Café Presse

Jacob: For our thousands of fans, Liam and I have been lax. OK, I have been lax, but heck, I've been in NYC on vacation with my wife Sara and we've been having "Lunching with the Boys"-style awesomeness every day. And Liam's been in Vancouver winning some sort of Bronze medal in curling. And eating lots of good food, no doubt. So, please - we've had a good a excuse.

But back to last week's lunch. Café Presse.

Café Presse

1117 12th Avenue, Seattle

http://www.cafepresseseattle.com/

Café Presse and some dude.

Café Presse is owned by the folks that own Le Pichet and is, I gather, the informal vibe that Le Pichet was initially intended to have. Presse is very casual and feels like a combination of a funky Parisian cafe and your typical Seattle indie coffeeshop.

"Who is this freak taking pictures?"

Liam and I pared it down to us two, a meeting of the minds, the deciders, the Boys that Lunch. I ordered a cafe au lait and a croque monsieur. Liam ordered the croque madame. We also got a side of frites and the pork rillette paté.

Liam: Delicious. I decided to stay with last week's egg theme (hard-boiled eggs with chicken) and ordered the croque madame; basically a croque monsieur with an egg on top. YUM! First off, the croque monsieur part was excellent. The cheese (comté) was melted on top of and around the bread, and the jambon was in the middle. Really good. The sunny-side-up egg on top was just a bonus for an already excellent sandwich.

Madame Get In My Belly!

Spreadable pork. Yum.

Jacob: My meal was pretty excellent. The pork rillete spread was excellent, especially with the stone ground mustard. My croque monsieur was delicious, though I have to say that Liam's madame looked more tasty to me. Overall, I'd give give the meal an 8 out of 10. It's nice to have a decent french-ish lunch that is filling, not too expensive, and not precious. It was quite hearty and filling, but the addition of the pork rillete paté and its subtle yumminess was nice. I'm glad that we have Café Presse in Seattle.

Liam: The pork rillette was nice and smooth, but not moussey. There was a little bit of pork grain there, and it was delicious. The quarter-inch layer of fat on one side of the pork was just an added bonus. Served with stone ground and dijon mustard, it was hard to choose which one would be added. I tried to treat them as equals, but I think I may have preferred the dijon. The cornichons were a nice touch, and I got to eat all of them since Jacob "doesn't like pickles" (what's up with that? I may have to reconsider this whole LWTB thing).

mmmmmmmm...pork 'n' pickles

On to the pommes frites. We got ours with a little side of mayonnaise. This isn't your standard Best Foods/Hellman's (depending on which side of the Mississippi you live on) mayo, this was a (seemingly) home made mayo. It was more of a pinkish/peachy white than store-bought, and it was really good. The pommes frites were really good as well, in spite of the little clump of hair...sorry, two separate little clumps of hair we found in them. Did the hair stop us from eating the frites? No. Of course not. It was deep fried. I'm sure it was just as sanitary as the frites. Did I save the hair to show the waiter and try to get the frites for free? No. Darnit. I just threw it on the floor without thinking ahead. Oh well. I'd order them again, hopefully without the clumps of hair next time.

I'm saying 8/10 too. In spite of the hairy frites. My sandwich and the pork rillette was too delicious to say otherwise. And like I said, the frites were good, as was the dippin' sauce. And the price matched the quality of the food.