Alluring 'Matador' a surprising delight
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
Visualize a shadowy bar where local eccentrics sip alongside jocks whose eyes seldom waver from two flat-screen TVs, where the Birkenstocked meet the leather-clad, and youthful hipsters rub elbows with aging boomers around a handsome fire pit.
Picture a casual, kick-back style of eatery where the tab for an evening of potent potables and appetizing edibles won't max out your credit card, though the room's decibel level will sorely tax your vocal chords.
Imagine a neighborhood place that prohibits kids, doesn't serve decaf coffee and let's you smoke all you want, anywhere, anytime.
All three of those places are The Matador, which opened Feb. 1 — not in Belltown or Capitol Hill or some soon-to-be-gentrified fringe neighborhood, but on Market Street in Ballard. Yes, Ballard.
Everything about The Matador is unexpected, starting with the fact that the place is packed like a mosh pit most nights. Who knew Seattle harbored so many smokers, let alone those willing to share their space? Owners Nate Opper and Zak Melang, veterans of Peso's and Floyd's Place on Lower Queen Anne, that's who.
On Friday and Saturday nights, a clipboard-clutching young woman at the door advises the incoming of a 30- to 45-minute wait for a table. She turns out to be remarkably accurate in her projections and adept at tracking diners-in-waiting among the morass of people hoisting mugs of beer or equally hefty mojitos and margaritas.
In fact, The Matador is a pretty smooth operation overall: Servers move swiftly and surely through the throng and the kitchen, led by chef Rodel Borromeo, knows how to hustle.
The Matador's mood, two parts swaggering Texas saloon and one part sultry south-of-the-border cafe, perfectly matches its upscale Tex-Mex menu, a card that includes soups and salads, burgers and barbecue, tacos, fajitas, enchiladas, seafood, steak and chicken. In the best of these, invigorating sauces meet fresh ingredients that are skillfully plated on Fiestaware with an eye for color and texture.
With platters of Texas-style nachos ($6.50) bound for almost every table, it is quickly apparent they are a must-have item. The size of a small armadillo, this hill of warm tortilla chips laced with quality molten cheddar is garnished with black beans, pico de gallo, seasoned sour cream and guacamole you can't get enough of. A few dollars more adds chicken or steak to what is already a meal in itself.
Chicken-and-lime tortilla soup ($5.75) and romaine salad ($6.25) are each big enough to be a meal, too. But the soup, though well stocked with chicken and tortilla strips, is oily and tastes predominantly of cumin, while the salad offers a fiesta of flavors. Essentially a Tex-Mex Caesar garnished with cucumber, cotija cheese, avocado, diced tomato and seasoned bread crumbs, the salad's bold but balanced ancho, anchovy, garlic and lemon dressing lifts it above the ordinary.
Likewise, a sauté of corn and leeks dresses up carne asada ($12.95) served with garlic mashed potatoes. Treated to a "secret marinade," the long, skinny skirt steak is supple and seared a just-right medium rare.
Red or green enchiladas ($10.95) made with delicately flavored corn tortillas come stuffed with chicken or (my recommendation) portobello mushrooms and peppers. The tangy green tomatillo sauce is painted a little too sparingly on the enchiladas, but the red-chile version has plenty of lip-tingling sauce. Both come in pairs, accompanied by whole black beans, Spanish rice and pico de gallo.
If you want something "hot, hot!!!" try the habanero enchiladas ($10.95 chicken/$11.95 shrimp) or habanero prawns ($7.50), the latter an appetizer of four plump but not-so-jumbo shrimp awash in a searing basil-flecked tomato-cream sauce.
Those same smallish, sweet, crackling fresh shrimp also stuff cheese quesadillas ($5.95 chicken/$6.50 shrimp/$4.50 plain). But skewered and grilled prawns ($12.95) are a disappointment — dry and tasting faintly of iodine even under their serrano-laced tomatillo sauce. The same problem mars a beautifully pan-fried catfish from the fresh sheet ($13.95), basking in tequila-and-jalapeño-spiked tomatillo sauce alongside crisp grilled asparagus and rice.
Quesadillas, nachos, tacos, the romaine salad and assorted bar bites are among a dozen dishes culled from the main menu that are offered at happy hour (4-6 p.m. and 10 p.m.-1 a.m. daily) for just $4 each.
Graze inexpensively and happily on bacon-wrapped, goat-cheese stuffed jalapeños (regularly $8.50) or fat, crunchy chicken-and-corn-stuffed spring rolls (regularly $6.50). Or fill up on tacos for less than half the regular price ($9.50-$9.95). Two soft tortillas may be stuffed with chicken, steak, shrimp or blackened fish moistened with a sprightly quajillo-and-ancho-chile sauce and heaped with lettuce, sour cream and pico de gallo — all that plus rice and beans for $4 a plate!
Deals like that keep customers ebbing and flowing at The Matador until well past midnight, long after the rest of Market Street has pulled in its sidewalks. Speaking of which, as of last week The Matador's windows were refitted so that they now slide completely to one side, opening the triangular interior to the sidewalk where tables and chairs will sprout soon.
Perhaps that will shorten the wait, alleviate the painfully loud noise level and let in some welcome fresh air. For sure it will add to The Matador's surprising allure.
Providence Cicero: providencecicero@aol.com
 |
