El Gaucho Happy Hour

Tuesday, Mike and I went to see The Hangover at Big Picture in Belltown and decided to finally check out El Gaucho's happy hour. El Gaucho is upstairs from Big Picture, so it makes a perfect pre-movie spot. (Black Bottle, across the street is also a really great option. You can read a review of Black Bottle and Big Picture at Seattle Date Night!). El Gaucho is one of Seattle's famous and SUPER spendy steakhouses. It opened in the 1950s and used to be a speakeasy. Neither of us have been before - to tell you the truth, I thought it was a Mexican restaurant for the first 25 years of my life. (Embarrassing to admit). While the price is generally out of our league for a casual date night, I've heard the happy hour is great.

[via valerie's picture playground]

When we walked in, we were shocked with how dark it was! The atmosphere is swanky mcswankerson. It's definitely an "Old Boys" restaurant - a place to smoke cigars in the cigar room, sip expensive Brandy and order a manly steak. Not usually our scene. As we sat down, I realized the very loud jazz music was actually coming from a live pianist behind us. "Gosh, if I had to work in this dark bar and listen to jazz music all day, I'd shoot myself," Mike said. If that gives you an idea of the atmosphere. Haha.

For happy hour, the "bar bites" are half off, specialty cocktails are $6, Bud Light bottles are $3 and house wine is $5. Bar menu can be found here.

[via Corazonita]

After glancing at the menu, we were super glad we were there for happy hour - the prices on the menu for "bar bites" were $19, $15, $14 and other super high prices. I ordered the Mac n' Coastal Cheddar Cheese, $6 half-off price, and Mike ordered the 410 Burger, $7.50 half-off price. Now - the reason I've been using quotes around bar bites is because these are not bites! They're huge meals! The price of them paid off tremendously for the size. Mike's burger was the size of his head and stuffed with 1/2 pound Certified Angus Beef® Prime top sirloin! I wish I wouldn't have forgotten my camera. When I asked him if it was the best burger he'd ever had, he said, "Pretty close," but the size was actually too big to make it just perfect. It ended up being tasty, but a little messy. His plate also had a side of the best mashed potatoes I've had! They rivaled my grandmother's for sure! My mac and cheese was absolutely sinful. I've never ordered mac and cheese at a restaurant, so I decided to live a little. This mac and cheese is made with an imported English Coastal Cheddar, baked in a personal-sized casserole dish with breadcrumbs sprinkled on top. YUM.

Final Verdict: Probably Go Back. I don't think we'll make this a summertime place - it's just too dark and gloomy in there. But the proximity of it to Big Picture and the happy hour value for the amazing food makes it a great option for a wintertime retreat, which is also a more acceptable season to eat carbs with a side of carbs for dinner. I doubt we'll make it for the full meal deal unless it's a very special occasion. (Wink, wink, Mike).

Where: El Gaucho
2505 1st Ave
Seattle, WA 98121
(206) 728-1337
Web site
Category: Steakhouses
Neighborhood: Belltown (Also Tacoma and Bellevue locations)
Atmosphere: Fancy schmancy - don't show up in flip flops
Price range: Happy hour = $3 - $9, Dinner = $27 - $135
Service: An aquaintance of mine was the bartendar, surprisingly, so I'm a little partial on the service. But it's very, very formal. A lot of "sirs" and suits.
Cool features: Live piano music, cigar bar, dancing in the Pampas Room.