OK, that's 2 acrobats, blues and jazz — you want fries with that?

By Nancy Leson
Seattle Times restaurant critic

JOHN LOK / THE SEATTLE TIMES Diners at tables facing the stage are served at Seattle's Triple Door, where the music is eclectic.

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Enough already with the performance in the "theater kitchen," the see-and-be-scenery and the menu as Playbill crediting farmers, fishers, cheesemongers and pastry chefs. Forget dinner as entertainment. The time is ripe for dinner and entertainment. From a genre-ranging downtown music hall to a fun and funky waterfront blues club to a magical night in a vintage spiegeltent — it's showtime!

The Triple Door and Musicquarium Lounge

Bringing a wide world of music to downtown Seattle, The Triple Door has it all: a stately address in the royally renovated Mann Building, a 220-seat nightclub (in the magnificently restored Embassy Theater) and live music most nights in the adjoining Musicquarium (a cover-free bar and lounge named for its eye-catching freshwater fish tank).

Rick and Ann Yoder, owners of the Wild Ginger, saw their years-long dream come true with the September '03 opening of The Triple Door. Here beneath the Wild Ginger, in the shadow of Benaroya Hall, you can hear jazz greats or up-and-coming singer-songwriters, blues and folk legends or popular one-hit wonders. Funk, soul, fusion, world beat: All genres are welcome here.

At the Mainstage (picture El Gaucho with a stage), private suites look out over a softly lit room. Once a 1920s vaudeville hall, the seductive setting now offers cushy arched booths and free-standing cafe tables providing excellent sight lines throughout.

In the Mainstage or Musicquarium, you can make a light meal of salads or appetizers, get your "just desserts" (among them crème brûlée or cinnamon bread pudding) or do it up in style with a multicourse meal. Though the menu, augmented by an extensive wine list, initially followed a bistro beat, it now borrows heavily from Wild Ginger's pan-Asian songbook.

The Triple Door and Musicquarium Lounge 216 Union St., Seattle; 206-838-4333 or www.thetripledoor.net Mainstage: by reservation only (ticket prices vary). It occasionally closes for private events. Musicquarium: open 4 p.m-2 a.m. nightly (happy hour 4-7 p.m. and 10 p.m.-midnight). No cover charge. Highway 99 Blues Club 1414 Alaskan Way, Seattle 206-382-2171 or www.highwayninetynine.com Live music: weeknight cover charge $5, Fridays-Saturdays $10; shows start between 8-8:30 p.m. Mondays-Thursdays and between 9-9:30 Fridays-Saturdays. Dinner: full menu served from 5 p.m. (limited menu available after 11 p.m.). Teatro Zinzanni 2301 Sixth Ave., Seattle 206-802-0015 or www.zinzanni.org Tickets: Nonrefundable ticket prices Thursdays-Sundays through Nov. 30: $89 ($109 Saturdays). Tuesdays-Sundays through Dec. 30: $99 Tuesdays-Thursdays and Sundays ($120 Fridays-Saturdays). Note: ticket prices exclusive of beverage and $10 per-person service charge. Hours: Shows begin at 6:30 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays and 5:30 p.m. Sundays.

Sip a specialty cocktail and set your sights on such familiar favorites as Peasant's Chicken Satay ($2.75 each/two for $4.75); the always-excellent Wild Ginger Fragrant Duck meant for tucking between pillowy Chinese buns ($14.95); and garlicky Sichuan green beans complimentary with entrees or served on their own ($5.95).

Thai beef salad ($8.95) is a classic refresher whose greenery includes watercress, Thai basil and fresh mint, its dressing hinting broadly of fish sauce.

Skip the dry Triple Door Noodles ($10.95); note that overcooking can mar the otherwise intriguing Malacca Scallops with garlic, ginger, chilies and pungent curry leaf ($18.95); and know that many dishes offer rollicking flavors that deserve a standing ovation.

These include pork-and-green-curry-stuffed calamari ($5.95), whose unusual texture and strong Asian flavorings grow more exciting with each bite. That description extends to spicy corn pancakes (think: corn latkes with red curry, $3.95) and the Chiang Mai Meatballs, a marvelous mess of coarsely minced flank steak, garlic, lemongrass and galangal dancing in a coconut-milk-infused peanut sauce ($14.95).

The Wild Ginger maintains a separate kitchen, and though this one doesn't always live up to the exacting standards of its better-known sibling, the price is right, the music's live, there are extensive happy hours in the lounge, and much in the way of good service and great ambiance all around.

Highway 99 Blues Club

	JOHN LOK / THE SEATTLE TIMES Highway 99 Blues Club, under the viaduct across from the Seattle Aquarium, has a funky, juke-joint feel, New Orleans-style food, billiards and sizzling music.

