I haven't eaten many biscuits since moving to Seattle even though I grew up devouring them in the South. It's mostly because I find the large majority of biscuit places on the West Coast to be subpar - either dense and dry inside, or too similar to cake, like the baker substituted cake flour for good old fashioned White Lily.
When I saw a bunch of people recommend Seattle Biscuit Company, I decided to give them a try. The first time I visited a biscuit place in the PNW a ton of people recommended, Pine State Biscuits in Portland for reference, I came out extremely disappointed. Hopefully this time would be different.
I have to say, pricing is a bit ridiculous here. Just as a comparison point, the special fried chicken biscuit here is $27. The fried chicken biscuit at the place I grew up eating at is currently $5. The plain biscuit is $7 here vs. $1.29 there. Is it worth the price? I started out with a plain biscuit to judge their basic building block:
Plain Biscuit ($7) - These are massive biscuits, around half a pound in weight, easily dwarfing the size of 90% of other biscuits. The smell wafting out of the paper wrapper smells heavenly with the aroma butter and flour. The taste reminds me of my childhood growing up in the South. It's distinctively buttery and salty, warm and comforting, almost spot on in taste as compared to say, Bojangles. A lot of places on the West Coast don't add enough salt or butter, making the biscuit taste unpleasantly alkaline. This one has no issues at all in the flavor department. The bake on the biscuit is fantastic, leaving the exterior with a crisp crust all around, while the inside still remains moist and fluffy. It's not particularly layered or flaky, and the interior, while fluffy, has a bit more developed gluten, making it just slightly chewy and slightly denser than perfection. When trying to split by hand, it doesn't split cleanly and instead chunks, especially in the center. Yet it's moist and doesn't crumble apart easily. These biscuits stand on their own and don't need any accompaniment to be enjoyed. Out of all the biscuits I've eaten on the West Coast so far (15+ places), this one tastes the most like a good Southern biscuit. (5/5)
I was impressed enough with the biscuit that I revisited the week afterwards to try a sandwich:
Gus ($27) - This sandwich seems very expensive until the plate comes out. In between the giant biscuit comes two pieces of fried chicken breast (or perhaps one piece filleted into two). It's breaded and fried generally well - the outside is definitely crisp, although it doesn't adhere that well to the chicken and slides off very readily. The interior of the chicken is nice. I usually expect chicken breast to be dry, but this one is relatively moist, not dried out at all. The breading tastes sweet and salty. I wonder if they brine the chicken in sweet tea. Each side of the biscuit is slathered with a bit of sweet mustard and peppered with pickle slices, giving some acidity to cut through the sausage gravy fat. Between the pickles and the sweet breading, it reminds me of the flavor of a Chick-fil-A chicken sandwich. The sandwich is served on a bed of orange-colored sausage gravy. It's thick and rich, although perhaps a little on the floury side. There's plenty of sausage mixed in, giving a ton of meaty depth combined with black pepper and spices. In terms of portion size, my wife and I shared this sandwich and we had trouble finishing it. It's definitely enough for two people, which makes the pricing a little more palatable. (5/5)
Sweet Tea ($5) - This one is definitely on the sweeter side compared to what I make at home. The tea doesn't have much astringency but it does have a nice generic black tea flavor. There aren't that many places in Seattle to get sweet tea, so I'd say it's passable.
I did purchase additional plain biscuits as well and I have to say texture-wise, they are similar, but these new ones tasted distinctively less buttery than before. I think there might be some consistency issues although this second batch is still really good.
I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the biscuits served at Seattle Biscuit Kitchen. I will definitely be revisiting in the future for more.
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