Blackbird Bistro

I don’t know what to say. Literally.
I have been thinking about what I would say in my review of Blackbird and came up with nuthin’, bupkees, nada.
All I can say (and many others would agree):
It’s just damn good. Go there, get food, get drink, enjoy the service, have fun.
That’s it.
**Update**
Apparently, it’s closed. Ignore what I said above.

I was very disappointed with the service at Blackbird. We went there for brunch two Sundays ago. Not only did it take the waitress close to 10 minutes to take our order, she took the order of a table that was seated after ours.
Then, she messed up my girlfriend’s order. When we finally flagged her down and told her, she said «OK» and walked away… while my girlfriend was talking. She never offered to take the plate back, or bring out the correct thing.
And never once refilled our teas, or even asked if we wanted refills. We even put the empty glasses at the end of the table for her to see, and nothing.
My meal was good, but definitely not worth the crappy service.

I was recommended the blackbird by a friend of mine from London and eagerly made the visit as it had been sometime since I last visited a West Seattle dinner. This restaurant had really great comfort foods on the menu that did not disappoint. There are restaurants that you go to for the food, some for ambiance and some for both. This restaurant does a solid job on the «both’ category. I liked the booth we were seated at as it put us close to our company. The music planing was Iron and Wine which really went well with both the over all feel of the restaurant and was pleasant to listen to while we ate.
I enjoyed the meatloaf which was spicy and full of flavor not at all bland like many places. We also shared a the mac and cheese which was killer. The one complaint I had was that our waitress seemed a bit new or nervous. The only thing we bite is the food.

I was taken here by my sister who just loves this place. She went on and on about their cheese platter, which ended up being a great start to our dinner. I really loved the feel of the place – the sheer curtains, the minimal decorating – it just has a fresh feel to it all. The desserts were out of this world and we found ourselves wanting to order everything off of that part of the menu!

My search for a quiet Sunday evening meal brought us here.
The menu was full of local, organic ingredients with minimal treatments.
The staff was friendly & attentive.
The special menu was great across the board. Special risotto & trout treatments were notable as was the chocolate cake (courtesy of Macrina) & a special strawberry dessert were delicious & not to heavy of a ending to the meal.

I liked this place. Went on a Sunday at 11 and expected it to be jam packed but it wasn’t and our service was really great.
They had the basics on their menu and some not so basics which was great, I’m kind of tired of eating the same thing at breakfast joints in Seattle and I feel the Blackbird didn’t follow the trend.
They kept the coffee coming the entire time which made me a much nicer person.

I admit I agonized over my 100^th Unilocal.I chose Blackbird Bistro because of places that Unilocalers have recommend to me, in person, it seems like everyone loves Blackbird. 100 Unilocal deep, and I wouldn’t change a thing!
It was great, and it was fitting. I had some delicious chicken prepared wonderfully and matched with a tasty wine to boot. The Ahi tuna app was delicious. The décor was quaint and quite on a Thursday PM.
Just getting out of the city and slowing down to the West Seattle pace made for exactly what I wanted out of my 100^th Unilocal.See you soon 200…

First impression walking in was the décor… it is just a hair under pretentious and it works. The wood throughout is beautiful and the mix of colors used set it off really nicely. 1 star for my first thought being ‘wood’.
The bar area is small, but perfectly adequate given the restaurant size.
The wall of windows brings in tons of natural light that really set off the décor and keep it feeling lively… even when empty.
…
I took long, gazing glances at the Frog before me. Slow, gentle tastes. My heart raced, my cheeks flushed, my insides tingled. Taste just a little sweet, almost bubbly. So smooth, gliding down my throat so easily.
…
The portebello mushroom appetizer had some really good pesto, but was otherwise kind of disappointing.
The toast bites were really good. I know what «rustic toast» is now, and I like it! I think we ended up splitting 3 orders for the group by the time we were done.
The mac and cheese was really good too. I’m again forced to disclose I’m not a connoisseur of any particular food, and i could not imagine eating a whole order myself, but it was a well put together mix of tastes.

Given the company, the good times, the yummy drink, the yummy food, I’d love to 5 star this place for the all over experience, but i can’t.
As our group gained momentum, ie more butts in seats, the bartender was a total douche in trying to explain we needed to not steal stools from other tables.
They didn’t care if we took the whole table, we just couldn’t take the stools from it. Some bull honky about the owners rules about number of stools for groups that come in on Saturdays or something. The place was EMPTY. Any different choice of wording and how he approached us would have worked wonders. …but he chose some lame route that only equated in him being a douche.
I can’t speak for the group, but had the gratuity not been already added to the bill, it would have cost him his tip from me.

