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Cremant
Category:
Bistros
1423 34th Avenue
Seattle,
Washington
(206) 322-4600
Le Cremant
I was there last night for a friend's birthday dinner. Before going, I went to city search and...
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I was there last night for a friend's birthday dinner. Before going, I went to city search and read the reviews, which were all very positive. The reviews recommended the steak tartare and the onion soup which sounded pretty tasty. The tartare is a meaty indulgence of Kobe sirloin hand-chopped with herbs and capers. When we arrived, the service was great and the place is definitely really cute! We were really excited, for appetizers we ordered the foie gra pate, spicy pork pate, and the bone marrow. We each also ordered the French onion soup. We were pretty hungry, and when our first course came out, the pates, let's just say we weren't impressed. They chilled their pates, so there was a very visible layer of fat that you can see. As for the taste, it was a bit bland, but the baguette was good though! The bone marrow was interesting, it's basically a cow's bone probably braised. The bone came out plain, no accompanying garnishes. You eat what's inside the bone marrow, which pretty much tasted very bland, oily, and fatty. I've had lots of French food, but this dish is definitely different and I can't say I liked it. Our next course was the onion soup, I was thinking this was raved about it must be really good. Well, the soup came in a hot bowl which looks pretty cool. But when I digged into it, it was way too cheesy and lacking in the onion. The broth was good, but overall, not as amazing as everybody thought. Quite disappointed at this point, I was looking forward to my steak tare-tare, that's what most of us ordered. The main course finally came out, accompanied with some fries. I tried my first bite and was disappointed! The tartare was so salty! They overdid on the capers, every bite I took had about 5-10 pieces of capers and the Dijon honey mustard was too overpowering, I couldn't taste the beef. It wasn't just me, my three other friends also thought it was too salty. We each ate about a 1/4 of it and left it. The fries were also very salty. The whole meal was just salty. By the end of our meal we were just disappointed with the whole experience, that we didn't really want to try the dessert. Besides the food being really ok, the service was excellent and the decor of the place was very nice! However, I'm not sure if I would come back to the place. If I do, I will definitely try the seafood, since the table next to us had it and it looked pretty good.
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A "Smash"ing Place to Eat
Smash is a new wine bar in Wallingford. Founded by the former wine director at Cascadia it boasts...
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Smash is a new wine bar in Wallingford. Founded by the former wine director at Cascadia it boasts 50 wines by the glass and a nice little menu. Being new it's got some pains to work out, but all in all it's worth a visit.
This is a small place - sits maybe 30 people. It's a little crowded and a little loud, but you get used to it quickly. The staff is small - last night it was the busboy, a server/manager, and the wine director/bar tender. And the place was full. But we never felt neglected.
The wine menu is a little daunting - 50 wines by the glass, and 2 11x14 pages of bottles. It's well organized and shows pretty good variety. Wines are available in 3 and 6 oz pours. What really jumped out for me was the opportunity to order flights - 3 3 oz pours of a given varietal from different vinyards/regions. I had the Pinot Noir, my wife had the Voignier. Great way to sample good wines and compare them. Best of all the wine director came out and spend a few minutes talking with us about each wine (and brought my wife a 4th sample for comparison). If you don't really know which way to go other than they type of wine you want to drink, flights are the way to go.
The food menu was good, organized by nibbles, small plates and larger plates. They have a good cheese menu that is also arranged by type and lets you order flights. We had the sheep - very good. The salads were tastey. Crab cakes were small but had no filler and were topped by an excellent pickled onion relish. We also shared the Wisconsin cheddar and truffle mac and cheese. Good flavor, very rich. Dessert was homemade ice cream sandwiches.
In all Smash is good. As it continues to get its legs under it it will become better.
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