October 9, 2022

June 2022

Life

On the way back to Seattle from Mexico City, we intentionally chose an itinerary with a 6 hour layover in LA to go to Koreatown. In hindsight, it was a bit of an extra move: the KBBQ was solid but not worth the $100 of uber’s to and from LAX.

We stayed the night in Seattle, and then drove up to Lummi Island the next morning. Lummi Island is one of the lesser known islands in the Puget Sound; you can ask a Seattlelite and chances are they won’t have heard of it either. It’s a pretty small and sparse island with really nothing notable to see, and it’s also quite far north - near the Canadian border – making it not as accessible as some of the other islands. But at the same time this serene mundanity is its main draw: the idyllic and unspoiled setting really epitomizes what the region has to offer. It is perhaps for this reason that there is a bucket-list bed and breakfast on Lummi Island – the Willows Inn.

The Willows Inn was ranked as the best restaurant in North America according to some list, serving a tasting menu focused on hyper-local ingredients. The story goes that a young chef who had worked at Noma returned home to Washington and responded to a craigslist job posting at the inn. He fell in love with the island’s purity of ingredients – foraged berries and flowers, freshly caught shrimp from local fishermen, tiny local farms, you get the idea – and tries to encapsulate this in a 12+ course dinner. However, the Willows Inn is also infamous for another reason: a NY Times exposé published last year revealed its toxic workplace filled with just the worst parts of ‘kitchen culture’. We didn’t realize this when we booked it though.

View from the Willows Inn

Our experience on Lummi Island was uneventfully perfect, barring the 2-hour ferry wait back (the island is serviced by one ferry that fits 20 cars). We biked around the island on a very well paved road that revealed different views of the Puget Sound, as well as forests with very spaced out homes. We walked on a cold and windy beach in pitch darkness, only illuminated by moonlight. We also saw a beautiful red sunset as we ate our three-and-a-half hour dinner.

The dinner was probably the reason why everyone was there. I found myself constantly surprised and delighted by the technique put into each course. The menu has recently taken on a Mexican influence that unexpectedly connected with my time in Mexico City just 2 days prior. I suspect this was due to the chef’s recent marriage with Daniela Soto-Innes, who started Cosme and worked at Pujol (two of my favorite restaurants) before moving out to the island. But it wasn’t like eating at Cosme or Pujol: the Mexican influences here were not outright. You wouldn’t get a dish like ‘duck carnitas’ or ‘kampachi taco’, but instead would encounter green mole with vegetables from the inn’s farm or get blue corn tortillas with local mushrooms.

Our stay at the Willows Inn was truly exceptional – the hospitality was some of the most genuine and amicable service I’ve experienced. We felt regretful to leave the next day, but there really wasn’t much more to do on the island. We then drove up to Vancouver to attend my friend Alan’s graduation.

Looking back, my memorial day weekend was quite eventful. If you think about it, it was a northward journey that spanned all 3 countries of North America, and included exploring the most populous city on the continent as well as one of the most sparsely populated islands.

For the rest of June, I lived out of Alan’s empty apartment. He was supposed to settle down in Seattle (or, you could say, seattle down) before starting work in July, but was denied at the US-Canada border on his way back down with me. Because of this, his apartment had only the barest of necessities – a desk, a mattress, and two bar stools. Adeena was also staying in the second bedroom on a roll-up mat for her internship; it was situationally quite funny that we were just 2 squatters in this fancy yet empty apartment in downtown Seattle.

A sunset over Toronto from Centre Island

In mid-June, I went for a work trip to Toronto where we actually went to the client site and met our client counterparts for the first time. We felt very at home with them –  in fact a colleague noted that the client office was nicer than the brand new BCG Toronto office because it was cozier. It was also new, but located in a 19th century brick building that was redone inside to create a modern and open layout. The elevator that went up was so old – with the sliding doors and everything – that we didn’t know how to operate it and always opted for the stairs instead.

