My redneck mountain upbringing doesn’t readily lend itself to sampling exotic foods; it’s a failing I’ve tried to correct little by little over the years.  I look with envy at others happily crunching away on octopus or salmon roe, seemingly oblivious to the fact that what they are eating is, infact, disgusting.  Yet they look so fulfilled, so adventurous that somehow I can’t help but feel left out while staring down at my plate of familiar, predictably boring food.  So this year, I’m determined to branch out my tastebuds and what better place to start than in the International District in Seattle.

As any adventurous eater can tell you, there are definite places to avoid while searching out ethnic food, so I always rely on a recommendation from someone who’s eaten at a specific place and survived.  I friend of mine posted a photo of some succulent honey walnut shrimp from the Honey Court Seafood Restaurant awhile back and it intrigued me.    I just couldn’t get that shrimp off my mind.  So last Sunday, we headed down to the Honey Court for a taste of said shrimp and adventure.

The place was packed, which I took as a good sign and luckily the lobby has the requisite giant fish tank which seems to grace every Asian eatery from Seattle to China, so London had plenty of fish to stare at while we waited for a table.  Keeping true to my vow of being a more adventurous eater, I ordered crispy prawns with green onions off the dim sum cart as soon as we were seated and they were straight up awesome.  Fueled by my success in food cart pickings, Edgar chose a sticky rice packet which he said was great and I took his word for it.  I couldn’t push my adventurous luck that far, at least not yet.  We ordered more food, including that infamous honey walnut shrimp and as it piled high on our table, we realized that maybe we’d overestimated our eating abilities.  Still, we wielded our chopsticks high and valiantly tried to finish our chow mien but in the end, we had to concede defeat.  After all, we had to save some for dinner because who doesn’t love Chinese leftovers?

Honey Court Seafood Restaurant

516 Maynard Ave South

Seattle, WA 98104

206-292-8828

Hours: Open 11am~2:30am Daily