El Gaucho...a very veggie happy hour

_M and I recently celebrated our wedding anniversary with dinner at El Gaucho in Bellevue.  We love the steakhouses at Bellevue, and it is still one of my top o'list date nights ^__^

El Gaucho has a great happy hour with tons of veggie choices...various flatbreads, appetizers, and my favourite happy hour vino!  We arrived before our reservation to grab some happy hour goodies, and settled on "Fried Mac & Cheese Bites".  They were served with a spicy currant jam, and it was pretty good for five bucks :)  I want to return and try out their flatbreads, as I find the El Gaucho Bellevue happy hour less of a feeding frenzy compared to Daniel's Broiler or John Howie.

After we were seated for dinner, I glanced at the menu and there was a good selection of various veggie sides, and a main course of a cremini mushroom risotto served with grilled veggies.  Interestingly there were no veggie appetizer choices, but that is no love lost as it just means more space for garlic cheesy bread!  (One of my fave reasons for coming to El Gaucho)

I ordered the risotto, _M ordered a nice rib chop, and we shared the Gaucho Salad, with a side of scalloped potatoes.  I have a secret love affair with scalloped potatoes...growing up I always ate the "make 'em out of a box" variety, never realizing that the non-dehydrated potato version existed.  When the salad arrived, they served it table side, and _M benefited by having my portion of the shrimp.  By this time I had 3 portions of the garlic cheesy bread already, so I was pretty stuffed (hmmm...is this much garlic at an anniversary dinner really a good idea???).

The risotto was served with lovely veggies, and it was a genuinely good risotto!  The taste displayed to me that they actually cared about making the risotto a good dish that stands on its own.  (I had the veggie ravioli at Daniel's and the ravioli was undercooked and crunchy, with a heavy bland cream sauce splotched on top.)  The portion of the risotto was also huge, so I doggy packed enough for dinner for the next night :)

Dinner was capped off with the complimentary blue cheese and dates, and the fruit and nut platter.  We splurged by ordering the banana bread pudding a la mode - highly recommended!

Happy Anniversary _M!