RELISH in American favorites: burgers, beer and fried goodness

Admittedly I am quite behind on this post, but better late than never! 

RELISH a burger bistro located in the Westin in downtown Seattle offers burgers with the local flair you expect in a Seattle restaurant.  While they aren't creating oddities in the burger world the burgers I tried with Taryn and a couple of our friends were all well crafted and delicious; in a word, classic.  My only complaint, the shredded lettuce; swap that out for some nice leaf lettuce or a rip off a head of ice burg and we're talking!

Harmon and Ellersick Brewing flight

To start I had a flight of beer to accompany the fried delightfulness that is the appetizer menu.  Because we were there for the media event we were able to try a variety of the menu including the crispy calamari with chipotle remoulade, red pepper hummus with pita bread (a table favorite) and the surprising black sheep in the mix the RELISH fried pickles in beer batter with chipotle remoulade.  I didn't know that fried dill pickles could be so delicious, and hot!

My beers were equally good and from breweries I had not tried or even heard of here in the Puget Sound, including Harmon and Ellersick Brewing.  With a new selection of breweries added to the local Seattle favorites like Georgetown and Elysian there are certainly enough selections for even the beer newbie.  Unique to RELISH or at least to me were the hand made sodas they offer in the non-alcoholic drink selection.  A friend Tara tried the Raspberry Mint and truly enjoyed it.  Our waitress also recommended adding your favorite clear liquor to make it more of a refreshing imbibement.

Big Boy Blue with Sweet Potato fries
and garlic aioli

When it comes to the burgers RELISH really lets you decide.  You can go down the Build Your Own route or choose from their Specialty Burger list.  Of the specialties we ended up with three, the Big Boy Blue, this was mine and I loved it, caramelized onions, blue cheese and I added bacon!  The Bacon & Egg enjoyed by Tara, how could you say no to bacon and Beecher's Flagship on a burger with a fried egg was her opinion.  Finally, the only guy in our group Matt went with the Pike Place Signature Burger.  It was a behemoth consisting of fried onion rings, bacon rasher (which is the British word for a specific cut of bacon differing from our traditional American cut of bacon) and finally topped with Beecher's Marco Polo peppercorn cheese.  As sides we got a couple baskets of fries and tots.

The burgers were all cooked to our specifications, came out in a timely manner and our waitress was knowledgeable about the menu and offered advice on her favorites and ways to mix things up.  This ended up being especially helpful when the desserts came to the table.  We lucked out that they were all served and we were able to sample the options.  The RELISH specialty is the White Chocolate Bread Pudding and while not our groups favorite, it was still a nice light option.  Our favorites were the Deep-dish Washington Apple pie and the Warm Triple Chocolate Brownie Sundae.  If you want a new take on carrot cake try out the Carrot Pineapple cake, the mascarpone cheese layers and frosting take the sugar out of the traditional cream cheese frosting and the cake was light and moist making this a truly enjoyable option and close third.

Overall, RELISH was a group favorite and somewhere we all agreed we'd be coming back to!