Tried Blackbird Bistro for the first time on Monday night.
The service was friendly and attentive. The menu was great — with symbols to indicate what is vegetarian and what can be made vegan.
I ordered the Portobello Roulade. It came with generous sides of mashed potatoes and asparagus. So big, I took some home. My guest had a full order of mac-​and-​cheese. It was wonderful (I had a bite), but way too rich to eat a full order. I recommend getting a half-​order with a salad instead.
We never made it to dessert — too full from the dinners. So, can’t give advice on what to order.
Downside (why not 5 stars): Parking was a pain. It’s street parking only and we had to drive around many times before a spot opened up. And that was on a Monday night! Don’t know what a weekend would be like…

if this review was based solely on the beef tenderloin, it would be 5 stars! Oh man, it was really good. Pricy, but really good.
Everything else lived in the «okay» category. The atmosphere is great for dinner with friends, but I wouldn’t recommend it for a first date. Servers were attentive, and friendly. All in all, I recommend this place.

I had pretty high hopes for this place. I’d heard good things about Blackbird and was excited to get out of my own ‘hood to try something different.
We had a reservation and, even though we arrived 5 minutes early, they seated us right away. And in a good spot, too — off the beaten path. I liked that. There was even a cute little «reserved» sign on the table. We got water and drinks orders right away. Service was great. Things were looking good so far. Then came the food.
So we chose this place because of their focus on organic, mostly locally produced foods. I had high expectations for a lot of creativity that comes with being more limited in the options available to you at any given point of the year. But the menu didn’t delight as I expected — a lot of meat entrees and pretty standard stuff, really, including the tried and true candied-​walnut-​and-​bleu-​cheese salad *yawn*. (Though we ordered this anyway — it was good).
Quick rundown of our order:
— Bread w/​olive oil & basalmic vinegar? Good. Can’t mess that up.
— Meatloaf? Dry, flavor a bit bland.
— Mashed potatoes? Pretty good. Can’t mess that up.
— Green beans? Cooked well. Flavor was ok.
— Honey jalapeño chicken? Far too sweet — definitely need to lay off on the honey — and this is coming from someone with a sweet tooth!
— Organic Chardonnay? Yum. Best thing I ordered.
If it sounds like I’m bored by writing this review, I am. Sorry, Blackbird. No offense. I would probably visit you again if I lived nearby, but I can’t say it’s worth trekking all the way down to that neck of the woods for now.

Great place to eat. After the plate of duck I had here, I feel really sorry for not being able to give them five stars.
Basically what it comes down to is that they didn’t do well on my Old Fashioned bar test. When an $ 8 Makers Mark Old Fashioned is the first thing on their bars menu, I would expect it to be good. It wasn’t as it should be.
This kind of set a theme as the wine pairings with the courses meal I ordered also seemed a bit off. They were tasty, but didn’t jive with my palate with the really great food.
Also worth noting is that their point of sale system accepts a max of three credit cards per group. This seemed a little strange to me. Perhaps if we asked for separate checks when we were seated this wouldn’t have been a problem. I had enough cash on me to take one of the cards out of the mix, so it wasn’t a problem.
Just a couple of issues, but a really great experience.

I left Blackbird feeling comfortably satisfied with well decorated and attended mediocrity. They supplied the refined yet relaxed ambiance, and we supplied the company, which was working on both relaxing and refining. (An endless battle…) One glass of wine, and it all slid into a blissful blackbird bistro haze. However I can go no further without recommending the cheese.
For an appetizer we made two fine selections: the Mac n’ Cheese, n’ Cheese. To translate: we all split the Mac n’ Cheese entrée and so as not to confuse our appetized palates, we also selected the cheese plate. These were both fantastic — a definite «do not skip» on the menu.
I would neither rant nor rave about the entrée, and although I was a bit confused with my salmon swimming in whole beans, I was not disappointed. Perhaps I was just full of cheese.
One entire star is given for being told exactly what they were out of the moment we were seated — a courtesy I have come to recently appreciate. I would love to come back and check out their dinner and a movie deal! (And maybe for more cheese…)

Rand and I just had dinner here last Sunday with my friends Renee and Courtney while visiting Seattle. It was Labor Day weekend and Bumbershoot and the restaurant was, according to the staff, uncharacteristically vacant. Well, it worked for us. We had no problem with the lack of people.
We began with some wine and a cheese plate. I had the Viognier and it was delicious. The cheeses, too, were yummy. I will say that the crispy flatbread that came with the cheese (in addition to slices of plain french-​style bread) was not good. It did not complement the cheeses at all.
I was lame and had the salmon. I was in the Pacific Northwest after all! Here’s the deal: it was delicious. Perfectly cooked – neither over nor underdone. It was served with kale and white beans in a tasty jus. Everyone else, including the vegetarian in the bunch, liked their meals, too.
For dessert, we ordered the banana split with peanut butter ice cream (and another flavor, too). I was a little skeptical about the PB ice cream, but it was quite good. Not too overwhelmingly PB flavored.
So, head over to West Seattle and give the Blackbird Bistro a try. You won’t regret it.

