I hadn’t quite realized how much Seattle had become home to me until I had to leave it. I grew up on the Boston area and the lived in NYC for 9 years. Those are also places I think of as home. In Boston and New York both there are must have foods that no trip is complete without. In Boston it is New England style fried clams (in Essex if possible). In New York it’s a hot pastrami on rye with mustard (at Katz’s if possible). Sure, there’s plenty of other good stuff and I like to try new things as well, but those two dishes say, “I’m home.”

Soon I’m heading back to Seattle for a couple of days. It’ll be my first time there since moving to Austin in October. I’ve been making plans with Nicole and various friends, some of which of course involve going out to eat. When weighing the options, I realized that I did not have a go to Seattle dish, something that I craved and just wasn’t as good anywhere else. Certainly Seattle has some great eats–mole salami (and well, everything else) at Salumi, noodles and dumplings at Judy Fu’s, donuts at Top Pot, sushi at Umi Sake House, loukaniko and gigantes at Panos Kleftiko, and pear cardamom coffee cake at Columbia City Bakery to name but a few–but I haven’t had that overriding urge for the one dish that says Seattle. Maybe that’ll come in time. Or maybe I’ll just have to cover more ground when I go home to Seattle!

Originally published on LiveJournal on January 25, 2011.