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Last night Isabell and I went out with our very good friend Emily - current assistant director of Seattle's biggest indie movie company, absolute wine stud, and major foodie. We started the night at Seattle Cellars for their Thursday night tasting I mentioned in an earlier post. We have a flight of wines from Goose Ridge Winery here in Washington - good stuff. From there we walked down to a favorite of all three of us, Matt's in the Market. The restaurant recently re-opened after closing for several months and expanding. The new place is twice as big, views are even better, and the food still fantastic (Isabell had some amazing scallops). We scored a nice off-the-menu pinot noir from Belle Ponte in Oregon. After dinner we strolled over to Tavolata (pictured above) for one more drink. This is a great Italian restaurant and really cool space.

It really doesn't get any better than good food and wine with great friends.

This post is coming live from my second coffee shop review: Cafe Dharwin on North Capitol Hill. The place is tiny (4 tables), but the barista was really nice and my cappuccino excellent. Like many places Cafe Dharwin serves Caffe Vita, but that's fine by me. Other notes: free wireless (why has Starbucks not caught on to this yet?) and proceeds of all sales go to a school in Africa. Nice work.

As last weekend drew to a close and Bell finished her third day of work at the hospital in a row, we agreed that we needed a date night. She did a little research and came up a cafe on Phinney Ridge called Stumbling Goat. Weird name, good food.

All of the food is organic and produced at small farms. The menu even lists the origin of the food. It is worth noting that we had a great wine too: Cadence - a red blend from Washington. We agreed that we will definitely stumble into this place again.

Isabell had to work today so I decided to join my good friend Celeste, a University of Washington med student, at the law library at Seattle U for some study time (I needed to write a paper for my MBA class). When lunch rolled around I walked over to a new Parisian-style cafe called Presse. The place is the latest venture for the owners of Le Pichet downtown. I had sat at the bar, had a great little lunch, read the paper, and watched the first half of the Brazil - Argentina futbol match. All-in-all it was a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

It would be a valiant effort to try and write about all the coffee shops Seattle has to offer in a single post. So instead I am going to keep a running diary of the places I drop into.

Today it's a great spot on Queen Anne called El Diablo. Highlights: the free internet and Mexican hot chocolate. Great stuff.

Isabell and I are moving into a new place on Capitol Hill in a couple of weeks, so our time in the Eastlake neighborhood of Seattle is short. There is not a whole lot in Eastlake when it comes to food and drink, but it does have some great spots.

We noticed that in the July issue of Food & Wine magazine the country's top new chefs were listed and one was from Seattle. His name is Matthew Dillon and his place is called Sitka & Spruce - which just so happens to be one block away. It is a great little eatery with a menu of fresh local foods that changes daily. We have only been there once, for dessert and coffee, but it was enough of a teaser to make a trip back soon for the whole thing.