By Jackie Varriano / The Seattle Times
Sam Loh has spent years perfecting his croissants, using YouTube to go from casual home baker to professional at his Lynnwood spot Rila Bakery & Cafe. The process takes three days from start to finish, and Loh churns out dozens of different laminated doughs stuffed with everything from smoked salmon and cream cheese to ham and Gruyere.
Since opening Rila nearly 10 years ago, Loh has been steadily building a customer base, grateful for his regulars while trying to attract new customers. Still, when Loh’s wife, Irin Lee (Rila’s unofficial chief of research and development), suggested they hop on a South Korean trend — flat croissants — Loh was incensed.
“I was, like, what kind of abomination is this?” Loh said. “My brain was scrambled when I saw this beautiful, puffy croissant and then you just flatten it? It’s insane.”
Lee told her husband it wouldn’t hurt to try to sell the flat croissant and he agreed. They debuted a flat croissant in early March, griddling two beautiful, puffy pastries flat until crispy and sandwiching them around seasonal fillings like Earl Grey custard with apricot. A week after a social media influencer made a video about the flat croissants, they were sold out of every pastry in the shop within three hours of opening.
Rila now often limits flat croissants to one per customer, trying to stretch inventory while also kindly reminding customers they do more than one gimmicky item. Loh sees the flat croissant not as a representation of what his bakery can do, but as a bridge “to bring customers in.”
It’s a great bridge. But the other items at Rila will keep you coming back for more.
I loved the Hokkaido cheese Danish ($6.50), a shortcrust hand pie with a deep well of sweet and salty custard in the middle, and the crunchy, crackly kouign-amann, too ($4.95). As far as croissants go, the flat croissant of the day when I visited had mango and crème diplomate ($7.95). There was also a smoked salmon croissant ($6.59), an everything croissant sprinkled with everything bagel seasoning and stuffed with cream cheese ($5), and a sesame ferry ($7.25): a croissant breakfast sandwich with egg and sausage.
The croissants were all rich, buttery and incredibly flaky, tasting wonderful stuffed with anything (especially cream cheese).
Elsewhere in Lynnwood, two more spots are poised for a viral moment.
First is TK Noodle Cafe. Located at the base of a large apartment building next to the Lynnwood Costco, this pan-Asian spot has a massive menu that flits around the cuisines of Thailand, Vietnam and China. I recently feasted here for lunch with a friend, ordering the crispy rice salad ($15.95), Isan sausage ($11.95), Vietnamese pork spring rolls ($15.95) and the pad see ew with tofu ($14.95).
The sour, tangy pork-and-rice Isan sausage, served with pickled ginger, crunchy peanuts and shredded carrots, had incredible snap and flavor, while the crispy rice salad (ordered with Level 2 spice) balanced the chili heat with a saucy, funky fish-sauce vinaigrette and plenty of ginger.
The dining room was mostly empty at noon when I was there, but the server assured me that dinners and weekends are hopping. If you’ve got a midday Costco run on your list, skip the hot dog deal and head here instead.
Meanwhile, the dining room at Modoo Banjeom was hopping at lunch, with servers beating a constant path throughout the restaurant (which also has a Bothell location), carrying steaming bowls of jjamppong ($17) to almost every table.
The spicy noodle soup comes with seafood (brisket is an optional add-on) and either brick-red or cloudy white broth. A word of caution if you’re an eager (and clumsy) eater like me: Don’t wear light colors and order the jjamppong unless you also carry a stain remover pen in your pocket. I left Modoo Banjeom looking like a Jackson Pollock painting.
The massive bowl of steaming soup comes with a bobbing heap of vegetables and shellfish plus perfectly chewy noodles. Also good is the japchae rice ($18), a tangle of potato-starch glass noodles that get stir-fried with bell peppers, bean sprouts and slivers of pork, then served with more pork in a black bean sauce with a scoop of rice.
If you’re dining with a group (or you’re really hungry), consider the tangsuyuk ($25), a heap of crispy fried pork strips served with a thick sweet-and-sour sauce with raw onion, wood ear mushrooms and bell peppers. The crunchy, juicy pork is delectable and also reheats beautifully if you have leftovers.
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