Hit and Miss

This past Monday I had the pleasure of spending the evening with Ken and Julie Hallenius.

We started the evening with dinner at Serrato an Italian restaurant on NW 21st Street. This restaurant has long been on my list of places to visit. One reason is that it receives high marks in customer reviews on local websites. But the more interesting reason is that I have reason to believe I am distantly related to the owners!

Unfortunately, I wasn't blown away by the experience. The fried calamari was terribly bland, and on the other extreme the rigatoni with Italian sausage was unnecessarily strong on the heat. Oh well, you can't win them all.

We decided to cool our palates with some after dinner drinks at Clyde Common. I haven't yet eaten at Clyde Common but it is regularly named one of the top restaurants in the city, so I'll have to get there eventually. But apparently Clyde Common is also well known for its bar.

I rely on Ken to keep me up to date on these types of things, and he tells me that one of the great mixologists on the west coast has recently joined the staff of Clyde Common making it one of the true destination watering holes in the city.

We were ably served by two young barkeeps named Justin and Ansel who not only treated us to some interesting concoctions, but kept us entertained as well.  Seeing that Ken knew his way around a bar's obscure elixirs and techniques, our bartenders were more than happy to talk shop with us. They also gave us a sampling of some of those obscure elixirs, including an artichoke liqueur which was absolutely heinous!!  

To beat all, we also met an ND Alum who was generous enough to buy us a round!

My discovery for the evening was the "Scofflaw" which apparently is a classic cocktail recipe. I'd never heard of it before, but I'll be keeping my eyes open for it from now on. There's no doubt that the company and the cocktails more than made up for the less than exceptional meal.