Saturday night was dinner and a movie night and it just so happens that Blackbird BIstro is running a ‘Dinner and a Movie’ promotion right now (as is Mission next door). Order an entrée from their Specials sheet and get a free movie pass to the Admiral Theater next door. Perfect.
Last night was my first time there but I know I’ll be back. Loved the empasis on organic and locally grown foods on the menu. Nice selection of wines, too. I had a ravioli off the special list that was incredible. Lots of bright and balanced flavors with some perfectly sauteed greens. Hubbie thought his steak sandwich was pretty good too. Overall the service was good and we enjoyed our experience there.
p. s. They do happy hour seven days a week (I think it’s from 3 – 6 on weekends) and on Tuesday nights bottles of wine are half off.

Interesting little place if you are looking for something different. For breakfast they use Uli’s sausage from Pike Place Market and it is awesome! Actually made us go and get a pound of the sausage.
The coffee was a little bitter, but the place was empty during breakfast so it might have been sitting.
Decent wait for food, definitely will go back when looking for something beyond the Alki Café!

I went here for dinner once, and came away thinking «Eh». I liked the atmosphere, but the food was totally mediocre.
I decided to give them another try, this time for breakfast, when I saw that they had veggie sausage on their menu. (I am a sucker for good veggie sausage, because it is SO HARD TO FIND.)
When we sat down and looked at the menu, so many things sounded good that I had a really hard time choosing. I opted for the salmon scramble, which on its own, was quite tasty. The potatoes that were served with had very latin flavors… which seemed a very odd pairing with my scramble. It just didn’t sync.
My partner had the biscuits and gravy, another hard-​to-​find veggie item. Instead of a country-​type gravy like you would usually see for breakfast, this was more like a brown gravy that would go with pot roast or meat loaf. Really not what we expected.
Overall, a really disappointing 2^nd experience. We won’t be back. :(

Blackbird is another chapter in the ongoing culinary pratfall that is my allergy to nuts. I’ll get to that. But first things first: The food was good.
I forget exactly what I had, some kind of beef short ribs, maybe, and I enjoyed them heartily. The server recommended some wine (maybe it was post-​Sideways Pinot?) and I recall liking that a lot as well. When we got to the obligatory chocolate course, we ordered some kind of cheesecake, something with a crust? Anyways, one bite and I knew it was time to face the IV needles.
I should point out at this point that I (or my girlfriend, actually) was very vigilant about notifying the waitstaff of my potential allergy. Even before the dessert, I’d confirmed the absence of nuts from the item we ordered. And yet, as happens more often than I’d like, the chef «was experimenting with the recipe», and that was that.
The waitstaff was very apologetic about the whole thing. They were very courteous about not really charging for the whole meal, and I felt bad as I hustled out to my car to speed off to the hospital (don’t do this at home, kids! call an ambulance!).
But what really sealed my appreciation for Blackbird was the $ 50 gift certificate, and hand-​written letter of apology they sent. I think as an American I’m genetically rigged to be vulnerable to apology, and this one did the trick. I went back another night, had a very nice dinner, and was treated like a VIP for all my trouble.
Bribery? You might call it that. But you’re just looking at the star average anyways, aint’cha?

I love Blackbird Bistro.
A restaurant that is focused on local, organic cuisine AND puts together a fabulously tasty meal is one to be cherished. The smoked salmon salad is a MUST HAVE — the salmon is smoked on-​site and is out of this world! The pasta sauce is crafted with such beauty it brings tears to my eyes — Blackbird Bistro is the only restaurant I have been to with a red sauce that rivals my own.
Service is always personable — the staff doesn’t just serve you, they engage with you — and that makes for a cozy, happy heart as well as a cozy, happy belly.
I personally wish they would use more whole grain breads and rotate the menu more frequently (or offer more choices), but that does not stop me from paying my monthly visit to West Seattle!

I’ve tried both brunch and dinner here. Their Dungeness Crab Benedict had a very fresh and clean taste about them, in a good way, I would definitely order them again. Their Blackbird Mac was delicious as well the Maytag blue cheese added an extra kick you don’t get in most mac and cheese.
The one thing I didn’t like was their ice tea it had a metallic coffee taste about it so I returned it and ordered a Ginger Cosmopolitan and OMG heaven it was wonderful! Go get yourself one!