Sauced

Happy Hour of the Week: 1022 South in Tacoma

The alchemical cocktail bar that’s no longer under the radar offers four destination-worthy hours of happiness each day.

Posted by: Allecia Vermillion on Feb 21, 2012 at 11:30AM 4 Comments

Some of the loveliest HH cocktails around these parts. Photo via Facebook.

1022 South isn’t an after-work happy hour spot…unless you live in Tacoma. But the New York Times-lauded cocktail bar in the city’s Hilltop district does happy hour every day from 4 to 8pm. This means you have a glorious four-hour window on Saturday nights during which you can enjoy the stylings of bartender-owner Chris Keil and his staff for a mere $5 a drink.

On my recent weekend visit, the space had just the right vibe during those hours—patrons at tables and on bar stools were bent together in lively conversation, with just enough seats to spare. 1022 has all the dark walls, Edison bulbs, and towering back bar shelves of spirits, liqueurs, and bitters you expect from the finest Capitol Hill cocktail dens. There are books on slender wall-mounted shelves and incoming calls are answered on a rotary phone. Ice cubes are works of art and the staff is equally friendly to cosmopolitan drinkers and tincture geeks alike.

But, oh, the cocktails. When the drink list contains creations like the Holiday Hero Endgame (bourbon, chartreuse, damiana liqueur, and kava tincture) or the South of No North (Reposado, Cynar, cold press coffee, egg white and mole bitters, harmonizing to taste like the world’s best stout), you know happy hour won’t consist of well drinks.

Right now HH consists of three cocktails. The Hilltop New Yorker unites whiskey, lemon, red wine and house-made rhubarb bitters. Each sip takes you through layers of flavor, though the rhubarb remains surprisingly, pleasantly, forward. That’s an awful lot for a $5 libation to deliver. The other $5 HH items listed on the ornate Art Deco-styled board include the White Vulture (lemongrass, ginger soda, and white wine infused with jasmine) and the Liza Island (vodka, orange, ginger beer, and vanilla-citrusy Licor 43). Fair warning: You will want to stay long past 8pm to get better acquainted with the main cocktail list, which is divided into literary, classic, and apothecary segments.

Should your love affair with these drinks demand some sustenance, the food menu is rife with $5 plates, including cheese, grilled green beans, oeufs mayonnaise, pickles, a caprese salad. Larger salads and sandwiches ring in at $8.

The bar’s tagline is “better living through alchemy,” and an evening here does indeed feel like a superb fusion of magic and chemistry.

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Tags: Happy Hour, Happy Hour of the Week, Happy Hour of the Week, 1022 South, Chris Keil

Dollar Oysters at Pike Street Fish Fry

A new seasonal happy hour offers bivalves big and small.

Posted by: Allecia Vermillion on Feb 07, 2012 at 10:50AM 1 Comments

This giant hotel pan of oysters: yours for $12 during happy hour.

Pike Street Fish Fry ushered in the month of February by joining the new dollar oyster club. The discounted oyster action happens from 5 to 8pm Sunday through Thursday, and beers are $4. There are fancier dollar oyster experiences to be had around town: experiences that involve mignonette, tiny oyster forks, and actual platters. But I’m a sucker for this Pike-Pine hideaway, both for the rippingly good fried seafood and the diner-meets-pirate-fort ambiance, punctuated by warm-up bass thumps from nearby Neumos.

Last week I stopped in for a dozen, along with an Odin’s Gift, the Beer Formerly Known as Ruby. I wasn’t sure how an establishment specializing in battering and frying would treat happy hour oysters, but you can opt for raw or grilled bivalves. Thank goodness there wasn’t a crowd at 5:30, because the two-person kitchen team had to seriously wrestle with those oysters. Arriving at work one day and being told that your job duties now include speed-shucking for beer-swilling masses is probably an occupational downer, though these two were awesome. One even took cell phone shots of her handiwork before bringing out the newly shucked dozen.

Oysters arrived in a hotel pan filled with ice, and we used standard-issue plastic forks to wrest the meat out of the shells. Apparently ours was the first dozen-oyster order since Pike Street initiated the happy hour. The takeaway: There’s no shame in rolling in for two or three of these guys if you so desire.

