By Joel Magalnick, Editor, JTNews
As the self-described tastemakers of our local Jewish community, the JTNews is usually quite loath to turn over the reins to just anyone when it comes to deciding what’s good and what’s not. But that’s precisely what we do each year, with our annual Best of Everything survey. Rather than bust our tucheses and our editorial budget on trying out every Thai place, examining every Bar Mitzvah photo, visiting every synagogue, we instead go to you, our dear readers, to make the decisions for us. So for that, thank you. But remember, if you don’t agree with the answers, don’t blame us — this is pure readers’ choice!
Mazel Tov! Planning a
Celebration
Best Place for a Wedding: The Fairmount Olympic. If you’re thinking formal, then the Fairmount is the place for you. The place just oozes elegance, from the cascading stairways to the white-glove service, you can’t go wrong.
Best Place for a Bar or Bat Mitzvah: Our friends just south of Seattle have beat out the local mainstays. The Bet Chaverim Community Synagogue of South King County has a healthy number of fans. If you hold a Bar or Bat Mitzvah just once this year, you know where to go.
Best Local Party Band: It’s a Battle of the Bands! Put the big band sounds of local stalwarts the Od Yishama Orchestra & Asaf Erez against the omnipresent trio Sasson, and who rocks da house da most? Well, according to you, both!
Best DJ: Sure, any yutz with an iPod can plug it into some big ol’ boom boom speakers and call himself a DJ, but it takes a special person to get the timing, the set list, and the music just right. And Hayden Hall is that man.
Best Photographer: Dani Weiss certainly knows her way around a camera (not to mention a crowd). You can see her work in our pages in our Celebrations sections a couple times a year, as well as on the mantles of homes around the region. Dani gets the award for the fifth year in a row.
Best Florist: Doesn’t it make sense that an island that’s constitutionally mandated to smell like roses would be the favorite for best florist? Mercer Island Florist catches this year’s bouquet.
Best Videographer: Nobody edits out the Bar Mitzvah boy surreptitiously picking his nose on the bima better than local cameraman Michael Behar. Roll ‘em!
Best Place to Buy an Engagement Ring: They’ve been serving the Jewish community and the West Coast at large for generations, and Ben Bridge Jeweler is a favorite for anyone getting ready to pop the question.
Best Caterer: They do kosher on a large scale, and they make it look and taste quite good as well — milk or meat. Somebody serve a canapé to Nosh Away.
Best Ketubah Artist: Talk about a man with talent — he sings like the angels, draws (and writes) this town’s favorite ketubot, the wedding contract that makes the Jewish marriage, and let’s not forget that he also has a congregation to lead. Rabbi Simon Benzaquen is our master with a quill and pen.
DELI-cious
Best Corned Beef Sandwich: In a town where deli’s almost as hard to find as cacti, who’d have thought the best would come from a supermarket? But as it turns out, the kosher meat counter at the Albertson’s on Mercer Island takes the prize.
Best Knish: They’re hard to come by now that she’s closed her little shop in North Seattle, but when she brings ‘em out, Leah’s knishes knead no introduction.
Best Blintzes: Once again, Leah beat out such stalwarts as the “frozen ones at QFC” and the East Coast for the best Jewish version of the light-and-fluffy crepe.
Best Lox: Being in the Northwest, you’d think our local smokehouses would be climbing over each other to get this honor, but amazingly the big guys (and when we say big, we mean big!) took the salmon by the gills with bulk goods masters Costco, selling it packaged by the pound takes the prize.
Best Build-Your-Own sandwich: The Sarah Palin: Alaskan salmon, incompetently stacked on white bread and dressed with insufficient condiments.
Tradition!
Best Matzoh Ball on a Menu: Eastsiders rejoice! With matzoh balls bigger than your head (and some soup in the bowl where there’s room), Goldberg’s takes the prize.
