Sauced

Upcoming Drinking Event: Organic Cocktails at Tini Bigs

It is Washington Organic Week, and there are cocktails involved.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Sep 12, 2011 at 12:27PM 0 Comments

Tini Bigs hosts the organic cocktail contest, part of Washington Organic Week (or WOW!, if you’re into acronyms and explanation points).

Photo: Tini Bigs via Facebook

UPDATE 09.13: Devin Cutler from Bathtub Gin won the popular vote with “First Come, First Served," a mixture of Woodinville Whiskey Headlong White Dog Whiskey, Yellow Chartreuse, Blackberry Mint Shrub, and Scrappy’s Grapefruit Bitters.

On Tuesday, September 6 eight local bartenders made drinks at Tini Bigs for a panel of judges.

The event took place in advance of Tilth Producers’s Washington Organic Week, the public will chose a winner from among the four finalists today.

But which bartenders competed? You may well ask. These:
Andrew Bohrer of Rob Roy, Ross Lincoff of The Hunt Club, Rich Fox of Poquitos, Tiffany Friday from Taste, Eric Patno at Epulo Bistro (that’s in Edmonds), Jason Saura from Naga Lounge, Bathtub Gin’s Devin Cutler, and Stephen Nogler, also employed by The Hunt Club.

And who judged their drinks?
Tom Douglas did, and so did Seattle Weekly editor Mike Seely, and Shane Shar, who won this same competition last year. These illustrious cocktail tasters selected four finalists from the group, and those finalists will make their drinks from 6 to 10:30pm on Monday, September 12 at Tini Bigs. The public will select a winner.

Each competing cocktail had to contain two alcoholic ingredients, and one of those ingredients has to appear on a list of local products that includes Woodinville Whiskey’s Peabody Jones vodka, Scrappy’s Bitters, and the Battlepoint Organic Wheat Whiskey from Bainbridge Organic Distillers.

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Tags: Lower Queen Anne, Cocktails, Cocktail Competitions

Upcoming Drinking Events: Poutine and Canadian Beer, Tiki Lessons, and Ice Cream Floats for Lunch

Plus: Neighboring wineries compete with Wednesday pizza and wine deals.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Jun 28, 2011 at 10:47AM 0 Comments

The place for cheap pizza and wine on Wednesdays? Woodinville, as it turns out.

Photo: Novelty Hill

For the calendar: Tini Bigs has introduced a series of cocktail classes called Sunday School. Held on Sunday afternoons, logically enough, the classes cost $35 and include appetizers and drinks. We just missed a tequila lesson last Sunday, but here’s what is coming up: On July 31 the bar will be hosting a Tiki tutorial, and on August 28 it’s market-fresh cocktails. Call Tini Bigs for details and to reserve.

Also: Coa in Maple Leaf is now selling tickets to July tequila tastings, the first one is on July 7 and will be taught by Eric Lorenz—an agave expert from Vancouver, BC. It’s $40 for the tasting plus snacks.

Now onto events for the next week or so:

Between noon and 2pm on Tuesday, June 28, the Dry Soda Tasting Tour stops at 1st Avenue and Stewart. There, someone will make you a float with Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream and of course Dry Soda. And here you were going to have salad for lunch.

Super Deli Mart in West Seattle is doing a wine tasting on Tuesday the 28th, pouring 10 varieties from Woodinville-based Novelty Hill/ Januik from 6 to 8pm.

Currently on Wednesdays, Columbia Winery is offering half off flat-bread pizza and wine by the glass from 5 to 7pm. This is kind of weird, since neighbor Novelty Hill (the one doing the Super Deli tasting) offers special flat-bread pizza and wine deals every Wednesday too. A side-by-side comparison seems to be in order.

Smith, purveyors of poutine, that famous Canadian fat-bomb of deliciousness, celebrates Canada Day on Friday, July 1. The 15th Ave E Bar suggests you wash down all that gravy-laden goodness with a Canadian brew. Molson, Labatt Blue, and Kokanee will all be on offer.

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Tags: Lower Queen Anne, Cocktails, Tequila, Drinking Events, Woodinville, Ice Cream, Tiki, Drinking Culture

Happy Hour In Seattle: Cheese Plate Edition

Five Seattle spots for getting stinky (in the best possible way) at HH.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Feb 15, 2011 at 12:33PM 3 Comments

The cheese of La Mancha

Cheese is a food that makes you want it so bad, it has been compared—by scientists, no less—to morphine and heroin. In fact there was a heroin-based drug going around Texas a few years back that mixed the deadly narcotic with over-the-counter cold medicine. That drug’s street name? Cheese.

But unlike hard drugs, cheese is easy to consume in moderation. Especially during happy hour, when smaller sized samplings of the world’s best dairy products are doled out at a discount. Here are some of Seattle’s notable HH cheese platters. Consume with caution.

