Seattlest Eats, and Sometimes Drinks

On Sunday night we returned to one of our old haunts: the Madrona Eatery and Ale House. When we lived four blocks away from it, we found ourselves here more often than not – the beer, the burgers, the pizza and the beer kept us coming back. Not to mention the easy downhill walk home.

For a family-friendly pub of its size, the MEAH has a good number of beers on tap - 15, to be exact. Our dining companion (hi, mom!) enjoyed a nice Pilsner Urquell, and we had a Rogue Shakespeare Stout. (If you ask us, it’s getting to be stout season, and this is a nice one: dark, creamy, round on the tongue, with hints of chocolate.)

For dinner, our companion asked for a burger with cheddar, bacon, and all the fixings except onions. When her burger came to the table, there were onions on it. She removed them herself, which was fine, but it seems like this should not be a hard request to execute. Seattlest ordered the eggplant sandwich, with roasted red peppers, grilled onions, pesto and chevre, all on a nicely grilled focaccia. We felt the need for some vegetables (and were also feeling somewhat pure, having just finished a yoga class), but didn’t want to give up French fries for a salad, so this sandwich fit the bill. Also, the French fries here were better than we remembered them being. Just the right side of crunchy, still soft in the middle, very freshly prepared and fried, expertly salted, great potato flavor. (Potato is a vegetable, right?)

On Sunday, there weren’t very many children running around, but be careful – this pub is VERY child-friendly. If you like that sort of thing, great, but if you don’t, the noise and distraction can sometimes be too much. In that case, go after 9 pm, when the children are likely to be out of the picture.

One sour note entered the evening toward the end, when we were paying. Our companion was writing a check when the server came by to say they didn’t take checks. Our companion asked if they would make an exception, or if there was a manager she could speak to, and the server said it was server’s discretion, and that she’d been screwed on some checks recently. She said it wasn’t that she didn’t trust us, but…So our companion broke out the plastic and reduced the tip. The thing that bothers us is this: if she’d just left it at “we don’t take checks,” that would be one thing. But announcing that it’s her discretion, assuring us that it wasn’t a matter of trust, and still not taking a check seems like a slight power play.

Ah well. We’ll still be back for the fries.

Madrona Eatery and Ale House
1138 34th Ave., Seattle, Washington
Tel: (206) 323-7807