EverOut Mar 22 5:44 PM

This Week in Seattle Food News

U District Gets A New Japanese Spot, Insomnia Cookies is Coming, and Champagne Diner Says Goodbye

This week, Insomnia Cookies is headed to the U District, Halfseas Wine and Bottle Shop plans to open in Ballard, and Champagne Diner says goodbye. Read about that and more, from spiced honey vanilla ice cream biscuits to asparagus bagels, below. For more ideas, check out our food and drink guide.

NEW OPENINGS 

Kitchen & Market
The upscale grocery chain debuted a new location in Madison Valley yesterday.
Madison Valley

Sumo Express UW
The fast-casual Japanese spot Sumo Express, which serves dishes like yakisoba, sushi, and poke bowls and operates a location on Capitol Hill, recently expanded with a new location in the University District.
University District

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Music Mar 22 10:47 AM

Omni's Catchy, Unpredictable Post-Punk and Domenica Diavoleria's Chilling Ambient

The Best New Music to Hit My Inbox This Week

Omni, "Plastic Pyramid" (Sub Pop)

Atlanta trio Omni are one of those neo-post-punk groups who seemingly found inspiration through Pavement and Wire. Meaning, they—guitarist Frankie Broyles, singer/bassist Philip Frobos, and drummer Chris Yonker—love spiky guitar sounds, staccato rhythms, and unobviously infectious hooks in equal measure.

I somehow missed Omni's 2019 debut for Sub Pop, Networker, but catching up with it now, I realize that was a grave error. Its 11 songs possess a casual tautness and almost Canterbury-prog-level tunefulness that make rock seem like it still has some vital possibilities. Sub Pop's knack for finding and supporting rock bands who don't make you roll your eyes and/or shrug—a rare feat in the 2020s—remains impressive.

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EverOut Mar 22 10:00 AM

The Best Bang for Your Buck Events in Seattle This Weekend: Mar 22–24, 2024

Seattle's French Fest, Polish Spring Bazaar, and More Cheap & Easy Events Under $15

The first weekend of spring is bringing spring showers and a spate of events from Seattle's French Fest: A Celebration of French-Speaking Cultures to the Polish Spring Bazaar and from the U District Cherry Blossom Festival to SkĂĄl Five Year Anniversary Party. For more ideas, check out our guide to the top events of the week.

FRIDAY

COMEDY

Old AF
Are you cool? No?!?! Me neither. Okay, so neither of us is cool, and the endless march of time suggests we're all slogging slowly toward our eventual demise. What could be funnier than that? One possibility is this fully improvised comedy show, in which local comics cling desperately to cultural relevance by learning trends, slang, and goss from the audience. Hopefully the terminally online will show up to explain things; the rest of us can just nod along. LINDSAY COSTELLO
(18th & Union: An Arts Space, $15)

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I attended Congressman Adam Smith's town hall event last Sunday, in which he sat on a stage and briefly addressed a small but angry crowd. He canceled the event when some members of the audience became verbally disruptive over his denial of the genocide in Gaza. Now he compares his own constituents to MAGA rioters who stormed the US Capitol. 

The town hall was scheduled at a Bellevue high school on a rare sunny weekend. There was a police presence at the event, and the atmosphere was charged with anxiety, but it was not exactly hostile. As the diverse crowd took their seats, many holding signs and banners with messages like “Ceasefire” and “Tell Congress to Stop Funding Genocide,” Congressman Smith sat alone on the stage looking tired and irritable. 

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Economy Mar 22 9:00 AM

Seattle's Leading Far-Right Personality Is in State of Despair About Boeing

And He Has No Idea What to Do About the Crisis

This will sound incredible—and, indeed, it might indicate how the size of Boeing's present crisis is under-appreciated—but none other than Jason Rantz, Seattle's market-loving warrior, is so confounded by Boeing's ever-mounting problems and bad press that he has fallen into a state of despair.

But let's step back for a moment and ask a major question. What exactly is despair? And, furthermore, what makes it different from, say, hope? A precise answer can be found in Spinoza's Ethics, which George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) translated from Latin around the middle of the 19th century.

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UN Security Council fails to pass ceasefire resolution: A resolution calling for "an immediate and sustained cease-fire" was struck down by vetos in the UN's Security Council. Proposed by the United States, the ceasefire resolution marks a shift as the death toll in Gaza continues to climb. The US vetoed three previous proposals calling for a ceasefire. The vetos on the US's ceasefire proposal came from Russia and China, two permanent UN members with veto power. 

Renton crash kills 4: Andrea Hudson, 38, died in a car crash this week while transporting her own children and the children of her close friends. Hudson organized and led a homeschooling group. Three of the children—all of her close friends' kids—died. Hudson's two children survived and are seeking treatment in the hospital. 

