Harvest Vine

[Schielke]

In no particular order

Harvest Vine

Mistral

Le Pichet

Salumi

Cafe Juanita

[richards1052]

I would be interested in knowing which 5 places in Seattle are better or equal. The meal we had there a year ago ranks as the best meal I've ever eaten in Seattle. As we are returning this month I would be interested in your top 5's.

My tops would be:

Le Pichet

Place Pigalle

Chez Shea

Flying Fish

Salumi (lunch)

Dahlia Lounge

Cafe Campagne or Restaurant Campagne (depending if you wanted a full meal or bistro fare)

I haven't eaten at Mistral or Cafe Juanita but hear they're fabulous. There used to be a restaurant in Belltown called Arcadia which from the cafe window & looking at the menu looked great. But I can't find it at Zagat.com & don't know if it's still there.

[creepygirl]

I'd wanted to go to Harvest Vine for years now, but was scared off by the discussions of crowds and people waiting to get in at 4 p.m. on a Sunday etc.

We decided to try it out Wednesday night to celebrate me passing the bar exam. It was a great dinner.

Highlights included the venison with matsutake and oyster mushrooms, the confit of squab, the peppers stuffed with trout salad and the incredible goat cheesecake, which we both agree is one of the best desserts we've had, ever. We really enjoyed the wide variety of flavors in the dishes we tried.

It wasn't very busy while we were there, and our waiter said that it's fairly easy to get in on weekdays, though to be sure you should make reservations to be sure.

Can't wait to go back!

[reesek]

i love this place!

not only do i get to speak in spanglish in a small sexy room (though i *wish* they had an ante-room - it gets cold - even in back). it feels great in that space. cosmopolitan, but intimate. a great spot to catch up with an old friend, flirt with a new one, or fall in love all over again.

old friend and i had the $30 bottle of recommended wine. so good we each had another glass. i had forgotten how reasonable the wine is there...

started with boquerones - white anchovies

drunken goat and picon

then moved to scallops - these are insane. insane!!! 3 massive specimens. seared and salted expertly and served on an oozing mound of onion confit. holy crap those were good.

artichoke bottoms with ham. there was a slight gravyish aspect to the sauce that i didn't adore, but was ok. besides i love artichokes and rarely eat them.

2 servings of venison on lentils. though we probably liked the scallops the best, this was so good with the wine, we didn't resist. the serving was 2 nice seared chunks on a bed of lentils cooked with ham and carrots. the lentils tasted just like beef stew to me - very good and the venison was impeccable... rare, juicy, flavorful, tender and still crusty outside.

dessert was a perfect espresso and a dish of salt caramel ice cream. it was salty, but good. i think i might have liked it even better if it had been more intensely caramel flavored... but still very nice.

other menu items...roast boar with potatoes and apples, octopus with potatoes, monfish with rice and piquillo sauce, some sort of brandade (i think) calamari, white asparagus with jamon serrano, a foie dish and duck confit with potatoes.

other desserts included espresso flan, a fig and date tart with caramel, a warm chocolate cake and a grape sorbet.

[Abra]

Thanks, reesek, it sounds like the menu has changed since we were last there a few months ago - time to go again! I want to recommend a little coffee thing that I'm not sure is on the menu. I'm not even sure how to spell it, but after googling a bit I think it's "cafe bombon." It's sweetened condensed milk under a shot of perfect espresso, and it's beyond delicious.

[reesek]

Thanks, reesek, it sounds like the menu has changed since we were last there a few months ago - time to go again!  I want to recommend a little coffee thing that I'm not sure is on the menu.  I'm not even sure how to spell it, but after googling a bit I think it's "cafe bombon."  It's sweetened condensed milk under a shot of perfect espresso, and it's beyond delicious.

←

ohh abra, that sounds delicious. as perfect as the espresso was, i was kicking myself for forgetting to have a cafe cortado - basically a shot of espresso (or 2!) with just a bit of steamed milk. sounds easy, but no one ever knows what they're doing.

[Really Nice!]

I was only there once but my "perceived value" of the dishes makes me hesitant to return. I thought most portions were small and for others the prices were out of proportion to what we got. For example, 11 asparagus stalks for $14 at a time (end of season) when asparagus is going for $1.50 a pound at the market? While it was good, there was nothing magical about the preparation or presentation.

I don't recall the other dishes, maybe because I was in sticker shock with the asparagus, but I do recall doing some calculations in my head with the other dishes and concluding that the food cost was about 1/8 the sale price. That's a bit past the high end of the cost-ratio scale.

We were downstairs where the wines are stored. There was a thermometer on the wine rack that read 78F. Ouch.

Regarding the quality of the food, my perception is inline with tsquare, "...seemed like the main cooking techniques involve a quick cooking with lots of olive oil (both cooked and poured over the final dish), salt and pepper..."

Everyone's mileage varies.

[Abra]

$14 for asparagus does sound ludicrous, and I confess, we've never gotten a vegetable dish there. But you owe it to yourself to give it one more try. Go early enough to sit upstairs at the counter, and eat some of the more specialized dishes. The octopus and the morcilla, just for two things, are super-delicious. It's an expensive dinner, that's for sure, and we save it for special occasions, but I think the food is brilliant.