Best Rugelach: This is where her talent shines, as Leah’s takes home yet another medal for her delicious rolled pastries. But we have to give special mention to one loving daughter-in-law as well, who responded that her favorite rugelach was made by local food maven Eileen Mintz, who died this past week. It’s a recipe now lost to the ages, unless you can get a hold of the secret stash in KOMO-TV problem solver Herb Weisbaum’s freezer.
Best Challah: Bakeries throughout the Puget Sound region have been taking a stab at making our weekly bread, most with good results, others not quite as much. And they, of course, must compete with generations of women and men who have been perfecting their own recipes. But put all that aside, since longtime kosher challah bakers Nosh Away have found the right balance of sweet and light to make every Shabbat special.
Best Bagel: Named for the man who saved the animals from the great flood, you always know what you’re going to get with Noah’s.
Dining Out
Best Burger: Sometimes simple and cheap is best, as anyone who waits in the long lines outside of any of the local burger maven Dick’s locations can tell you. And they pay a living wage to boot.
Best Pizza: This was a highly contested category, as purists of the New York style weighed in, as did fans of the upscale, more Neapolitan pies. But the winner is the new Mercer Island joint, Island Crust.
Best Pad Thai: With more Thai restaurants in this town than gas stations (don’t quote us on that), it’s surprising how hard it is to find a Pad Thai that doesn’t taste like ketchup. But the vegan Araya on NE 45th in Seattle’s University District takes the prize.
Best Romantic Dinner: With views from on high of the Seattle ship canal and the houseboats of Lake Union, plus some of the most coveted meals in town, Canlis is the place to take your sweetie for a special event, or just ‘cause.
Best Brunch: Come with an appetite and a little extra in your wallet, because Salty’s brunch means all the seafood you can eat, though it ain’t cheap.
Best Kid-Friendly Restaurant: We’ve got a tie in this category. The kosher pizza place Island Crust on Mercer Island is one, with Red Robin, the homespun burger chain with locations all over town being the other.
Best Italian: Another tie in this category. Seattleites can have some authentic Italian, spiced just right, with an eclectic wine list to go along, at the University District’s Momma Melina’s. Eastsiders can go old school to Maggiano’s, the national chain with its sole local location at Lincoln Square in downtown Bellevue. Salud!
Best Sushi: Seattle and its surrounding areas have nearly as many sushi places as they do Thai restaurants. Maneki, smack dab in the middle of the International District, gives everyone else the raw deal.
Best Asian: Encompassing pretty much everything on the other side of the Pacific, our respondents went kosher with this category and chose Bamboo Garden in lower Queen Anne.
Best Indian: The responses we got to some of the restaurants in the survey said, simply, “there is no kosher option.” Understandable for cuisines such as Thai or Mexican. Not so much for Middle Eastern or sit-down Italian, both of which are sorely lacking in our area. But when it comes to Indian, we’ve got an embarrassment of riches. Pabla, which has certified locations in both Renton and Issaquah, fills the void, and, probably not-so-coincidentally, wins the category.
Best Middle Eastern: Like we just said, we’re amazed that with the closure of Kafé Kineret on Mercer Island, you might as well try to eat a golf ball since that’s the closest you’ll get to a kosher falafel. But if you just need to scratch that Baba Ghanoush itch, head up to Gorgeous George’s in Greenwood. And if you go on a sunny day, you might actually feel like you’re in the Middle East.
Best Mexican: Small plate cuisine hits our neighbors south of the border in this Ballard favorite La Carta de Oaxaca. My mouth waters just thinking about it.
L’Chaim!
Best Wine List: Purple, with its two-story wine-bottle spiral defining this restaurant’s space, leaves the competition in the must with its extensive list and knowledgeable servers. The food and atmosphere ain’t bad, either.
Best Happy Hour: Well at least I can rejoice with the winner of this category — it’s right across the street from my office! Meet you at 5:30 for Latin-style munchies and great drinks at Brasa.