There we were, a gaggle of girls, drinking mood-lifting lemon drops in double martini glasses while watching Eric "Two Scoops" Moore cooking up a storm on stage. Stomping his feet, slapping his keyboard and trading vocal licks with his band, Two Scoops offered up his hungry man's hit, "Big Buffet" ("They got meat and potatoes, they got beans and rice, they got good country gravy make you go back twice ... ").

Could it get any better? It can and it did, thanks to our own big buffet: the Highway 99 Platter ($12). This hefty helping of cured meats, stinky cheeses and fancy finger foods (quality olives and peppers, pickled garlic, balsamic onions) scores among the greatest hits at this new blues club, whose name belies its waterfront location: under the viaduct across from the Seattle Aquarium.

Here you can shoot pool in a semi-private nook with cozy sofas and a gas fireplace, or shoot the breeze at the friendly bar while slathering La Panzanella's croccantini with a trio of spreads. These include an olive spread, a lemony artichoke "pesto" and a soft, garlicky herbed cheese — presented as the Hill Country Plate ($8).

In this funky subterranean setup built to resemble a juke joint, the kitchen nods to New Orleans with a short menu heavy on the sandwiches and light on the wallet. Between the bread you'll find hot andouille sausage (the link lean and not overly spicy, $9), a veggie po' boy ($8) and the "famous" muffaletta — an admirable version of the cured-meat classic wearing tapanade and melted provolone ($8).

Chicken gumbo may be had as a side or "main plate" ($4/$10), the latter served with a decent green salad or rough-cut cabbage billed (I know not why) as "Caesar slaw." The gumbo, flecked with andouille and a restrained amount of chicken, is a warming rice-laden stew bound to get the cold shoulder from serious gumbo enthusiasts, though it certainly fills the fill-me-up bill on a chilly autumn evening. Its complement of moist, kernel-flecked cornbread can, and should, be ordered as a nosh-worthy side ($4).

Classic red beans and rice ($6), sassy with spice, will give you reason to dance, and Highway 99 has a dance floor at the ready. You'll find it stage left, framed by the Wall of Fame (bearing signatures of house performers) and adjacent the Highway 99 "store," where T-shirts, CDs and other merchandise are available as mementos of a fun night on the town.

Teatro ZinZanni

Teatro ZinZanni's latest production of "Dinner & Dreams" — three hours of nonstop entertainment with a fabulous five-course meal woven throughout — is a rare treat, a lost art and a grand expenditure worth every cent.

From the moment you step up to the door, where you're greeted by a gentleman in a top hat, you're drawn into another time and place: one where cabaret meets Cirque du Soleil and dinner — from soup to dessert — is literally part of the act.

Make the transition from street-side to the lobby (aka the Peacock Lounge) and let the festivities begin. What? Forgot your feather boa, your sequined mask, your face paint? All are available here, where you may sip a champagne cocktail ($8) before tendering your ticket to the wonderful world inside the Belgian spiegeltent.

Seated at tables encircling center stage or in wooden booths that hug the walls of the Moulin Rouge — a vintage circus tent built in 1910 — this performance will tickle your taste buds with a Tom Douglas-designed dinner and tickle your fancy with feats astounding. An international cast of characters includes a chanteuse, a diva, a geisha, trapeze artists, jugglers, clowns and contortionists.

Resplendent ringleader "Mr. Z" runs the show, backed by Seattle's own Kevin Kent and a warm professional serving staff. In his triumphant return to ZinZanni, Kent presides as Miss Mabel Dean, the queen of comedy who helps make certain the show doesn't drag. Pity — and praise — the unsuspecting diners drawn into Miss Mabel's act, leaving the rest of us to laugh till we cry over our well-timed dinner.

That meal, which changes seasonally, begins with a bit of housekeeping. Drinks are offered, main-course decisions made, and credit cards taken and returned — aiding the swift processing of the additional beverage and service charges, tallied at evening's end.

Individual appetizer plates await at the table, each with a slender slice of chevre-and-Parmesan cheesecake with roasted red-pepper relish (meant for spreading on the only disappointment of the evening — melba toast), spicy coppacola, oil-cured olives and Marcona almonds.

Course two is a dreamy bowlful of butternut squash soup whispering of cinnamon oil. Next up, a salad of fennel, endive and mesclun topped with Northwest-style smoked salmon and dill dressing.

Main courses include "Braised Off-the-Bone Beef Short Ribs" with mushroom and red-wine gravy, horseradish mashed potatoes and crisp green beans — fancified pot roast with fussy fixin's. That carnivore's delight proves a hearty contrast to the second (and only) option, a Mediterranean medley of gorgeous goat-cheese gnocchi with melanzana caponata — the light, deconstructed "caponata" heavier on the summer squash than the promised melanzana (eggplant).

As a final act, coffee is served, as are individual apple-and-pecan tarts drizzled with liquid caramel. These make a sweet finish, sweeter still when recalled as part of an evening's entertainment you won't soon forget.

Nancy Leson: 206-464-8838 or taste@seattletimes.com. More columns at www.seattletimes.com/nancyleson.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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