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Bin Vivant
Rating Details »
- Price Range:
-
$$$$
- Accepts Credit Cards:
- Yes
- Parking:
- Garage, Valet, Validated
- Attire:
- Dressy
- Good for Groups:
- Yes
- Good for Kids:
- No
- Takes Reservations:
- Yes
- Delivery:
- No
- Take-out:
- Yes
- Waiter Service:
- Yes
- Wheelchair Accessible:
- Yes
- Outdoor Seating:
- Yes
- Good for:
- Dinner
- Alcohol:
- Full Bar
- Smoking:
- No
14 reviews for Bin Vivant
Had a better night than expected given recent reviews. The duck confit potstickers were very tasty, as was the lamb shank. The recommended wine was excellent as well. The wife had a salad and the shortribs. The salad was uninspired, and bland. The shortribs were good.
Desert was a total letdown. I had the gelato, which was freezer burned. I should have sent it back. My wife had the cookies, which were, well, cookies. I hate going to a fancy place that doesn't make their own desserts (don't know if they made the cookies, but if so, cookies don't count). Come on, show some talent.
Overall we enjoyed ourselves. For the price, it should have been magnificent.
Bin Vivant has so many things working for it, but sadly it doesn't use it to its advantage.
1. The space. It's beautiful. It overtook the Waters restaurant at the Woodmark. It overlooks the water, and the design is beautiful.
2. The wines. Amazing selection. They also have an awesome system that will preserve the wine and also regulate pours, in which they offer 1, 3, and 6 oz pours.
However, they fail. We arrived for the tasting, and it wasn't the winery we thought it would be, but stuck around anyways. The tasting + small bites that were advertised for 20 dollars offered one bite. A small bit of duck confit with cherry compote. Delicious, however, if you offer "small bites" with wine tasting, offer more than 1 bite. The menu looked promising, but you knew could be a recipe for disaster when asking the chef what kind of mushrooms they use in a dish, and he doesn't know. The chef and other employees were "hanging out" up front which I think is in bad form. The price points on the food are way overpriced.
When K-town and I left at 6 to go get food somewhere else, the place was 98% empty, and they closed off a section to make it not look so empty.
This place has SOOOOO much potential for greatness, yet falls very short. Someone give me the keys, I would whip it into shape.
Tonight on Reality Restaurant: Bin Vivant! One waitress, eight tables, and NO BUS BOY! Stale, dense bread starts the meal on the wrong foot. Lamb sausage appetizers score with Greek style pita presentation, but stumble on flavor. But oh no! The mussels are not very fresh and distengrate in the mouth. Things are not looking good for our restaurant.
Now for a very long commercial break while the kitchen gets it together.
Crisis in the Kitchen! They're out of escolar! The quick thinking chef just cuts the pieces smaller and serves two types of fish on one serving! The clever waitress presents it as a sampler for the curious diner to try both types of fish. Way to turn an interception into a fumble into a touchdown!
The twenty minute wait for dessert builds suspense... will it be any good? The monstrous mousse fills an entire water glass. The fresh baked cookies hit a homerun but are a bit too homey for an upscale restaurant. And the sorbet trio mostly sinks: lemon (as pleasant as day old yellow snow), tangerine (like a pre-sucked popsicle), and bubbly alcohol infused blackberry (thick, rich, soft great mouth feel and tart kick.) One of these is not like the other!
This has been a special two and a half hour edition of Reality Restaurant. We apologize that the show ran over it's usual hour long time slot. We now return you to a show already in progress.
So first off - I really want to say that this place is closer to a 3.5 stars than a 4, but seeing as I can't do 3.5 I'll be a nice yelper and round-up.
In any case, so despite being a restaurant this place really does feel more like a wine bar that serves food. As you're pretty much surrounded by wine bottles which are decoratively placed up and down every wall. That said, when we arrived we were greeted and opted to wait in the bar / lounge area as our table wasn't ready yet. After which, some one kindly offered us wine menus then never came back to ask if we wanted anything.
Once seated, I have to admit things were pretty good. Food was all served in this sychronized serving style that must be quite the rage on the server olympics as they took great pains to place all five plates down on the table at the same time. Kind of made me wonder if there was some sort of silent gesture to get all the servers on the same page. Beyond that the food was pretty good though our table seemed to enjoy the appetizers and desserts more than the main dishes. So take that with a grain of salt when planning an outing here.
