September 18, 2006
Take A Swig From The Black Bottle
If you haven't already checked out Black Bottle (a "gastro-tavern") at 1st and Vine in Belltown, and you're into sharing great food but aren't into spending a fortune, it's about time.
Truth be told, we are so not cool enough to hang out there, but the food is excellent, so we just don't care. Besides, someone has to fill the tables at 6pm so the place looks full for when the real wine bar crowd finally shows up.
On Saturday night we debated over half the menu (24 different dishes, $8 a pop, which might lead you to think they're small – they're not) before finally deciding on the chicken lab gai (a good-sized bowl of mildly Thai-spiced chicken, served with romaine lettuce spears for wrapping), hangar steak and daikon/shiso (unbelievably tender, served perfectly medium-rare as ordered, on shredded daikon with a little cucumber shiso salad and a great seemingly-soy based sauce), and the surprise favorite, potatoes and cauliflower curried. We expected it to come sort of mushy, in a curry sauce. But what arrived instead was a very large plate full of tender baked new potatoes, and still slightly crisp cauliflower, all tossed in a wonderfully warm ground curry spice mixture, so fine it felt almost like a breadcrumb coating.
Those three dishes filled us completely, but we wished we could fit in the smoked chicken and sun-dried cherry flatbread which seemed to be going to every table. We also admired the fresh vegetables with house roasted black sesame miso, the potato and prosciutto wheels, and the mussels Marseille-style.
There are desserts, too, a chocolate cake in particular that we'll try to leave room for next time.
With 18 wines by the glass, and a whole lot of reasonably priced bottles, Black Bottle is an entertaining place to see and be seen. The design is very minimalist, but manages to feel warm at the same time, thanks to the one long exposed brick wall and the steadily dripping candles on every table. The bar was three deep by the time we left just before 8:30pm, the crowd very handsome, and very, very happy.
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The Hanger steak, grilled pork and the sausage is sinfully good. The next time I am in Belltown must not fill up on Dicks Drive In over in Queen Anne so I can save room for Black Bottle. Last year for Halloween I took my girlfriend there while we were both dressed up as zombies.
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Black Bottle's food is awesome. But we'll never go on a weekend again -- a couple of months ago my party of four signed in on a Saturday night and was ignored for an hour as we waited for a table. At first we thought it was just a long wait, but we saw several similarly sized parties who definitely signed in after us seated ahead of us. We eventually left.
I'm pretty sure it was due to an incompetent hostess, and I don't hate the place for it, but I expect we'll save it for one of our babysitter Thursdays when the crowds aren't so bad.
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Megan Woo did a write up on BB about a year ago on Seattlest. I must say, hers was a much more thorough and interesting review.
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This place is way overrated. I have been there on two occassions and the service was weak and the food dried out. Wine was reasonable but not worth the trip alone. Food really, really ordinary. Fancy names but ordinary execution. I think we are just missing a place that does this well in Seattle. The place is cool looking though but can get crowded.
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I agree with Dan 100%