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Many travelers see the city of SeaTac as a temporary stop-off on their way to other adventures. Like most airports and their surrounding cities, SeaTac has become synonymous with tarmacs, parking lots, and over-priced airport sandwiches hastily eaten around your roller bag and carry-on case.
What few have done once their plane has landed is walk out of the airport doors and stay awhile, causing them to miss one of the most extraordinary stretches of international food culture in the Pacific Northwest.
SeaTac is home to an extraordinarily diverse array of cuisines packed into ten miles. Every corner offers a new flavor of the world from over thirty restaurants, cafes, and markets.
This is the first in a series of articles in which we will explore these unique places one by one and give you a bird’s eye view of SeaTac’s World Table District.
Boulevard Market
Tucked away under the Polaris apartment complex along Tukwila International Boulevard is a market and pizzeria owned by the same family.
Boulevard Market is stocked from floor to ceiling with foods and goods from India, Fiji, Nepal, and the Middle East. Beyond the impressive stock, the first thing you’ll see in the market is a pastry case filled with beautiful South Asian desserts cheerily greeting you with their bright hues of pinks and greens.
The tall aisles invite you in as you investigate the high shelves generously filled with every type of grocery you can imagine from pantry staples to imported snacks.
Grab a cool drink from the cooler, sample some milk cake from the pastry case, and take a little bit of South Asia home with you by stocking up on your snack of choice.
Pizza Station
A short walk up the sidewalk from Boulevard Market brings you to Pizza Station. The mouth-watering smell of spices and baked crust greets you before you open the door.
Inside is spacious and clean, with comfortable chairs and a couch to relax on as you plan your order or wait for your pizza to bake.
What sets Pizza Station apart from any other pizzeria you’ve likely encountered is their creative fusion of classic pizza with traditional Indian flavors.
The most popular pies on their menu are the Tandoori Chicken and Butter Chicken, and they are crowd-pleasers for a reason.
Tandoori, named for the clay oven it is traditionally cooked in, is marinated with yogurt and spices. The high heat of the tandoori oven gives the chicken an inherent smokey flavor that lifts it above the milder flavor of butter chicken.
While the tandoori chicken pizza is served with classic marinara sauce, the butter chicken pizza uses its own creamy tomato marinade for its sauce, keeping the flavors balanced and self-contained.
Both pizzas are sprinkled with onions and peppers that accentuate but do not overwhelm the hero flavor of the chicken. The dominate word for these pies is flavorful. Each bite is sensational, with a symmetry of flavor married to the delight of a perfectly-baked golden crust.
For classic flavor lovers, Pizza Station also serves cheese, peperoni, BBQ, alfredo, meat lovers, and vegetarian options.
If pizza is not quite the flavor for your mood, a few miles south on International Boulevard offers something else entirely.
Mall of Africa
Mall of Africa is a retail market and cultural gathering point established by and for the diverse African immigrant community in SeaTac. Home to over forty retailers, the mall offers clothing, jewelry, fragrances, and cuisine from the heart of African culture.
The spacious parking lot offers easy access to the mall’s entrance. Walking into the space, you feel as if you’ve stepped into a bazaar on the other side of the world.
Your senses are immediately filled with rack upon racks of beautiful clothing in every color of the rainbow, the sweet smell of incense, and the sound of African music.
As you wind through each room you see shelves of bottles full of fragrance, rows of golden jewelry, and cheerful shopkeepers talking and laughing with one another in their native languages.
The mall is also home to prayer spaces and tax preparation help for the African immigrants who call SeaTac home, making Mall of Africa a vibrant community mecca that invites you into an immersive cultural experience.
Mall of Africa Restaurant
Directly adjacent to Mall of Africa is the Mall of Africa Restaurant.
The interior is large and bright with booths and tables expansive enough to seat a family or large party and small booths to accommodate a couple or solo traveler.
The first must-have in the restaurant is a cup of hot Somali tea. This tea, called shaah, is milky and sweet, resembling a spiced chai. The shaah at Mall of Africa Restaurant is infused with the fresh warmth of cinnamon, cardamom, clove, and ginger.
As you sip your shaah, browse the menu of traditional East African cuisine to discover what you’d like to try.
A popular choice is Ugali, a corn-based porridge formed into cubes and used for dipping. Pair your ugali with your choice of meat—goat, lamb, beef, or chicken—and enjoy with a side of Somali red beans and seasoned spinach.
All food is seasoned to perfection and bursts with the full embodiment of flavor. The spices are mild, so easy to digest for more delicate palates, and the servings are very generous, so bring an appetite!
Settling In
SeaTac is an easy place to pass through. For most, that’s all it is. But as you taste the first pop of heat from a slice of tandoori pizza or sit with your hands wrapped around a hot cup of shaah, you may discover the place you intended to simply pass through became a place worth arriving.
So settle in. Unpack your bags. Stay awhile.
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