What you won’t find at more upscale oyster happy hours: a bigger oyster for your buck. The selection varies by week, but right now Pike Street lets you choose between dainty Olympias and behemoth Pacific oysters, nearly the size of my splayed fingers. Unsure if my companion would dig the Olys’ coppery flavor, I opted for 12 Pacifics: six raw; six grilled. This might be the first time in my life I preferred a grilled oyster to a raw one, perhaps due to the addition of the same crunchy purple cabbage slaw that accompanies the Fish Fry’s pulled pork sandwich and fish tacos.

Pike Street plans to continue the oyster happy hour for the remainder of the season, though plans could certainly change. While there aren’t any other discounts besides the $4 beers, the drafts are solid. Wines are just a few bucks more, and a far nicer selection than you’d expect to find at a punky fried fish shack. And if dollar oysters don’t entice, there’s always free fry Friday.

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Tags: Happy Hour, Oysters, Happy Hour of the Week, Seattle Happy Hours, Pike Street Fish Fry

Happy Hour of the Week: The Upstairs in Belltown

It’s like hanging out at your friend’s apartment. If that friend charged you for drinks.

Posted by: Allecia Vermillion on Jan 17, 2012 at 11:00AM 4 Comments

Basic drinks, served on the cheap and consumed on a big couch. Photo: The Upstairs via Facebook.

The Upstairs bills itself as a cocktail destination, but if you’re the sort that forms passionate allegiances to certain brands of bitters or likes to play spirit roulette, you might want to continue on Second Avenue until you hit Bathtub Gin, Rob Roy, Spur, or, on certain nights of the week, the Trophy Room at Shorty’s.

This new bar owned by, and located upstairs from, tapas bar Pintxo, can make a solid drink. Though it’s hard to ignore the fact that the menu contains a “classy version” of the Long Island iced tea, and a drink described as “a grown up Shirley Temple with vodka.”

But all is not lost. The bar has a dimly lit hideaway vibe that’s a nice contrast to Belltown’s usual high energy. The shotgun layout resembles my first apartment in Chicago, after an olive green paint job and the addition of some chandeliers, a heavy wooden bar, a bunch of art and, naturally, some ornate wallpaper. The furniture is a tasteful hodgepodge that carries on that whole apartment feel (these rooms were most recently art gallery/social club the McLeod Residence).

The Upstairs gets busier later at night, which means the 5-to-7 happy hour is an ideal window for a low-key drink. The front room has seats aplenty and you can converse without shouting over any sort of clamor or din. Come in for happy hour and you’ll be drinking the basics. Sierra Nevada and Ren-yay are $3 and $2, house wine will run you $6 and well drinks are $4. I’ve been a few times when there’s an additional happy hour special, so be sure to ask. You’ll likely cast a longing eye at some of the fancier offerings, but you’ll also drink very cheaply. Which is why you like happy hour in the first place, correct?

Despite the cocktail-centric menu, your best bet might be the beer list. Here you’ll find cheap stuff alongside regional standouts including beers from Odin, Two Beers and Schooner Exact, and some national micro-favorites from places like Stone, Russian River, and Colorado’s Avery Brewing. The bar also has a deep bench of locally produced spirits.

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Tags: Happy Hour, Happy Hour of the Week, Seattle Happy Hours, The Upstairs

Happy Hour of the Week: Kaname Izakaya

A daily HH at this ID snack spot features fried delicacies for under $5.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Jan 28, 2011 at 10:21AM 1 Comments

Deep-fried goodness at Kaname Isakaya

• HOURS: Daily 5-6:30pm
• PRICES: Small plates/sushi $2-$4.50. Sake $2.50-$5.95; $3.95 select cocktails; 16-ounce Sapporo $3.

I was recently tasked with writing up Kaname for Seattle Met’s Asian food feature, and the experience reminded me just how winning happy hour at this ID hole-in-the-wall really is.

