The health department has shut down Bamboo Garden in Bellevue (note: not vegetarian favorite Bamboo Garden in lower Queen Anne, which has different ownership) for this slew of violations:

Potentially hazardous foods at unsafe temperatures
Improper cooling of potentially hazardous foods
Foods not protected from cross contamination
Poor personal hygiene
Handwashing facility unavailable
Toxic items not properly stored
Equipment/utensils not properly sanitized

Updates on reopening (and future closures, shudder) may be found over here.

The problem isn't what we're feeding our kids. The problem is what we're feeding ourselves. Adults are reluctant to make "better, healthy choices" for their kids because they don't want to make better, healthier choices for themselves. Kids aren't going to eat fresh fruits and vegetables, and opt for skim milk or water with meals, so long as mom and dad are sitting there scarfing down bags of chips and sucking down Cokes.

And people aren't going to make better choices so long as we're subsidizing the production of cheap, sugary, crap snack-and-fast foods. Soda should be taxed like alcohol and snack-and-fast foods should be taxed like cigarettes, i.e. not so heavily taxed that they're completely out of reach (people still drink, people still smoke), but taxed heavily enough that people can't afford to live on corn syrup and crap.

Anyway, the White House launched its "fight against childhood obesity" today—and somewhere Sarah Palin is preparing two-pronged attack—a Tweet and a Facebook status update—denouncing the White House's efforts as a hopey, changey socialist plot to indoctrinate our children and destroy our country by preventing American children from developing adult-onset diabetes in their early teens like God intended. And when the predictable and imbecilic attack comes the Democrats will stand there helplessly with their dicks in their hands.

From right now until 2 p.m., Denny's is giving a free Grand Slam breakfast to everyone in America patient enough to wait in a very long line for a free Grand Slam breakfast at Denny's.

David Schmader went and experienced the bounty last February:

Flowing past slowly but steadily was a stream of sated customers, freshly stuffed with free Grand Slams and staggering out full and happy and lightly dazzled by their good fortune. "I didn't have to pay a thing, man!" came a shout from within a group of bleary-eyed guys in sports jerseys, passing the just-parked car with the boomin' system spitting out another batch of high-school lunch-breakers to join the line. Close to the entryway, a fellow patron—unidentifiably punk or homeless or both or neither—smoked marijuana discreetly.

UPDATE: The Denny's that was in SODO is no longer a Denny's. The nearest Denny's is at Aurora and North 155th Street in Shoreline. Have at it.

• BEV SYKES
• SLAM!

Here’s a blog for you to check out: MSG 150

It was started in 2007 by three coworkers with the goal of eating at every restaurant in the ID. They write up meticulous reviews—what the crowd is like, what dishes are popular, what each reviewer ate, how it settled (there's an 8-hour waiting period before reviewing), what it cost, and how it rated—with pics of each dish. They’ve hit 85 spots thus far, and now they're expanding to Georgetown. What I like most is that it’s the same individuals conquering one concentrated area, restaurant by restaurant.

Here’s Adam, one of the main reviewers, on how the blog started:

My coworkers and I ate in the International District all the time for lunch. We realized that there were lots of places that we were just walking by on the way to the places we knew about. So, we decided that we just wanted to go everywhere to see what we were missing. We drew up a map, and got underway.

I tend to avoid using Yelp and similar sites for recommendations because I don't know the reviewers and I have issues with trust. But once you figure out how your tastes jibe up with these guys', the reviews are great to rely on.

• tengusushi.com
• Sushi coming at you at Tengu.

NOW OPEN:

• The Unicorn on Capitol Hill: a circus-themed piece of striped insanity, with a menu that includes a ton of fried stuff (elephant ears, unicorndogs) and also surprisingly tasty Frenchified pub food (cod in parchment paper with peas-'n'-mashed-potatoes, a bourguignon potpie)

• emmer&rye: chef Seth Caswell's much-anticipated restaurant, replacing Julia's on the top of Queen Anne (read a Chow Bio on Caswell over here)

• The Night Kitchen: an open-all-night restaurant—6 p.m. to 9 a.m.!!!—near Pike Place Market, with a chef who's worked at Brasa and Txori cooking

• Five Guys Burgers and Fries, a burger chain that Paul Constant swears is great, conveniently located near the Thornton Place movie theater at Northgate

• Tengu Sushi: better-than-usual inexpensive conveyor-belt sushi, also conveniently located near the Thornton Place movie theater at Northgate

• Beam's on First Hill, serving steaks and seafood in the gorgeous old-world room that once housed Geneva (then, briefly and reportedly deservedly so, an Italian place called Rustica)

