We have been TRYING to get into Elemental over the past two weeks. Seems that in this case, perseverance does not pay off. After 3 unsuccessful attempts on 3 separate days, we gave up (for now). Because Elemental requires you to show up before 5pm to even have a chance to get seated, we were now in search of a restaurant serving dinner pretty early. Driving around, with my Yelp app open, we came across Pair.
Pair is a rather small, but really cute restaurant in the U-District/bordering Wedgewood. I've driven past it several times, but it always looked closed. As we drove past it today, I spotted an Open sign in the window. Bingo, we found dinner!
We walked in and noticed one occupied table in the otherwise empty room. As we were seated, our waiter informed us that it was Happy Hour. Awesome! We decided to try several dishes from both the Happy Hour menu as well as the regular dinner menu.
Everything that we ordered, with the exception of the stuffed grape leaves, was scrumptious. The two dishes that stood out in my mind were the Brisket Sliders and Smoked Salmon Toasts.
Brisket Sliders were so good! 3 for $5?! Here's a hint: Get TWO orders of this!
Smoked Salmon Wild Toasts - seriously good! Maybe it's my strong love of smoked salmon....or maybe it's because I'm a greedy greedy person...whatever the reason, I definitely ate more than my half of the dish.
The quality of food that we got, paired with the happy hour prices (see what I just did - a play on words! 'paired'....haha, ok, nevermind) made this restaurant a real find!
What we ate:
SIDECAR COCKTAIL
HERB AND CHEESE BISCUITS
BRISKET SLIDERS
SMOKED SALMON WILD TOASTS
Pickled shallots, crispy capers & crème fraîche
GRILLED STUFFED GRAPE LEAVES
Fresh mozzarella, olives, sundried tomatoes & pinenuts
SMOKED PORK BELLY
Farro & spring onion salad, wilted chard & ginger-mustard gastrique
STEAK FRITES
Blue cheese chive butter & red wine jus
Taste: 8
Presentation: 8
Ambiance: 7.5
