Saturday in Bellevue

Bellevue is the second largest city in King County after Seattle. The downtown area reminds us of Dallas, only with better weather. Conspicuous consumption is rampant. We had to return an item to the Sur La Table store, in a shopping center called the Bravern. A Ferrari and a Bentley were parked at the entrance. There’s a Neiman Marcus in the complex, completing the comparison to Dallas. We had a late lunch at Wild Ginger, one of our favorite Pan-Asian restaurants in the area. Their fragrant duck buns are to die for.
After our visit to the Bravern, we went over to Bellevue Square, which is only slightly less upscale. It has Nordstrom and a Tesla store. We noticed that the Sanrio shop, home of Hello Kitty, in the mall had closed. This signified three things to me: There is a god; She is merciful; and She also hates Hello Kitty.
The neighborhoods of Bellevue to the east of I-405 (aka the longest parking lot in western Washington) are a bit more diverse in their offerings. A branch of the southern fast food chain Chick-Fil-A just opened off Northeast 8th Street. The parking lot was packed when we went by. I’ll save my neighbors the trouble of standing on line: It’s just a fried chicken sandwich topped with pickles. You may now return to your normal teriyaki stand.
Our final destination was the Bellevue branch of Uwajimaya, a small chain of Japanese-Asian grocery stores. Their specialty is Asian groceries that most stores hereabouts don’t carry. You can find any variety of soy sauce, tofu, or rice there. Unfortunately, you can also find natto there. The most exotic things we bought at Uwajimaya today were duck gizzards for dirty rice and Japanese sweet potatoes.The latter have an interesting texture when baked, almost buttery before you top them with anything. I’ll probably serve them with lamb chops tomorrow.

Our usual haunts in Bellevue are not in the downtown area, with the exception of Facing East. This is a Taiwanese restaurant just north of Bellevue Square. A friend who was born in Taiwan has declared it the real deal. As it happens, his mother and the owner of Facing East were neighbors when they were younger. There’s always a line out the door. Their signature dish is pork belly buns topped with an interesting cucumber pickle. I’d take these over a fried chicken sandwich any day,