• Table 35: where Ovio Bistro/Ama Ama Oyster Bar were in West Seattle, with a "moderately priced, familiar food menu [that] features tasty items that range from to Kobe burgers to steaks and pasta"

• The Spice Room: reportedly good Thai food in Columbia City

• STILL Liquor and the Lobby Bar: more bars—one nostalgia-based, one gentlemen-oriented—on Capitol Hill

• Sweet Iron Waffles downtown

• Dubsea Coffee in White Center

• Ground Control cafe in Georgetown

FAIRLY NEW and recently written about in The Stranger: Po Dog on Capitol Hill, Mistral Kitchen downtown, Louisa's on Eastlake (under new ownership, newly serving dinner), Cicchetti on Eastlake

DEAD: Luau; Crimson C; Trattoria Mitchelli (and good riddance--from our accurate longstanding dining listing: "The food coming from Mitchelli's kitchen shows the kind of indifference that's not just retrograde, but infuriating")

BACK FROM THE DEAD: the J&M in Pioneer Square, the Scarlet Tree on 65th

CHANGING: Superfancy Lampreia has closed, will become small-plates Bisato, still under Scott Carsberg's mercurial direction; Flying Fish is moving to South Lake Union; vegan favorite Hillside Quickies on Capitol Hill has changed its name to Sage Cafe; Sorrentino on Queen Anne has changed its name to Enza; and Vita cafes will soon be selling beer and wine (as will, FYI, local Walgreens)

COMING SOON: Sullivan's Steakhouse—a big chain for "Steaks, Martinis & Jazz"—downtown, on the site of the Union Square Grill (and the extremely short-lived Lost Lady Cantina); Luc in Madison Valley, from the Chef in the Hat of Rover's; Blueacre Seafood downtown in the vast Oceanaire space, by Kevin Davis of Steelhead Diner; Auto Battery, a sports-ish bar that'll be next to Po Dog on Capitol Hill; Marjorie, reopening on Capitol Hill

Good lord. Time for lunch.

Meet Matthew Cooke, a Stranger reader who has vowed to do everything The Stranger suggests for the entire month of February. Look for his reports daily on Slog. —Eds.

The Stranger’s suggestions have been hit-or-miss in these first tentative days of my “Yesterday” tenure, but last night's seemed bulletproof. Hot dogs! What could possibly go wrong?

But alas, hot dogs and I have a strange relationship. Something in me rebels against such quintessential Americana. If I’m going to be that cheesy, I have to go all the way and eat one in a classic setting—a baseball game, say, or a summer barbecue. And the well-worn phrase “lips and assholes” has a way of gripping the mind (my mind, at least).

Duty called, so I was willing to give Po Dog a fair shot. Aware of my bias, I brought my wife, Susan, a hot dog fiend. “In the interest of science,” she suggested getting three varieties. We ordered a plain dog with mustard and relish as a control; the Chicago, which the attractive lass behind the counter said was the most popular; and the bacon-wrapped Deep Fried Danger, just because it sounded fucking awesome.

We managed to eat almost all of it, obviously a good sign. But do I actually agree with The Stranger recommendation? Based on my wife’s enthusiastic approval, yes. Personally, I’d rather have a bratwurst, especially if I’m paying seven goddamn dollars per dog (thank God it’s on Savage’s dime). But between the Macrina buns, the anything-goes ingredients, and the industrial-chic décor, it’s easy to forget about the markup. So go there, grab a beer, and have at it.

Just don’t expect some kind of grand hot dog revelation. Even Susan noticed they were using the same Hebrew Nationals you get at Costco for $1.50. Po Dog has added glitz and glamour—but, as always, a weenie is a weenie.

The Stumbling Goat's Seth Caswell finally has his own place, Emmer & Rye, at the top of Queen Anne where Julia's was. (I met Caswell two summers back at the amazing carnivorous feast-in-a-field Burning Beast and haven't seen him since, though I heard one potential space for the restaurant got frustratingly far along before falling through.)

Emmer & Rye's local/seasonal menu—check it out here—doesn't sound surprising anymore (which is a good thing), but it does sound delicious, so I went up there last night and had the honor of being the very first table at 5 p.m.

The space, which is in an old house, still feels like brunch at Julia's, with old-fashioned wooden chairs and decorations of the farm-tools-and-antique-photos ilk, more ye olde Americana than the rustic-Italy template. It's not a style I especially admire, but I do admire Emmer & Rye for taking over the place and getting up and running in a matter of weeks, decor be damned.

