Dinner at Olives Cafe and Wine Bar

Olives Cafe and Wine Bar is another reason why Emi and I are happy we made the decision to move up north. Similar to our other north end favorites, Epulo and Hills, Olives focuses on modern, comfort food. Emi has been a couple of times before, but never for dinner, so to again celebrate her birthday we went to Olives. We used our Passport Card, which is awesome because we could get a 2 for 1 entree deal. Another reason we went was because I was going out of town for the weekend for work so I wanted to take Emi somewhere nice.

At Olives you have the option to share small dishes or if you're selfish, you can get full size portions for yourself. They have a bizarre happy hour that starts after 7pm, which was unexpected because usually HH takes place and ends while I'm still at work. However for our later dinner, we were lucky because we timed the meal perfectly for their HH specials. We started with their duck confit quessadillas. They were a little salty, but paired nicely with the guacamole and our bottle of wine.

Emi ordered the Crispy Skin Chicken Breast which was served over truffled mac and cheese, roasted garlic cloves, and a red wine chicken jus. The chicken was really good, although I prefer dark meat, and Emi said it was one of the best mac and cheese's she's ever had. It was gooey and truffley good!

I ordered a small portion of the Miso Glazed Chilean Sea Bass, which came with braised baby bok choy, soy glazed carrots, edamame, peppers, and pea sprouts. I love a flaky, sweet miso glazed Chilean Sea Bass. This was very delicious and my only regret from this meal is that I didn't upgrade for the larger portion.

Emi wanted to change things up and ordered a cheese platter for dessert. It was served with a sweet, soft bleu cheese, crackers, and sweet pecans. The Cheesemonger which is a local cheese store down the street selected the cheeses for this dish. Emi said the bleu cheese was recognized as one of the world's best. Having cheese for dessert was definitly different, but a nice change and we're always open to trying new things.




I went the more traditional route with my dessert and ordered the Coffee and Donuts. Epulo has a similiar dish, which I thought was tastier, but the Olives one came with more cinnaomon sugar donuts, a delicious Mexican chocolate and Mascarpone Espresso sorbet on the side. Dunking the donuts into the Mexican Chocolate sauce was amazing and the espresso sorbet on the side was great.

Again if you haven't made the trip out to downtown Edmonds make sure to go in the near future. Not only is there an amazing Farmer's Market, but there are a ton of great restaurants and even bars. They have something for everyone and you know you can always check out our blog for reviews on our favorites!

- Kyle