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Friday, May 2, 2008

Late Lunch Date: Mortarville

posted by on May 2 at 14:01 PM

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(A few times a week, I take a new book with me to lunch and give it a half an hour or so to grab my attention. Lunch Date is my judgment on that speed-dating experience.)

Who’s your date today? Mortarville, by Grant Bailie.

Where’d you go? This is a very special Lunch Date. It’s actually more of a Dinner Date: last night, I went to Pike Street Fish Fry. They’re only open from 5 ‘till “Late,” so it’s not strictly lunch, although I hadn’t eaten lunch when I went there at 5:30, so it still counts.


What’d you eat?
I had the cheapest order of fish, which was a white fish($5.50). And I had an order of Spanish Fries ($5), which is a regular order of french fries with sour cream and spicy sauce.

How was the food? Awesome. The fries aren’t as good as Frites’ fries were, but they’re still good. The Spanish part of the Spanish fries, with the sour cream and the spicy sauce, was a little excessive: Next time I’m getting the regular fries and the curry ketchup. If I was drunk, I’d be all about getting the Spanish on, though. The fish was light and juicy and fried just right. Next time I might try the asparagus instead of fish. The biggest problem I had with the place was the lack of wet-naps: I smelled like an armless Alaskan fisherman by the time I was done eating.


What does your date say about itself?
The author came to town a few weeks ago, but I just got a copy of the book in the mail yesterday. It’s about an artificial human created by mad scientists, born from a spigot, who gets a job as a mall security guard.

Is there a representative quote? Try the first three sentences: “My parents died in a fire before I was born. Drs. John and Jonathon Smithee—no relation. It was a fate that befalls so many of our better mad scientists.”

Will you two end up in bed together? Yes. I’m very excited to read this one. I’ve been on a bit of a depressing run in fiction, lately—I’ve been reading a lot of books that seem like they should be interesting, but they never really work out to actually be interesting. This one, at least, seems funny and weird and vaguely sweet.

RSS icon Comments

1

Fish Fry is nothing special.



Frites: return ASAP



First and foremost, it's expensive.
The cheapest order of fish is $5.50? Fries are $4...I'd rather walk to Dicks or wait until my favorite hot dog vendors set-up tent.



Michael Hebberoy was quoted in Seattle Weekly as saying, "What I’m hoping," says Hebberoy, "is that when people walk in, your average foodie will notice that we’re canning and preserving vegetables and have whole fish on ice, while a drunk kid at 2 a.m. is stoked he can get fries and fish balls, or a grilled piece of steak."



What freakin drunk kid wants a steak? Let alone cod.



The sterility of Fish Fry is alarming. Perhaps my inner-Value Village self is emerging, but this joint is further evidence of the gradual Belltown infiltration of Capitol Hill, a la Quinn.



It came to no surprise to see a few drunk button-ups from Quinn stumble over and order some fish.



Get off my stoop.

Posted by captothehill | May 2, 2008 3:51 PM
2

uh, i may be missing something here, but how can one's "parents [die] in a fire before [being] born"--??

Posted by feom | May 2, 2008 8:50 PM
3
testing blockquote html tags
Posted by tester | May 3, 2008 9:40 PM

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