Regardless, despite a couple of minor issues I felt it was a pretty decent restaurant that folks on the eastside should consider checking out. Don't know if I would go so far as to recommend folks go out of their way to go here, but if you're nearby you can definitely do worse.
Until recently, I worked at Carillon Point. As a result, I've been here for lunch several times.
Although this place has a lot of promise, I'm only giving it 3 stars because my experience has ranged from wonderful to just meh.
The first time was the best:
We got the lunch special which consisted of a roast beef sandwich on ciabatta with a cup of tomoato soup. Both the soup and sandwich were delicious. Ternder, rare roast beef set off by a tangy horseradish mayonnaise perfectly complimented a very tasty tomato soup.
I was so exciting by the food that I immediately began talking it up to my wife.
Over the next few weeks, I decided to resign my position . I had several farewell lunches at Bin Vivant because I wanted to let everyone experience the great (and affordable) lunch I had during my 1st visit.
Alas, the food has never reached the heights of that first visit.
The beef brisket sliders were greasy and stringy.
The burger was overcooked while the bun was hard and rocklike.
The lemon aoli on the BLTA was so overpowering that we couldn't taste anything else.
Still, I'm sticking w/ 3 stars because that 1st lunch was so transcendent.. I'll be monitoring the Yelp reviews. I'd so like to go back one day and try dinner and some selections from the amazing wine list.
I met a friend in the bar this week and was blown away by my 80 choices for wines by the glass. As if that wasn't difficult enough, I also had to choose if I wanted 1, 3, or 5 ounces of said wine......
The wine list is more of a "book with chapters" with many delicious wines to consider. I started with 3 ounces of Veuve Cliquot Rose', 3 ounces of Caymus Cabernet, another 3 ounces of Waters Bordeaux blend and finished it off with a 5 ounce pour of Cullin Hills "The Dungeon" Syrah.
That equates to 14 ounces of "good God!"
As mentioned these wines are kept on a preservation system that regulates pour amounts, temperature, and is said to keep wines fresh for up to 24 days.
If you are a cork dork at all - you deserve a trip to Bin Vivant to check it out for yourself!
I had dinner here with my mom and it was such a fun experience. As our waitress explained, the entire menu was crafted to pair with carefully selected wine options. You can order trio flights of wine in different categories and each menu option also suggests the best wine to pair with it.
To ensure that you order the perfect wine for each dish you can also make your own flight and mix and match wines. The food has both small plates and entrees and we decided it'd be fun to make our own flight and share 3 small plates. Neither my mom or I really enjoy sweeter wines, but our waitress encouraged us to try a reisling that paired best with the asian pork rolls we ordered. We were skeptical but accepted when she assured us we could trade it out if we hated it. And despite my adamant distaste for sweet wines, she was right, dangit. The Reisling when great with the dish.
Despite the food and great service, you just can't beat the front row view of the water, especially when sitting on the patio, and watching the sun set. Go eat here, its just as good, if not better than any fancy downtown joint!
Service - 1 star
Hostess - 1 star
food - 4 stars
overall rating - 2.5 stars
The service is very slow even though are only three parties in the restaurant for Sunday brunch. The 3rd party wanted breakfast sans meat so the wait staff went to place the special order in the kitchen. Her voice is so loud that the entire dining area can hear her.
The restaurant manager was busy with her family and ignored the other restaurant patrons. The manager's kid put her feet on the chair across from her. That grossed me out.
The food is not bad, my duck confit hash is tasty and potato is not mushy. However my friend's Wild Boar Ragout is tough. The pasta is topped with two sunny side up eggs. I guess that is how they transform the pasta to from a lunch dish to BRUNCH dish. He did expect toast since it was brunch.
I will go back to try the dinner. Hopefully, it's better.
This is my new favorite restaurant on the east side. The food, the wine, the service and the setting are all outstanding.
My wife and I ate here for our 25th wedding anniversary in August, and it was the perfect place. The Woodmark Hotel, in which bin vivant is located, had a wedding reception going on in the courtyard next to the restaurant - it was fun, especially given our milestone, to witness the celebration of a more recently initiated marriage. And although we could see and hear much of the proceedings, they were not intruding on our dinner, and we still had an unspoiled view of the water from our patio table.
The "large plates" looked very tempting, but there were so many intriguing small plates - all with recommended wine pairings (which come in 1-, 3- and 6-ounce pours, or bottles) - that we decided to go for breadth rather than depth on this visit. In fact, we each chose different wines for three of our four courses, adding another dimension of breadth.
