Happy Hour | Pizza fans, take a bite out of Palomino's menu

Our quest for happy-hour pizza takes us to Palomino, which offers the same happy-hour menu in Seattle and Bellevue. And, we should add, one of the best pizza deals on both sides of the bridge.

Full-size pizza for $5. This is why we showed up: a prosciutto-Roma tomato-garlic sliver-marinara sauce pizza. Followed by an Uli's hot-Italian-sausage-and-roasted-mushroom pizza.

Oh, I can hear the tap-tap of the angry pizza fanatics typing furiously, so let's address this issue now.

Sure, Tom Douglas' Serious Pie happy-hour pizza remains the gold standard, but his happy hour is from 3-5 p.m., too early for 9-to-5ers. And the happy-hour options are limited at Via Tribunali in Belltown and Tutta Bella in Westlake.

During happy hour, Palomino offers a larger pizza selection, and a good introduction to Roman-style pizza. You don't see a lot of those around here.

It comes on a 13-inch thin, crackerlike crust. At the Seattle restaurant, the crust-to-topping ratio was out of balance a few times. Not the kind of crime to call in the pizza police about, though. On one occasion, the thin crust collapsed from the weight of all the meatball-size chunks of sausage. On another occasion, the pizza tasted a bit salty — from too many toppings. In bar food, those are acceptable sins. Just bring me a beer.

Palomino restaurant in downtown Seattle, 1420 Fifth Ave., Suite 350, and in Bellevue, 610 Bellevue Way N.E. Seattle location offers happy hour 3-6 p.m. and again 9-p.m. to closing (closing is midnight Sundays-Thursdays; and 1 a.m. Fridays and Saturdays). The Bellevue branch offers happy hour all day until closing (11 p.m. Sundays-Wednesdays and at midnight Thursdays-Saturdays). All six specialty pizzas cost $5, appetizers half off and selected beer, wine and cocktails $4.

Parking: For the Seattle location, park in the garage in the City Centre building. Validated parking after 5 p.m. and all day on weekends. In Bellevue, park in the Lincoln Square parking garage. Validated parking before 8 p.m. and free parking after 8 p.m. on weekdays and all day on weekends. Seattle: 206-623-1300; Bellevue: 425 455-7600; www.palomino.com.

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