I'm sitting in the alcove of the bar that is attached to one of the fanciest and best-regarded restaurants in town, watching the champagne cork on the floor, and thinking pungent thoughts about service. To wit, what constitutes good service? Should we always expect it in a place that claims to have it on every press release and web page? Should we be embarrassed to notice and…

Call it some kind of fierce, intuitive desire to protect the Olde Continente (e's added here for effecte), aka Die Mutterlande, but I've often experienced a fierce fight-or-flight response when faced with the old travel-writing truism that "Seattle is America's most European city."

Fight generally wins, and I go immediately to sarcastic, Socratic responses.

(Why, because of the medieval walls, pocked and battered by time and war, surrounding the Pike Place…