Guest Review from Joel

Don't bother asking who Joel is. Joel is not my secret lover from the US. He is also not a famous movie star taking a break from Hollywood. Sadly he is not a famous sports star either. Actually Joel is not even my guest reviewer's real name (it is a pseudonym). Enjoy...

Perche No Pasta and Vino
1319 North 49th St, Greenlake, Seattle, WA 98103
http://www.perchenopastaandvino.com/

We were after a quiet dinner for two on a Saturday night and selected this restaurant after an exhaustive search of the Seattle Times food guide. The restaurant had pretty good reviews; it is an authentic Italian restaurant run by a Chinese chef trained in Italian cooking. His wife is the Maitre d’. We booked for 8:30pm and got there five minutes early.

We waited in a cramped foyer, squeezed up against the wall by other impatient patrons, while we were ignored by the Maitre d’ for at least ten minutes. When we managed to grab her attention and say we had a booking she ignored us. We almost made a decision to leave on the spot (in hindsight we wish we had) but eventually she came back and hustled us upstairs to a table overlooking the open kitchen. It was quite interesting being able to look down on the kitchen and watch the chefs cook, despite the banging of pots and staff yelling to each other.

We sat at the table for around 10 minutes before a waiter turned up. We noticed people who arrived after us were getting bread rolls at their tables. Nothing arrived at ours, though.

The wine menu was inexplicable. It seemed at first glance that wine could only be bought by the bottle. The waiter seemed annoyed when we asked if he could explain the wine menu. We managed to order a glass of something each but neither of us was sure what we were going to get.

For appetisers we ordered the Prosciutto wrapped with mozzarella and the Caprese, sliced tomatos with mozzarella and fresh basil. For whatever reason, the waiter came back five minutes later and said they had run out of mozzarella and thus couldn't do the second entree. Bizarrely, the first entree, which had mozzarella in it too, was unaffected by this shortage. After checking that the spinach salad was vegetarian, and being told it was, we ordered that instead.

The bread arrived after we’d ordered the entrees. The olive oil canister at our table was empty and we managed to get another member of staff to refill it.

The appetisers arrived relatively promptly. The prosciutto was good but nothing special. Portions were pretty small. There was definitely mozzarella in it. However, after four forkfulls of the ‘vegetarian’ spinach salad, I realised there was shaved bacon in it. I was going to send it back but the waiter was nowhere to be found. I put it to one side and scowled instead.

For main courses we ordered the Risotto Seppio e Calamari, which is squid ink sautéed with parsley and calamari, and the Portobello mushroom ravioli. They arrived in quite good time and were both satisfactory. The risotto was quite basic and didn’t have a great deal of calamari with it. The ravioli was better. It was tasty, not to mention vegetarian without shaved bacon in it.

Serving like a ghastly background track to the entire night was the atmosphere of the restaurant. There was a piano player playing Eagles songs on an upright piano downstairs. He had about 4 songs in his repertoire and played too loud with the pedal stuck down. He was right below our table. By the time he got to Desperado a fifth time we decided we had had enough. Added to this was a glut of restaurant staff who pushed past each other down the narrow gaps between tables and mingled with kids from a dinner party in another room who were let loose to run around the restaurant.

We managed to get the attention of the Maitre D’ and get the bill. She seemed surprised we didn’t want to stay for dessert. We ran down the stairs and bolted out, relieved and disappointed that the peaceful dinner experience we'd wanted to have had been slaughtered.

Overall it was ugly and dusky, the service was rude and short, and the whole place unbelievably loud. The bill came out to right on $100. We usually wouldn't mind paying this, or more than this, in a high quality restaurant. In fact our record is about $280 for two. For the dining, culinary and atmospheric experience we had, however, it was pretty steep. We left a 6% tip; it was 6% too much. The Chinese owners have turned Rome into Canton faster than you could say nihou.