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Jeff Lynne’s ELO, the modern incarnation of his legendary chamber pop band Electric Light Orchestra, is coming to Seattle one last time on their farewell tour. Metalcore quartet A Day To Remember has dropped dates for their Least Anticipated Album tour. Plus, Hans Zimmer—who you may know for his Grammy Award-winning scores to Dune and The Lion King—is bringing his 18-piece band and full orchestra to town this fall. Read on for details on those and other newly announced events, plus some news you can use.

ON SALE FRIDAY, MARCH 22

MUSIC

A Day To Remember - The Least Anticipated Album Tour
WaMu Theater (Mon July 15)

The Antlers & Okkervil River
Tractor Tavern (Fri June 21)

BashfortheWorld  - "From Dallas With Love" Tour
Neumos (Fri Apr 26)

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News Mar 21 11:29 AM

Target of “Landlord Lives Matter” Protest Speaks Out About Bullying Amid Eviction Case

Landlord Claims Tenant Is Exploiting the System, Tenant Says He’s Going Through the Proper Legal Channels

Bellevue landlord Jaskaran Singh will host a second “Landlord Lives Matter” protest this Saturday against a financially unstable family of five facing eviction from a Bellevue rental home after his protest last weekend caught national media attention.

While conservative press insists Singh faces a great injustice because tenant Sang Kim is “exploiting the system,” the family in crisis told The Stranger that the spectacle at their rental home is just the latest episode in their landlord’s use of intimidation tactics to bypass “the system,” the proper channels of eviction, all together.

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Art and Performance Spring 2024 Mar 21 9:51 AM

It’s Important That the Bug Undulates

How Anida Yoeu Ali Uses Wiggling Worms and Glitter as Forms of Protest

Anida Yoeu Ali deals heavily in dichotomies and paradoxes. As a first-generation Muslim Khmer artist born in Cambodia and raised in Chicago, Ali’s works tease out the spiritual and political underpinnings of her hybrid transnational identity. Her textile works simultaneously veil and draw attention to the form that wears them; in performance, she becomes both dazzling and obscured, a solitary mythopoetic entity who also fosters face-to-face public encounters. Ali identifies as a political agitator, and she’s one you might have spotted before. On November 9, 2016, the day after Donald Trump was elected president, she appeared in the center of Pike Place Market as the Red Chador, carrying a sign: I AM A MUSLIM on one side, BAN ME on the other.

Hybrid Skin, Mythical Presence, Seattle Asian Art Museum’s first solo exhibition of a Cambodian American artist, celebrates two of Ali’s most monumental performance installations: The Buddhist Bug, a 300-foot undulating worm who represents both Islam and Buddhism, and The Red Chador, a glittering protester of Islamophobia who emerged, died, and was reborn again, a rainbow-hued phoenix from the ashes. 

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Ceasefire now: The United States drafted a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for an “immediate ceasefire tied to the release of hostages” in Gaza. You'll remember how the United States blocked previous efforts to pass a ceasefire resolution, so this seems like a pretty significant shift, likely prompted by the ongoing, anti-genocide protest movement and perhaps more specifically the campaign to vote "uncommitted" in the Presidential Primary.

Is it enough? Al Jazeera Diplomatic Editor James Bays seems a little skeptical of the latest draft of the US's ceasefire resolution. It amounts the strongest message from the United States yet, but Bays said the resolution is somewhat ambiguous: "Is it what the rest of the Security Council wants in terms of a demand for an immediate ceasefire? Or is it just a resolution where the Security Council would say an immediate ceasefire is something that’s very important?” The UN has not scheduled a vote on the resolution, but I'm sure the Slog will keep y'all in the loop.

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EverOut Mar 20 4:26 PM

Six Spring 2024 Cocktails to Try in Seattle

Cherry Blossom Cocktails, Soju Jungle Juice, and More

We've made it through the treacherous Big Dark, and it's time to leave our carefully assembled indoor nests to soak up some vitamin D. And in case you need an additional reason for revelry, National Cocktail Day is on Sunday, March 24. Why not celebrate with some fruity and floral libations? Seattle has no shortage of seasonal drinks, from corn daiquiris to cherry blossom cocktails to soju-spiked jungle juice. For more ideas, check out our food and drink guide.

