Food Nerd Day Trips From Seattle
Top Pot Doughnuts, Pike Street Fish Fry — heck, the original Starbucks, there are plenty of great and iconic food and drink spots to hit in Seattle. But the tourist fish-toss at Pike Place Market gets pretty old pretty quickly. So when you need a break here are some culinary day trips.
For those inclined to work up their appetites, cycling the Burke-Gilman Trail may be just the thing: 27 miles of multi-use bicycle trail, much of it hugging the coast startimg from Golden Gardens Park. There are plenty of places to rent bicycles, including Recycled Cycles, which is almost on the trail. You can stop in for a burger and quench your thirst at the Forecasters Pub run by the Redhook Brewery in Woodinville, and even take a tour of the brewery. Oenophile cyclists may prefer to taste Washington wines at the nearby Chateau Ste. Michelle winery, which also gives tours. (Photo of Chateau Ste. Michelle courtesy Flickr/dherrera_96)
Sometimes getting out of a city, even if it's just taking a ferry ride across the water surrounding it, gives you just the perspective you need. It's a 35-minute ferry ride across Elliott Bay from Seattle to Bainbridge Island, with ferries leaving about once an hour. Once on the island, there's the Pegasus Coffee House, an institution for more than 25 years. Stop in for island-roasted coffee and unique tea blends, or pourings of wine varietals and cocktails. If you prefer beer, you can be sure you'll get a full pint — they promote the Honest Pint Project. Bainbridge Island Winery has moved on from the blue building by the ferry dock, but they've opened a new tasting room about five miles away — and also do tours. For a sweet treat, stop in to Mora Iced Creamery where the goal is "to make ice cream the old-fashioned way, the way your great-grandmother did." They make small batches using fresh milk, eggs, and cane sugar. (Photos courtesy Flickr/jdnx and Sue Elias)
Tacoma, Wash.
For a less urban culinary day trip hit either the Pioneer Farm Museum & Ohop Indian Village, or the Wilcox Organic Farm outside Tacoma — both do tours. The Pioneer Farm Museum includes visits to homestead cabins built in the 1880s where kids can do chores pioneer children would have done like grinding grains and churning cream. A two-hour tour of the 100-year-old Wilcox Organic Farm can include bus or hay wagon rides, a visit to the farm machinery and car museum, and viewing their free range organic poultry house, with free samples of eggs and omelet demonstrations. (Photo courtesy Flickr/dherrera_96)