With the National Shutdown strike that took place on January 30 to protest ICE, many small restaurant owners found themselves debating whether it was possible to close on a Friday, typically one of the busiest days of the week. Restaurants across the country, already struggling with tight margins and rising costs, have been further rocked by ICE raids. Home baker Carlos Leon and his wife, both immigrants from Mexico, felt compelled to act in light of recent protests but were initially unsure how. Protesting did not feel like a safe option, but they wanted to step up and stand by their community.

During the pandemic, Leon sought comfort in baking. He started Seattle Baking Club a year ago, hosting baked-good potlucks usually centered around a theme—a cookbook, a baking style, or a specific baker. The first gathering drew 15 people, mostly friends, but word spread quickly. Current Seattle Baking Club meetups draw more than a hundred attendees, with even more on the waitlist. Bakers in Sacramento, Boston, and Grays Harbor have since started their own baking clubs inspired by Leon’s.

Leon reached out to his now rather large network of local bakers and restaurants to organize a gift card raffle. The response, like his Baking Club, snowballed: more than 150 restaurants participated, and the raffle raised over $33,000 benefiting the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project. A second fundraising effort, organized by Uttam Mukherjee of Spice Waala titled “To Minneapolis, with love from Seattle,” brought together local restaurants donating a portion of their January 30 sales to help sustain small Minneapolis restaurants that chose to close for the shutdown. Spice Waala raised close to $12,000, selling out of food at all their locations. The total raised by participating Seattle restaurants is still being tallied. 

This month’s five dishes come from local businesses that participated in these fundraising efforts, with dishes and specials that reflect immigrant stories and personal histories. 

Fonda La Catrina’s not-so-secret sauce

Georgetown’s Fonda La Catrina is where Leon goes for a taste of home. He recommends the pozole, but you’ll also want to order at least one dish featuring Catrina’s mole. Mole is a culturally significant sauce that symbolizes mestizaje, a blending of Indigenous and European cultures, explains manager Gaya Trejo. Its flavors and ingredients vary widely, but often include native ingredients like chocolate, chilies, and tomatoes alongside European spices and nuts. Catrina makes its own special mole, featuring it on enchiladas and chilaquiles, with the occasional slow-cooked chicken mole special on the menu. 

 

Little corn eye trickery at Pufftown Bakehouse

Laminated pastry and croissants have been in a renaissance since cronuts hit the scene, laying the foundation for a new generation of bakeries focused on creative viennoiserie. Pufftown Bakehouse, a new bakery stand at Pike Place Market, fits in that lineage. Owner Serena Rodriguez wanted a pastry on the menu that reflects her Mexican American heritage. The tamale croissant is filled with black beans, Oaxaca cheese, diced jalapeños and poblanos, and chorizo from neighboring butcher Don & Joe’s Meats, with a vegetarian version available without chorizo. Her husband, Pufftown co-owner and pastry chef Daniel Durand, cross-laminates the pastry to create the look of a corn husk-wrapped tamal. The fact that this impossibly cute pastry is not Pufftown Bakehouse’s bestseller makes me wonder if the world has lost its inner child. 

 

Burger 4 Burger at Lil Woody’s

Seattle locals look forward to the chef collaborations at Lil Woody’s, which offer a chance to try limited-time, sometimes out-of-the-box burgers from rising talents in the local food scene. Sales from this month’s lineup of chef-crafted burgers benefit organizations including Food Lifeline and the Rainier Valley Food Bank, with Lil Woody’s donating one burger for every chef-crafted burger sold on each Monday of Seattle Burger Month. A new chef is featured each week. One standout is Ramie chefs Trinh and Thai Nguyen’s Cà Phê glazed burger, available January 24 through March 2. This bold special combines the familiar flavor of Trinh’s childhood food memories, pairing a caramelized coffee-and-honey glaze with a traditional Vietnamese-style slaw, curly onions, fresh herb aioli, and a quarter-pound beef patty.

 

Marination’s kimchi fried rice, now vegan

One can’t forget those Seattle AF food moments, like popping the delicious egg yolk on Marination Ma Kai’s kimchi fried rice while looking out over the water. Traditionally, the dish included shrimp paste, but Marination has adjusted the recipe to make the fried rice fully vegan, without egg or shellfish. There’s nothing wrong with changing a long-standing classic when it means more people can enjoy the same dish and share the same moment. 

 

Won’t ya get that concha at Pan de la Selva?

Pan de la Selva translates to “bread of the jungle.” The pastries at this bakery pop-up at Seattle’s downtown City Hall bridges owner Mayra Sibrian’s Mexican and Salvadoran cultures, with added inspiration from seasonal local flavors. This month’s lemon-pepita concha—filled with lemon cream and pepita frangipane—is a prime example.

“I use a lot of pumpkin seeds on my menu right now. In El Salvador, pumpkin seeds are used for a lot of dishes,” Sibrian explains. “There is even a popular condiment called alguashte, which is a powdered toasted pepita seed that is added to fruits, salads, soups, meats, or sauces.”

Its accompanying counterpart, an orange cream concha with almond frangipane, takes a similar approach, pairing winter citrus with nuts and seeds. 

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Tiffany Ran is a writer and the chef behind Babalio Taiwanese Pop-Up, a Taiwanese food pop-up, and the food editor of TaiwaneseAmerica.org. Much of her food exploration includes jumping between catering, restaurants, and the pop-up world. Her writing has been featured in Vice Munchies, Lucky Peach, Goldthread, JoySauce, Northwest Asian Weekly, and more.