Lola

Lola
2000 4th Ave
Seattle, WA

In most major cities, there is a local celebrity chef. In Vancouver, we have figures like Rob Feenie (prior to his departure of Lumiere and Feenie’s), John Bishop, Robert Clark (known for the Ocean Wise program) and so on. In Seattle, you have Tom Douglas, who has open five restaurants with different types of cuisine. For today’s post, my visit to one of them: Lola.

As mentioned in Friday’s post of The Cheesecake Factory, I was the designated driver for this business trip. On a night, we had to drive to Seattle after work and, to take advantage to the fact we were there, I “convinced” them to have our dinner there. Because I am on a business travel budget, there are places we can comfortably go within that budget. However, there are others were… Well, you could but you will have to fork some $$$ yourself. And, more often than not, in celebrity chef restaurants, they won’t be cheap. However, Serious Pie, the first place I chose was somehow within that budget. Unfortunately, it was packed full with a 30 minutes wait. Being hungry, I looked across the street and there was Lola, another of Tom Douglas restaurants. Fortunately, to a certain extent, the prices seemed OK so there we went.

When we arrived, we were told there will be a minimal wait for the table to be ready. Five minutes later, we were seated and looking at the menu. A quick glance showed some Greek favourites plus some North African but with Pacific Northwest influence (or it is the other way around?). That sounds good to me.

FO ordered the “Washington chicken, walnuts, pomegranate”. I won’t deny that, visually, it looks great, but something I won’t personally order given it is, well, chicken. As for FO, there were no “ohhhhh!” or “ahhhh!” comments, so I will leave it as is.

OF ordered “tagine: moussaka, leeks, collard greens, vlahotyri cheese”. Visually I won’t say it would be a moussaka; it might be more of a vegetarian lasagna (which ended up being a more accurate description). OK, OK, both are basically the same… OF seemed to enjoy this dish so, once again, I will leave it as is.

Me being more adventurous when it comes to food, went for something different, something North African: “tagine: young goat, mustard, celeriac, rosemary”. Also, I thought the combination would be interesting; had I not choose to order this, I would have ended up with the leg of lamb.

However, what sounded good in theory, in practice was a bit of a disappointment. The celery/celeriac the most dominant flavour initially, with the pearl onions providing some sweetness. By itself, that part is not bad; rather, in a meat dish, when a root/herb is the dominant flavour… Well, there is something “wrong”. Also, while the rosemary was there, I had to try hard to really “find” it, not to mention there wasn’t that strong game taste. I know, the dish is young goat but, still, there were some expectations related to ordering goat/lamb.

Normally I will include everything that was served on the table, that includes complimentary bread or something similar. In this case, there was no such complimentary item. While such thing shouldn’t be expected, at least I would have appreciated I was told the dish was to be served “as is”, i.e., no bread (or pita, as shows up in the menu) to soak some of the sauce left over. That is because the serving was small and that would have helped it prevent the after meal filet-o-fish. (Since I was with others, that did not happen).

Overall, I won’t say I was particularly impressed with what was offered in Lola. Portions were slightly below average and the taste was lacking. There were one too many rooms for improvement; some of them shouldn’t have been there, specially how well regarded Tom Douglas is. Because of these factors, I don’t see a redeeming quality to go to Lola. In fact, I would rather fight the crowd to go to Serious Pie….

Tagged under: European • Lamb • Seattle