday for lunch – when at least three members of the family also have not been there. I hope they love their jobs. 

The Fam also allows you choose “Thai spice,” something us sensitive-palated people have never done nor plan to but for those of you who load up your Saracha, going with the under-the-table double spices is advised. 

As far as the food goes, three words – Tom Kah Soup. The coconut based delicacy goes down like water. Toss some brown rice in there (available with no additional cost, surprisingly) and you’ve got a coconut-curried- meat of your choice bowl of amazingness. A couple other words to remember – Swimming Rama, any of the satay appetizers, the classic Phad Thai and any of the available curries (my favorite is the red but it’s hotter than you’d expect). 

One thing to ignore – the horrible, 90′s cover music of popular songs from your past (e.g. “Unchained Melodies” and “Sweet Caroline”) blare from a retro boombox that makes even the original i-Pod cringe. The aesthetics of the restaurants look like the children of the family just got back from arts and crafts camp and there wasn’t enough room on the fridge for their creativity. The restaurants was then punished with the decor. 

A final word of advice – come hungry or don’t come at all. The Mae Ploy Fam is not joking around with their platters but will happily box it up for you to take home. 

I think I love the organic crowd because it is so gratifyingly predictable. The organic, granola driven intellectuals of Seattle never cease to impress me with their plush biodynamic fashion-sense pumping through their veins with Patagonia and Pellegrino trademarks surrounding them and their chic, rectangular glasses frames.

It’s so stereotypically rainy Seattle too that these young hipsters steer clear from the unorthodox sun that is peering through the windows at them as they type away on their MacBooks within the air-conditioned brick walls of Leary Way’s Caffé Fiore, all natural coffee guru of the Northwest.

 Welcome bean snobs, this is your java haven.

 The coffee at Caffe Fiore speaks for itself – best coffee I’ve had in a long while. After so many bitter mainstream coffee company experiences, I soon found Caffe Fiore, in all of its organic glory and flawlessly at home in Ballard (also has locations on Queen Anne and Sunset Hill).

 I went to Caffe Fiore everyday for over a week to be certain the coffee was as immaculate as my first experience played it out to be. I haven’t been proven wrong yet. The java juice’s claim to fame is its title as an organic café, using only the finest of organic products with self-roasted beans and rich, full-bodied and earthy coffee flavors. The pastry case is fully stocked with (shock!) organic donuts, danishes and croissants from the freshest and most-naturally prepared bakeries in the area. And it’s inexpensive to boot!

 Drinkers get the option of indulging themselves for the time it takes to finish their joe in a ceramic at-home style coffee mug or to-go cup while sitting at the du jour just-chopped-down-this-tree-to-make-these tables that are placed along the brick walls, that home trendy artwork as well as Caffe Fiore t-shirts in all sizes (what baby doesn’t need a coffee shirt?).

 Staff seems half asleep sometimes and I’m pretty sure I went to high school with one of the male baristas (baristos?) but they are darn good at pouring my drip coffee and seem to make pretty designs of aesthetic leafs on the top of other customer’s lattes. 

 So I raise my cup to you, Caffe Fiore, to bringing light to the Seattle rain in Ballard with your organic coffee, funky local tunes that amiably sift from your speakers and your polished tree tables. I’ll be back tomorrow, Macbook in hand and Vera Wang sponsoring my vision care. 

Name: The Old Town Ale House

Age: 13 Years

Actual of the Physical Bar: 110 Years

Beers: Belgium features with a hint of Washington flavor
 
Why Flemish? The people of Belgium have created a reputation for themselves as pint professionals, boasting more than 120 breweries in the nation, producing 1000 odd brewskis that are tagged with the Flemish name. Belgium is to beer as France is to wine as Spain is to soccer as New York is to cabs. The beer is as native as the people.
 
Why the Ale House? A wide range of bottlenecks are offered, varying from pilsners with 5% alcohol per volume to 10% triple imperials. The Belgium draft (along side of the Washington tapped beers) fluctuates on its beer handouts but is currently sporting the classic Hoegaarden White, Chimay “White Label” Triple and Lindeman’s Lambic (also with its own rotating flavors). The beers stand alone as a meal and the purpose of “eating and drinking together” is lost in the Flemish translation of the beverage.
 
Standout Bar Decor: Former taps from the list trim the wall that closes in the kitchen and gives a promise from libations past that more great beer is to come. And they have free post cards so when you get too full from the Flemish delicacies to leave, you can send your mother a letter informing her of your move to Belgium. 
 
photo courtesy of Old Town Ale House

You know it’s a quintessential hometown Ballard bar when they neglect to have an official Web site domain. The MySpace page and blog postings are meager social stabs for The Tin Hat Bar and Grill on 65th Street and they are perfectly content with that.

The digs itself are a call to the locals – a reminder that an elderly man is allowed to stumble into the bar, order a tall can of Rainier and stare longingly at high school girls from “Grease” sing on the muted TV propped in the ceiling corner. He does so with serenity, not feeling sad and pathetic as if he were to have done the same at any Belltown hotspot. He is home.