For Juneteenth, I took a couple days off to visit Salt Lake City and Grand Teton National Park, crossing off Wyoming as well as Idaho. The original plan was to also visit Yellowstone, but it was closed for the first time in 34 years due to severe flooding. We took the red-eye layover flight to SLC that involved 2 short flights and a 3 hour stop in Las Vegas in the middle of the night, an experience I definitely would not do again no matter the savings. There were handles separating each chair at the boarding gates, making it impossible to lie down to sleep. After giving up, we walked around the airport looking for a midnight snack only to find nothing open except for the slot machines. I remember watching the Burger King open at 3:30 AM and wanting to get French Toast sticks that are meant to be eaten like fries – an invention you can only expect the American fast food industry to come up with. I talked myself out of it.

Salt Lake City felt frankly pretty uneventful given how much recognition it has. On the first day, we stumbled upon the annual British Field Day at Liberty Park, hosted by a bunch of local British car clubs as an excuse for the owners to get together and drive out their old British cars. I had never heard of the Triumph Motor Company, a company that produced its last cars in 1984, and definitely had never seen 30 Triumphs at the same time. We also visited the Utah State Capitol, where a children’s fashion show was taking place, as well as the setting of High School Musical – East High School. The next day, we saw the Mormon Tabernacle choir perform in front of the largest organ I’ve seen, over stock video footage of happy and mostly white families projected on the screens.

Salt Lake City from Ensign Peak

The natural attractions are I imagine why most people visit Utah. We drove out to the Bonneville Salt Flats right by the Nevada border and walked on miles of bare flats, but it felt like walking on pavement. We also hiked to the top of Ensign Peak, which offered beautiful views of the city. Salt Lake City, despite being 4200 ft above sea level and surrounded by mountains, is located on particularly flat land. No wonder Brigham Young concluded that this was the promised land after crossing the Rockies.

The next day, we drove up to Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. The Grand Tetons (French for big nipples, FYI) reminded me a little of Switzerland – a mountainous setting with plenty of alpine lakes and majestic peaks. But at the same time it wasn’t exactly like Switzerland either; there was only one mountain range, and from it the land was pretty flat out on the horizon. The weather was quite variable the two days we were there: on our first day, we encountered hail (in the summer!) and the fog was so thick that we could barely make out the other side of the lake. But day 2 was much more agreeable and sunny. We did a longer canyon hike along a stream between two peaks, and saw some huge elk nearby. We also got some iconic pictures of the Tetons from the old farmhouses; I don’t think I’ve ever taken so many pictures in a single day.

The Grand Tetons from Mormon Row, a series of farmhouses built by Mormon settlers in the early 20th century.

On our way back, we hit a deer right after dusk somewhere in the southeast corner of Idaho. I remember seeing the deer on the side of the road as we drove down a hill, and the next thing I knew there was a loud thump followed by a hard brake. It turns out that deer are these remarkably stupid animals that will jump into the headlights towards their death (really makes you think about the expression). The impact of hitting a deer wasn’t as large as I would’ve thought; our airbags didn’t pop and deer are pretty light such that the poor animal flew out about 20 feet. However, the crash broke our car; the engine wouldn’t go above 1000 RPM so we couldn’t make it up the next hill. Luckily, a local who happened to pass by took a great chunk out of their night to help us out. They called the police and stayed with us as we sorted out the police report and the roadside assistance that we called on barely 1 bar of signal. They then drove us 45 minutes away to Logan, Utah, where we got a last-minute hotel room (I don’t think you’re reading this, but thank you for everything, Jodie).

We were set to depart the next day, so luckily our itinerary wasn’t significantly altered.

I was originally planning on spending a week in NYC before heading back to Seattle. However, our team arranged a colocation week in SF after I had made my plans, so I was only back home for a day before I flew to the Bay Area to spend the weekend. This time, I finally got to go up the Campanile at Cal – a year after graduation and 6 years after I first set foot on campus. The SF office is my favorite partly because of its Harmless coconut waters; a peer of mine drank 6 bottles one day, which is like 700 calories alone. It was also our intern’s first week on the case, and I remember how he was constantly pleasantly shocked to learn how generous the firm was with its travel policies, haha.

