It was a not so rainy night in January and I didn't want to bike home from work so I invited my partner Lamar to pick me up and go out to dinner.
We decided it was time to try Poppy, a North Capitol Hill neighborhood restaurant featuring the food of former Herb Garden chef and thali maker extrodinaire Jerry Traunfeld.
A thali is a small dish in the style of mid-to-southern Indian Cuisine. Chef takes this style with the ingenuity of a creative flavor genious and makes a palate party. He does this with fresh herbs and ingredients grown right behind the restaurant next door to a parking lot. Poppy gets an urban gardening star of approval for its raised beds reclaiming the concrete from oil soaked car refuse and turning it into a five star herb garden hot bed of flavor potential.
Following the advice of our beautiful smart and attentive waitress we started with a couple appetizers and followed it by sharing a 10 piece Thali.
Our appetizers a gluten-free breaded mussel topped with herbs from Poppy's very own backyard herb garden and a fig and sage tart.
The tart was not gluten-free, Lamar ate most of it, I sampled and enjoyed the glorious flakiness just enough to know it was good.
Our thali featured duck and shrimp with wonderful pickles, yam, and the beet soup you see at the top of this post.
This post is dedicated to our lovely and wonderful waitress and friend Misty Dawn. I'd send every Seattlite I know to Poppy to enjoy her attention and it glorious committment to local food.