Best of 2007: Best of the Rest

SERVICES

Best Courtesy Ride:
London Cab Town Car at The Sorrento Hotel
First Hill, 900 Madison St.; 206.622.6400; hotelsorrento.com
Heads turn and people wave when this eye-catching model rolls by. Produced in the United Kingdom and retrofitted in Chicago, the five-passenger, wheelchair-accessible London Executive Sedan by LTI boasts the famous black cab headroom and 8-yard turning radius. Sorrento Hotel and Hunt Club guests can request free rides downtown or to nearby medical facilities, but pickup is first come, first served. (Hours: Mon.–Fri., 7 a.m.–6 p.m.; Sat.–Sun., 9 a.m.–5 p.m.)

Best Bedtime Hotel Service:
Milk and Cookies at Hotel 1000
Downtown, 1000 First Ave; 206.957.1000; hotel1000seattle.com
Hotel 1000’s guest rooms may be the ne plus ultra of 21st-century sophistication, but nothing evokes comforting childhood memories quite like cookies and ice-cold milk. Offered as an amenity for families and delivered to late-night arrivals as a welcoming snack, the nut-free chocolate chip treats are made from scratch. (Pssst! This tasty extra is available to any guest who asks.)

Best Dating Coach:
The Professional Dater
Queen Anne, 150 Nickerson St., Suite 201; 206.381.3283
You’ve seen it in every Nora Ephron film: Boy meets girl, they share round after round of well-scripted banter and ultimately they realize that their destiny is with each other. Then there’s the rest of us. Enter The Professional Dater. Offering client-specific matchmaking, a calendar of singles events and self-help classes such as “Flirting 101,” creative director Alma Avery Rubenstein and the rest of the staff demystify the dating scene. With their one-on-one coaching, you can take comfort in knowing (or at least hoping) that your first date won’t be your last.

Cleanest Back-Alley Garage:
Automotive Brake & Service
International District, 308 14th Ave. S; 206.329.2222
Say “back-alley garage” and you wouldn’t expect the sparkling-clean fix-it shop of Art and Gordon Habu. “I paint the floor every year,” says Art, who attributes his neatness to his wife. The tiny, tidy garage is hidden behind the Seattle Buddhist Temple and specializes in repairing Asian and domestic cars. Clad in blue workmen’s overalls, the brothers have been keeping customers’ cars running for more than 33 years with their immaculate service and fair pricing.

Best Local Hot Shot:
Lauren Jackson, Seattle Storm
In August, 6-foot-5-inch Australian native Lauren Jackson won the Women’s National Basketball Association’s (WNBA) Defensive Player of the Year award; in September, she received the league Most Valuable Player nod for the second time, by a huge margin of votes. At 26, and in the best shape of her career, Jackson is the youngest player by five years to have joined the WNBA’s “4,000-Point Club,” and did so after only 209 games. WNBA chief of basketball operations Renee Brown has called LJ—as she’s known to fans—“perhaps the most complete player in the game.” Let’s hope we get to see her play here beyond the 2008 season.

Best Outdoor Workout:
AdventX
206.219.3686; adventx.com
Adventure. Fitness. Community. AdventX’s tagline is a perfect explanation of its practice. This is no boot camp—you work as hard as you wish. The man behind the concept, renowned cyclist and mountaineer John Colver, encourages, engages and challenges, but only as much as you desire. The people drawn to this program are as authentic as the program itself, cheering the group as they climb the 100th stair or accomplish their most recent goal; whether it’s a personal-record timed mile or a recent ascent of Mount Rainier, all are treated equally. Beautiful outdoor settings such as Discovery Park are the backdrop to this fun, making you remember why you live in Seattle. It’s like recess for grown-ups, without the bullies.

Best Place to Perfect Your Swing When It’s Raining:
The Golf Club
Downtown, Hotel 1000, 1000 First Ave.; 206.957.1000; hotel1000seattle.com
The only such commercial installation in the Seattle area, Hotel 1000’s state-of-the-art virtual system (by Full Swing Golf) lets pros and duffers alike play 53 famous courses, projected on canvas in a darkened room. Cameras use infrared light to capture each hit ball, and data—trajectory, speed, spin, distance—are calculated and displayed onscreen. It’s a sociable way to play 18 holes, or have “longest drive” and “closest to the pin” contests, and anything on the BOKA Kitchen + Bar menu can be ordered during play. (Open to the general public. $30 per person, per hour.)

Best Swag Bag:
Fashion First
Grab bag, goodie bag, swag bag—call it what you may, it’s all about the booty. We scoured the city for the best bag, complimentary to anyone willing to pay the price of entry into an event. At Seattle’s biggest style show this year, Fashion First, the $1,000 Ultra Glam ticket bought foot-of-the-runway seats and a swag bag overflowing with plunder. “People love goodie bags,” says Fashion First executive producer Joan Kelly. “They go home, dump it out on the bed and pore over the treasure!” A peek into this year’s Ultra Glam bag unearthed a sexy tee from Alhambra, a swanky wrap from Sway & Cake, aromatic bath salts from illi, a Glassybaby votive, two pairs of handmade earrings, an umbrella, sunglasses, cookies, coupons and more. Ain’t instant gratification grand?

Best New Neighborhood Mascot:
New Troll in Fremont
A new troll sauntered into town during Fremont’s Summer Solstice Parade in June. Artist Kim Graham (kimgrahamstudios.com) and Rob Rogalski created a whole forest full of 12-foot-tall papier-mâché tree people, the king of which took up residence in Fremont, until the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas got wind of it and made Graham an offer she couldn’t refuse—now the Fremont Troll’s new friend lives in the Bellagio atrium. Graham hopes, however (with some funds from Google, reportedly), to create a new, waterproof version to replace the one that made the big time.

