Eating Seattle: Agua Verde

I had dinner with Clare, Courtney, Whitney (and Whitney's darling 6 month old baby Lauren), and Lauren, Whitney's brother's girlfriend, last night at Agua Verde. I hadn't been there for probably 10 years, so I'd forgotten how crazy busy the place is. Of course, it's the U-District, and it's on the water, and the weather was beautiful, so that's a recipe for crowds. Everyone in Seattle wanted to eat outside last night.


I was really looking forward to dinner with the girls and taking in the gorgeous evening sunshine. So it was a bummer when we ended up having to wait for a table, and then we got seated inside. Not a huge bummer, but when you only get to go out with friends for dinner once every couple of months, the stakes are way higher for where you go. A jail analogy: When you get out of the county lockup, you don't want your first encounter to be with some old wrinkly cottage cheesey woman, you want to have sex with a real va-va-voom, Hotty McHotterson, am I right guys? This is what I'm saying.

So I had some camarones tacos and a rum drink with tamarindo. It was fine. My camarones were overcooked but I wasn't expecting miracles. The best thing on the table was the salsa: two versions, one tomatillo and the other chipotle. And the bill, which was in the low $20s per person, and since three out of five of us at dinner had lived in NYC, where group meals usually range from $60 to $90 per person, this was an awesome surprise.

But it's always fun having dinner with girlfriends. Courtney just bought a house! I'm so excited to see it. And Clare's building a house so she was in town from NY to meet with an architect. Whitney's got a three year old son and the baby and she somehow keeps it all together and has a great sense of humor. And Lauren, who I'd just met, is training for an Iron Man. No, REALLY! Let me just lay that out for you: 2.5 mile swim, 112 mile bike, and a full friggin' marathon. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? As Courtney said (she was near Couer D'Alene during the Iron Man this past year), when you wake up at, say, 9am, the athletes have been exercising for four hours already. And when you go to bed, they're STILL exercising. I asked Lauren how long she thought the bike portion would take and she said six or seven HOURS!. Everyone kept moving on to other topics and all I could think about was SEVEN HOURS on a bike. And then dragging your sorry ass another 26+ miles on foot. Do people die during these things? They must.

So, Agua Verde: The company was great. The food, decent. The experience was not what I was hoping for last night. If you only eat out one or two times a month, this isn't a place I'd put into one of those slots.