Jennifer S.'s Profile

Chef Randal does not disappoint with the one page menu at Elate. I have dined her half a dozen times since their recent opening.

Grab a group of friends or family and dine at the communal table. Brunch is a must have, the short ribs, potato pancakes, and over easy egg hit my soft spot. Short ribs for breakfast! Oh can you resist? The creme brulee pancakes are a must have table share.

For dinner, grab a slice of the beet pizza, the fried dough and the chicken wings. All heaven! Get the burger for your entree.....so flippin good! The octopus too.

The wine list is surprisingly extensive and the glass pours are very reasonable. Yay for having Cosentino on the list.

I haven't made it to desserts, but I am sure they are heavenly.

Go for the sangria, stay for the baked goat cheese, mussels, and garlic potato salad.

Ask to sit on the left side of the restaurant, it's way more fun over there.  There is no music on the right side, what's up with that?

I arrived here last night to an empty place.  I sat at the bar and chatted with the bartender about a glass of wine.  He told me they usually have 40 glass pours.  That's just crazy talk.  

My counterpart arrived a few moments later and we were seated.  The server let us know they were out of the daily soup, the short ribs, and some pork dish.  I was really disappointed as short ribs are my favorite thing in the entire world.  

We settled on a bottle of wine and ordered the meatballs, apparently they are a family recipe, the carpaccio, and the papardelle with wild boar.  

I'm not going to name names, but I happen to work the best Italian restaurant in the city, so it's hard for me to go in to a place like this with an open mind.

The pricing on this menu was all over the place.  7 dollars for a Mista (basic salad) I thought was a little steep.  Overall, very affordable though.

While nothing lacked flavors, they just seemed a bit off.  The carpaccio was sliced so thick it was like lunch meat.  So thick that blood was left on the plate.  I don't think that is supposed to happen.  The arugula salad on top took over the entire plate.  I had them add capers, balsamic and extra virgin olive oil.  Without those three extras, I am not sure what this dish would have tasted like.

Meatballs were pretty darn good, and the garlic bread was perfect for dipping.

The papardelle was interesting.  I couldn't really tell, but I think the wild boar was ground?  I expected chunks of meat.  It more or less was spaghetti with red sauce.  I was highly disappointed.  Not that it didn't have great flavor, it just wasnt what I thought it was going to be.

We were the last ones in this place and you could tell they wanted us out.  I understand that when its closing time, its closing time, but I find it very rude for a place to put the chairs up all the way around your table making you feel like you are in a cafeteria.  There were still a few people at the bar, and I thought it would have been nice for the server to let us know that the dining room was closed and to move to the bar.  They didn't even offer us dessert.  Sad.

I would totally come back for the 40 glass pours and the bar, probably not so much for the table service or the food.

I've been three times. Once completely sober with a lady friend for her birthday, once pretty hammered around 11pm on a Thursday, and again on a Monday to show a friend how amazing it is.

First time, there was a VERY long wait, we hung outside and had a beer. The manager took our drink order. Love to see a place that is totally hands on.

We were sat in the middle of a communal table and at first it was very hard to get acclimated to the noise. Two drinks down and that was all in the past. We had a handful of different options with beer to boot. We left with a full belly and money to spare in our wallets.

Second visit I went with a few grown ups, yes that's right, I am 25 and don't consider myself a grown up. We went very late, almost midnight? I now think that is the perfect time to go, we had our own table! There were 8 of us and one guest did all of the ordering. We had a few bottles of wine, the truffle flat bread, dates, and whole fish topped my favorites that night.

Third visit, we went on a Monday, about 30 minute wait at 9PM, tried to order a few different beers. Note to beer drinkers, they get their beer delivery on Tuesday, so they were out of almost everything we tried to order. We sat at the bar for dinner, and this has probably been my favorite experience. The kitchen is small and in your face, it's amazing the volume of food these guys put out every night. We ordered the dates, meatballs, truffle flat bread, chicken, and two others that are escaping me at the moment. WAY too much food, but props to the server for letting us know that ahead of time. We didn't care, we wanted to be glutenous and stuff ourselves.

Avec gets it right every time and I will continue to rave and recommend it to everyone I know!

