QUBE - Newest addition to Belltown

Thursday, January 11th, 2007

I was exploring NwSource to find a place to take Siva for his Birthday dinner, and I found this new restaurant in Belltown that opened just less than a month ago. QUBE- described as Asian-French cuisine. Since that is one of Siva’s favorite genre of food, I immediately made an OpenTable reservation. Since it is so close to home, I was hoping we will like this as much as Monsoon, and will satisfy our pan-Asian cravings without having to drive so far…
So last night we headed out to QUBE, started from home at 8:15 for our 8:15 reservation, and reached at 8:17, of course we drove, since it was below freezing temperature outside. The place is on the corner of Stewart and 2nd. The restaurant looked ultra hip and cool with the bright orange and florescent green walls and the dark hardwood floors and the contemporary decor! If I was brave enough I would paint my home in those colors! Very vibrant, it almost looked like a New York bar!The wine list was huge, but I had read the reviews that they have some amazing cocktails, so we directly turned to page 9 of the 9 page wine list… I ordered a margarita with tamarind induced tequila and comes in a cumin salt rimmed glass! It was just am-azing!!! The cumin rim really added this very interesting kick to each sip! Siva ordered the lychee-tini , which he loved he went for seconds! I tried the deconstructed pina-colada with infused basil next, which was really good as well, but the margarita was really something special. They even had a special cosmopolitan which was $15!! I might try that the next time… Anyway I have to give them 5 stars for the drinks, the bartender really knows what he is doing!
De-constructed Pina-colada

Lycheetini

While the drinks were great, food was just okay. They have this interesting prix-fixe three course menu, which are called “Qubed” meals, where you can pick either surf, turf or veg options. Each course comes with three different items with the same ingredient, so altogether you get 9 items!!! It was a great deal, but we couldn’t really pick any one set! Now I wish we had ordered a surf set and a turf set and shared all the dishes, we could have tried 18 different dishes! But we just decided to order a-la-carte.

We started with two items from their sticks section of the menu, Pork Loin Satay with Peanut Cumin dip and Lamb with roasted garlic which came with a cumin & chili butter dipping sauce. The sticks were just okay, not even comparable to the satays at WildGinger.. The meat didn’t really have any flavor to it, and the dipping sauces were not all that great either… Pork satay came with some white rice noodles with an interesting sauce, which I loved, and the lamb came with boiled garbanzo beans… Each dish has three sticks each. The lamb shown below. I started taking the pics only after the first drink and the first dish, that is why the margarita and the pork satay are missing . BTW, we didn’t bring the camera, so all the pics are taken with my cellphone, hence the grainy quality… the dishes looked much better, the presentation was really great!

Our waiter was really good, even though we ordered both the sticks together, he placed the order to start with the pork and then bring the lamb out so that we can have the dishes hot! He timed it perfectly too, we didn’t really have to wait long between the two… And it was a great idea since the dishes were pretty bad once those cooled down, since it was just fresh grilled meat with no flavor added!

For our entrées I went for the miso-marinated black cod and siva got Tiger Prawns in Red Thai Curry… I loved the code, it came with fingerling potatoes, and some bok-choys… in a red wine sauce, and a side of steamed rice. The portions were really tiny, but after the satays I was kind of full anyway, so it was just perfect! The tiger prawn curry was way too thin and mild for my taste, I expected some stronger curry, but it was a good sized dish, I think he got about 6 big tiger prawns! That came with a side of coconut rice which was delicious.

Tiger-Prawns in Thai curry

Miso-marinated black cod

By the end of it we were really full, but I wanted to finish off with something sweet, and we decided to share a dark chocolate Crème Brule, it was perfumed with something , I am thinking Thai-basil now, but I might be wrong… It was such a tiny portion, but one of the best crème brules I have had!The presentation was very interesting, it was server on a wooden plank with a side of dried lavender, which I tried to eat, but was stopped in time by the waiter.

All in all, while it wasn’t a complete disappointment, there is no way it is a Monsoon replacement for us… There is no comparison! We will surely go back to try the set menu, the Elton John look alike and his date who were seated very close to us, went for the surf and turf and their dishes looked much more interesting… So we will definitely go back… Also they have a happy hour from 4-6 and 10-12 every day except the weekends, the 10-12 will work perfectly for us for those days when we work late…

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