Last Monday in Seattle - Savor Food Tour #2 and Shopping

Remember how I said I would keep Savor Seattle Food Tours in mind for the future after the fun of the Gourmet Seattle tour?

Turns out "the future" meant less than 24 hours later.  With an extra day in Seattle and no real agenda, I decided to treat myself to the Chocolate Indulgence Tour.

We sampled 16 different items at nine different stores in and around Pike Place Market.  By the end I was definitely chocolated-out (they began offering small plastic bags at each place about halfway through in case we wanted to save our samples for later), but I still had fun on the tour.  It was nice to meet and chat with different people, and while I was worried the content of the walking tour would be a repetition of the one we had gone on the day before, this time instead of telling us about the history of Seattle, we got a lecture on the history of chocolate.

Our guide, using illustrations to talk about the chocolate-making process

Samples of cheesecake (with white chocolate in the batter),
which our guide had to carefully protect from sample-eager shoppers at the market.

Popcorn

Evidence that the popcorn place is next to the market

A salted caramel chocolate from Fran's,
the inventor of the salted caramel

After the tour I walked to the international district.  Having just finished "Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet" for July's bookclub, I decided to hunt down the Panama Hotel featured in the novel.

Behold:

There were nearby signs taking about the incarceration of Japanese immigrants and citizens in World War II, giving additional credence to the book's setting and story.

I swung through Uwajimaya and Daiso, mostly because I wanted to see how the products and prices compared to what we saw in Japan and Korea.  I was surprised how pan-Asian the grocery store seemed now - I could tell which foods were definitely not the normal part of Japanese cooking.

I made some phone calls as I walked back through downtown, stopping occasionally to shop for gifts for others before going back to the apartment to meet Jason for dinner.  I also picked up some more treats to share with Rachel and my book club later that week:

Lucky Me From the Past.  I want a fresh macaron!