Hello friends, I am back again! How are you all doing, hope it’s been fantastic!
So, remember several months ago I posted about a restaurant named Altura and how that it is my families favorite place to visit? Well today, for my Mother’s Birthday, we decided to go to another restaurant owned by the same man, Nathan Lockwood. The place is called Carrello, and I have no idea what that means as well (Edit: I found out while googling the restaurant that it is Italian for shopping cart). It is located literally across the street from Altura; like both restaurants are located on an respective corner of the street. I think the story was that the Lockwood bought the restaurant from the previous owner, who was retiring. There was also a news article somewhere.
The atmosphere has a relaxed feeling to it, where you don’t have to be too formal about. There are a lot of tables, some that are quite in close proximity with each other, suggesting a feeling of closeness. Once in awhile, there is music playing, which actually can be a bit distracting when eating, especially when the music is a little loud for conversation.
Carrello is an Italian restaurant that serves tapas-style dishes. Unlike Altura, where their menus are of the tasting menu variety, Carrello has a traditional menu set, with a wide selection of drinks I might add. The plates are small and meant to be shared, especially their large plates; however, their main appeal is that they bring smaller plates around the restaurant on carts, like dim sum. Each cart contains two kinds of dishes with large number cards that represents the prices each dish, which will be marked on a piece of paper on a wooden block sitting on your table. Now, how frequently these cart dishes switch out, if at all, I am not sure because I forgot to ask that question.
During our time there, we ordered a few menu dishes and almost all of their cart dishes (the olives weren’t that appealing and we were to full to try the veal tongue). After awhile, it became apparent to us that: 1, the cart dishes looks and taste a lot better (hence the aforementioned main appeal) and 2, you can probably be full with just a salad and pasta dish from the menu and order the rest off the cart. I definitely recommend taking full advantage of the cart if you want a great dining experience. Here’s why:
From the menu, we ordered their salad (because we misread watermelon radishes and thought there were actual watermelons in it), mussels, gnocchi, another pasta dish I have forgotten the name of, and a grilled trout with vegetables. By the time the two pasta dishes came out, we were getting full. I won’t give too much detail on the menu dishes except that the pasta were quite saucy with the meat sauce and the mussels were mixed with pancetta and onions, masking any sea flavor.
Now for the cart, which there are a lot of. Now, being how the dishes were taken off of a cart and not a menu, the actual names of the dishes are a little lost in memory, so bear with me.
First we had a cod mashed up with long crackers that weren’t exactly my favorite, but if you read my earlier posts you know why. Afterwards, there were beets with blood oranges, which didn’t really increase or decrease the flavor, and some other kind of root vegetables with a really nice sauce that I will comeback to later.
Next was a prosciutto-like salami followed by a naan-like bread stick. The bread stick had some kind of Indian spice sprinkled with it and was very soft and greatly neutralized any saltiness from the meat. This one I liked and hope you get the chance to try it. Then we got clams, which had jalapenos in the nix, which gave it a kick while whatever sauce was in the clams help neutralize it.
Next two dishes were a giant meatball and duck liver with bread to go with it. The meatball was super good, we compare it to the one we get in Taiwan. The meat was super tender, soft, and incredibly juicy. The duck liver was served in a small square bowl and had a layer of fat on top (completely white) topped with spicy, I think, cherries. It’s hard to describe what it taste like, so I’m not going to.
Afterwards we have dessert, which incidentally is also served on a cart. This actually gives you the feeling that you could probably get more than one dessert, because you can see all of them and they are in small portions. I do not know what possessed me at the time for me not to take a picture of the entire cart, but they are as follows:
- A chocolate Gianduja cookie, which is essentially a nutella
- A cannoli with a bourbon cherry in the middle (we got two of these)
- An olive oil cake with caramel and cream in a bottle
- Some kind of lemon cake also in a bottle
- A baba au rhum or something, basically a creme puff like bun with a bourbon cherry on it (my brother got this and holy crap that is strong bourbon taste)
- A vanilla panna cotta with assorted citrus fruit (my mom got this because obviously)
I have never tried actually tried fusion cuisine before, Americanized Chinese food doesn’t count. So I was quite intrigue. Actually, the progression of reaction were confusion, curious, surprised, then intrigue. I hope to return to Carrello some day because their cart system has filled me with wonder what other dishes would they provide, if they change it at all.
Seattle's/Taiwan's food lover 