Food

A hearty breakfast at The Willows Inn, spanning from buckwheat pancakes to duck eggs

• Blue Water Cafe + Raw Bar (Vancouver, Canada): We came here for dinner after Alan’s graduation. While the cooking was so-so, the sushi rolls were particularly highlightable: they’re quite simple in composition, showcasing the quality of the seafood without using any sauces or many other ingredients.
• Han Oak (Portland, OR): We did a weekend trip to Portland at the start of June, and came for the Korean hot pot prix-fixe at Han Oak. Compared to Chinese hot pot, there is a larger emphasis on the quality of ingredients. Flavors are generally lighter from the soup to the sauces, which allows the quality to shine through. The broth is the star of the meal that persists throughout; it is made from grilled ox tails and is fragrant without being heavy, continuing to evolve as the meal progresses to become saltier and stronger.
• PAI (Toronto, Canada): I arranged a team dinner here for 12 people but only 5 people showed up. There were more leftovers than what we ate. In my defense, 10 people responded that they were coming. Separately, somehow this restaurant charged 7600 CAD to my corporate card about a month later; I had to cancel the card.
• Canoe (Toronto, Canada): A swanky restaurant on the 54th floor with sweeping views, sourcing the best ingredients Canada has to offer. Surprised that this restaurant did not get a Michelin star in the first ever Toronto Michelin guide released last month.
• Log Haven (Salt Lake City, UT): An alpine getaway from Salt Lake City in the canyons, perfect for a meal with a change in scenery. The bison steak au poivre is recommendable and unique. The bison has a more intense beefy flavor with a slightly smokey undertone compared to beef, while the pepper sauce is light and more like a jus.
• Benu (San Francisco, CA): Benu is a 3 Michelin star restaurant that draws from the storied East Asian cuisines, but not the kind of restaurant you’d see in Asia. Regardless, it is thoroughly an Asian restaurant - there are no ‘adaptations for western palettes’ or sappy fusion dishes; instead, each dish has clear foundations in Asian cooking that are then innovatively built upon. Like in Asian cuisine, there’s also a larger emphasis on texture in each dish, where crunchiness isn’t the go-to. The 8 plates of small bites that begin the tasting menu were the highlight of the meal for me – they are very thoughtful, technical, and well-perfected.

A particularly unsettling fork at Benu

Misc

I made the top reviewers list for Opinionated About Dining! I am #168.

A double rainbow in Grand Teton NP

At SeaTac airport there is a series of brass salmon ‘traveling upstream’, stretching across terminal B’s floor. There is a little easter egg within - one particular fish holding a briefcase (known as the ‘business fish’) swims away in the opposite direction ‘to get to work’.

Many of Salt Lake City’s streets are just named after numbers in increments of 100. Streets are named like “1300 East” or “800 South”, notably without ‘road’ or ‘street’ at the end. The cardinal direction in the name indicates its orientation.

Rainbow lasers down Market St in SF for Pride Month

There are only 3 matcha mills in the United States. Well, sort of, until I saw this consumer-grade ‘matcha machine’ from Cuzen at the Willows Inn that grinds and also whisks matcha.

I made my boss these custom macarons as a leaving gift. It’s taken from his slides in which each icon represents a key module of our algorithm. Because of the small scale of our order, each macaron was insanely expensive – you’re looking at $80 worth of macarons here.

Early Mormon pioneer settlers wanted to name their new state Deseret, the word for ‘honeybee’ in the Book of Mormon. Instead, Congress named it Utah after one of the region’s Native American tribes. Beehives are the emblem of Utah – they represent industry and perseverance.

Notice the words circled out; why do you think that is? ;)

The Bonneville salt flats have been the setting of many numerous land speed records. This is because the area is extremely flat - it’s claimed that you can see the curvature of the earth. In addition, salt holds moisture that can cool the cars’ tires, allowing them to go faster.

Failing to sleep in Las Vegas