Best Pub: Not that I’m insinuating that I’m some kind of lush, but it just so happens that I’m typing up this article from the bookstore upstairs. And I swear, I won’t head down to the Third Place Pub in Seattle’s Ravenna neighborhood afterward for a pint. I mean it. Really!
Best Place to Meet Friends or to Watch a Game: Most people didn’t even bother to list a bar or restaurant for game time. And with all the money they saved they can get that 52” widescreen high-def LCD TV and invite everyone they know to watch at their own house.
Sweet Tooth
Best Bakery: Seattle is known as the breadbasket of the Northwest — if it’s not, then maybe it should be, as there is no shortage of great bakeries in this town. With all the choices out there, Specialty’s, with the world’s bestest chocolate chip cookies, wins the prize.
Best Chocolatier: Once again, Fran’s, with such yummy delectables as salted caramels covered in dark chocolate, wins the prize. Find her at University Village, in Old Bellevue, and now at the new Four Seasons hotel. If we’re talking showcases of the area’s (and the world’s) best chocolates, though, head to the top of Queen Anne to Chocolopolis and proprietor Lauren Adler will set you on the road to cacao heaven.
Best Dessert with a View: Canlis, with its great views for dinner, amazingly has the same views afterward as well, only sweeter!
Best Sugar Fix: No reservations necessary, just head on in to Wallingford Center for miles and miles of gourmet cupcakes at Trophy. Your sweet tooth will be glad you did; your waistline, not so much.
Community Matters
Best Local Jewish Organization: As our nation and region slide into economic despair, the organization that has been there for over 100 years and continues to serve the needs of the elderly, the hungry, the disabled, the new families, the addicted, and so many others is the one that’s more relevant to our Jewish community and beyond than ever. Who else could win this category but Jewish Family Service?
Best Youth Organization: They’ve been around forever, bringing Jewish kids together from all walks of life and levels of observance, and they’re more popular than ever. Kudos to BBYO, the B’nai B’rith Youth Organization, for the prize.
Best Jewish Camp: What lasts three weeks, brings Sephardic kids together to learn their heritage, and have lots of fun besides? If you guessed Sephardic Adventure Camp, you’d be right, as did so many of our respondents.
Best Jewish Web Site: Aw, shucks, guys, you shouldn’t have. But you did! So thank you, thank you! That’s right, our own Web site, jew-ish.com, wins the prize. The site, with news, events, a blog and much more for our local 20s-30s crowd, has been growing steadily since its launch two years ago, and it’s only getting better!
Best Place to Volunteer: What with all that stuff it does for the community (and the ever-decreasing funding to do it), an organization like Jewish Family Service needs all the volunteer help it can get. That’s why it once again wins the best place to volunteer award.
Religious Reflections
Best Congregation: Those folks between Seattle and Tacoma have gumption, a can-do spirit, and a lot of people who voted. And that’s why Bet Chaverim, the Reform temple in Federal Way/Des Moines, is the best. If you haven’t been, check ‘em out one of these Shabbats.
Best Mohel: We’ve trumpeted his capabilities above, as the best ketubah artist, but Rabbi Benzaquen is a true Renaissance man, and with his quick flick and exacting skills, little boys all across town bear the mark of his work.
Best Jewish Supplemental School: Kids from all over town come to Seward Park each Sunday so they can learn from the Seattle Kollel’s Total Sunday Jewish Experience.
Best Adult Education Program: Those folks down in Des Moines know their education as well, with classes and recommended Jewish reading for its adult population at Bet Chaverim taking the prize.
Shop ‘Till You Drop — And the Relaxation After
Best Jeweler: Getting déjà vu with this category? Those of you looking for jewelry that isn’t an engagement ring still chose Ben Bridge Jewelers for diamond status.
Best Destination When I’m Shopping for Clothes for Myself: We got quite a range of responses for this section, from Goodwill to just plain “Ballard,” but local high-end department store Nordstrom gets the gold tag.
