I had never tried Scandinavian food before (IKEA swedish meatballs don't count...) and after hearing plenty of good things about Plaj, I decided to make a reservation for my fiance's birthday. I confused him by tell him we would be celebrating his heritage (1/4 Norwegian, yeah!) by trying some food we'd never had before.

Being so close to the Opera house, many of the patrons were dining before a show. When we arrived for a 7:30pm reservation (on a Saturday) the place was packed, but it quickly emptied out as people left for their shows. The dining room was HOT, though - as you enter the hotel the lobby and hallway are nice and cool, but the dining room was sweltering. I counted 6 fans on in there - maybe there was a maintenance issue.

The menu is divided into the daily specials, from the garden, from the sea, and from the pasture (I won't embarrass myself here by trying to remember the Norwegian/Swedish names). There are both small plates meant to be appetizers and larger plates meant to be the main course - our waitress explained this to us but you can also tell by the prices, generally.

We went through the menu and picked out some dishes that caught our eye - we ended up with a starter and a main dish each, plus a cheese plate and dessert. I had the dungeness crab salad (daily special) and the pork belly. I found a small shard of shell and bone in each of my dishes - not a big deal for me, but it definitely keeps me from giving them five stars.

The dungeness crab salad was very fresh and delicious. It came with a cucumber sorbet which was delightfully refreshing. For the main dish, I got an enormous slab of pork belly. Seriously, this thing was huge. And tender, and fatty, and a little salty....wonderful. Then came two desserts because we're crazy like that - the cheese plate (with four cheese, fruit, bread, two jams, and crackers) and the waffle. Both were delicious but I'm partial to having cheese for dessert.

The service was a bit slow to start, as everybody was running around making sure that the theater customers made it to their shows on time. If you wanted to come on a Saturday I would recommend making your reservation at 8pm to avoid the theater crowd. Other than that, service was very attentive.

AYCE hot pot, super speedy service, what more could you ask for? (Shorter waits!)

Hot Pot Garden is, unsurprisingly, a very popular spot - if you go there later on the weekend expect a long wait. As long as you're not hangry to start with, it is worth the wait!

The few times I've been here I've been very impressed by the service - put down an empty plate and in a minute somebody has already whisked it away. They don't check on you, you have to flag them down - but there are always several waitstaff running around. Just put up your menu card (dry erase, wipe off) and they'll pick it up and have more food sent your way.

The food is pretty good quality - the meat is quite good, but I think the seafood could use some more work. The seafood is probably the most expensive part so it makes sense that there is less variety.

Proposition Chicken had great theming - I loved the decor and the menu. The problem, though, is the execution.

I ordered my chicken fried, on a salad (keepin' it healthy). The portion size was rather small (ok for the price), but the chunks of fried chicken breast were not doing it for me. They were rather dry and not very crispy on the outside.

My dining mate got his fried chicken in the entree, and though his chicken was better (he got dark meat) the portion size was really small for the price. (The entree is a buck more than the salad, but I've been conditioned to expect kale salads to be $10+).

All in all, we're going to wait for Greenburger's Friday fried chicken special next time.

I'm confused as to why they decided to open up a new sushi place two doors down from Sushi 509, but I stopped by Raijin Sushi tonight to check it out.

The wait staff and sushi chef were all very welcoming and nice, but the food just doesn't live up to expectations. I ordered: agedashi tofu, seaweed salad, the Angel roll, and shiro maguro nigiri. The agedashi tofu came out with the sauce separately, which had alarmed me at Sushi Delight and again bewildered me here. The tofu itself was fine, but the whole point of agedashi tofu is the delicious sauce it soaks up! The seaweed salad was good - it came with some red pickles and was a nice portion size. I tried my usual favorite, shiro maguro, as nigiri and it was pretty meh. The fish was a bit stringy and the rice was bland (no wasabi on the rice).

The Angel roll, however, is something I would return for - though it's definitely not, uh, traditional sushi (in fact, it is not sushi at all, seeing as there is no rice). Instead of rice and nori, the fish are wrapped in cucumber strips and come with a ponzu sauce. It is super American and it did suffer from some of the fish quality issues as the shiro maguro, but you know what? Sometimes this girl is on a diet, and it's tasty, filling, and the healthiest thing I've eaten all week. (Um, New Year's diet starts...after Dine About Town?)