And thus, a Ballard bar The Tin Hat does make.

Jim Morrison screams about an LA woman from the jukebox as a couple gropes each other across the rock-hard seats of the orange booths, likely induced by a sign reading: “HOT ASS” nailed to the ceiling. The abstract decor of the bar and grill give your eyes something to distract you from the grumbling of your stomach as you yearn for whatever smells so fatty-amazing from the tiny kitchen that sits next to the bar.

The Tin Hat welcomes all with its classic tavern aesthetic cross a modern spin – Marvel would be proud as the menus are lined with sci-fi comic novel sketches depicting their simple yet tasty menu in an engaging manner to the “Iron Man” generation that populate the dive bar.

There is no trendy vibe here and the bartender could care less whether you like his mustache or his cocktails but you’ll get your food fast, your beer cold and your bill cheap. Just how you like your women.

In the end it comes down to one thing – you can get fish n’chips and a couple pints of Manny’s without dumping out too much of your gas money. A high-ranking meal isn’t in the stars for you but with deep-fried nutrition and open-to-close Sunday Happy Hour, you can’t go wrong here.

The Tin Hat is what it is and isn’t trying to be anything it’s not. A standard Ballard attitude that fits just right yet stands very well on its own and isn’t in need of help from an oil can.

There I stood – or staggered – on the cobblestoned paveway of Ballard Avenue, several glasses of wine down with a confused frown deciding which Ballard wine bar got the best of me. I did some serious research on the Avenue’s wine bar circuit for the rest of us Sweds who get lost when it’s something other than schnapps with the smorgasbord.

With the recent restaurant/bar trend featuring small plates/tapas, Portalis WIne Shop/Bar and diVino fall right into the grade. However, I can wholeheartedly say that my experiences with both wine bars was far from middle grade.

My Wine Trails of Ballard began at Portalis (www.portaliswines.com), home to former German ER doc Jens Strecker, with their vast selection in retail wines originating from Chile to New Zealand and South Africa, as well as a couple local favorites.

The menu gave a few small plates to choose from – all with fancy titles that essentially translate out to fish spread on crusted bread – and an intricate tasting menu for the evening (it was a Wednesday). I ventured out to Italy and tried their version of the Pinot Noir grape, also known as Nebbiolo. I found it to be a little hallow and flat but drank it anyway since it was just under $10… Only to find out 7/8 through the glass that the bottle I was drinking from was corked… The bartender quickly retaliated, giving me a fresh (and very tasty!) glass and docking it off our tab. Kudos on the last minute service but I wasn’t blown away overall on that front.

diVino was closing early when we arrived (www.divinoseattle.com). The extremely generous and possibly one-too-many-martinied Sicilian owner demanded we come in and drink their copious amounts of wine from the Motherland, sending “Shelly” to the kitchen to make us copious amounts of food that we didn’t exactly order (and didn’t exactly have to pay too much for in the end).

The decor of the joint is a little cheesy (bright white and red lighting, awkward plastic seating), which might not translate from Sicilian to Ballard. The wine list is only Italian, full of grapes I might have heard of in the Sommelier Arnie Milian wine courses offered downtown. I shot for the $15 Amarone (no idea) and it was fabulous. I liked it much more than the corked Nebbiolo from Portalis…

And let the battle of the wine bars begin… Check them out for yourself and try not to get lost between grape varietals and where you parked your car on Ione.

Hidden by the neon lights of Azteca on Market and 24th Ave, a faintly stained glass window has four letters etched into a sign. “Ocho” – it reads, denoting the number “8″ with zero known significance to the restaurant it is named for but has a couple other digits that work with it. 

7 – Possessive power lesbians clinging to their rights to the side of the bar that uncomfortably angles into the inward-opening door and pound their “$10 Margaritas” that consequently result in their falling off their benches later. 

6 – Other seats of the “L”-shaped bar that are occupied by rosemary and beet garnished martini-sippers who are not willing to give up their spot for a cancer patient on crutches. Tough luck.

5 – Remaining tables of the restaurant with no more than 2 chairs at each and 5 people crowding around to stab at one tiny tapas plate for the white-wine soaked clam. 

4 – The average priced tapas on the chalk-written menu that hangs on the far wall which you’ll need to order more of to fill you up but will keep you busy licking your fingers in between plates. 

3 – Consummate cooks whom fill the kitchen (on a busy night) which can not harbor any more people nor talent.

2 – FOH servers (one cocktailer and one bartender) who make you feel as if you could stay for hours although you know they want their tables to turn so they can possibly get more people in the box they work in.

1 – First-timer (me) who can’t stop obsessing over the sherried-mushroom bruschetta plate (real name to not be attempted by someone who hasn’t spoke Spanish in eight – ocho- years). 

0 – People who will be disappointed by Ocho. 

Salud,

Erin