Happy Hour: Monsoon East blows into Bellevue with a tasty menu

Happy Hour |

We now have two Monsoon restaurants, but in our happy-hour world, both weren't created equal. Only the new Monsoon East in Bellevue offers bar food and cocktails. And only Monsoon East offers happy hour.

Lucky Eastsiders.

Chef and owner Eric Banh, who made his name with Monsoon in Capitol Hill, decided to introduce Bellevue to his spin on Vietnamese fare by rolling out quite the $5 happy-hour food menu, with lots of pork and beef from Oregon's Painted Hills Farm and Carlton Farms. It's one of the best spots for happy-hour food in the 425 area code.

His signature: bo la lot, pieces of flank steaks wrapped around Southeast Asian betel leaves, grilled and caramelized.

His riff on bar food: Saigon Sliders with juicy pork-and-shrimp meatballs, and his pork ribs with a hoisin barbecue sauce.

There are chicken wings but also chicken feet. For anyone who has been frightened by the sight of chicken feet during a dim-sum meal, Monsoon East provides a tame version, battered and deep-fried. It makes them look less like, well, chicken feet, and taste more like chicken wings.

Beef remains his best bar food: a tangy beef carpaccio dish and a dish of beef shank with lotus stem and bean sprouts that almost resembles deconstructed pho.

Monsoon East's venture into cocktails has been uneven. When I first sampled the cocktails in the spring, the drinks were imbalanced. Just when I thought the restaurant had the drinks dialed in, Monsoon East hires another bartender. It's too early to judge the new cocktails, but the new bartender has made one good move already. He's keeping the five-spice jackfruit cocktail, one of the most original dessert cocktails I've tasted this year.

Monsoon East, 10245 Main St., Suite 101, offers happy hour daily 4-6:30 p.m. and again at 9-10 p.m. Sundays-Thursdays and 9-11 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays. A $1-$3 raw-bar menu and large $5 bar-food menu, $6 specialty cocktails and wine and $3 beer (425-635-1112 or www.monsoonrestaurants.com).

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