Pretzel Logic!

It was raining quite hard this past Wednesday night so I thought it would be a good idea to pick Marc up from South Lake Union where his office at Amazon has just relocated to. So I wasn’t surprised when he called me but what did surprise me was his invitation to the “soft opening’ of the new Tom Douglas restaurant Brave Horse Tavern (connected to his office building!). I thought we were going to the official opening the following night? Marc asked me if I liked free food – hello, what kind of a question is that? As it turned out on that Wednesday Tom Douglas was giving away any food item on the menu as long as you paid for beer and filled out a questionaire at the end. What? YES!!!! I was down there in 5 minutes flat!

The burger did sound good but heck. I’m from Phillly and we love Soft Pretzels, especially when the are fresh from the brick oven and come with things like housemade sausage or clams or cheddar etc. My sausage arrived in a little black skillet and was roasted with a delicious BBQ sauce! I also had a crab dip which came with some overpowering Ritz crackers but who cares about crackers? The dip was delicious. Not the best combo with my pretzel but I can just never seem to resist crab anything!

Although they do serve alcohol, this place is all about beer – serving 26 on tap and I chose the Chuckanut – a light-ish lager which was perfect. Wish I could have eaten more and desert looked really tempting but we headed over to one of the two shuffleboard tables where we played many games (memories of playing Bocce ball in Italy!!!!). You can imagine how delighted I was when Tom who showed up to check out his new digs and walking by the shuffleboard coached me to be “gentle” with my shot! (Admittedly, I need a lot of practice with this game….)

We loved the warehousey ambience Brave Horse – lots of original brick with two new skylights over the shuffleboard tables. Lots of windows and rustic wooden tables, it is very cozy! Music was good and not too loud. I noticed an old piano on a small stage – will be interesting to see what happens there! This is a great place to just hang out, prices are great and the menu is fun.
Of course Tom Douglas didn”t stop there. Below Brave Horse is his new Italian “Cuoco” and next to Brave Horse is soon to open Ting Momo Tibetan dumpling house. Something for everyone? Why not! South Lake Union is hopping and I couldn’t be happier as it’s just a hop, skip and a jump from my house!
Hope to see you there and hope my shuffleboard skills improve!!!!