Dinner and drinks before the Showbox.
I bought tickets for a show at the Showbox as a surprise for my boyfriend. I'd like to take him out to dinner and maybe a cocktail if we have time beforehand. We both love food, he runs a kitchen at a homeless shelter so most of what he sees isn't exactly fine dining. We rarely can afford to go nice places, and there's so many places that we've been wanting to try downtown that the choice is a bit overwhelming. Neither of us have a car, so we'll be bussing downtown and then walking. I was leaning towards Bisato, but then there's Resteraunt Zoë and Chez Shea and Lecosho and so many others! So, given these circumstances, where would you choose to go downtown for a nice dinner? I've taken him to Spur and Zig-Zag for cocktails, but other than that we haven't been to many downtown places.
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Chez Shea
94 Pike St. Suite 34, Seattle, WA 98101
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Don't really else where to post this, but as I'm all excited for it I thought I'd share. Before even knowing that his present was dinner and a show, my significant other got me a gift certificate to Mistral Kitchen as my present! Expect a post asking what to get at MK in the future :-)
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Mistral Kitchen
2020 Westlake Avenue, Seattle, WA 98121 -
We did end up going to Bisato, which was wonderful. We had:
*crudo of hamachi, escolar, and yellowfin tuna
*blini of red beet with gravlax salmon and crème fraîche
*(2) seared lamb chops with whipped potato
*truffled pasta sheet with truffle butter and cheese sauce (blanking on the name of the cheese, it was one of the specials so it's not on their web site)
*foie gras stuffed fig with duck bacon and cranberry gelée
*lemon tart with strawberry sauceWe started out with cocktails from their specialty cocktails menu, me with a Murano and my partner with a Trentino. I'm not much of a cocktail connoisseur, I find it to be more economical and amusing to be a beer afficionado, but I thought my cocktail was good.
Of the fish dishes, I preferred the crudo plate, with seperate accompaniments to each type of tuna and an oyster sauce/cream thing (really should have paid more attention to the names of things!) to the blini, but they were both excellent. My partner felt the opposite, favoring the blini over the crudo.
We got a bottle of a Cabernet from California, which I wish I remember the name because I thought it was pretty good. But again, neither of us are that into wine, I just know that I usually prefer Pinot Noirs and Cabs.
The lamb chops were excellent, delicious and perfectly cooked.
The pasta was packed full of truffle flavor, had excellent texture, and was decadently rich.
The foie gras stuffed fig was I think my favorite dish of the evening. They called the duck componant "duck ham" but I'm describing it as duck bacon because it looked and tasted more like a bacon than a ham, and the combination of the foie, fig, duck, and cranberry was wonderfully tasty.
After the rich pasta and foie fig dish, we wanted to end with something lighter so we did something that we rarely do and ordered desert. We were both fairly full, but the lemon tart with strawberry sauce (it was really just a pink dot) satisfied that need. It was good, but nothing extraordinary. Along with a glass of prosecco each it finished the meal nicely. Thinking about it, the prosecco probably would have done that on it's own.
The service was friendly and attentive, and we got a wave and a thank you from the chef on the way out. We both would return here, especially because there were more dishes on the menu that sounded delicious!
All in all for 6 dishes, 2 cocktails, a bottle of wine, and 2 glasses of prosecco the bill came to $209 before tip, which was under my budget. And then the show at the Showbox was really excellent. The entire night was a great time.
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If budget is an issue, and you can make happy hour, Chez Shea has a very good happy hour that you can make dinner out of. So does Tavolata. I believe they both go until 7 (Tavolata's is every day, not sure about Chez Shea). I haven't been to Bisato so I can't really answer your questions there..
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Chez Shea
94 Pike St. Suite 34, Seattle, WA 98101Tavolata
2323 2nd Ave, Seattle, WA 98121›2 Replies-
re: christy319
I've been saving for a special occasion dinner for some time, so our budget isn't so much of an issue. Also, neither of us typically eat large portions. As an example, our last "nice" dinner we went to to Tilth and split three of the taster portions and a bottle of wine and were satisfied. Thanks for the reply though! I hadn't considered Tavolata.
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Tavolata
2323 2nd Ave, Seattle, WA 98121-
re: Brunhilde
If you want Italian I really don't think you could do better than Tavolata, at least within walking distance of the Showbox. They have a large communal table as well as smaller tables--I'm really not sure how they seat people, but if it's a special occasion you may want to make sure you get your own table.
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Tavolata
2323 2nd Ave, Seattle, WA 98121
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