Palisade, Revisited

November came and went. For most people, November is synonymous with Thanksgiving. Well, yes, but to me, more importantly, it meant Dine Around Seattle month.

Couple of weeks ago, we celebrated J's birthday. After having those wonderful lunches at Palisade in March, I wanted to share my find with the family. I wanted to declare Palisade as my favorite restaurant.

The evening started wonderfully. Palisade seems to be THE place for celebrations. There were many tables with rose pedals and cards, including ours. A little detail like that made J's evening, and warmed our hearts.

The bread was exactly the same as before, and as good as I remembered. I ordered the butter lettuce salad again, and hubby had the made-to-order shellfish chowder. Consistency is a good thing, but it could get a little boring. The salad was almost exactly the same as last time. Hubby's chowder was rich and creamy with lumps of Dungeness crabmeat and shrimp.

Back in March, I recommended Palisade to a friend. When she went for dinner, she also got the butter lettuce salad and the sirloin. My lunch salad had one prawn, and her dinner one had more. At dinnertime, the sirloin was really a surf and turf dish paired with prawns. So I was slightly surprised that my salad was exactly like my previous lunches - with just one prawn - only sloppier presentation. Were they trying to reduce cost?

When our entrees came, my suspicion was confirmed. Hubby's sirloin was the only protein on the plate, accompanied by asparagus, chanterelle mushroom pieces and potato galette. While the steak was cooked to a perfect medium, it was too peppery for hubby. The potato was a bit dry.

My crab cakes were quite disappointing. The two cakes were only average with mild seasoning. The escarole watercress salad with lemon vinaigrette was underwhelming. And the sweet corn succotash was extremely bland. The only tasty component of the whole dish was the sweet and sour plum butter sauce! I should have chosen the third option - King salmon.

The kids' teriyaki steak bites weren’t bad, but that’s all they were - teriyaki for kids!

I can't say that the dinner was disastrous since our Chocolate "Lovers" Cakes were as sinful as I remembered. However, as a whole, it fell short of my expectations. Even though, $30 is still a very attractive price for a three-course meal at Palisade, both the quality and quantity were either on par or below my $15 lunches.

Did they just cut cost on dinners? Or was lunch always a better value? With all these questions, I made a point to go back to Palisade for lunch during the last week of November.

As usual, I ordered the butter lettuce salad and the sirloin. The salad had no prawns at all now! The julienned pear was all wet and limp, not crisp at all. I would pin that to some over-ripe pears, and not hold it against Palisade though. My sirloin was not very peppery, and almost exactly the same as our dinner. Maybe it was slightly smaller, I couldn't tell. The chanterelle mushrooms were much better.

On this particular day, service was so slow, I had to get dessert to go. Wanting to try something other than the chocolate cake, I got the Pineapple Bread Pudding made with vanilla custard brioche, caramelized vanilla bean Maui gold pineapple and maple rum anglaise. By the time, I had the bread pudding, it was all cold. It was still good, but the chocolate cake would have been much better.

Other than the missing prawn, the only thing they cut down during lunch service was the bread. So yes, lunch is the way to go. Even though, the meal wasn't as spectacular as it was in March, I'd reckon that Palisade still serves one of the best, if not THE best, Dine Around Seattle lunches. It's just unfortunate that I no longer feel that I could declare it as my favorite restaurant. Oh well, the search is on!

Palisade Waterfront Restaurant
2601 W Marina Pl, Seattle, WA 98199
(206) 285-1000