There’s a new location of Mae Phim Thai restaurant in downtown Seattle, right near where I often catch the bus. It’s been open a couple weeks and I think I’ve eaten there four times. The food is no better than dozens of other Thai restaurants, but they have a winning formula:

* Everything on the menu (other than specials and combos) is $6.
* They assume you’re in a hurry; the food is fast, and they bring the check along with your lunch.
* It’s a wide selection of Thai-American favorites. I like the beef panang curry.
* The portion size is just right; I’m not going to have to decide whether to bring leftovers home. (I imagine this means other people will find the portions too small. Oh well.)

Don’t get me wrong–sometimes I like to linger over lunch. But I also like good fast food.

3rd and Pike, downtown Seattle

Today I was at Starbucks and there was a poster about the journey of coffee beans from bean to cup. Then, at the end, it said:

“One journey ends with a sip, and another begins.”

I should say so. The poster was in the bathroom.

P.S.: There should be a mystery novel set in a coffeehouse and called _Room for Scream._

Two recent poblano sightings.

The other day I stopped at Quizno’s (yes, I eat at Quizno’s) and had the Prime Rib Ranchero sandwich, which features fire-roasted poblanos. The sandwich was pretty spicy and you could totally taste the poblanos.

Then at QFC I noticed a bag of C&W frozen mixed vegetables that included corn, black beans, roasted red peppers, and, yes, poblanos. I haven’t tried it yet.

I wholly support this trend.

On the smoky horizon, a silhouette. A gunslinger. No, a pen-slinger. Wait, “pen-slinger” sounds dirty. Let me start over.

In a time when men and women slaved over dusty keyboards, crying out for clarification, there came a man. A man who reads your blog instead of doing his own work. A pedantic sort of man. And they called him…THE OMBUDSMAN. Is he good? Evil? Some sort of amoral cyber-wraith? My money is on the latter, because “amoral cyber-wraith” sounds pretty awesome.

THE OMBUDSMAN first struck on Tuesday at All You Can Eat, the blog of his Seattle Times colleague Nancy Leson:

Tutti — what kind of fruiti?

> NOTE: After a heads-up from my exceedingly smart and talented food-writer pal, Matthew Amster-Burton, I’ve deleted some erroneous info regarding the tamarillo, which you’d be reading right here in this paragraph had I not given it the old heave-ho. I originally stated that, having consulted one of my favorite produce reference books, I learned that the tamarillo is actually a guava. [ERRRRT! Thanks for playing!]

One correction does not a trend make. Bloggers looked on with interest, the way you’d look pityingly on a guy forced into a conversation with an unthreatening but verbose street person. They did not know that THE OMBUDSMAN was already planning his next assault. Helen Rennie of [Beyond Salmon](http://beyondsalmon.blogspot.com/) didn’t believe it could happen to her. Until…

It’s ok to wash your mushrooms

> Dear Matthew,

> Thank you for bringing me out of the mushroom dark ages and dispelling the myth that getting mushrooms wet is a no-no. I am a liberated woman now. No more wiping, no more brushing, no more scrubbing to get those pesky little pieces of dirt of my fungi!

Out of which dark ages will THE OMBUDSMAN bring you? Yes, you?

(Oh, in case you’re wondering about THE OMBUDSMAN’s uniform, it has a picture of a tomato with the word “fruit” stamped on it. And tights. Wait, I need to rethink this uniform.)