When I moved to Seattle two years ago, I was almost as excited about the access to mountains as I was that Kenji was living here as well. Coming from a life in New York City and deeply falling in love with the NYC food scene, I figured that I’d be making a major compromise in my city-life by leaving. Instead, I had (in addition to all the wonderful existing publications) Kenji in my Instagram feed putting a spotlight on the good stuff. I’ve been a fan for years and it felt like winning the lottery twice to have him sharing the city.
I’ve been cherry-picking Kenji’s recs to supplement my own personal list of places to check out, but I thought others would appreciate a map that has every single one of his Seattle recommendations* alongside his commentary. I haven’t seen anyone else do this in a comprehensive way. I recently found myself with many hours in front of the computer after my ski season prematurely ended because of an ACL tear. I dusted off this project and have finally completed it!
*UDPATE 6/26: It’s a not exactly accurate that this map is a collection of Kenji’s “recommendations.” It’s more like anything he’s mentioned on Instagram. Rather than make a judgement on whether a place got a strong or weak endorsement, I opted to take it all and just copy and paste his exact words so you can decide for yourself.
In this map you’ll find:
Places Kenji has mentioend on Instagram since Nov 2020
Mentions beyond Seattle. Road-tripping up and down the coast and across the state is fun, so think of this map as having a a PNW+ scope. I did not add any mentions from Chicago, NYC, Boston, etc.
A link to the IG post and a copy/paste of his commentary without me trimming it down. I even kept his typos.
Repeat visit commentary. There are places Kenji gives a shout out to multiple times (e.g., Volunteer Park Cafe). You’ll find all his exclamations about their breakfast sandwich.
Commentary repeated across chains. Kenji called out Ezell’s Famous Chicken, and I added every location to this map. I did this for Dick’s and General Porpoise, as well as other local chains. I made an exception if there was something specific to that location he noted.
Nothing listed if the place is permanently closed. I just skipped those (e.g., Oaky’s Mexican Restaurant).
Mentions even if he no longer supports the place. For example, Kenji no longer supports Burb’s Burgers. I still kept them on the map.
Primarily food-related mentions. I tried to avoid parks and local trails he calls out since I’m all set on that front.
To set the map to appear on your default view:
Go to the map and sign in with whatever Google account you normally use
Click Follow
Wait some amount of time and it should start appearing on your personal map. I’ve seen it take a full day.
I plan to keep this map updated regularly, either daily or weekly. If there’s a long lag, it’s because I’m in the mountains. This took me a great many hours to get done. If you’re a fan and appreciate this, please consider making a donation to No Kid Hungry! You could also Venmo me (@raja-h) or Paypal me and I'll have my employer match it.
A few thoughts on my experience putting this together:
I went through hundreds of Kenji’s post and read or skimmed all of the words he wrote. It was a firehose of Kenji content for hours on end. I already knew this, but even more so I was made aware about what a genuinely kind and thoughtful person he is. It nudged me to be a little better.
It was cool to see Kenji learn more about his new home at roughly the same rate that I did. He was also raised in NYC and shares similar thoughts on pizza, crowdedness, awe at the proximity of the outdoors here.
I got tons of recipe inspiration while flipping through his posts. It’s not all just eating out!
I’ve got so many more places to go, on top of the nearly 200+ spots on my personal map that I’ve already accumulated from friend recommendations, publications, etc. I was particularly excited to identify the places where we had overlap and will be prioritizing those!
If you have thoughts or feedback, leave a comment below, especially if there’s an error you catch. Reach out to me directly or follow @rajawashere.