[troutman]

Maybe this thread could be a sticky?

Mrs. troutman and I tried Olives on Saturday October 25th.

1129 Olympic Way SE

Olives was developed by the same team that did St. Germain and Raw Bar at Hotel Arts. Since we really like Raw Bar, we gave it a try. This place opened around the end of Stampede 2008, and should be very busy, being so close to the Dome. It was certainly busy last Saturday, and we couldn't get a reservation for two until 8:15 pm. It is not easy to find parking, and there was nothing going on at the Dome.

My wife (an architect) liked the modern decor. It was quite dark at some tables, and hard to read the menus. It was noisy with all the background noise, and the house music was a bit annoying - all you could hear was the repetitive beat of the drums. Boom, boom, boom, boom. Seemed to be a lot of women there with their friends, living out Sex And The City.

Each table gets complimentary olives (green and black) and some light, fluffy focaccia bread. We ordered an antipasto appetizer, with nice cheeses and meats (and more olives), and we tried the calamari just added to the menu that day - I liked the tomato sauce it came with. My wife had their feature dish - parsnip ravioli. I liked it a lot, even though I normally detest parsnips. I had a great tuna steak, served on a nice polenta with another delicious tomato salsa on the side. The tuna was done just right - still a bit rare in the middle.

We enjoyed a great bottle of wine - Alpha Zeta Amarone 2003, for $95 (I think it retails for $40 to $50). Service was good - the waiter explained all of our dishes to us, though he brought the wrong bottle of Amarone at the start. We spent $180 (before tip) for everything. It is certainly over-priced, but the quality was good and we did enjoy everything. We didn't think our parents would like it, but we would recommend it to the 30-50 crowd.