When Eric Donnelly opened RockCreek last summer, he had most recently created the menu and been the chef at Toulouse Petit—a Lower Queen Anne cousin of party-place Peso's that didn't spring to mind as a great Seattle restaurant. RockCreek's almost-all-seafood menu looked long, maybe too long, as in possibly not doing anything particularly well, and the preparations looked complicated, as in not trusting a great piece of fish to be its great self. The fact that RockCreek was offering "globally sourced" seafood was sort of courageous (carbon footprint be damned!), but also off-putting (carbon footprint be damned?). But after I wrote about where to find Seattle's best seafood a couple weeks ago—taking a holistic approach, from fish 'n' chips to sushi to oysters, including 20 different places—someone said, "What about RockCreek?" So I drove right over to Fremont to eat there. (The second time, as a feeble offset, I rode my bike.)

The first thing I ate at RockCreek was hamachi from Hawaii ($13)—a row of generous, palest pink slices, served quiveringly raw and cool and silky, with a sweet-and-tart Walla Walla vinaigrette, topped with crunchy miniature pickles and all resting on a deep green, minty-peppery shiso leaf. It tasted a little like rice vinegar, a little like sesame, but mostly just like great fish being its great self, in a perfect way for a warm evening....

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