We sampled, and enjoyed, the Vanilla Cognac Scallops (with 3-ounce pours of the Mark Ryan and K Vintners Viogniers, liking the latter better than the former), the Open Face Fig Sandwich (paired with the Morgan Pinot Noir and Woodyard Canyon Nelms Road Merlot, preferring the latter), the Purple Risotto (paired with the Cuillin Hills Syrah and Biale Zinfandel, preferring the former (the Biale was disappointingly light)) and finishing up with the Smoked Beef Brisket Sliders (and 6-ounce pours of the Mollydooker Carnival of Love). Everything was great, but I think the Carnival of Love was the standout of all the wine and food we sampled that night. I've posted photos of each of the plates here on Yelp.
Service was prompt and attentive - for each course, we ordered the next food and wine pair after sampling the current pair, so our waiter visited our table several times throughout the evening.
FWIW, we also stayed overnight at the Woodmark - in a junior suite - that was also an outstanding experience.
We look forward to returning some time soon to try some of the big plates - hopefully with some other friends, so we can sample a broader selection of those.
Even if you're not a wino, this place is great. Big unfair advantage is that wonderful view from Carillon point. The menu has a nouveau flair and includes such tasty flourishes as olive flavored madeleines. The truffled gnocchi were a big hit - soft pillows of truffly goodness. The Widow maker burger - kobe-style beef topped w/ foie gras was a little too much for me that night.
Only thing I would say against them is that the chocolate mousse I had was not chocolatey enough and was a little grainy.
Have you ever thrown up red wine? That is the color, texture and taste of their purple risotto. I have had 64 ounces of lemon water and still can't rid my mouth of that taste. BLECH! I even tried a lot of bread with a little risotto but it was so over powering. And when the waiter (though nice and wine knowledgeable)asked if i like the risotto I modestly replied no and he did nothing. That isn't even the kicker! After reviewing the bill that my roomie had paid for (he's nice like that) I noticed we were overcharged on 3 items. I brought it to the hosts attention after not being able to find the waiter and she said "yeah that happens a lot just most people don't notice" then she got back on her phone to her boyfriend and continued cooing to him. I mean seriously! If it happens a lot get it fixed.
The only remarkable thing about this place was that the food menu is actually built from the wine menu. Unfortunately I was hungrier than I was thirsty when visiting Bin Vivant that evening. The food itself was nice and charming in a kind-of-pathetic kind of way. The leek and potatoes soup was starchy-er that I would have preferred and the black cod was just a little bland. I know this is a new restaurant so maybe the wrinkles have yet to be ironed out. Its South Kirkland location is striking close to waterfront views and the décor of the establishment was truly genuine but I don't care how good the view is, it should never out do the food. If I thought otherwise I'd save my money and eat bagel bites while watching Planet Earth in high definition (which in my book would get 6 stars).
This should have been stellar, given the magical waterfront location. Hot night with just the right breeze, incredible sunset, amazing wine list, but....the food.....The prawn app had a delicious pepperonata, but the prawns were utterly tasteless and almost raw. The chicken was fair - just chicken. And then there was my salmon. Fishy taste, eeuuwww, and again, RAW. Not rare, but seared on the outside and cold and raw inside. If this were Ahi, I'd be pleased. But it was tasteless salmon and past it's due date to boot. The server very nicely replaced it with a fresh piece of salmon, but it was as bad as the first. They feature wine flights. One of my three was substituted without notifying me, and when asked about it, the server shrugged and said they were out of the one I ordered. Like I wouldn't notice? Two very small entrees, two very small starters, three wine flights = $185. We won't be flying here again.
Just got back from a business lunch. Everyone enjoyed their meal even though, since we all had long afternoons in the office ahead of us, we could not take advantage of their self-described "vino-centric" pairing of wine to the lunch menu. I had what they called tthe "Widow-Maker," a Kobe beef burger covered with two very, very large chunks of superb foie gras. It was decadent. Good thing I had worked out that morning. They don't call it the widow-maker for nothing. In fact, the wait staff there, I only noticed females, were so attractive that I believe I may have subconsciously orderedthe widow-maker in the hopes one of them would have to give me mouth-to-mouth. That sounds horrible, as does this.....go for the food, stay for the short skirts. Putting that aside, the wait staff and hostesses were friendly, knowledgeable and professional. Case in point, the Widow-Maker is usually only served for dinner but they made an accommodation for me and they might for you, too.
