Sauced

Happy Hour in Redmond

The Matador has big plates for $4-$5 and a patio that just won’t quit.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Jul 20, 2009 at 04:00PM5 Comments

• HOURS: 4pm-6pm; 10pm-1am daily
• PRICES: $4-$5 Appetizers

So let’s say you are in Redmond, and it’s happy hour.

And let’s say you live in Seattle, and are just there visiting (perhaps you’ve come to peruse the very well-stocked Redmond branch of Half Price Books. )

And let’s say, as long as we’re “let’s saying,” that you are the sort of Seattleite who doesn’t go to the Matador, because you feel, oh you dunno, like there’s something a little suspiciously corporate or something. Something chainy.

As this sort of Seattleite, you can detect “chainy” with the accuracy of a ballistic missile. It’s what you do. But look, that Half Price Books you just spent an hour in? That’s a chain too. A chain from Texas, home of the chainiest chains in all of Chaindom.

Matador, on the other hand, is locally owned, with locations in Ballard and West Seattle as well as scenic Redmond.

So you go in, and you order a few of the $4 and $5 appetizers off the HH menu, expecting to be delivered saucer-size portions of the Mexitreats on offer, which are what they classify as Tex-Mex down there in Chaindom’s Epicenter: Mexican spring rolls, quesadillas, etc.

And then they come. And they are HUGE, brother. There are two full-size chorizo soft tacos, a spilling-over tire pile of calamari rings generously seasoned with cracked pepper, quesadilla triangles made from a tortilla that must have had a diameter of at least 12 inches.

This is what you call happy hour for dinner.

Is it good? Sure. And the house margarita ($6.50) is very tasty—it’s made with the correct amount of Sauza Gold (you can taste the tequila but not too much) and lime (just tangy enough that you almost pucker, but not quite).

There are no drinks on the HH Menu, but there is a big, pretty back patio. Not a spattering of tables lined up along sideways like we do in more urban situations, but a proper patio, full, on a summer evening when the sun goes on shining till well-nigh 10pm, of good-time, margarita-lubed conversation.

“Wow,” you think as you slouch back in your rod-iron patio chair, belly spilling over with Tex-Mex cuisine, limey cocktail going to your head, “Redmond ain’t half bad.”