“For the first time in 10 years, I make reservations under my own name, dropping all attempts at subterfuge and evasion. I don’t do anything strange with my hair. I don’t put on the glasses that I don’t need or the lifts in my boots. When the hostess calls and asks if I am Jason Sheehan, I say yes, I am. And yes, I will be there at 5:45 for dinner. And yes, it will be a party of two. Across three states and five cities and a decade’s worth of work, I have never answered that question honestly. It feels good not to lie.When I step inside–through the heavy glass door and into the cloistered luxury of one of Seattle’s best and eldest fine dining institutions–I am met with nothing but smiles. I have been here before, but never as myself. It is a strange sensation, like walking in naked, stripped of pretense and here only to dine.In the lounge, there is the burn of Redbreast whiskey and the slow settling into the timeless state of dining. Drinks will come and they will be taken away. Food will arrive when it arrives. I’ll know it’s a good night if I don’t look at my watch for the first couple of hours. I’ll know it’s a great one if those hours pass like minutes falling from the clock, unknown and unnoticed. I’m wearing my good jacket, a shirt with one button missing (hoping no one notices because I didn’t until it was too late), and my best black jeans in defiance of the “no denim” policy of the house. Oddly, I feel right at home. The truest magic of the best restaurants in the world is their ability to make anyone melt into the flow of service, to feel not just comfortable, but comforted– like someone out there is looking out for you and wants only good things to happen.”So this is what it comes to, folks. My final meal in Seattle, my last meal as a critic. And for the first time in a long time, I got to go in and eat only as myself. So often I am accused of being some kind of shill–of swanning around the city, flaunting my position to get the best tables, the best treatment, free stuff and the loving attention of the house. People say I just go out there and announce myself and my intentions, demanding that armies of midgets bring me platters of foie gras and fat steaks garnished with hundred-dollar bills.For the record, I don’t. Never have. Never wanted to. If only you all knew how often I have had to sit near the bathrooms, how often I have been roundly ignored by staffs or fed food that I wouldn’t have given to my cat. Those who read regularly know exactly how good things can be when I am just any old schlub out for a night on the town, and occasionally just how awful. But just once, I wanted to see what it would be like to be The Critic out in the open–playing no games and attempting no lies. Without being demanding, without making a big deal out of it–basically, without being a total dick–I wanted to live for a few hours the way my detractors have always assumed I live every night of my life. And you know what?If I’d actually been doing this for the past 10 years, I know now that it would’ve killed me. I would be stone dead. Or if not dead, then 900 pounds, on oxygen, and hooked to a permanent Irish-whiskey drip. My heart would pump pure lard and I would have to bathe myself with a sponge on a stick. I would be huge and horrid and ill and exhausted and all the fun would’ve been leached out of dining long ago. As it was, my one night at Canlis put me out of commission for most of a day–a day which saw me swearing repeatedly that I was never going to eat or drink again. I suffered for my mild excesses.And it was totally worth it.Canlis was as beautiful as ever, smooth as ever, luxurious as ever, and wonderful as ever. It was the perfect way for me to end my tour of duty in Seattle, the ideal house in which to say goodbye to a place I am leaving far too soon.And come tomorrow, you can read all about it, both here and in the paper. Though by the time you do, the odds are good that I will already be long gone.Follow Voracious on Facebook and Twitter.