Agua Verde Cafe
As part of the U District Cherry Blossom Festival, Portage Bay's Agua Verde Cafe (owned by the team behind Rumba and Inside Passage) is now serving up cherry blossom cocktails made with wild cherry, honeycrisp apples, ginger liqueur, Don Fulano Añejo, and Pueblo Viejo Blanco. It's the perfect delicate floral beverage for before or after your petal-peeping expedition.
Portage Bay

Donna's
The lively Italian cocktail bar from the team behind Rose Temple is skipping right over spring and moving straight to summer cocktails with its current warm-weather-inspired offerings. Sip a corn daiquiri (Wray & Nephew Overproof Jamaican Rum, Nixta elote liqueur, caramelized pineapple, lime, Scrappy’s firewater bitters, tortilla salt, and a Juanita’s chip garnish) or the vibrant, refreshing "Whirlaway" (tequila, Aperol, Ancho Reyes Verde, strawberry, and lime).
Capitol Hill

OHSUN Banchan Deli & Cafe
This Pioneer Square destination for Korean banchan unveiled its new spring menu this week, complete with a selection of seasonal cocktails. The lineup includes the "Four Top" (a Negroni variation with kumquat cheong, Campari, sweet vermouth, and sparkling wine), the "Asian Glow" (OHSUN's "nod to those of us that tend to glow when we have libations," with vodka, cucumber, grapefruit, lime, sauvignon blanc, and seltzer), and the "Soju Jungle Juice" (a more sophisticated take on your former college party favorite, with soju, gin, Campari, pineapple, orange, lemon, and cinnamon syrup).
Pioneer Square

OOLA Capitol Hill
Paying tribute to Jane Fonda's iconic sci-fi role, OOLA's "Miss Barbarella" (originally created for Seattle Cocktail Week earlier this month) contains OOLA Gin, a house-made rhubarb shrub, Prosecco, Simple Goodness Sisters vanilla rhubarb syrup, and an Orasella cherry. (As the owner of a cat named Rhubarb, I'm legally obligated to recommend this one.)
Capitol Hill

Otter on the Rocks
This playful West Seattle cocktail bar just opened up its patio for spring and is serving "Around the World," a subtly tropical libation sure to stoke your wanderlust with Singani, lime-leaf-infused vodka, pandan, banana, and lime.
West Seattle

Sophon
Rejoice: Oliver's Twist owner Karuna Long has at last soft opened his highly anticipated Cambodian/Khmer spot Sophon, and Stranger contributor Meg van Huygen rhapsodizes about the new "Khlang" cocktail, named for the Khmer word for "strength": "To make a Khlang, one begins with brie fat-washed rye and adds to it nocino, alongside Cocchi di Torino sweet vermouth and a housemade squash tincture. The alchemical result drinks a lot like a Manhattan, except much richer. The rye is James E. Pepper 1776, and it’s got some power behind it, bringing oak, honey, clove, and pineapple… before it’s imbued with cheese, that is. The finished drink evokes the caramel sauce on a British toffee pudding, with the walnut from the nocino and butter from the brie toning down the sharpness of its overall Manhattan-ness. It tastes so round!"
Phinney Ridge

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On International Women's Day, outside QFC on Broadway and Pike, I was blasting my music, hands full of groceries, when you—a pretty person who to me presented as nonbinary—walked up to me and asked me to take my headphones out. When I did, you pointed out a man behind me saying, “Hey, he likes your pants.”

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Music Mar 20 12:50 PM

Five Laurie Anderson Songs That Aren’t “O Superman”

There’s More to This Trailblazing Musician than the TikTok-Famous Track; Let Us Guide You

Laurie Anderson has made an awe-inspiring mountain of music across her 40-year career as an experimental, trailblazing artist. You can attach multiple creative practices to her name, but her most well-known song—thanks to radio play from famed BBC DJ John Peel and an unexpected gen-z resurgence that landed her on the TikTok Billboard Top 50—is “O Superman.”

If you scroll, you’ve heard the sample of Anderson’s track; she modulates her voice to an eerie, disembodied being, flatly singing: “Well you don’t know me / but I know you.” She’s questioning justice, safety, power, and technology, but while “O Superman” conceptually floats somewhere in outer space, much of Anderson’s catalog is grounded, warm, and passionate.

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WEDNESDAY 3/20 

Morgan Parker and Jane Wong Discuss You Get What You Pay For

(BOOKS) Renowned poet Morgan Parker's National Book Critics Circle-winning poetry book Magical Negro pulled its title from the Spike Lee-coined term for Black characters with quasi-magical powers. It's an incredible testament to 21st-century Black femininity, and I read it in one sitting. Pick it up if you haven't, then head to this talk with Parker and local poet Jane Wong in celebration of Parker's memoir-in-essays, You Get What You Pay For. Wong's recent memoir, Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City, traces her upbringing in a Chinese takeout restaurant on the Jersey shore. (Seattle Public Library - Central Library, 1000 Fourth Ave, 7 pm, free) LINDSAY COSTELLO

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You guys! We are in crisis! There are just not enough hot young women! DO. THE. MATH.

A woman is dating a trans woman. Her girlfriend recently got bottom surgery and wants to try being penetrated by an actual penis, as opposed to a toy. Should the caller allow for an open relationship to accommodate this?

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