From 5 to 6:30pm daily, bar snacks are between $2 and $4.50. If you’re going for the fried food—and, unless the doctor is dictating otherwise, I think you should—the croquettes, stuffed with potato and ground beef, are recommended. They’re like panko-crusted, individually portioned shepherd’s pies without the creepy peas and carrots. And the fried-chicken bites (tori no karaage) are great when perked up with a squeeze of lemon. Alternatively, choose healthier treats like $3.50 maki rolls, edamame, and broiled nettlefish (sanma shio yaki). Agedashi tofu is deep-fried, yes, but also tofu. And only $3 per order.

Kaname is small, narrow, wood-floored, nothing fancy. It’s a place where ordering a 16-ounce Sapporo feels like the right thing to do. One of those will run you $3 during HH.

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Tags: Happy Hour of the Week, Seattle Happy Hours, Seattle Japanese Food, Izakaya

Happy Hour of the Week: Vito’s

Forget your workaday worries and settle in with a strong drink at this sexy-seedy First Hill Lounge.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Jan 19, 2011 at 09:43AM 1 Comments

Vito’s takes you back, which turns out to be exactly where you want to go.

Photo: Vito’s

• HOURS: Daily 4-7pm
• PRICES: $3 well drinks, beers, and select wines. Half-off the lounge menu (regular prices $5-$12).

Last spring, Jeff Scott and Greg Lundgren bought Vito’s, a First Hill restaurant and bar that had opened nearly 60 years prior and was certainly showing its age. But rather than give it the My Fair Lady-treatment, Scott and Lundgren embraced the sexy-seedy Italian lounge—leaving the lights low and the candles lit, maintaining the assertively outdated deep-red-and-black color scheme, and introducing a list of specialty cocktails that looks a lot like that at The Hideout, their perfect little art-themed bar up the road. No need to think too hard on these drinks or invoke adjectives like “craft” and “preprohibition.” They are expert and tasty, and brought to you promptly and politely. So pick the one that sounds best, my weary friend, then fahgetaboutit.

Happy hour at Vito’s happens every day from 4 to 7pm and includes, among its enticements, half price on the lounge menu. That menu tops out at about $12 in any case, so HH offers quite the dinner deal. I won’t lie to you and pretend this food will change your life, but ask yourself: Does it need to? Here you are, lounging in a loungy booth, relaxing with a mellow mixture of rye whiskey, punt e mes (vermouth), and Maraschino, and maybe some bean-and-anchovy dip or gooey garlic bread or a simple Roman bean ragu.

Maybe you’re biding time until someone shows up to put that piano to work. Maybe you’re here to forget the eight hours of coding you did today, or the poor production assistant you had to can due to budget cuts. Maybe you’re trying to soften the sharp edges around a recent breakup or maybe today is that day in winter (happens every year) when you’re ready to admit the rain has won. It doesn’t really matter. Because Vito’s is going to work its way under your skin until you’re convinced you’ve traveled back to a time—maybe not a simpler time, but certainly a different time—when a cocktail was just a cocktail and no one troubled themselves about the farm where the cannellinis were grown and whether or not it used pesticides.

And sometimes, at the end of a hard day in Techietown, that’s exactly the time you need.

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Tags: Cocktails, First Hill, Italian Food, Happy Hour of the Week

Happy Hour of the Week: Re:Public

Piggy small plates for $4 draw South Lake Unioners to a daily happy hour at this brick-lined bar.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Jan 14, 2011 at 11:24AM 0 Comments

Re:Public’s daily happy hour is a hit in South Lake Union.

• HOURS: Daily 4-6pm
• PRICES: $5 Select wines by the glass; $4 wells; select pints $3.50. Small plates $4 each. Kusshi oysters $2.

The bottles behind the bar at Re:Public aren’t stacked three deep on the shelves, the way they are at Liberty and Zig Zag, they’re displayed proudly. Lit up. “Look at me!” they seem to say. So I do. And I find several of them contain mere drops of liquid. If you’re out of Blanton’s, I wonder, wouldn’t you get out a new bottle? Or at least not display your dreggy one so prominently? Suddenly, bourbon doesn’t appeal. I order a glass of wine, a crisp chardonnay from Impuls—$5 at HH. A smart, easy-going choice for a happy hour wine.

