On a recent visit to South Seattle Community College for lunch at the Alhadeff Grill and a tour of the culinary, baking and pastry, and wine facilities, I happened upon this incredible Washington-themed diorama made by one of the college’s talented pastry students.

As someone who’s terrible at baking and crafting, not to mention working with chocolate and marzipan, it really spoke to me with its whimsy and utter charm.

Braiden and Spencer’s fun, if unconventional, Christmas tree!

With 2011 on the horizon, I’d like to thank all of you for being fans of this Web site, reading my Northwest Notes blog, as well as my articles in The Seattle Times Pacific Northwest magazine, Wine Press Northwest, and Amazon.com’s Al Dente blog.

Cheers to more intriguing food- and wine-related research, reporting, and writing in the months to come.

Happy and prosperous New Year to us all!

We loved our first visit to the new iteration of a long-standing Seattle restaurant, Vito’s, which is located on Pill Hill near the Sorrento Hotel and St. James Cathedral.

The first night we ate there, it was my vegetarian night, something I’ve observed one night a week for many year now, so I enjoyed the Vegetarian Lasagne.

This time my diet was more free, so I ordered the dish that caught my eye the first time–Ahi Tuna Puttanesca. This glorious dish of slices of rosebud-pink tuna with a spicy, caponata-like puttanesca partnered perfectly with lightly olive-oil-bathed angel hair pasta. I’m getting hungry just describing and thinking about it.

It paired nicely with a wine we liked so much on our first visit, we ordered again (something we rarely do)–Tommasi Ripasso, which is reminiscent of a lighter-style Amarone.

More fun finds when I went to the Ladies Room and discovered a miniature statue of Michelangelo’s “David!”

But the best surprise that evening came thanks to our server, Ron, who suggested we visit the Cougar Room (just past the restrooms). We discovered a full-size, stuffed cat behind glass and 13 red-leather armchairs around a rectangular table. Talk about the perfect place for a small dinner party or business meeting!

Back when it was still summer time in Seattle, back when the sun was shining and you could eat outside without freezing to death or getting blown into Puget Sound, we enjoyed a Saturday lunch at Tom Douglas’s latest eatery–Seatown Snack Bar. It’s located just across the street from the venerable Pike & Western Wine Shop at the corner of Virginia and Western overlooking Victor Steinbrueck Park and right next door to Tom’s long-running Etta’s Seafood.

Since our visit, Seatown has been renamed Seatown Seabar & Rotisserie to better mirror its mission–as a place for a drink and a nosh or even full meal, with a handy rotisserie serving take-out mains and sides next door. It’s also had a bit of a menu overhaul; luckily, the dishes we ordered are still on the menu.

Here’s the Seatown Sampler, replete with tastes of all six types of seafood featured in the Smoked Seafood section of the menu. We especially liked the Westport Black Cod with Nectarine Miso–silky, slightly sweet, and a bit salty. Less desirable was the Willapa Bay Oysters with Fennel Relish and Tobiko (mea culpa: I’m not a fan of smoked oysters in general and this one was really smoky).

Spencer ordered the Northwest Free-Range Chicken Dinner from the Entrée Plates section of the menu. It came with Dripping Potatoes and Garlic Rapini and proved to be a sizable chunk o’ chix. And who could ever resist a dish with a name like “dripping potatoes!”

We loved the whimsical murals in the ladies’ room. Made me want to tango with the merrily dancing crabs!

And we would have loved to have ordered a scoop of Concord Grape Sorbet, which sounded cool and refreshing and very Northwest to boot, but we had to get on with our Saturday afternoon errands. Next time!

After the perfect voyage from Seattle to Victoria, British Columbia, during which we were surrounded by two super pods of Orca whales who danced around our boat for several magical minutes, we had worked up quite an appetite.

So, after checking into our hotel, The Magnolia Hotel & Spa, we made a beeline for Pescatores Seafood & Grill, located in the Inner Harbour right across from the venerable Fairmont Empress hotel.

We’d eaten there on our last trip to Victoria and had fond memories of the place with its 20-foot ceilings, dark wood paneling, attractive bar, and five-blade, eight-foot-in-diameter chain-and-pulley ceiling fans turning lazily.

This visit, all three dishes we tried were good, from Pescatores Manhattan Clam Chowder (full of toothsome chunks of clam) to Pescatores Famous Seafood Salad (the salad and seafood–marinated scallops, mussels, clams, prawns, shrimp, and Dungeness crab–corralled by a long strip of cucumber so it looked like a frilly hat) to the Fish + Chips.

But it was the Fish + Chips that really shone, the freshest of fresh halibut cooked in the lightest of light tempura-style batter made with one of the three beers on draft–Sea Dog Amber Ale. The thin-sliced French fries were fluffy and not at all greasy; the tartar sauce delicious and whimsically served in a huge Pacific oyster shell, which we’d not seen done anywhere else before.

A couple of glasses of Mission Hill Family Estate 2008 Chardonnay from the Okanagan Valley, and we were well-stoked for some afternoon sightseeing and shopping in the cool autumn air.

In journalism, there’s something called the telling detail. It’s what professional journalists do when they observe the person they’re interviewing and writing about, or the place where a crime or fire has taken place, or a restaurant they are reviewing.

So if the person you are interviewing has a photo of President Obama in a frame on her desk, that might be a telling detail about the power and importance of the interviewee. Or if a 20-something sports an antique ring, that might be her telling detail. Or if a middle-aged man’s hair is dyed purple, that might be a clue as to their personality.

When we eat out, I like to look at the telling detail(s) throughout the restaurant. Here’s on I spotted at Barolo Ristorante in downtown Seattle. The candle drips are as lavish as the restaurant’s decor, replete with gauzy white veils, good-looking servers, and dim (flattering!) lighting.

I’ve been told that the servers cut the wax every day so it looks good. . .which, in itself, makes for quite an interesting telling detail.

In journalism, there’s something called the telling detail. It’s what professional journalists do when they observe the person they’re interviewing and writing about, or the place where a crime or fire has taken place, or a restaurant they are reviewing.

So if the person you are interviewing has a photo of President Obama in a frame on her desk, that might be a telling detail about the power and importance of the interviewee. Or if a 20-something sports an antique ring, that might be his or her telling detail. Or if a middle-aged man’s hair is dyed purple, that might be a clue as to their personality.

When we eat out at restaurants, I love to try to find the telling detail(s) that makes dining there a special experience.

Recently, while having a drink on the far edge of the bar at Six Seven in Seattle’s Edgewater Hotel, I noticed the ultra-cool tree branches sticking out of the log-like columns.

What makes the branches so weird and compelling are the metal brace-like pieces that hold them together.

In their own unique, strange way those branches capture the zeitgeist of the place; they are the bar’s telling detail.

On our final afternoon in Copenhagen, when temperatures were close to 90 degrees outside and temperatures had been unseasonably warm since our start in London 15 days before, we sought most welcome comfort at the cool (both literally and figuratively) IceBar CPH by IceHotel.