Date: 2006-08-18 Reviewer: rlucas Review: The “Brooklyn” Restaurant (Seattle, WA) Summary: C minus for overall experience We recently got hit with a heat wave here in Seattle, and so my wife and I decided to celebrate having survived another blistering weekend day by going out. I was looking for a steak, so we hit up the Brooklyn, where we’ve enjoyed happy hour before a time or two. Unfortunately, we had a very disappointing experience. Despite our having made a reservation, our table wasn’t ready when we showed up five minutes fashionably late. The hostesses suggested we sit in the waiting area, which is a bit of a dismal nook (in retrospect, having gone for a Martini at that moment would have significantly improved the evening). When we were seated, it was in the bar area in front (at the time, I didn’t realize there was a real dining room in back or I would have agitated for it). This might have been OK during a less busy time or in the daylight. As it was, the room had noisy acoustics and folks were crammed in rather close to one another — our evening out together was now being augmented by the evenings out of various folks, such as some chatty tourists from Boston. Furthermore, at night, the high-pressure sodium (bright orange and buzzy) street lamps come on, and shine through the blinds in a most unflattering way. This would have been water under the bridge if the rest of the experience had been excellent. It was not. Her seafood something-or-other was quite passable — B+ / A- — but my filet mignon, a dish I order once or twice a year, was a C cut of meat, too large by half and stringy and oddly marbled. Our waiter was professional and prompt, but — and it’s hard to say if this is an impression we formed due to the other factors or not — he seemed awful /weird/ in an inexplicable way. The wine by the glass selections were good, not excellent, but definitely above average for by-the-glass (handy descriptions of the 8-9 types provided a guide and doubtless helped us make satisfying choices). In the end, we left feeling like we’d dropped a c-note in vain. The Brooklyn is forever cast in my mind’s eye in the light of a high-pressure sodium streetlamp — with not a jot of the luxury and escapism that is the stock in trade of even merely good steakhouses. Conclusion: Avoid the Brooklyn — and if you do end up there, avoid the front of the house in the evening, and the filet mignon unless you hear otherwise.