Wallingford Date Night

This Story from the Community comes from John Scott Tynes, a frequent source of Wallyhood news and early encouragement, in which he brings us along on a splendid Wallingford date night:

My wife and I have a seventeen-month-old daughter and live in Wallingford. We have no handy grandparents in the area and so breaks from our baby are few and far between. Couch dates tend to be the rule. At the same time, we’re frequently out walking in the hood to our favorite parks, including the awesome beat-the-heat wading pool at Wallingford Park and the playscape oasis that is Meridian Park. It’s painful to walk these streets every day but to never have eaten at, say, Joule, and for our meals at Tilth to be a distant memory. Murphy’s happy-hour patio calls to us in its vaguely Irish accent, Kabul beckons with memories of long-ago exotic dinners, and even that odd little cocktail bar at Chutney’s still holds a sweet and distant appeal.

Recently, a friend of ours offered to take care of our little cutie for an evening. We could have gone anywhere in Seattle but we stayed right here in Wallingford. We had about five hours and boy, was it welcome.

Our first stop was Smash, the wine bar by Tilth. Smash is, frankly, really expensive. But on Sundays they have an all-day happy hour (all day meaning 5pm – 10pm). Their happy hour menu proved to be terrific, with each small plate running $3-$5 less than normal. Their happy-hour wines are limited to one red, one white, one rose, one sparkling, and one sangria, but between those and their happy-hour beers and girly martinis we did just fine. We debated catching a movie at the Guild 45th (500 Days of Summer) but opted to linger on the patio instead as the sun slowly sunk.

Smash’s food was great. At full price it’s a little dear but on discount, it was a treat. Over a leisurely couple of hours we had the French cheese plate, the smoked mozzarella ravioli in tomato sauce, the mini burger, the crostini with chevre and fresh heirloom tomatoes, the duck and shitake spring rolls, and the little breaded balls of potato cake with chevre, chives, and crumbled bacon. It was all delicious. With those six dishes, a cocktail, a beer, and wine, we ended up with a bill of $78 plus tip, which is really pretty great for the groaning board of food and drinks we enjoyed during that long, lazy respite from diapers and dolls.

When we finally persuaded ourselves to rise from our table, it still wasn’t dark and our babysitter wasn’t expecting us back for a while yet. The patio at Smash had been lovely and we craved even more outdoor time. So we headed to our longtime favorite pub, Murphy’s, who opened a back patio a few years back.

I first moved to Wallingford in 1994 and lived just a few blocks north of Murphy’s. My roommates and I soon became Murphy’s regulars, downing beer after beer and enjoying their oh-so-Irish nacho plate. Those days are long gone but when my wife and I moved back into the neighborhood, we paid quite a few visits to Murphy’s for lunch and a cold one. Then the baby came and we weren’t exactly bar-hopping.

I’ve never been very sure of Murphy’s Irish credentials. Currently they’re advertising that every Monday is “Irish night!” (I’m not sure what the other six nights a week are; Lithuanian?) But regardless of their provenance the reality is that Murphy’s has been in Seattle longer than I have and longevity grants authenticity. They’re now the Local, that fine Anglo-Saxon tradition of the bar where your neighbors go, and I love Murphy’s dearly.

If you haven’t found Murphy’s back patio, I don’t blame you. To get there you actually have to go inside, walk behind the bar, through the storeroom, and out an obscure door. It’s like a speakeasy inside a pub. We thought it might be mobbed, given that this was a lovely Sunday evening a couple weeks ago before Hell came to town. But in fact it was deserted, and so we sat on a bench and held hands and enjoyed a beer or two. We talked, like grownups do, which is something of a novelty for us these days, and enjoyed the cool evening air.

Eventually we decided to move on and considered making one final stop: Elemental Next Door, based on the recent writeup in Wallyhood. But time was short and our generous babysitter would be turning into a pumpkin soon. So we opted instead for the obvious alternative: a cheap nightcap at Moon Temple, one of the city’s great dive bars.

Understand that when I call Moon Temple a dive bar, that’s not some snooty judgement. Behind the bar they proudly display an award from Citysearch for being the 2006-2007 Seattle’s Best Dive Bar. This is not a place that labors under pretensions, no: they serve strong drinks for cheap prices in a room that still smells of old cigarette smoke and a touch of regret. The last time I was here was with a bunch of goths who commuted to Wallingford from Capitol Hill just to drink at the Moon Temple’s fabled cocktail lounge.

We’ve gotten food from Moon Temple several times but it was great fun to check out the bar. We had a B&B, chatted about our adventures in Wallingford, and then almost, but not quite, called it a night.

See, we wanted to bring home a treat for our babysitter to thank her for taking care of our wee one, so we ended the night at Stumbling Goat Gelato. We tried the almond and the Fainting Goat flavors, the latter fabled of Wallyhood and made with goat’s milk and mastic. In a word: Yum!

At long last we returned home, paid our babysitter in delicious Spicy Caramel Apple gelato, and stumbled off to bed. We love you, Wallingford!