Happy Hour | Bastille Café & Bar takes no prisoners with drinks and snacks

Early or late. Doesn't matter. The enviable Bastille Café & Bar is packed every night. Now, it's bent on taking over the happy-hour scene in Ballard, too.

Bastille's new $5 happy-hour menu debuted last week, and it's one that regulars will recognize: Croque Monsieur, done the Bastille way, with so much comté, Gruyère and a béchamel-like sauce, you can't even see the ham sandwich on the dish.

And yes, that popular lamb burger with harissa aioli is on the new menu.

Above all else, Chef Shannon Galusha — with stints at Campagne restaurant at Pike Place Market and French Laundry in Yountville, Calif., — worships starch like few other chefs. Fries ($4) made from hard-to-find Kennebec potatoes. Mac and cheese made with Rustichella d'Abruzzo pasta.

I don't know how he got his hands on so many Kennebecs, but here they are in all their glory: crisp, golden brown with a hint of nutty flavor, served with aioli and, for $2 more, truffle oil.

The best fries in the city. No fries lover should go through life without sampling a Kennebec potato, deep-fried.

That mac and cheese? It didn't belong on the bar menu. Only a gooey and gluttonous version will do, with burned-cheese topping, or breadcrumb maybe. Just not a dish with the cheese sauce playing backup to that artisanal pasta the chef is so proud of.

A better vegetarian option: a foot-long, crunchy falafel wrap with crispy chickpea fritters, cucumbers and eggplant slices, with goat-milk yogurt sauce, a splendid homage to the famous falafel stands in Paris.

Bastille Café & Bar, 5307 Ballard Ave. N.W., offers happy hour daily 4:30-6 p.m. and again at night Sundays-Thursdays 10 p.m.-1 a.m. Five dishes for $5 each, mostly sandwiches and bar food. 206 453-5014 or www.bastilleseattle.com.

Tan Vinh: 206-515-5656 or tvinh@seattletimes.com