While visiting Seattle, we wanted to visit Annapurna Cafe after reading that it is a hidden gem. It is!! From the outside, it doesn't look like anything special but once you get inside, you remember to not judge a book by its cover. We were greeted and placed our drink orders. We ended up ordering the calamari appetizer, lamb saag naan, and shrimp chow chow (noodles). I'm dairy free (my husband isn't). Everything that we ordered was milk and butter free except the naan. They also brought us some complimentary chips of some sort with 2 dipping sauces (green and red). While the waiter indicated the chips were dairy free, another waiter told me (after I had eaten the green sauce that it indeed had milk in it). Everything that we had was phenomenal. Though I ordered the chow chow medium in heat, it was spicy. I didn't mind it but my husband said he thought it was too hot. The saag had a perfect heat level and my husband ordered it medium as well. The staff was wonderful, several came by our table to make sure we had everything we needed. We were never left feeling that we needed anything and couldn't find someone. We will definitely be coming back next time we are in town.

Another great Yelp find. We were in Seattle for the weekend and looking for a breakfast spot and boy did we find it. We walked down and found this small yet very satisfying restaurant. My husband ordered the America skillet with tots and I ordered the avocado sandwich with a side of pork sausage meatballs. My husband devoured his. The bacon was slightly undercooked for his liking but it didn't stop him from eating it. The eggs were perfectly cooked so the luscious yolk ran over the other food on the skillet. I can't have butter or milk and I didn't think about asking if there was milk in my eggs and after I ordered and before the food came out I went up to double check. Indeed they do put milk in their eggs. She told me it was no problem and that they would do the eggs sunny side up. I was super appreciative that they accommodated me. When the sandwich came out, it looked amazing. The bread was to die for. It was perfectly baked with a nice crunchy exterior to hold up to the runny egg yolks and soft avocados. I did add some Sriracha which I thought added the perfect amount of heat. I didn't love the meatballs, but I think it was more of a personal preference, the texture was a little soft for my liking. All and all, this place is a 12 out if 10 though I hate to leave this review because I don't want to have a long wait the next time I'm in town.

We found Brix when looking for a weekend brunch place to take our mom and Aunt. From the outside, it looks like everyother bar in Portland, nothing special. Once you enter, you immediately notice how loud it is when there are alot of people. That is not a deal breaker for me but for older people, it does make it hard for conversating. Once we sat down, it took a good 5-8 minutes for the waitress to arrive and take our drink orders. I let her know at that time that I had a dairy allergy and asked if several things could be made dairy free. Unfortunately, almost their whole brunch menu with the exception of the salads all has either butter or milk including the hashbrowns are precooked with butter. Now I'm not one of those people who expect that a restaurant has a specialty menu for gluten or dairy free items. I do feel like dairy allergies are more common these days so the idea of using butter over oil sort of surprises me. Anyways, she did bring complementary donuts to the table which looked amazing (but did have dairy). The others in my group all tried them and said they were really good (but definitely sweet).

Here is what our table ordered:

Southwest Quinoa Salad (for me, this was a dairy free option) with Salmon - it was really good. I would definitely have it again. It came dressed with dressing and if our server would have stopped back by our table, I would have asked for more dressing. I ended up just adding some hot sauce that was on the table that it helped out. I also asked them to add bacon to it which definitely elevated the dish. I loved the idea of cutting the lettuce and cabbage in a slaw style. It made it easier to eat and I really felt like it added great texture.

Vegetarian Benidict - my Aunt really liked this dish. The corn cakes are more like polenta squares. The eggs were cooked perfectly, and the avocado was perfectly ripe. She also said while the hashbrowns were really tasty, she did say there was an overabundance of butter. Not necessarily a bad thing but it was alot.

Farmers Breakfast - my mom said this was good. There wasn't anything special about it. It was a standard breakfast with eggs, bacon and hashbrowns. She did ask for her eggs softly scrambled, and the chef did a great job accomplishing it (while a lot of restaurants don't know how to softly scramble).

Chicken Cobb Salad - my sister said that this was good, but she was a little disappointed with the actual greens of the salad. They weren't cut at all, and she found it clunky to eat. She said the flavor was good but wished that they would have done a slaw type cut like they do on the quinoa salad that I had.

The only other thing I want to mention is while we had a very nice server, the restaurant was very busy so she didn't come back to our table very often. Again, not a deal breaker but when you order coffee and tea, the expectation is that we would get refills which only happened once. We did wait close to an hour for our food to come out as well. As I said, it was busy, but it did seem to take an excessive amount of time to get the food.

All in all, I would definitely come back again.

After a lot of dreaming about our perfect master bedroom and bathroom we decided to pull the trigger to have our existing rooms remodeled. We met with Chad Haagen of Haagen General Contractors and walked through our visions. We had an awkwardly long and narrow bedroom and a very small master bath that included the smallest stall shower you could imagine (picture summer camp shower size) with a pedestal sink with almost zero counter space. Our vision included splitting the bedroom in half and making half a walk-in closet along with extending out the shower, removing the 2nd door in the bathroom, adding a custom vanity, all new flooring, tile on the walls of the shower and a glass shower door (no more annoying shower curtain). With everything we told Chad, he was engaged, telling us that all of it was possible and sometimes giving us suggestions to make it even better. Chad wasn't even gone, and I knew that he was our person. Chad sent over the quote, and we felt it reasonable given all that we had asked to have done. As part of the agreement, there were specific items that we needed to purchase and provide and other things that were included in the quote. Chad made it very easy by providing us a detailed list of what we needed to purchase, including providing us a list of vendors that could help with things like custom building a vanity, buying carpet and tile which made a daunting process much easier to complete. The project was projected to take 4 weeks and while it went a little past the 4-week mark, a lot of that was due to us adding/changing things along the way. Tim was the onsite, day-to-day pro. He was an extremely hard worker and his attention to detail wasn't anything that we had seen before, down to using the smallest paintbrush to make sure that the transitional sections looked perfect and seamless. There is no one we would want more than Tim to do all of our future remodel projects, I'm just sad I didn't get to say goodbye as I was at work his last day at our house. The finished product was more then we could have ever imagined. Every time we walk into our new bedroom, bathroom, or huge walk-in closet, it feels like a dream. We couldn't have imagined that our old 1970's layout to look this amazing. I really do feel like Chad brought our dreams to reality. I think the best part is, I feel like we have made a friend in Chad. If you are looking for a talented, no-nonsense type of guy, look no further, Chad Haagen is your guy.