Dine & Dish #3: The Freshman

For this month’s Dine and Dish Sarah, from The Delicious Life chose "The Freshman" as a theme.  She intended that we visit and write about an establishment that had been in business for a year or less.  Since I had already planned a Cocktail Club meeting at Del Rey I was ready to go!  However, that seemed a little like cheating so I decided to add a second location.  More on that in a bit – first Del Rey. 

I’ve already written up information on the cocktails in our Cocktail Club meeting post.  The summary, in case you don’t want to read the detail, is stick with the basics and stay away from their specialty drinks – unless you really prefer sweet drinks.  The food, however, fairs much better! 

Happy Hour runs from 4:00 pm – 7:00 pm and again from 11:00 pm – 1:00 am.  They have a few drink specials and several small plate specials ranging from $4 to $6.

Megan, from I Heart Bacon, and I arrived at about 6:00 so that we could catch the end of Happy Hour.  In my past visits I had seen some specials that looked pretty good and I wanted to check them out.  (You can see Megan’s review in The Seattlest.) 

I decided to try the Halibut and Chips – one of the first dishes I had seen there and it had looked really yummy!  Megan decided to try the Fried Oysters.  Our food arrived and we jumped in.  For my $6 I got a pile of fries, topped with one large, thick piece of perfectly fried halibut!  The outside was crispy, the inside moist and steaming!  It was really good.  It was served with a nice tarter sauce and wedge of lemon.  The fries were good, too.  Pretty crispy and there was certainly enough of them!  The only thing I was missing was ketchup but for some reason there was a little bowl of it with Megan’s oysters so I stole it from her.  (Maybe they mis-plated since the ketchup didn’t really seem to go with the oysters…)

Megan’s oysters were plump and juicy with a nice light breading.  They were accompanied by a serrano tarter but if I hadn’t known there was serrano in it, I wouldn’t have guessed it, it was however very flavorful.  And, as mentioned, there was also ketchup but I really think that was a mistake.  The slaw served with the oysters was a great crunchy, fresh side dish.  For $5 it was quite a bargain! 

I would go back for Happy Hour there anytime!  There are still a couple other things I’d love to try, for instance macaroni and cheese – yum! 

Later in the evening, once more of our friends had shown up, KA ordered Chicken Kabobs off the regular menu.  Actually, one was a Chicken Kabob and the other was a Veggie Kabob.  He pronounced them both very good and the coleslaw very tasty! 

Del Rey seems to be doing a good job with the food, after being open just a few months.  Now if they could just work on their cocktails….  Still the place has a great feel to it.  Check it out if you haven’t yet.

For my second Freshman location, I had planned to visit the Toreador in West Seattle.  Sister of the Matador, it was due to open about 5 or 6 weeks ago.  I thought that even with a slip or two they would now have been open for a couple of weeks.  And I thought this would be a service-oriented post since I get quite a few search hits for "Toreador" and "Matador in West Seattle"! (Don’t worry guys – info coming as soon as possible!)

R and I planned to meet there at 4:00 pm last night.  We arrived only to find "Coming Soon" signs but no sign of life.  :-(  My fall-back plan was to check out Ovio, which has actually been open quite some time but recently moved to a new and larger location.  I thought that sort of qualified if for "Freshman" status, as going bigger often means lots of readjustments.  So we walked down to the new Ovio location: closed on Sundays.  :-(

Well, now we just needed to salvage the night so we hopped over to West 5.  Which has been open for a few years and I can’t think of any twist that would allow it to be included in the "Freshman" category, so it will get it’s own post soon! 

So back to Del Rey, great Happy Hour food and the regular menu looks promising, too! 

Del Rey
2332 First Ave.
Seattle
206-770-3228