Alaskan Expatriate

At the top of the Space Needle is Sky City restaurant. It’s the oldest rotating restaurant remaining in the United States. You hover at 500 feet, and it takes 47 minutes to make a full rotation. If you think about it, the spinning can be a bit nauseating. Sky City was the second rotating restaurant built, the first was in Honolulu. Apparently the Hawaiian restaurant is closed now, but when I visited in 1999 it was still operational and a nice place for lunch one day.

Back to Seattle though, my mind is wandering somewhere on the beach in Hawaii. Last week, Andrea asked me to join her and some others for dinner to celebrate her mom’s birthday. I agreed without knowing the dining location. Checking in a few days later, she said “at the Space Needle.” I swear, my eyes rolled into the back of my head and little money signs showed up where my pupils once were. I could only imagine how much it was going to cost… and the online menu confirmed. When you look this place up in your dining guide, it’s one of a small handful with the dreaded FOUR dollar signs next to it.

Putting the cost aside for a moment, I’ll get to the food. It’s actually pretty good. It’s not the best food I’ve ever eaten, and definitely not worth the price (there I go talking about the cost again). Overall, the meal was enjoyable. I had a goat cheese appetizer. It was beautiful, of course, but when you combined the tart cheese with the earthy greens and just a bit of the berry puree, the full effect was rich and warm — sort of a maternal flavor.

My entree was seasonal vegetables served in a puff pastry. I usually expect the vegetarian option to be lacking at nice restaurants, but I was fooled here. The puff pastry was plain and tasted too much like shortening for me to eat much of it. The filling was a delicate mixture of vegetables and mushrooms in a cream sauce. I enjoyed the mushrooms. Most restaurants will use one type of mushroom in a dish, but this had three at least, some light and others meaty and tender.

We all split three desserts, mostly because I don’t think anyone could choose just one. The one food item remaining from the Worlds Fair Space Needle restaurant is a dessert called the Lunar Orbiter. It’s essentially an ice cream sundae, but wait… there’s more. The sundae is on a small silver tray will nickel-sized holes around the edges of the tray. Then the tray is placed on a glass bowl filled with dry ice. When it’s brought to your table, the server pours warm water over the ice and the whole table fills with a cloud of smoke. It’s a lot of fun, no matter how cheesy it seems.

So if overall the food was decent, but not amazing, the view made up for it. Seeing Seattle from that perspective is fascinating. From ground level, the city can seem daunting and hectic, but from 500 feet up, it seems more vulnerable. The big estates perched atop the hills look like big doll houses. The port seems less industrial. It’s really worth it just for the view. In fact, if you have someone visit from out of state who’s never been. Paying the $13 to get to the observation deck is totally worth it. Pick a clear day though. I can’t imagine it being so moving with Seattle clouds looming.