Mars Bistro!

Last night I ordained that we would trek a fair bit more off the beaten university path, whilst still remaining on the Ave. We went to this cafe-ish eatery called Mars Bistro out past 52nd (yes, in NO MAN'S LAND - or at least FEWER HORRIFICALLY HIP COLLEGE STUDENTS LAND). I was regretting its distance from my bus as I walked over, but it was quite worth it.




 It pretty  much had me at the Marilyn Monroe song playing when I came in and the non-chalant dude behind the little cash-register area. We got a little confused about whether we were supposed to wait at the table or go to the counter to order (we did it wrong, but I'll let you guess which one is right). The reason for this may  have been the rather pleasant fact that it was a little early and there was nobody else there. It has this really nice homey atmosphere that's somewhere between comfortable, classy and cheap. The art on the walls is prohibitively expensive, but the dinner tables are nice and the benches allow maximum sprawl. Here's a brief photo collage:

This place seems to have a variety of quality tea and cafe type stuff that I was too intimidated to indulge in. It also has a menu that completely ignores "dinner" as a meal, which works pretty well for me. Your options are basically breakfast or the trifecta of lunch-time S's (soup-salad-sandwich). The S's all looked pretty freakin' fantastic, but yesterday was really one of those so far beyond bad-hair that we're talking about bad-head days (dirty jokes aside, please - my god get out of the gutter anyways!!). I was coming down with something that seems have have retreated a bit after a lot of food and a good long sleep, but being not all there on a cold rainy day after working two places with their own emergencies going on (I now have an informational brochure about King County taxes with my name on it floating around the executive!)... it can require desperate measures. And nothing is a better cure-all than breakfast - cures hangovers, cures the winter blahs, cures morning hunger even! Normally I'm pretty shy of restaurant breakfasts since I'm inevitably not going to want the hashbrowns, probably don't want the toast, and find the eggs salty and greasy. But they had a lot of really intriguing two egg omelettes and the server - who was also the chef - seemed the sort not to mind a silly request like "without the cheese please". And it was fantastico:

Not too salty or too greasy, rye bread with hand made jam that I had a little bit of, and strawberries as a garnish win me every time. I think I got something with tomatoes, basic and garlic. Whatever it was made me feel so much better than I had all day. The potatoes were pretty good, but I still gave mine to Andrew (there are limits). No leftovers last night! They also have this crazy list of pancake varieties, pastries, and a propensity to name all their food with numbers.

Anyways, they also have a Chai Happy Hour and free wireless, so I could see this becoming a regular study hang-out turned to meal. If only it were within walking distsance of my house, it might become my new thing!