It’s noisy in Re:Public, people lean in towards each other at the row of wooden booths lining one brick wall and at the tall tables surrounding the bar. This feels good, lively, urban. So often Seattle feels half deserted, have you noticed? Where are all the people, you wonder, as you belly up at some excellent Belltown cocktail lounge by your lonesome.

They are at Re:Public, as it turns out, eating kusshi oysters, $2 each both at HH and on the dinner menu (dinner service begins at 5pm). They are eating the meaty things that taste so good: pork cheeks ($4), pig’s tails ($4)—food names that sounds like the start of a nursery rhyme. If it’s after five they are venturing off the HH menu, sinking their forks into a pork belly cooked perfectly—a cube of crispy, fatty pig heaven with a cute riff on a Waldorf salad for compliment.

Hmm, Re:Public. Nice food, neighborhood feel, generous but tiny little HH menu, empty bottles of booze behind the bar. I don’t know though, it’s fun in there. And the neighborhood has clearly spoken: Re:Public is a hit.

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Tags: South Lake Union, Happy Hour of the Week, Seattle Happy Hours

Happy Hour Of The Week: Lecosho

Matt Janke’s Harbor Steps happy hour is a hit.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Jan 05, 2011 at 10:22AM 0 Comments

The bar gets pretty packed during early HH at Lecosho.

• HOURS: Mon-Fri 3-6pm. Sun-Thurs 10pm-1am. Friday-Sat 11pm-1am.
• PRICES: $4 Select Wines. $3 Drafts. $5 Cocktails. Food $3-$14.

Matt Janke (creator of Matt’s in the Market, now under different ownership) opened Lecosho this fall on a shadowy landing midway down the Harbor Steps.

I’ll admit, I worried.

The recession has not been kind to Downtown Seattle, and the Harbor Steps don’t seem to offer much in the way of restaurant-friendly street traffic. Unless you’re a Crossfit client who pays a lady to make you run up and down stairs during your lunch hour, the Steps are for coming and going, not coming and staying. The sushi restaurant that preceded Lecosho, for instance, was a mess—often 9/10ths vacant even during the midday rush and emanating a vibe of decay (not a good look for a place trafficking in raw fish).

Oh me of little faith. Matt’s under Janke was about as bustling as a restaurant can be, and with Lecosho he has created something similarly magnetic. Just try to get a seat for happy hour on any given evening around 5pm. It isn’t easy.

“Food we like,” is the motto here. But it’s food everybody likes—even kids, whom Lecosho is big enough, noisy enough, and relaxed enough to accommodate comfortably. Decor is simple—dark wood, light walls—but not so austerely plain as to elicit that bone-rattling chill you get at restaurants that take their food a touch too seriously, a chill known to run through nearby establishments both existent and defunct.

But about that happy hour. Early HH is served from 3 to 6pm daily to those seated on stools along its long, mirrored (watch yourself eat!) bar and a smattering of tables near the front. It includes, among its many little wonders, Chef Mike Easton’s espresso-rubbed short ribs with picked beets ($7). The bartender will wisely suggest pairing those with spaetzle ($5) that has been fatted up with brown butter and sprinkled in pecorino romano. These, along with a glass of the house red ($4), are all you need on a wet winter Tuesday to make life seem like a good thing once more.

The steamed clams in a chili beer broth could maybe use a little more heat, but still make for a rich, warming match with an order of Columbia City baguette that comes with butter and an olive relish ($3). Lecosho’s salads tend towards the substantial, and a soft-boiled egg lends satisfying protein to the house greens ($5) on the HH menu. If you like your salads lightly dressed let your server know, otherwise expect a liberal dose.

Great values, good views, everything done smartly. That’s Lecosho, now offering one of the best happy hours in town.

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Tags: Downtown, Happy Hour of the Week

Happy Hour of the Week: Sullivan’s Steakhouse

At the bar in Sullivan’s Steakhouse, you kind of can’t help but get comfortable.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Sep 24, 2010 at 01:47PM 4 Comments

Smoked salmon flatbread from Sullivan’s bar menu.

