Bitchin' Good Buttermilk Biscuits

Eve M. Tai

"There's my good bitch," says Kim Allen.

Buttermilk biscuits. I've been missing them ever since the venerable Globe Café on Capitol Hill closed years ago. Although chef Kim Allen missed out on the Globe's heyday when she moved to Seattle last year, she was jonesing for biscuits too. A Florida native, Kim could hardly go without her Southern-style buttermilk biscuits and gravy, any more than a Seattle denizen could go without espresso.

Kim couldn't find a job, but she did find time to bake her own biscuits and befriend the owner of Belltown's Caffe Lieto, Rena Poppell. One day Kim brought a batch down from her apartment upstairs and dressed up one of the biscuits with a little face. "It's a biscuit bitch," declared Rena. And a business was born.

Kim and Rena--in the form of Biscuit Bitch at Caffe Lieto--began serving biscuits & gravy as a breakfast item for café patrons. Soon they were conspiring to feed the post-bar crowd with a biscuit menu aimed at soaking up excess alcohol and late-night munchies. The idea was an instant hit; Caffe Lieto by day became Biscuit Bitch at night. The most popular items are the Cheesy Pork 'n Bitch served with bacon and cheddar cheese and the Gritty Scrambled Cheesy Bitch, which is pretty much what it sounds like. For appetites the size of a WWF wrestler, go for the Hot Mess which weighs in at, check it, three pounds.

Eve M. Tai

No mercy here.

Simplicity goes a long way too. The Straight-Up Bitch is doused in sausage gravy--neither too salty nor too thick--and laced with parsley and paprika on a soft and buttery bed of biscuit. Biscuit Bitch also offers vegetarian gravy made with shiitake mushrooms, thus dispelling the notion that carnivores have all the fun.

Kim will still serve you the Straight-Up Bitch at breakfast or any time. But until recently, Biscuit Bitch offered their full menu only during weekend witching hours between
10 p.m. to 2:30 a.m. But for those who turn into pumpkins right after the sun sets, you can now ingest the full menu during new weekend brunch hours, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Now everyone gets to Bitch.

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