[BradS]

I went to Harvest Vine for a delayed birthday dinner this weekend, and since I love reading about what people get to eat at places like this, I thought I'd at least try to give a brief sketch.

Overall impression: Everything we had was superb. Nothing brilliant, as usually happens at least once/meal at someplace like Union, but no disappointments either. I was lucky enough to visit Spain a year ago, and the food at HV pretty well mirrored what we had at the best places we made it to there (we were baby-encumbered and didn't go to the ultrafancy places there, but we did make it to some good ones).

Also, we had great service, no rush at all, and a nice cabernet-temprenaillo-something blend that was one of many bottles in the $30 range.

Dishes (I wanted, but failed, to steal a menu, so bear with me!):

Freebie---two sea scallops, cooked very much in the style of Pulpo a La Gallega (Galician-style octopus). Tasty. Also, good white bread throughout, abundantly refilled.

Herbed duck broth with onion confit on little toasts: This was actually a highlight. Very pure bright flavored broth with strong rosemary aroma, intensely sweet onion confit. Small, but only $3.50 a serving!

Chickpeas: We did 3 veggie dishes, and this was the first to arrive. Generous portion of chickpeas in very tasty sauce lightly spiced with cumin. Menu said something would be "caramelized" (it said this about nearly everything) but I'm not sure what. Very flavorful.

Pork loin with some kind of potatoes---I think they were basically scalloped potatoes but the menu had some other name, what counts is they were delicious. Probably some onions involved, and (of course) some caramelization. Pork loin was a little dry on the ends, juicy in the middle, nicely seared and seasoned.

Revuelto with erizos---I just had to try scrambled eggs with sea urchins! Seemed like a generous amount of sea urchin roe, with a faintly briny flavor. I would have guessed some kind of mushrooms or sausage if I hadn't known. Very softly cooked eggs.

Artichokes with jamon---We actually got this at the Royal Palace cafeteria in Madrid, not exactly a dining destination, and really loved it. Loved it here, too. Nice rich sauce, wonderful combination of rich flavors.

White asparagus with crispy jamon in Bechamel sauce---I got this mostly because of the nutmeg-scented bechamel sauce, which reminded me of some of my favorite dishes at a tapas place in Madrid called Cafe Lucas. Only 5 stalks of asaparagus, but very interestingly crisped cured ham (almost like potato chips) and plenty of rich white sauce to sop up with bread.

Flourless chocolate cake with citrus---This wasn't so thrilling. The cake was served in its own baking dish, which was very hot, and too much stuck to the sides. A tasty chocolate mousse-like thing was on the side, as were about 3 little pieces of mandarin orange. Cake flavor was just OK. I wish I'd gotten the espresso flan.

I think I'm forgetting one dish, and I will try to figure out how to edit this post if I remember what it was. Total bill was $160, including tip. Not a steal by any means, but I didn't feel ripped off in the least. We sat in the basement. Incidentally, the menu was huge, and we could easily have made another great meal without duplicating a single dish. I need to stop by this place more often!

BradS

[little ms foodie]

Sounds really good brad, thanks for reporting. And welcome to eGullet!

[BradS]

Thanks for the welcome!

I finally, but only after consulting my wife, remembered the dish I'd forgotten: the foie gras with pumpking caramalized in grape must. Just because I forgot it doesn't mean it wasn't memorable---it mostly means I had a brain cramp. Our waitress brought it last, which she said she always does because it's hard to eat much of anything else afterwards, which is true. I really liked the hard pumpkin pieces with the explosive grape flavor. I've never had anything like them. It's not the sort of dish I'd go back and order again and again, but I'm really glad we tried it.

[MT-Tarragon]

I was thinking of starting a separate thread for this question, but I think that it fits here. I took my fiancee to dinner at Harvest Vine last night along with another couple. It was a great evening. However, as we were lingering over our coffee and Jerez there was another group of four (two couples) waiting for a table. They interrupted us twice to ask if we would be leaving soon and loudly talking to each other saying that we had been there too long, implying that we were being rude for not immediately getting up and leaving. Needless to say, my dining companions and I thought that this was inexcusably rude and told them so (to no effect). My question is, do you think that there is a length of time you can spend over dinner after which you are being rude to people waiting for a table?

I know that Harvest Vine is a popular spot and people frequently wait for a long time for a table. My feeling is that if I were to wait so long at a restaurant for a table that I felt like harrassing the seated customers, I would leave and go someplace where I could be seated more quickly. I've eaten at Harvest Vine quite a few times and one of my dinner companions has eaten there often enough to be called a regular - recognized by the people who work there - and neither of us have ever felt any pressure from the restaurant staff to leave so that they could turn the table. I've only seen waiting people ask seated people if they were leaving in a bar, and even then it was much more polite than the people last night.

