Pat My Butter

there are currently no jellyfish in the jellyfish tank at jelly bar…but it almost doesn’t matter.  the tank still glows and casts a colorful light throughout the otherwise dark jelly bar, separated by a few steps from long provincial restaurant (tamarind tree’s belltown outpost).

what there is is happy hour.

on the best nights, the salads (including lotus root, papaya, and duck) are fresh, crisp, and spicy.  tamarind tree rolls ($4 for two) are consistently lovely, filled with veggies and herb and that crispy backbone of fried something.  there’s fried tofu, scattered with onions and peanuts, meant to be dipped in to the be-carroted vinegar and fish sauce.

the real stars of the happy hour menu, though, are the chicken wings.  spicy, tangy, and satisfyingly meaty, they work well dredged in the odd lemon/salt/pepper sauce (though most recently it was a chili hot sauce) and followed by a swig of stoli.

service is goofy, and i often feel like i’m getting more information about my bartender’s life than i need.  it doesn’t matter though, when drinks so cheap are treated with such care (a lemon wedge on a martini once came with a, “you didn’t say lemon twist“).  on weekends there’s a dj, which, though it makes the place’s identity a bit unclear (that glowing tank makes it feel a little club-like…the food makes it feel like a restaurant), actually works quite well with the atmosphere.

the crowd changes dramatically from night to night.  one saturday it might be couples quietly sipping, the next a group of employees crowded at the bar, the next a pack of canadians pounding back hendricks and tonics.  but when five respectably sized plates and three martinis comes to less than fifty bucks, it almost doesn’t matter who your temporary friends are.