Glhlavka World

We tried out the new bar/restaurant Zayda Buddy in Ballard last night with a couple of friends. It serves “authentic” Midwestern food. Not being a Midwesterner, I can’t really comment on the authenticity, but they do serve Michelob.

We started off with drinks. I had the Ting Ting, which is a cucumber/gin concoction. Delicious. I love cucumber drinks. They are so refreshing! The rest of the table had a Margarita (small, average flavor), a Dark and Stormy (a rum and ginger ale drink, also small, but tasty), and Michelob (for the piss beer drinker amongst us). Drinks were well done, though a little slow in coming.

For appetizers, the table tried the gravy boat, which is a south of the (Canadian) border take on poutine. Thin cut fries, brown gravy, cheddar cheese, and Italian sausage. And no, you can’t go wrong with that! We also tried the chicken wings, which I normally don’t like. I enjoyed these, though. They were pretty meaty, though one person in our group thought they were not dry enough.

I ordered the chicken fritters and tater tot appetizers for my entree. Too much food! These were really meant to be shared (yes, I realize that they are appetizers!) — there were probably eight chicken strips and a whole plate of tater tots. Both were what you would expect. Other folks ordered the Rueben and Vegetarian sandwiches, both of which got raves, and the tater tot casserole, which was not commented on, but was totally gone by time they cleared the plates.

We didn’t try the pizzas, which seemed to be popular.

Atmosphere was a little loud, but it’s a bar. It was crowded on a Friday night, we had to wait 15 minutes for a table (no judgment here, we didn’t mind waiting). They didn’t have enough waitstaff, so the service was a little slow. The service was relentlessly charming and friendly, however. Prices were average, we worked out to around $30/person for drinks and dinner.

Overall, I’d recommend it for drinks and appetizers. Doing the whole bit was a little too much fried for me.

Rating: 3 stars (out of 5)