And the food is good. A dish of cauliflower, foraged mushrooms, and wild greens didn't look like much, but walnut oil rounded out the earthy healthiness, making it something people actually fought over. The other undeniably great menu item (so far): goat crepinette—meat and herbs chopped together and formed into rustic sausages—that'll be changing minds about goat right and left. It's meaty yet light, served with slippery/snappy black trumpet mushrooms and a butternut gratin that practically floated up off the plate.

Service was, of course, not 100 percent smooth, but they acknowledged bumps and had a sense of humor about it, which for me is all it takes to make a little sloshed drink or a moment of whose-plate-is-whose totally forgivable.

The place was full up when I left at 7 p.m. Didn't see Caswell—there's no fancy open kitchen here—so congratulations, sir.

You should go try it out, but better call for a reservation.

Lindy, Dave Schmader, and I all spent one day recently eating each and every meal (plus coffee and cocktails) based solely on the recommendations of random people on Seattle streets. Lindy started in West Seattle, Dave downtown, and I began (and remained) in Ballard. (No one in Ballard will ever send you out of Ballard to eat, and for good reason: Ballard's got great restaurants. One of the new fancy ones I got sent to wasn't that great, but...)

Here's "Recommended!" or, what happened to each of us when we entrusted our stomachs into random strangers' hands.

Also: Would you like Lindy or Dave (vegetarian!) or me to recommend a restaurant to you? (Or tell you where to buy Inca Cola or a king cake?) We are at your service over in Questionland.

It is now time for lunch. Right now I'm recommending the trout at Cafe Presse. I know we've gone crazy about Cafe Presse plenty in the past, but trust me: The trout (new on the menu) is goddamn fantastic. (And the mushroom-pear soup is back, too.)

• Not Recommended!: McDonald's coffee, as experienced by Lindy West.

Because you've been wondering what bacon-flavored coffee tastes like, and also whether an egg or a banana or other things would be good in coffee, Putting Weird Things In Coffee experiments and tells you the answer.

(Spoiler: bacon and egg: good. Banana: not so much.)

"Megan, I need you to sample this," he said, still grinning. In that brown paper bag sat Cupcake Royale's Deathcake, a small but potent brick of chocolate goodness that was covered by a glistening layer of ganache.

Sigh. My life is so hard.

But, since I've been doing pretty well with the whole "don't eat an entire cake in one sitting thing," and since I'm still running three miles at least three times a week, I fearlessly accepted the challenge. Brave, I know. I jammed a fork into that cube of chocolate sin and didn't stop until it was gone—and it was incredible. So incredible, that it was worth tempting fate—worth, perhaps, relapsing back into a life full of bad, sugar-fueled decisions.

The Deathcake hits you in three parts. First, you get a taste of the thin layer of smooth Stumptown Espresso ganache. Then comes a flavorful and familiar moist layer of Cupcake Royale's chocolate cake (which, if you haven't tried it lately, is a vast improvement over their old chocolate cake—that was always so crumbly and dry). And then, there at the bottom, is the very thing that, in my opinion, makes the Deathcake as lethally rich as it is—the Theo Chocolate Decadence. What exactly it is, I'm not sure. It's lighter than a ganache, but it's heavier than mousse. It's moist, but it's not too fudgy. It's unbelievably rich and whatever it is, it's not for the fair-weather chocolate fans.

I've been craving the Deathcake, the Decadence, ever since I scraped the last bit of it off the red foil paper it sat upon. The Deathcake really could be the death of me; Thank God this shit is only available for two weeks of the year.

The Deathcake will be available January 29th-February 14th for $6.65—"just a penny shy of evil." But you'll be able to sample the Deathcake for FREE tonight from 6-8 pm at all four Cupcake Royale locations.

The event will also feature folks from Stumptown Coffee, who'll be there to pair the Deathcake with their espresso drinks. Because that's exactly what you need when already pumping a dangerous amount of chocolate into your system, a caffeinated coffee drink to wash it down with and make your heart race even faster.

You can place an order for your Valentine's Day Deathcake here.

Local artist Sam Trout is starting an ice cream business, El Capitan, and tonight he's throwing an inaugural party at his place (which is, confusingly, not in the El Capitan apartments) with live entertainment. Featured flavors: basil cinnamon, banana Bailey's chocolate, banana Bailey's Kahlúa chocolate, and Kahlúa caramel. Also:

The $10 entry includes ALL THE ICE CREAM AND COOKIES YOU CAN EAT.

Yikes.