Hungrygrrl

“Where should we take my mom?” I asked Cobe as we drove through the Junction, driving slowly over the speed bump. Then I saw it.

“Ama-ama!”

It’s the new place that’s opened in the Ovio bistro site, the name coming from the japanese word for oyster-diving women. I’ve been wanting to go there for weeks.

We walked in on a Wednesday night to a nearly empty restaurant. Low globe lights lit the dark leather in a retro-50s feel. A few TVs flickered above the bar showing an old Humphrey Bogart/Audrey Hepburn movie, except for the one that had been turned to the game.

We were led to a circular booth overseeing the restaurant. “I feel like a mob boss,” Cobe said as we sat down.

One look at the menu and I knew we’d made the right choice. There were the oysters– raw, baked or fried. To our left was the oyster bar, their wares laid out on ice. But it was the non-oyster menu that was even more exciting.

* Slow roasted lamb ribs with cucumber mint salad.
* Salted cod with ginger, garlic, turmeric and cilantro, served with a coconut sauce
* Pan seared chicken breast with pear-plum ragout and pumpkin puree

We went with clams in a pernod pancetta cream sauce, ahi tuna with saffron coconut rice, gingered scallops and of course oysters. Raw.

My mother ordered an oregon pinot gris that she loved so much she pulled out a piece of paper and wrote the name down “Big fire,” she repeated, trying to remember it.

With the wine came the oysters, 3 different kinds arranged in ice. I must confess, I find it hard to taste the difference between varieties, but these were wonderful. Silky smooth, like a mouthful of ocean water.

Next came the clams, sadly very small. The sauce was wonderful though, the cream blending with the pork and pernod. And it came with bakery nouveau bread! Dipped in the sauce it was heavenly.

The ahi was very good, lightly seared and dressed with a drizzle of sake lime vinegarette. But it was the scallops that really shone, seared and dressed with a gingered glaze. They had that crispy outside with the perfect softness. I kept stealing bites from Cobe’s plate. And the accompanying butternut squash and celery root gratin was amazing.

I excused myself and went to the ladies room and it was then that I noticed the room next to us. A full zebra skin was splayed out on the wall, its small ears pinned back. Trophy heads of some type of african antelope and a wild boar hung on the adjacent wall. There was a single table.

I asked the waitress about it on my return, “oh that’s the boom boom room,” she said. “Pretty crazy, eh?”

We finished the night off with an apple tart from Bakery Nouveau, topped with brown sugar ice cream. Perfect.

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Ama ama
4752 California Avenue SW
Seattle, WA
206-937-1514

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