It’s happy hour at the lounge inside Sullivan’s Steakhouse, and I feel like I’ve teleported to Chicago. The long bar is all shiny wood and mirrors; it’s packed with people smiling at each other, talking more loudly than Seattleites usually do. The women have blonde highlights and rosy cheeks and they’re wearing muted-tone separates from Banana Republic. Any gaps in conversation are caulked with the jaunty jazz standards someone is playing on a baby grand, and perky servers come bearing dense wines served in glass fishbowls balanced on skinny stems.

Sullivan’s is a chain restaurant—it shares a parent company with Del Frisco’s, a well-known fleet of steakhouses that spans the country—but it doesn’t have the Truman Show quality that its downtown chain brethren tend to have. The service is friendly but not creepily so, the food does the trick, and the booths are cozy. It’s fun to drink there. Sullivan’s is like some dude your college-age cousin brings to the family reunion, a guy who looks kind of fratty but turns out to be hilarious and winningly attentive towards the old folks. You punch this guy lightly on the shoulder after a few beers, the words “You’re all right, Sully” implied in the gesture of mock truculence. This pleases your young cousin.

But warm fuzzy feelings aside, remembering Sullivan’s happy hour specials is dang near impossible. That’s because they change every day of the week. Only one thing remains consistent: if it’s happy hour, then two items from the bar menu—blue cheese chips and blue cheese meatballs—are $5. Below I attempt to explain the rest.

The late-night happy hour happens every day from 10pm to 2am. In addition to the chips and the meatballs, the following things are $5: draft beers, well drinks, and select sushi rolls.

The early HH runs from 3pm to 7pm on weekdays. Do I need to say again that blue cheese chips and meatballs are $5? They are. On Mondays well drinks are also $5, on Tuesday it’s $6 for select wine, champagne, and champagne cocktails. On Wednesday draft beers are $5, and on Friday specialty martinis are $5.

But Thursday is the day to go, because there’s live music and HH runs all night. Most of the items on the bar menu—including the hamburger—are $5, as are specialty martinis and house wines. This too pleases your young cousin.

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Tags: Happy Hour, Downtown, Happy Hour of the Week

Happy Hour of the Week: The Tin Table

This sparkly new Capitol Hill bar and restaurant has half-price bottles five nights a week, plus plenty of peoplewatching.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Mar 13, 2009 at 10:00AM 4 Comments

• HOURS: Tue-Sun 3-6
• PRICES: Half-price bottles of select wine and champagne, $2 beer
$3-$7 plates

Seattle newcomers: Please do not confuse The Tin Table with The Tin Hat or The Tin Room.

The Tin Hat is an awesome dive in Ballard where dogs belly up to the bar alongside their owners and pinball is treated hella seriously. The Tin Room is a neighborhood restaurant/bar in Burien with perfect cocktails. The Tin Table, however, is a brand new champagne bar and restaurant across the hall from the Century Ballroom, (owner is Hallie Kuperman, who also owns the Ballroom) on the second floor of the Oddfellows Building. It’s named for an ornate tin door that’s been repurposed as an tabletop for communal dining.

Walking in, the first thing you’ll notice is an oohy-aahy glass wall lined with sparkly stemware of various shapes, signaling the focus on wine and champagne—the menu features seven by the glass sparklers and bubbly-based cocktails abound. There are three distinct seating areas: a snag-a-seat-if-you-can plush lounge area behind the wall o’glasses; a long shiny bar in the middle, and a dining area with plenty of 2- and 4-tops—plus the ginormous tin table—to the right. In other words, there’s plenty of room for you and yours at happy hour, but come early if you are looking to lounge.

The HH runs from 3-6 Tuesday through Sunday and the best part of it is this: half-price bottles of select wine and champagne. The second best part, if you’re an Italian lager lover (and who isn’t, really?) is $2 pints of Peroni. Food specials range from $3 shoestring fries to a $7 plate of pasta and a burger-and-fries special with a vegan option. Peoplewatching/eavesdropping is good—I’d rate it a seven out of 10—the diverse dancer folk from next store seem to wander in frequently, making for an interesting crowd.

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Tags: Happy Hour, Happy Hour of the Week, Tin Table