Tucked into a few narrow rooms of a Madrona bungalow, with white-washed walls and a chalkboard menu and the cutest owners—a very young couple who wouldn’t know pretension if it smacked them across the face with the last issue of Wine Spectator— Bottlehouse is a total charmer. During a daily happy hour from 5 to 7pm, cheeses are $3.50 per ounce or $10 for three. On offer: fleur d’aunis, a lovely semi-soft with a distinctive nutty flavor; a Gouda-style goat cheese; and the decadent Pierre Robert triple-creme.

I like to pop into Fonte from time to time after work and order up the $6 cheese plate during the daily HH from 5 to 6:30pm. It’s chef’s choice but often includes one of my favorite cheeses, tomme de savoie, plus a healthy hunk of funky blue. It comes with a few slices of bread and, for garnish, golden raisins, cranberries, Marcona almonds, and two mild peppers.

Toulouse Petit has seven cheeses on the HH menu from France, Switzerland, and, in the case of saveur du maquis, Corsica. Saveur du maquis is a sheep’s milk cheese with a rind coated in herbs like rosemary and juniper along with maquis, an aromatic plant indigenous to the storied island where it is manufactured. Amazing. These cheeses are three for $7.50 or five for $12 during happy hour.

I have a theory that the powers that be at Maximilien assign servers to the happy hour shift upstairs as punishment for serving the potage in the wrong bowl or something. In any case they are often in a bad mood, acting every bit the surly French waiters of legend. Such abuse is endured in order to get a nibble of the assiette de fromages, a selection of French cheese arranged on a platter like numbers on a clock face. This generous treat is just $7 during happy hour—5 to 7pm on weekdays and Saturdays from 8 to 10pm.

When I lived in Spain I was tasked, by the university I “attended,” to read Don Quijote in Spanish. That took me nearly all of my six-month stay there (long book, foreign language, cocktails to drink) but when I did hand in my final paper—which I’m sure was a fascinating read indeed—some friends took me to La Mancha to celebrate. I came back to Madrid with a tiny ceramic windmill and a big barny hunk of Manchego. The sweet memory of that cheese I relive at Lecosho, where Manchego is drizzled with honey, accessorized by Marconas, and sold for $7 during HH. Spring for a demi-baguette of Columbia City bread for $3 more.

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Tags: Happy Hour, Lower Queen Anne, Downtown, Madrona, Cheese, Seattle Happy Hours

Happy Hour of the Week: Toulouse Petit

Fifty dishes under $7. What manner of kitchen voodoo is this?

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Jan 07, 2010 at 10:00AM 4 Comments

Photo: Lara Ferroni

View Slideshow » Illustration:

Photo: Lara Ferroni

View Slideshow » Illustration:

• HOURS: Daily from 4–5:30pm and 10 pm–midnight.
• PRICES: food specials between $3-$15

Toulouse Petit is a restaurant inspired by New Orleans, a mystery-drenched city full of doom and magic. But there is nothing doomed about Toulouse, the million-dollar project of savvy restaurateur Brian Hutmacher, who also owns neighboring Peso’s —a cash cow of a Mexican restaurant that at night becomes a popped-collar sausagefest unlike anything else this far north of Chico.

And while the twinkle of candles conspires with the glow from Georgia O’Keefe-esque blown-glass chandeliers to create a certain mystical ambiance, if there is magic at Toulouse Petit it is the happy hour, featuring 42 dishes (plus 12 sides), all of them under $7. (The restaurant also offers rib eye for $15 a plate during the late-night HH.)

I go to a lot of happy hours, but I’ve never seen happy hour food like this. The first plate that emerges is a tuna tartare, which comes laced with a subtle horseradish-truffle vinaigrette and topped with a quail egg ($5). Then comes a small platter of three oysters on crushed ice ($6) followed by a duo of spicy lamb sliders ($5) accompanied by a handful of fries and aioli. Finally, our server brings a glorious hunk of chicken and duck liver terrine ($4) the size of a small moleskine notebook. It is flanked by a pile of onions, a scattering of gherkins, some spicy mustard, and a few (rather too few, actually) tiny toasts.

The bill for this food, this feast of delicacies, comes to $25.85. Uh, what?

I spoke with Hutmacher just before Toulouse opened, when he told me he planned to offer HH food at cost, relying on alcohol alone to turn a profit. (If you doubt him, consider that Peso’s is the largest buyer of alcohol in the state, not counting casinos.) This takes the pressure off the staff, he said, to make all of their the money during the dinner hours of 6-9pm. Thus, the deals that await anyone who can get to Toulouse before 5:30 or after 10pm. How the kitchen can push out so many different items so quickly is another matter, I can only assume the have some kind of Louisiana voodoo working for them. And only hope that they can keep it up.

There are no drink discounts during HH, so all things being equal you have to make a choice between 1. the excellent fair-priced wine list (the creation of Wild Ginger vet Shing Chin, who honors his fine-dining background with a well-finessed and totally charming tableside manner) 2. one of 22 beers including several that hail from the Big Easy, or 3. a New Orleans-style cocktail like a sazerac ($7.50) or vieux carre ($9).

Each of these options is a good one.

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Find more happy hour favorites here.

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Tags: Happy Hour, New Seattle Restaurants, Lower Queen Anne