Anyway, I appreciate any comments on this. At Harvest Vine, do you commonly linger over your dinner? Or do you feel like you need to leave as quickly as possible so that the people waiting to get in can be seated? Have you ever asked a seated table if they would leave and/or imply that they were rude to be seated for so long? Would you be angry/insulted if someone did it to you?

[Bruce Burger]

The "proper" answer is that you are entitled to stay as long as you wish, and the people who harassed you were entirely out of line. A more realistic answer in 21st century America, in my personal opinion, is that if you finish all your food and drinks and don't plan to order more, and there are people waiting, it's considerate to try to leave within a reasonable time, say a half hour or so. But even in that case, neither the servers nor the waiting custoemrs should harass you. It sounds like you were acting appropriately by either standard.

[Bruce Burger]

One more thought: It is reasonable for waiting customers to feel frustrated that diners are lingering over coffee. It is their job as mature adults to hide those feelings.

[vengroff]

I agree with Bruce. If you make plans to go to a small place like Harvest Vine that does not take reservations, you are putting yourself at the mercy of a very unpredicatable waiting process. You may get a table in 30 minutes or it may take 2 hours. Diners lingering over coffee is just one of many factors that can influence how long the wait is on any given night. If you are not prepared to deal with that level of unpredictability, then you should make a reservation to dine somewhere else. Or go early on a weeknight, when they usually have open tables with no wait.

[SparrowsFall]

Those two couples should have been exposed at birth.

[MsRamsey]

I would bitch to my friends and mumble epithets under my breath, but I wouldn't say anything to the lingering table. That said, yes I do absolutely believe that "there is a length of time you can spend over dinner after which you are being rude to people waiting for a table." In Harvest Vine's case, unless you are starting dinner at 9:00, the table is not yours for the evening. I have an overly strong sense of guilt, and I would feel really self-conscious if there were a lot of people waiting for tables and I was lingering for 30 minutes after dessert was over. But that's me.

[olivina]

As a restaurateur, I would have to agree with Ms. Ramsey. As much as a small place like the HV would like not to rush customers out after dinner, their existence depends on turning a few tables.

Its the nature of a cozy and popular restaurant. Part of its charm is the smallness, and that is also part of the problem.

The ettiquette of this situation works both ways; with seated diners realizing people are waiting and those waiting for tables trying to remain dignified.

[MT-Tarragon]

Well, we hadn't reached the "30 minutes after dessert is done" mark. I guess it was even more irritating because we were within minutes of leaving when the onlookers started marking their comments. The effect was to make us want to order up another bottle of wine, but we didn't. We left pretty soon after.

[Kent Wang]

Saturday, July 15, 2006. Restaurant was packed but service was gracious, accomodating and well informed.

Plato de chacinería. A selection of cured meats ($12.50).

Higado de pollo. Chicken liver sauteed with caramelized red onions, sherry and cream ($8.50). Wonderfully rich, like foie gras lite.

Revuelto de conejo y hojas de nabo. Rabbit confit and turnip greens, lightly scrambled with local organic duck egg ($11). Superb. The duck egg was much richer than chicken egg and complemented the rabbit confit well.

Goat cheese cheesecake.

Photos of menu on my Flickr.

The portions for many of the dishes were bigger than what I'm used to from tapas restaurants. That's my only complaint: I wish the portions were smaller so we could have tried more dishes. A lot of unique items, especially the chicken liver and rabbit with duck egg. Compared to the tapas restaurants I've tried in Texas, this is about on par with Rouge in Dallas.

[Ling]

I've been reading about Harvest Vine for some time, and though I haven't had the chance to go there yet, I've sent friends there (they were looking for something casual). The chicken liver dish looks like it would be right up my alley. Thanks for the pics.

[LEdlund]

Thanks for the reminder that I need to get back to Harvest Vine. That chicken liver dish looks fabulous!

[Ling]

We went to Harvest Vine tonight! We got 4 plates--the venison with crispy oyster mushrooms, the pork belly with cranberry beans, the cod with olive mashed potatoes and a jambon and cheese broth, and the chicken livers with armagnac and cream. All the dishes were delicious, and HV is my favourite of all the mid-range (under $100 for 2) restaurants in Seattle so far. Our favourite tonight was the venison, with the chicken livers being a close second.

The only thing that I didn't like so much was that the pork belly was refridgerated after being braised, then heated to order, but it wasn't heated long enough and the top layer of fat was still a bit cold. Still, great flavour in the dish.

We will definitely be back to try the rest of the menu!

[little ms foodie]

We had a wonderful dinner at HV last night! Started with the lomo and then the octopus salad which was sooooo good!! Then we had asparagus, serrano ham in soft scrambled egg- wow! the eggs were so fluffy and hot without being overcooked in the slightest. tuna belly in vanilla olive oil sauce was perfect and then the seared foie gras with carmelized pumpkin- it was perfect. goat cheese cheesecake for dessert was perfectly tangy and was served with huge berries!

[Abra]

We went last week and thought the bacalao cold tapa was one of the best things ever. That, and the boquerones in vinegar and the rabbit livers in sherry cream really floored us. The octopus was yummy too, as always.