I HAD MY FIRST restaurant meal in Seattle at Angel’s, at the corner of Broadway Avenue East and Thomas Street. I was sitting across from a college friend of a friend I barely knew, trying to look at the menu instead of the colorful human parade outside: drag queens, squinty old men on vintage bikes, and more Mohawks in 20 minutes than I’d seen in 20 pre-Seattle years.
Time changes everything. Angel’s, which served some of the best phad Thai in a city overflowing with the stuff, has moved on to another dimension, leaving pan-Asian restaurant Blue Canal to pick up Angel’s former clientele. I confess to approaching the place with trepidation: Not only did I feel nostalgia for the previous inhabitant of the place; the very phrase “pan-Asian” puts me off as much as “Asian fusion.” Both often connote a blank-check approach to blending European influence and trendy nouveau claptrap with Asian cuisine until anything remotely authentic is buried in b顲naise, polenta, or escarole.
Blue Canal has a different thing going: cloth napkins and handsome wood surfaces, but also reasonable prices and an honest effort to make “pan-Asian” mean more than just phad Thai, sushi, and almond chicken on the same menu. Sushi isn’t even on the menua good sign, considering how many non-Japanese restaurants are giving nori rolls a halfhearted try these days. Instead, the bill of fare is loaded with little surprises, like Malaysian curry noodle soup ($7.50), Indonesian seafood stew ($11.25), and pistachio prawns ($10.75). The menu’s fusion tendencies are playful, not obnoxiousthe closest it gets is seared ahi with wasabi soy yogurt dipping sauce ($8), and even that doesn’t sound half bad.
We started with spring rolls ($6) served on twin pools of sauce (chili-plum and mustard). The rolls had the desired crispy-outside/tender-inside texture, and their flavor was rich enough to stand on its own. As we dug into our entr饳Thai-Japanese yakisoba with peanut sauce ($7.75) and a more traditional Chinese-inspired garlic tofu with green beans ($8.25)my friend told me about the incestuous romantic drama currently consuming his social circle. I realized I was long past being astonished by drag queens and Mohawks. Angel’s, I’ll remember you fondly, but Blue Canal is where I’m at right now.