The Pink Door

While we were in Seattle last month, my husband and I were looking for a place to celebrate my birthday and our wedding anniversary. We usually use Yelp to search for restaurants that have the kind of food we’re looking for. It also helps us decide by reading the comments and ratings. I don’t know why I’ve never thought about it but my husband had an idea to look for “hole in the wall” places in the city. One of the places that came up was The Pink Door. The first thing that caught my eyes were the 4.5 star-rating and two dollar signs. I thought, okay, if this has 4.5 stars and only two dollar signs then it must be worth the try. The next thing I looked up was if I had to dress up for this place. Their website actually says the attire is smart casual. Most of the comments I read on Yelp basically said that it was really up to you. Some people come in jeans, some people come all dressed up. I didn’t want to dress up especially because it was raining half the time we were in the city.

I hate driving and parking in the city. We were debating if we should take Uber or just drive our rental car. The debate was over when I looked up how much it was to take Uber to the city and saw $35 one way. That’s just too much! So we ended up driving and parking in a garage. The garage parking was about $10-15 per hour, which is still a lot cheaper compared to San Francisco so I wasn’t complaining. We had to walk for a few minutes to get to the Pike Place Market area where the restaurant is.

The Pink Door is literally a pink door. No sign, just some decor, hence, a “hole in the wall.” We almost passed by the entrance if it weren’t for the guy who almost bumped into us coming out of the restaurant. When we opened the door it lead us to a flight of stairs going down where we were greeted by the receptionist. I was glad that my husband made a dinner reservation because they reached their capacity quickly. Despite having a reservation we still had to wait about 15 minutes for them to set up our table.

We were seated next to the window with a sunset view. The table was fairly small and it was too close to the window—too close that I could see how much they needed painting. I guess they’re going for the rustic look. Don’t get me wrong because I loved the ambiance.

Soon enough our server came and explained the menu. I was so hungry that I wasn’t even paying attention to what he was saying. I immediately looked for appetizers (antipasti) and ordered a bruschetta. The tomatoes were delicious! I’m not a food critic so I only have two responses– either I like it or I don’t.

For my main course I ordered the fish of the day, which was the Alaskan salmon. The salmon had some kind of orange sauce and vegetables. My husband is a meat lover. That’s why I was surprised when he ordered the Lasagna Pink Door (fresh spinach pasta layered with besciamella, pesto and topped with marinara sauce). After having our main course we were planning to get dessert somewhere else but the server was so convincing that we ended up ordering mascarpone-lemon-pistachio cheesecake. I wish I have more words to describe the food besides “I absolutely love everything that we ordered.”

If there’s anything I actually criticize about a restaurant, it would be their restrooms. Again, they did not disappoint. The restroom was clean, matches the restaurant theme, and even has a step-on metal plate on the door so I don’t have to touch the door handle. For that I gave them a 5-star rating. We’ll definitely come back if we ever found ourselves back in Seattle.