Just when you think Ballard couldn’t possibly squeeze another restaurant into its culinarily packed parcel of space, up pops something new. Morsel, just opened on busy 15th Avenue in the former Blue Dog Kitchen space (they relaunched in the U District last spring), specializes in biscuits—but also on the housemade “fixins” that top them. Whether you’re going for, say, a savory “Cheddar Chive” or the traditional buttermilk, you can customize it to your liking with .75 toppings—like strawberry balsamic jam (I loved the balsamic tang, which kept it on the less-sweet side), chocolate hazelnut butter (essentially Nutella, as I reminded my daughter, but much more complex and less treacly), fig honey, tomato jam, and several butters including honey, apple, and maple. They even offer a seasonal “Bis… Cake,” a buttermilk biscuit decadently topped in cakelike fashion—for example (at press time) with caramelized Rainier cherries, 2bar bourbon sauce, and Ghirardelli chocolate.

If you’re stopping in for breakfast (be warned, a recent Saturday morning brought a sizable line that wrapped outside the small space), there are biscuit “sammies”: variations of egg sandwiches of which “The Spanish Fly” is a must-try. It’s a fried egg with generous slices of prosciutto, thick slabs of manchego cheese, arugula, and a kick of Mama Lil’s Pepper Aioli served on a biscuit of your choice. There’s also biscuits and gravy (sausage or mushroom) and seasonal cups of soup: corn saffron when I was there, but unfortunately they’d just run out.

Besides the biscuits, a pretty built-out coffee bar resides there as well, serving roasts from Kuma and Velton. Besides the standards, they offer chai lattes, housemade flavored syrups like vanilla and cardamom, and slow bar options. They even make their own sodas (club soda with seasonal syrups—lemon lavender when I was in). Best of all? The drive-through window.

nsprinkle@seattleweekly.com