As you know, Micah and I just celebrated our 1 year anniversary. Woo hoo! We opted to spend the weekend over in downtown Bellevue…which is a mere 20 miles away. But it was the perfect setting to relax and celebrate!
Since we are quite familiar with that area of town, we felt no obligation to go out and sightsee. We already know the streets and general direction of things, so there was no looking at maps and figuring out where to go. We already knew the restaurants we wanted to try out, so there was no fumbling trying to determine dress codes, hours of operation, etc. We thoroughly got to enjoy our upgraded suite at the Hyatt – which is conveniently connected via skybridge to all the places we wanted to go. We never had to get in our car…everything was in walking distance. Again, totally perfect!
Since the general setting wasn’t very new to us, we made sure to make it feel new by trying out all these great places around us.
Hotel: The Hyatt Bellevue in downtown is really nice. The employees are all very friendly, and if you go over the weekend – it’s actually less busy (since most business travelers will be gone). They were completely willing to give us a complimentary upgrade to a suite –which was sweet! They have an awesome gym and a heated lap pool – both of which we took advantage of.
Blue C Sushi: The happy hour here is great! And the green tea is amazing! We got here for early happy hour, which was a late lunch for us. But had some delicious sushi at great prices.
Comedy Room at Parlor Lounge: We tried something new and went to a comedy show. The Parlor Room has a great venue for this. We bought tickets online, got a little dressed up, and had some great drinks and laughs.
Daniel’s Broiler: We headed here for late night happy hour after the comedy show. It was packed! But we found some tables and feasted on some raw oysters and steak bites. A great way to more affordably eat at this top steak restaurant.
Din Tai Fung: I was super excited to eat here. This place has been open for over a year, but the lines out the door and wait times have barely decreased. But since we were about a 3 minute walk away, we were able to easily get in line right before the restaurant opened for the day. We feasted on absolutely delicious wonton and dumplings. YUM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
These bad boys are pure bites of awesomeness. We ordered two of these – sooo delish!!!
Purple Wine Bar: After a good nap, work out, and general laziness – we headed out for happy hour again for our late lunch. (Another bonus of this area – so many places have awesome happy hours over the weekend). I’ve been to Purple several times before, but never for happy hour. We thoroughly enjoyed it. They have amazing food and wine pairings for a really decent price. Plus, they have THE BEST BREAD AND BUTTER EVER! We couldn’t stop ourselves!
So amazing…we asked for a second round!
El Gaucho: This was the last leg of our feasting anniversary weekend. We went here for late night happy hour – and had such an amazing meal. El Gaucho is one of the premiere steak and seafood restaurants in Seattle (with two locations: Seattle and Bellevue). The food here ain’t cheap – and neither of us have eaten here before. But for happy hour – you can get some amazing drinks (I loved my dirty martini for $6) and amazing food (spicy, tender steak bites. MMMM!!). Plus, since it was for our anniversary, we had to try the banana bread pudding.
So delicious! Even Micah was savoring every bite!
So that is the end. We filled in the times between eating with all sorts of lounging, shopping, TV watching, book reading, and sleeping. It was awesome! With our crazy and hectic lives of lately – this was the most perfect way for us to celebrate! Too bad that once we got home, I immediately had to work. Boooo!
Much Ado About Lisa 