How this place only has 4 stars, I do not understand. I've been twice. Once for the BF's birthday, and another just for fun. Believe me when I say, this does not have to be a celebration spot.

The only downside, no reservations. The upside, an awesome lounge upstairs to catch a drink and a small bite before dinner.

I work in the restaurant industry, so I know better than to go somewhere that doesn't take reservations on a weekend, so I have only had to wait no more than a hour, or shall I say two drinks.

The chalkboard menu is amazing and smart. I dig a one page menu. Keeping it simple.

I read an article recently that they added some sound deafening wall treatments, but I have always said, if you are going with good company, you shouldn't worry about the people next to you. But good for The Bristol to answering their guests complaints.

The cocktails are both inventive and tasty. The wine list looks great, but I've never made it that far.

The menu changes so often that the only sad part would be the next time you come back, the dish you loved so much last time probably won't be there again. On my first visit there was a table of 4 next to us that ordered the entire menu, smart thinking. It's small enough to do so, but big enough for a group to try everything.

Go with a group or your favorite counterpart and take it all in, you won't be disappointed.

No frills theater here. Local kids, doing local comedy.

We went this past Friday to see Death Toll. It was an interactive drinking play. Rules were simple, every time someone dies, you drink.

Since this wasn't my first time to the rodeo, I saw Bye Bye Liver a few years back, I knew it was entirely possible to get shit bombed at this thing.

We sat a few rows back, there was a birthday party in front of us. It was their first time to the rodeo. My girlfriend joked that one of them must have had 8 arms, every time we looked at him he was talking pulls off of a different bottle of liquor.

The cast of Death Toll was great. The improv was even better. They were the first to admit when they weren't funny.

The show is no longer playing, but they have slew of other shows going on. I do believe it's always BYOB, which is never a bad idea in my opinion. They even had kid friendly shows during the day!

Best part about this, it was 10 bucks! Their reservation system is a little scary. You call, leave a message, and never hear back. You just hope there are tickets waiting when you arrive. If you want to be on the safe side, pay the 2.50 service fee and book online!

We had theater tickets, well I wouldn't actually call a drinking play at the Cornservatory actual theater, but we needed a place to eat before our 11pm show. Liz O. stumbled on Browntrout.

We had 9pm reservations and were seated at the communal table. Upon entering I noticed the light fixtures over the table. Round with black fern like leaves. Loved them. Taking look around the rest of the place, not much more made sense. I got the idea that maybe it used to be a Chinese restaurant before? Tables and chairs were strange. The big fish carving on the wall gave me that idea too.

Big props to the wine, beer, and liquor list. Matilda is served!!!! Love that beer. The cocktail list looked great too!

BUT, onto the food!

A multigrain bread basket was brought out with olives and extra virgin olive oil. The bread and olive oil don't go well together, but the bread was tasty on it's on.

Our server was very informative, helping with our dinner selections. We all had questions. We ordered the mac and cheese as a share plate with our entrees. He did warn us about the dish ahead of time. Told us the noodles were over cooked, left out over night, then deep fried, and covered in cheese. Hmmmmm, we all decided they tasted just like stale white cheddar Cheetos with cheese sauce drizzled over. While I'm glad we tried the dish, I wouldn't order it again!

I ordered the mussels for my starter. I was really shocked at how many there were in the bowl. Three large slices of the multigrain bread stuck out at well. They brought me extra seafood forks in case I wanted to share. Silly server, I don't share. My only qualm about my mussel experience would be that my empty shell bowl was overflowing before they brought me new one.

For my entree I cant recall the name of the dish, probably because I couldn't pronounce it that night either, but it was a ramekin full of purple potatoes, mushrooms, and all kinds of earthy goodness. Alongside the dish were fried smelt!!! It was totally a dish I would eat in the dead of winter.

My lady friends ordered the risotto, the trout trio, pear and parsnip soup. Everyone liked theirs as well!

A few side notes.....I believe this chef is in a pretty recent article noting him to be pretty darn amazing. The silverware is semi-caveman-esque. I work at a restaurant and believe me, I know silverware is expensive, but this stuff is the low end of the IKEA food chain. I didn't check out the bathroom, wishing I had.

All in all, I would totally come here again. The chalkboard menu is pretty sweet, but it was done so nicely that the stuff can't possibly change daily.