Washington Restaurants

Composing a week's worth of haikus out of brothy alphabet soup will leave anyone wanting a stiff drink. Today's Groupon puts libations and sea fare in the same place with $25 worth of food and drink at STIR Martini and Raw Bar for $10. The precise engineering of your meal will fill your gullet and further inspire your economic use of 17 poetic syllables.

A tortilla makes a handy mouse pad, an acceptable patch for stiff denim jeans, and, if you draw a face on it, an ideal companion on fishing trips. But there are many other uses for it, as today's Groupon proves: for $20, you get $40 worth of creative cocktails and contemporary Mexican cuisine at Barrio’s elegant Capitol Hill and Bellevue eateries.

The culinary artists at Seastar Restaurant and Raw Bar grant palates the royal treatment with their smorgasbord of fresh, regionally sourced seafood and oysters, hearty steak-house cuisine, and all-star wine list, which earned the restaurant the Best of Award of Excellence from Wine Spectator. With a storied resumé that includes manning the kitchen at the prestigious Palisade Restaurant, as well as appearances on Martha Stewart Living and Martha Stewart Presents: American Gladiators, executive chef and owner John Howie focuses his culinary aesthetic on the cuisine of the Pacific Northwest while he experiments with exotic flavors from around the globe. His menu of refined dishes and homey meals furnishes stomachs with alluring flavors from both land and sea, as tasted in the sockeye-salmon poke, dungeness-crab risotto, and fire-grilled filet mignon.

Each Seastar Restaurant and Raw Bar location surrounds guests in a cozy cocoon of blond woods and warm light—an ideal setting for polishing off plates of shellfish stews, steak and potatoes, and fresh ice cream and chocolate truffles. While admiring each restaurant’s sleek interior, diners can also enjoy the many notes found in Seastar’s 14-page wine list.

Chef John Howie has always had the Bellevue dining culture in his blood. According to Seattle magazine, he started bussing tables at a local restaurant at age 15 and hasn't looked back since, building up a culinary empire with four venerated Washington restaurants bearing his creations.

At John Howie Steak, Chef Howie works with executive chef Mark Hipkiss, grilling USDA Prime steaks aged up to 42 days, American Wagyu steaks from Snake River Farms in Boise, Idaho, Pure Blood Wagyu beef from Victoria, Australia, and Japanese A5 Wagyu beef from the Kagoshima and Miyazaki Perfectures. The meats sizzle over an open-flame mesquite, charcoal grill, holding onto a mineral-smoke flavor far superior to other restaurants' Twinkie-smoke-flavored steaks. The imported cuts mingle with local organic produce and dairy as well as wild mushrooms and truffles culled from throughout the Pacific Northwest. John Howie Steak's robust wine menu complements the meaty textures and full, smoky flavors with more than 600 selections from California and Washington, as well as far off lands such as Spain, France, and New Zealand.

Not much has changed since Lovie Yancey opened the first Fatburger in 1952. Since then, the chain has expanded, but the food has stayed the same: 100% USDA lean beef burgers grilled to order and hand-scooped ice-cream shakes. Each restaurant stays true to Yancey's vision, even down to retro-influenced digs with jukeboxes blasting old school favorites designed to make listeners flash enthusiastic thumbs-up signs. Inside the kitchen, cooks stack burgers from 2.5-ounce burgers to 24-ounce triple burgers on toasted regular or gluten-free buns as fresh onions crisp inside fryers filled with cholesterol-free oil. Diners can also enjoy Fatburger’s signature chili made with a secret blend of herbs and spices or milkshakes topped with dollops of whipped cream that resemble fluffy, white clouds shaped like marshmallows.

Del Rey's chef, Derek Knudsen, infuses classic bar dishes with a gourmand's flair, offering a menu of wash-downable delights, fried yum, and Southwestern staples. After tasting the blackened ahi tuna ($13.95), truffle mac 'n’ cheese ($7.95), and churros with chocolate-Kahlua sauce ($5.95), tone-deaf taste buds find themselves serenading incisors with John Fogerty lyrics. Early feasters can enjoy Saturday- and Sunday-brunch favorites such as the vegetarian breakfast burrito ($7.95) or Kahlua French toast ($6.95), washed down with one of Del Rey's specialty Bloody Marys ($7.50–$8). Bathed in glowing red light, diners settle into intimate booths with selections from Del Rey's stocked bar. More than 100 tequilas spicy up margaritas, including the jalapeño-cucumber ($8) and the triple berry ($7.50), while the Dark N Stormy quenches the thirsts of sadistic weathermen with house-made ginger beer and dark rum ($7.50).