Sunday mornings should be spent in bed, and if you are forced out of one there should be something worth for such an awful separation. So for me, the motivation is brunch or the farmer’s market (which usually included munchables).
I have heard buzzings about Skillet Diner, they started out as a food truck and now they have a brick and mortar in Capitol Hill, as well as marketable retail goods like skillet bacon spread. This whole thing kind of irks me about “street” food in Seattle. Chefs start out something kitchy by stuffing it in a food truck, charging way more than the whole concept of “street” food is supposed to stand for and once they get to a certain threshold of popularity, they open a brick and mortar, still serving overpriced “street” food IN A FRICKEN RESTARANT! And boutiquey “shop” marketed plastic jars of over-glorified Bacon GREASE? Give me a break. Vomit is officially everywhere. Suffice to say, I haven’t quite jumped aboard the food truck “wagon”.
But I just had to come to Skillet this Sunday brunch. I knew it would be good, from the looks its menu’ of pork belly and cornmeal waffles to a straight up “standard”. And honestly the last couple times I have tried to scope out the undiscovered hole in the walls at breakfast, I was a little hrmph’d for having separated myself from loungeness and p.js on precious weekend mornings for some crap on a plate I could have made 12 times better. And Skillet was a good bet after all. The wait is a little annoying, but not really because these marketeers got you waitees covered with a coffee station, where you can also purchase a jar of this bacon spread (how is this not called grease?!!). And chairs outside to make the time go by better with your warm bodied joe. The bar/diner seating is spin-able,bright and comfy. The prices are pretty descent as long as you stick with the 9 buck plates, which are usually the most belly filling and rib stickily like the homemade (cream-stricken meaty perfected) sausage gravy (oh mylanta…) and biscuits (buttery sweet salty carb HEAVEN!). The nice touch here is that they serve it with fried crispy sage on top. They have a seasonal rotating scramble that I was super tempted to try which was a duck confit grit something something fancy and rainbow chard. But my friend ordered the deconstructed hash which was basically french spiced root vegetables and meaty marbling steak chunks with an egg on top oozing a bright orange yolk. I’m not gonna sing skillet’s high praises and i’m not gonna rip it apart (other than about the general pretentiousness of “street” food in Seattle). I read the Seattle Weekly review and a few others, and they seemed to be a little underwhelmed, i believe due to preconditioned hype. My response to them is that Skillet Diner doesn’t require a microscopic analysis: its good breakfast. Its good because, its consistent, reasonable and interesting. And not 18 bucks a plate like Steelhead Diner. Plus, they have bacon salt bloody mary’s in mason jars (2 bucks cheaper during breakfast and brunch!)
Curious approves:)