Scoop: Morphing Menus

How have Seattle

By Seattle Mag December 31, 1969

This article originally appeared in the April 2009 issue of Seattle magazine.

Category: Eat + Drink Articles

 

How have Seattle’s longstanding restaurants survived? Perpetually popular menu items. While a “tantalizing butter sauce” from the 1950s may have been replaced by today’s “spiced mango coulis” (likewise, a mysterious “dressing” was booted by a “sherry glace”), the core entrées haven’t changed—and Dick’s is still a deal.

Canlis

1950s

2009

$5.50 Hawaiian mahi mahi

“We charcoal-broil them to your taste with a tantalizing butter sauce.”

$36 Mahi mahi

Sesame crusted with spiced mango coulis and smoked shiitake mushrooms

$6.75 Filet mignon

“Specify your wish—from raw-rare to well-done—and we’ll time it to the minute.”
 

$44 Filet mignon

Aged, naturally raised Midwest beef with market vegetables and fingerling potatoes.

(Fairmont) Olympic Hotel — The Georgian

1950s

2009

70¢ Fried scallops

 

$39 Seared scallops

With crisp potatoes, melted leeks, bacon butter sauce

70¢ Broiled salmon

Maître d’Hôtel

 

$39 Cedar plank smoked salmon

With sweet corn and prawn cake, baby vegetables, Parmesan foam
 

35¢ Spinach with egg

 

$13 Arrowhead spinach salad

Dressed in truffles, shaved sottocenere

Ivar’s Acres of Clams

1950s

2009

90¢ Creamed crab on toast

 

$11 Crab and chèvre dip

Creamy melted chèvre and Parmesan cheeses, French bread toast points

$1 Acre of steamed clams With butter, cup of nectar

 

$13 Acre of clams

One pound of tender local Manila clams simmered with red potatoes in garlic-white wine butter sauce

$1.25 Baked salmon fillet

With “Ivar’s dressing”

 

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