Best Kidswear: People these days are looking to save money on their kids’ clothes as was evidenced by nearly all of people’s choices, but cheap chic national retailer Target takes the price…er, prize.
Best Home Furnishings: Affordable and high quality is the mark of Gallery Furniture, the favorite located in Kent.
Best Independent Toy Shop: Head up to Seattle’s Greenwood neighborhood, to Top Ten Toys, for the best in old-fashioned and small-production kids’ wares.
Best “Discovery” — Little Independent Shop that Stands Out: Top Ten Toys wins this category as well as it reaches out to people finding it for the first time.
Best Bike Shop: It’s not much to look at, but their mission is a great one: Rehab old bikes and then give them to kids in need so they’ve got transportation. Kudos to Bike Works in Columbia City, who win the master spoke.
Best Book Store: Specializing in all things Jewish, Tree of Life Judaica & Books in Seattle’s North End has it all, and if they don’t have it, they can order it for you.
Best Fitness Club: With the New Year just behind us, most of us are either settling in to our new gym memberships or thinking of ways to justify not showing up for an hour on the treadmill. But those who stick to it are always satisfied with the equipment and facilities at the Stroum Jewish Community Center. Plus, you’re always bound to run into somebody you know.
Best Spa Experience: The South Lake Union neighborhood has been sprouting all kinds of great new amenities, and Banya5, with its use of what it calls steam therapy in a beautiful and relaxing setting, takes the prize.
Best Jewish-Content Book of 2008: Despite there being a forest’s worth of new Jewish books on the market last year, not a lot of people could come up with a favorite. Some notable choices: Away, Cool Jew, and Twenty-Six Reasons Why Jews Don’t Believe in Jesus by Asher Norman.
Best Jewish Author of 2008: If you haven’t read his most recent, Foreskin’s Lament, you should. It’s hilarious and insightful, though it also makes you wonder how Shalom Auslander got to write a memoir and you didn’t.
Matchmaker Matchmaker
Best Place to Meet a Nice Jewish Boy or Girl: Synagogue, Latkepalooza, New York, the JCC. All great places, but nobody could agree on a single one. And confidential to the woman who said she’s still looking, for her daughter and son: On behalf of them, thanks but no thanks, Mom. We’ll take this one ourselves.
Best Online Dating Site: I was there, didn’t see you, but apparently many
of our respondents did. Congrats to www.sawyouatsinai.com, which has been bringing Jewish couples together since, well, Moses.
Best Jewish Pick-up Line: This is a family newspaper, so we’re going to have to skip over the favorite and go straight to number two. If it gets you a date, we fear both for you and the person you pick up, but here goes: “I’m bald and I live with my parents.” Yeah, we know. Go to the results on Jew-ish.com to see the winner.
Grab Bag
Best (or Worst) Political Antic of 2008: Two words: Sarah Palin.
Best Jewish Political Figure of 2008: President Obama’s right-hand man, the man who won’t hesitate to send you a dead fish, the guy who will make sure that Israel stays on 44’s radar screen, Rahm Emanuel.
Best Jewish-Themed Film of 2008: Aside from the film’s subject character, Harvey Milk, being a member of the tribe, there’s not a whole lot Jewish about Milk, but with eight Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and Best Actor for Sean Penn, the film certainly deserves the kudos from JTNews readers.
Best Jewish Actor of 2008: Hands down, no contest. The Zohan himself, Adam Sandler, runs away with the honors. Special mention should go to the best non-Jewish Jewish actor though, with his role in the just-released Defiance (plus his run as the Mossad agent in Munich): the man we now know as Bond, James Bond, Daniel Craig.
Best Jewish musician of 2008: Israelis Anat Cohen, the sax and clarinet who’s taking the world by storm, and chanteuse Yael Naim, whose folky sounds and Alanis Morrissette-like voice has made her the love of her home country, share honors.