IN BALLARD - THE WALRUS AND THE CARPENTER IN NEW YORK TIMES
Our Neighbors and fantastic oyster bar, The Walrus and the Carpenter were recently featured in an insightful article in the New York Times on dining out in Seattle. We are always partial to our Ballard friends and love all of the great new places that are popping up and flourishing right down the street from Blackbird. With the summer months and sun-drenched nights in full swing, a great night out at The Walrus and the Carpenter sounds mighty fine to us. Come stop by Blackbird or The Field House after your meal and tell us what YOU think.
"I stopped by the Walrus on a Friday at 5:15 p.m., and already it was full, with the intense, palpable conviviality that so many restaurants aim for but so few achieve. That kind of warmth and vibrancy often boil down to luck: to the animation of the crowd that gathers, the pitch of people’s voices. Here everyone seemed impossibly merry.
They sat on stools pulled up to high tables or a long counter, and they ate Blue Pool oysters and Hama Hama oysters and Sweetwater oysters and Eld Inlet oysters, all from Washington waters. The Walrus is essentially an embellished oyster bar, emphasis on embellished. In addition to raw shellfish it serves many cooked small plates and desserts — including, when I was there, grilled lamb tongue and a bay leaf panna cotta with a rhubarb compote — and a distinctive selection of wines, beers and cocktails.
The oysters are shucked with care: no clumsy haste, no messy errors. I closely watched the ace who shucked ours, impressed in equal measure by his skill and the elaborate beehive of what looked like dreadlocks atop his head.
When he finished shucking them, he put them before us, then did something for which I was unprepared — and very grateful. He handed us a neatly, precisely written cheat sheet that told us, from left to right, which oyster was which, so we didn’t have to remember and wouldn’t be confused. In this one odd-looking server at this one happy-making place, courtesy, earnestness, eccentric personal grooming and a proud scruffiness were all entwined. There was something so splendidly Seattle about that." NY TIMES