Best Quasi-Zen Lunchtime Retreat:
Seattle Aquarium
Waterfront, Pier 59, 1483 Alaskan Way; 206.386.4300; seattleaquarium.org
Fish are hypnotizing, and there’s hardly a better place to watch them than the newly revamped Seattle Aquarium, which unveiled its stellar $41 million expansion (and requisite pier reconstruction) in June. Modeled on a Neah Bay locale, the 120,000-gallon “Window on Washington Waters” boasts a 39-by-17-foot viewing wall and is home to 300 fish and up to 500 sea creatures in total. We also love the 40-foot-long “Crashing Waves” exhibit that leads visitors to the gift shop and the original part of the aquarium. Food at the new mezzanine-level café is modestly priced (and includes fish and chips!), and there’s a patio with views of Elliott Bay. For a more serene experience, show up after 4 p.m.

The Year’s Best Good-Deed Doers

Best Ride for Charity:
Gregg Bleakney and Brooks Allen’s Ride for the American Diabetes Association, Ribbon of Road
Starting about as far north as you can get in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, 32-year-old Seattleite Gregg Bleakney and his San Francisco friend Brooks Allen hopped on their bikes to begin a journey that would take nearly two years and more than 18,000 miles. They biked along the West Coast, through the United States, down to the roads of Mexico, where the trip suddenly took a terrifying turn when they were robbed by machete-wielding masked men. A shaken Allen headed home, but Bleakney rode on, completing his trip at the tip of Argentina at 8 p.m. on May 6. In the end, their heroic efforts raised more than $50,000 for the American Diabetes Association.

Best Climber’s Companion:
Velvet, the Labrador Retriever
A group of climbers was heading down from the summit of Mount Hood last February when three of them suddenly became lost. They found themselves stranded at 7,400 feet with nothing to keep them warm but a couple of sleeping bags and their four-legged companion, Velvet. While the three Portland climbers waited to be rescued, they were treated to the warmth of Velvet, who selflessly lay on top of them, giving off her lifesaving heat. Cats are nice, but they would’ve been out of there in a heartbeat. Velvet stuck by until the end, earning her a serious belly rub and a spot on our list.

Best Campaign for Children:
Family Services’ “Don’t Just Look Away!”
Seattle’s homeless problem includes an even bigger crisis that is often overlooked: the nearly 800 children under the age of 6 who are without homes each night in King County. Family Services helped bring awareness to that throughout the summer by featuring hundreds of life-size cardboard cutouts of children with slogans such as “DON’T JUST LOOK AWAY!” on the streets of King County neighborhoods. Because they are often tucked out of sight, it’s easy to forget that children are a major part of homelessness. We applaud Family Services for the much-needed reminder.

Hardest-Working Guy in Show Biz:
Kent Phillips
Co-host of Northwest Afternoon, KOMO-TV’s live daily talk show, Kent Phillips turns out to be much more than a talking head. A married father of two, Phillips, 49, is also a man of the stage. As founder and managing artistic director of Bellevue Civic Theater, Phillips just finished directing BCT’s production of Godspell. But his commitment to the theater runs even deeper: he is known for turning around ailing theaters by managing them until their debts are paid off, including the Tacoma’s Actors Guild and Renton Civic Theatre. Seattle’s media dynamo has also served on several boards, including Habitat for Humanity and Starlight Starbright Children’s Foundation. And he is still the co-host of Star 101.5 FM’s The Kent and Alan Show—Seattle’s longest-running morning radio program on one station. When does this guy sleep?

Best Green Pizza Delivery
Snoose Junction
Ballard, 2305 NW Market St.; 206.789.2305; snoosejunctionpizzeria.com
The only thing better than pizza from Snoose Junction is pizza from Snoose Junction delivered to your door by bicycle. That’s right, as if we didn’t love this green eatery enough, they can now deliver up to eight piping-hot, bungee-bound pizzas from NW 85th Avenue to Third Avenue NW (and neighboring Ballard areas) on two wheels for no extra charge. Watch for their new Greenwood location in February.

Best Green Excuse to Buy Chocolate
Theo Chocolate
Fremont, 3400 Phinney Ave. N; 206.632.5100; theochocolate.com
Good things come in small packages, and Theo’s small packages are good, too. The chocolatier uses packaging materials that are made of the highest percentage of post-consumer waste possible and are recyclable (except the foil). They also use 100 percent biodegradable cornstarch packing peanuts in their shipments, and even those cute ribbons that tie it all together are tinted with earth-friendly dyes. 

Best Green Retailer
Nau
Bellevue, 242 Bellevue Square; 425.289.1980; nau.com
You can feel good about looking good in Nau’s sustainable, performance-driven, super-hip apparel, because when you order goods from the store instead of purchasing them off the rack, Nau will thank you with a 10 percent discount and free shipping to your home. Why? Because a smaller retail space with less inventory uses less resources, and shipping costs are countered with carbon credits through Nau’s relationship with Climate Trust.

Best Green Idea That May Never Happen
Mithun’s Center for Urban Agriculture
1201 Alaskan Way; 206.623.3344; mithun.com
Mithun, a Seattle-based architectural design and planning firm, recently won Best in Show in the Living Building Challenge for its Center for Urban Agriculture—an urban vertical farm of sorts that includes vegetable gardens, grain fields, greenhouses, a learning center, a chicken farm and 318 apartments. The building’s green amenities would allow it to operate independent of city water and energy, and, because it’s Seattle, an entry-level café would sell organic foods grown on-site.