Broadway New American Grill

I recently had a lovely happy hour at the Broadway Grill, where well drinks are $2.50 and food is about $5. There is a decent selection of junky vegetarian options (fried pickles, garlic fries, truffle fries), and one healthy type of vegetarian option: white bean puree with pita.

We ordered the white bean spread and it was decent, certainly good enough compliment the stream of well-rum and gingers that flowed down our gullets!

La Medusa

Ok, the picture is sort of lame, but this is an announcement that La Medusa, the lovely, somewhat higher priced (eh, by my frugal standards) Columbia City Sicilian Soul Food restaurant is experimenting with a happy hour. I went recently and split a couple of reasonably priced happy hour snacks (ratatouille and polenta fritters) with some friends and drank and a most delicious elderflower/aperol cocktail.
The happy hour was a nice opportunity to have a taste of what makes La Medusa so wonderful without having to shell out the money for a full dinner. Especially as the weather turns more to fall, I look forward to more afternoons sampling the delicious offerings!

Greenlake Bar and Grill

After a recent swim at Even's Pool, a friend and I took advantage of the early spring sunshine and went for afternoon happy hour on the patio at the Greenlake Bar and Grill.

The Greenlake Bar and Grill has an extensive happy hour menu, with vegetarian items ranging from $2.99 (french fries, hummus, rice and beans) to $5.99 (veggie burger with fries). In between items are salads, $3.99, pie, $3.99 and grilled cheese and soup, $4.99. There is a one drink minimum per person.

We made quick work of retrieving the calories we'd left a the pool. I had a veggie burger with fries and a well-tequila with strawberry lemonade ($3.99), and she had a salmon burger with fries ($5.99) and a different type of fruity drink.

I found my meal to be about average, but the ambiance was delightful, both entertaining and calming in the sunny afternoon. I don't spend enough time hanging out at Greenlake, and was a little surprised by the reality of the parade of fit, clean, fashionable exercisers doing their thing all around. We were surrounded by elements of urbanity, restaurants, bars, cars, lots of people, etc, but all of the dirty stuff had been scraped away leaving just a gleaming, safe-feeling, eco-conscious bubble of Lulu Lemon, coffee-to-go, and high-class jogging strollers. Nothing to say here that isn't already well ingrained in the minds of the stereotype-aware Seattleite, but it felt both wonderful and weird and left me thinking long after I left.

Thanks J for the great swim, lovely afternoon, and food photography skills!

The Chapel

I was recently at The Chapel for my birthday. We initially thought we were there for the $5 martini happy hour (where "martini" is used loosely, and included all sorts of lovely cocktails), but it turned out everybody was hungry and we were thrilled to see that The Chapel has a reasonable food menu too.

I started with a Baby Mae "martini", which was a delicious drink made with tequila, cardamom and grapefruit juice. For my meal, I ordered a South-of-the-Border burger off of the extensive burger list, all of which can be made with a garden burger.

It was a very decadent burger!!! It was so saucy and delicious... there seemed to be three types of sauces on the well grilled patty: some tasty spicy salsa, some sort of green chili mayonnaise, and some chipotle type mayonnaise. The burger also had grilled pepper jack and lettuce and tomato. I usually shy away from too much mayo, but my goodness, it was delicious in this application.

I don't think I'd go here for dinner specifically, but it was a pleasure to discover that a real dinner could be had in the middle of happy hour, and I give them a huge thumbs up for the veggie burger option!

Julia's

I recently went to Happy Hour at Julia's on Broadway with an old friend. Julia's has a nice Happy Hour food menu, which included (in addition to chicken wings and misc meat burgers) some satisfying vegetarian items, including an iceburg wedge with blue cheese dressing, various fries, and the two charmers: edamame and a hummus plate. We ordered the latter two, $1.95 a piece.


Both were great. The edamame came as a hearty pile and included some particularly tasty rock salt, and the hummus plate was also plentiful (though not enough bread for the amount of hummus!) and came with some feta cheese and a variety of colorful pickled vegetables.

We ordered hot alcoholic drinks: I the hot toddy with lemon, honey and whisky, and she the hot buttered rum (these drinks were a little under $4 a piece). Perfect for the cold grey afternoon.

It's been a while since I've been to a Happy Hour, and this reminded me how great they can be! Our waiter was particularly friendly and helpful too.