Former NYT critic Frank Bruni in his early daysI feel bloated, exhausted and fat as a bastard–lying splayed out in the middle of my living room floor like a beached whale, catching up on old episodes of The Simpsons on DVR and sweating pure suet.It’s been a week, more or less, since I rolled gimpily into town and found my way down to the office. I detailed my first day’s eating adventures like a war correspondent just back from the front–dropping my critic’s gear (wallet, credit cards, laptop bag, reporter’s notebooks, pill case full of ibuprofen and Zofran and hip flask) by the door and falling right down in front of the typer as soon as I got home, unloading on the poor machine like it’d said something nasty about my mother. The Frontier Room and the Owl n’ Thistle, Piroshky Piroshky, Turkish Delight and hot dogs from some stand down by the water–it was a busy day. My technique had been a simple one: walk until exhausted, stop, look around, eat wherever my feet had taken me, then (when sufficiently recovered and spiritually braced up by a couple drinks), start walking again. Repeat until either the legs or the appetite give out completely.Now, though, I’ve had a little bit of time to settle. My running around is slightly less frantic, somewhat more directed–less blitzkreig, more commando raid. Doesn’t mean I’m eating any less, just that where I land is less random.I hit Elliott Bay Cafe one afternoon with a friend, stomping through the streets, talking about newspapers, and then swinging in to the downstairs location for hot green tea and a sandwich of bunny confit with brilliant green pesto and onions. The rabbit was lovely, saddle and thigh meat picked clean off the bone, fat-packed and tender, needing the acid bite of the pesto and onions and the support of good bread to keep the smooth, oily fattiness of the meat in check. Granted, what I’d been hoping for was maybe a nice plate of scrambled eggs and salami (Jewish deli comfort food to anchor me in place, quiet my still-jangled nerves and keep me from drifting away into weirdness and longing), but no such grub was on the menu. One more thing I’m going to have to start looking for. One more necessity to add to the growing list of breakfast burritos, boxty and baklava, corned beef hash and a proper filet of sole or salmon dressed only in a slip of stinging lemon beurre blanc.After that, it was a bit of car touring, looking for Mexican food, noodles, what-have-you. In Issaquah, Laura and I found Taqueria La Venadita, but it was closed for the day. Worth a return visit, for sure. In Redmond, we scored at Noodle Land–a little strip mall Thai place, tucked in among other strip mall Chinese and cheeseburger places–and ate ourselves stupid; calling for plates of shu mai and fried wontons (the former better than the latter, unless you’re really a fan of fried dough dipped in honey), Mermaid Prawns (padded out with ground chicken, wrapped in rice paper jackets and deep fried), Heavenly Beef, sticky rice, curry and noodles. The Heavenly Beef was my dark-horse favorite, cut into fingers, marinated, rubbed with pepper and chiles, cooked to the consistency of jerky, then served over a flat pad of sticky rice prepared the way I love it–gluey, almost too tough to cut, moldable as clay, as filling as a bowl of porridge and deliciously sweet and hot when dredged through a little bowl of sriracha.Made from real mermaid!The rest of the food? Not bad. Not my favorite Thai ever, but certainly better than average. We ate Highway noodles (yakisoba with beef, bean sprouts, green onions and shaved carrots–Asian truck stop food) that were sweet and simple, without the complicated interplay of flavors common to most Thai cuisine, then moved on to masaman curry with chicken. I prefer my masaman to err on the side of sweetness, to really feature the coconut milk and the potatoes, and Noodle Land’s was, as served, more on the spicy side. Though with that said, the half-plate we took home as leftovers? Awesome out of the fridge in the middle of the night once the flavors had mellowed and mingled. A bowl of that over fresh rice and a cold beer on the side was damn near perfect. It was gone so fast I might just as well have snorted it.Two nights running, we ate meatballs and gravy and rosti from IKEA. Laura had been looking forward to it for weeks, and I needed a cheap, angular table and some oddly-shaped rugs anyhow, so we went. Something worth noting: the food zone there sells unsalted whole hams for a decent price, and all manner of freaky Swedish candies. If I ever need an enormous marshmallow covered in dark chocolate, I know where to go. Ditto a bottle of marinated herring. Think I’ll avoid rib night, though.Needing a taste of old timey, touristy Seattle, I had plans to head over to the Pier 54/Acres of Clams/fancy-pantsy sit-down location of Ivar’s and got the perfect opportunity when the Seattle Weekly’s office building caught fire.Okay, not really. But the contractors working on one of the other floors did manage to trip the fire alarm at an hour that was not entirely unreasonable for lunch, so Mike Seely and I headed over for some fish and views of the water.You can read his account of how halibut sandwich caught in his moustache smelled by the end of the day (pretty bad from what I understand), but I–as cleanly-shaven as an altar boy–had no such issues. No, my lunch just plain sucked on the spot. I went for the classics: clam chowder and a simple fish fry. And while the white chowder was good (though certainly nothing to brag about or stake a reputation on), the fish fry was just an embarassment. I’ve had better in church basements. Matter of fact, some of the best fish fries I’ve ever had have come from church basements, but this one wasn’t even as good as the worst of those. The menu claims “World Famous” status, a “classic since 1938,” and while I could maybe believe that if I was eating in, say, Idaho, Arizona or some other land-locked state, I was sitting right on the water–you know, where the fish live–and I still got a fry-up that made of bland fish in a mealy batter that tasted like something straight out of the freezer case at Costco.I get it. Ivar’s is in a difficult position, trying to do the dancing monkey act for the tourists while still trying to appear fresh and innovative for the locals. But seriously, if the kitchen can’t even do something as straightforward as a fish fry well, then I’m just not interested in giving them a second chance on their vegetable napoleon or goat cheese and toast points. I’m not giving up completely on Ivar’s yet, but you know what they say about first impressions. And all things considered, it was a good thing I still had some leftover IKEA rosti and Highway noodles in the fridge at home.