SEAGuide
What To Eat At Spice Bridge, A New Food Hall In Tukwila
photo credit: Nate Watters
We can’t remember the last time we were genuinely excited to check out a food hall, but Spice Bridge in Tukwila is a great one for many reasons. Here, you can find Cambodian stuffed chicken wings, Argentinian pastries, Congolese beef stew with fermented cassava root, Afghani pulled lamb sliders, or all of the above (and more) under the same roof. Besides that, this place is part of Seattle’s Food Innovation Network, a food incubator created to give South King County women of color and immigrants the necessary support to start a business.
Since the relatively small space can only accommodate three to four of the eight vendors a day for takeout and outdoor dining, they operate on a rotating schedule, which you can find/plan your week around here. We stopped by and tried a bunch of dishes that we can’t stop thinking about. You’ll find that, along with information on the vendors we didn’t get to yet, on this guide. Consider it our personal Spice Bridge diary and to-do list.
The Spots We've Tried
Open Friday, Saturday, Sunday
We ate the outrageously crispy beef and chicken sambusas from Moyo Kitchen in the car while it was pouring out. In fact, call us hyperbolic, but we almost mistook our own crunching for thunder. These pockets of meat and vegetables are everything we look for in a fried pastry - they’re portable, fresh out of the fryer, and it’s impossible to eat just one. There’s more than delicious sambusas here though. This spot focuses on dishes from Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, and Zanzibar, and also serves a great goat stew that you should get with lots of chapatti.
Open Tuesday, Saturday, Sunday
After trying the ngombe ya sauce from Taste Of Congo, it’s officially our new favorite thing to eat when it’s cold and rainy out - which is every day according to people who don’t live here. This stew is flavorful with big hunks of beef, potatoes, and carrots - and must be ordered with a side of their delightfully chewy, fermented cassava root to soak up the rich sauce. Grab some beignets with peanut butter and powdered sugar for dessert.
Open Thursday, Friday, Saturday
Theary Cambodian Food’s noumm ka ri is another pastry that lives in our minds rent-free. This super flaky dough comes stuffed with a meat and vegetable filling and topped with herbs, fried garlic, peanuts, and dollops of their homemade chile oil (that’s also available for purchase). While it would be easy to eat four noumm ka ri and call it a day, you shouldn’t miss their stuffed chicken wings or lemongrass paste spice chicken patty/meatball combo platter. Both come with fluffy rice wrapped in banana leaves and a side of tangy pickled cabbage and cucumbers.
The Spots We Can't Wait to Try
Open Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday
This spot serves Senegalese and Gambian dishes like vegetable samosas, chicken or fish yassa, and jollof rice. You can read the interview with owners Adama Jammeh and Oumie Sallah here, and learn what it was like for them to cook mafé during a pop-up at Pike Place Market. Find their full menu and order online here.
Open Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Seatango serves Argentinian pastries like empanadas, alfajores, pastafrola, and bolas de fraile. You can also buy a bunch of different bags of yerba mate. Read an interview with owner Monica Di Bartolomeo here on why she started making and selling fracturas from scratch. Their full menu is available online here.
Open Tuesday, Wednesday, Sunday
This Filipino spot’s menu involves things like lumpia, pancit, and bicol express. You can read an interview with their owner Krizia Cherece here to hear about how randomly frying donuts in college for her friends turned into dreams of opening a brick-and-mortar Filipino restaurant. Find a sample menu here.
Open Thursday, Friday, Saturday
This Afghani-American vendor has a seasonally-rotating menu involving dishes like pulled lamb sliders, burani kadu, and Afghan mixed salad. Read an interview with owner Nasrin Noori here, on her plans for Jazze’s (which involve poetry slams, local artist performances, and plenty of kabili padu). A sample menu is available here.
Open Tuesday, Wednesday, Sunday
At WUHA, you’ll find Ethiopian-American dishes like beef and vegetable injera rolls, beef roast sandwiches with roasted potatoes, and baklava. Read an interview with their owner Liyu Yirdaw here to learn how she makes her injera rolls. Find a sample menu here.
