Art Bar at the Four Seasons, Revisited

http://www.fourseasons.com/seattle/dining/art_restaurant_and_lounge.html

Art Bar -- 1st and Union
November 20, 2009

Key words: Posh. Good Value for School Nights/Happy Hour. A Little Pricey for Weekends.

So this was my third visit, and sadly, my least impressive. Especially as I had drug these three nice ladies with me.

If you can get past the intimidation factor, this is a very comfortable bar.
Cushy chairs, exceedingly nice waitstaff, and especially if you there there early/not during winter, a lovely sunset view over the Sound.

This is a great bar on a weeknight. Compared to our Friday visit, my two school night visits provided for larger and stronger (as in kicked in the head by a mule stronger) cocktails, and tastier mini-burgers.

I kept up with drinking the "Stone Fence" cocktail. I don't quite recall what's in it, but if you like whisky and citrus fruity-ness I think this will serve you well. It's $12 and, again, on a Monday-Thursday (based on previous visits) it will be an excellent booze value even at that price. I've also sampled the whisky cocktail from their happy hour menu, slightly smaller but quite tasty and a noteworthy value at $5.

The food menu is good but not enough to make the trip worthwhile on it's own, especially outside of happy hour. My first two samplings of the mini-burgers were excellent, and I do like the taste of blood. The cheese sampler is delightful and they're not stingy if you want to ask for more crackers. (Neither am I, so you can invite me to come with you.) The spring & sushi rolls were decent but not note worthy. The hummus and tapenade is solid, the tapenade especially nice and I do recommend it.

As far as a pick up location... Are you looking for a sugar-daddy? The crowd tends towards the mature and the financially comfortable. Largely business travellers staying in the hotel, and families with adult children, and date night for people who have already been through one spouse and came out without being fiscally raped. And occasionally some drunk girls.

This is a place for a Sunday-Thursday if you want a quiet strong drink on your own to relax from the week in progress, or on an early casual date with a new beau if you want to sell yourself as a classy professional type.

Mwah,
Sara Darling

Today's recommended song: "The Rooster" by Outkast
Antithesis of this bar song: "Stagger Lee" by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds

Review of ART Restaurant of Four Seasons Hotel, Seattle

By DrunkGirl#4

Let me start by saying, "Welcome to our blog!" The purpose of which, aside from getting a really good buzz and blogging about it ^_^, is to each give our own reviews of the establishments we visit. And yes, for the time being, there are four us ladies and I consider myself to be kind of the "rookie" of the group in that, a group of them have been going out for drinks after work for a while now. It wasn't until my first night going out with them recently that the idea of creating this blog came to be, and there happened to be just the four us that night...hence the title "Four Drunk Girls." ^_^

Oh, and I've never written a review before, much less one for a restaurant so...yeah, definitely a rookie! Hehehe!

We made our first official visit at the ART Restaurant of the Four Seasons Hotel in downtown Seattle on Friday, November 20, 2009 shortly after work ended at 5PM. Now, I don't know if this is the same for every restaurant/lounge, but when were seated at our table and requested their "Happy Hour" menu, our lovely server (forgot her name, sorry!) advised that they do not have one for Fridays and Saturdays. If that's not standard for other places, then the lack of a "Happy Hour" menu on a Friday night is a problem for me, especially when you're going out hoping for "a sale" on food and drinks! Hehehe! Good thing we got paid that day!

The restaurant itself was situated nicely, adjacent to the hotel lobby and, thus, having some cute bell boys hold the door open for us. ^_^ We had a great view of a public storage facility and the Alaskan Way viaduct from our window table, but the inside of the restaurant as you can see from the picture above was pretty fabulous, so much so that I felt a little underdressed in jeans, a cropped turtle-neck and heeled boots but no matter. =}

Our server was so approachable and friendly that we even invited her to join us, but, of course, she was not able while on the clock. Really lovely lady.

From the menu, I had selected a mini beef burger complete with cheese AND bacon and a Dungeonness crab spring roll for myself. A platter of hummus, chopped/minced olives and pita bread was shared amongst the Drunk Girls, as well as a selection of some fine cheese and crackers. The mini burger was, unfortunately, a little bland and dry despite the added cheese and bacon. I prefer my burger patties to be a little juicy and with some seasoning. The crab spring roll was interesting in that I'm used to Dungeonness crab in a crab cake, but it was actually pretty good! I could have been satisfied completely with just an additional order of the roll, instead of the burger.

I LOOOOOOOOOOOVE hummus and pita bread and this one was pretty good. I've never had with olives before, so that turned out quite nicely as well with the added salty slight-tang. The cheese platter was also good, though I do not recall what cheese I sampled. ^_^

Now for drinks! I ordered the Feng Shui which included vodka and Soho lychee and a couple other ingredients that I do not recall. It had the look of a cosmo, almost. It was sweet and oh so yummy that I ordered another! I had to stop at two to make sure that I would not get on the wrong bus later! Hahahaha! The first one buzzed me up pretty good, though I had not eaten much that day which did not help...or helped! ^_^ It was a rough day at work and my appetite usually abandons me during those kinds of days. After I consumed my food, the buzz started to settle and I was ready for round two of sweetness!

Ok, so I liiiiiiked my drink, burger was iffy, spring roll YUM!, hummus YUM!, cheese yum! Service so friendly you can invite them to your table. There was sad lack of yummy men, however, but we were focused on and having too much fun with our conversation and each other's company to really take note of that while in the moment! ^_^ It was more of an after-thought, really.

The night did not end there as we made our way to another place for wine and decadent desserts!! I don't remember the name of the place but I wouldn't mind trying out their full menu next time. ^_^

Ok...done! Until the next review, DrunkGirl#4 signing out and wishing you all the happiest of hours. =D LOL