Happy Hour of the Week: Hobnob Grille
Not so tropical, but the drinks are kickin’.
Posted by: John Chandler on Jun 29, 2009 at 03:00PM
18 Comments
I make a quick perusal of the premises at Hobnob Grille and discover that something is missing: the floor is spotlessly clean, and there’s not a peanut shell to be found anywhere. Hobnob Grille is located in the former home of (in chronological order) Sweetwater Jam House, Salvador Molly’s, and Calypso, at the corner of SE 34th Avenue and Morrison Street, but the established tropical theme has gone bon voyage, as the new regime favors roomy booths, solid American comfort food, and a delightful drink menu.
After registering my standard complaint about happy hours that end at 6 p.m. (“Happy, my ass! I just got here and I get a whole five minutes to decide what I’m having?”), I order the drink of the day ($3), the seasoned fries ($2), a plate of calamari ($4), and the flatbread pizza ($4). My ire over having to make hasty decisions is lessened by the arrival of the Northwest Basil, a mojito variation that positively sings on the palate. Made with Medoyeff vodka, apple cider, and heaps of basil, the proportions are precisely poured and blended, the result a refreshing wash of sweet, sour, bitter, and sharp fruit notes. My friend Lucy opts for the Pink ($7.50), an even fruitier concoction, featuring vodka infused with blueberries and raspberries, and a pretty candied rose petal floating merrily on top.
The waitress explains that the drink of the day is the first cocktail ordered on a given afternoon. I make a note to have one of my unemployed friends show up at Hobnob the next day at 4:01 p.m. and order a Long Island Iced Tea.
The chow isn’t as exotically ambitious as the Caribbean cuisine of yesteryear, but it’s a heckuva lot less spotty. The flatbread pizza is loaded with onions, red peppers, and mushrooms, and even after a healthy period of time elapsed, it remained firm and flavorful, worth cleaning the plate over. The fries are fine, but the addition of a curry-infused ketchup really gets this side dish up on its feet. The calamari is served Cajun style, seasoned with red pepper, onions, and garlic, and four bucks gets you a mess of it.
My late-arriving friends miss the happy-hour cutoff, but seem content with the full-price dinner options like steak and fried chicken. Perhaps due to the potency of our cocktails, one of my drinking buddies and I split a chocolate martini. Normally, I’m a traditional kind of guy when it comes to martinis (always gin, never vodka), but the prospect of a drink made with Godiva chocolate and house-made chocolate-and-vanilla vodka makes me rather giddy. This cloying cocktail is as thick and rich as a drive-in milkshake and the chocolate-vanilla blend is dreamy. Between the two of us, we can’t conquer such a caloric confection, and it takes several passes around the table before it’s drained, leaving my crew and I happy and sated. Even a contingent of braying asses hollering at the televised sporting event at the bar can’t dampen our goodwill.
Now if I can only prevail upon the Hobnob Grille’s management to keep happy hour intact for another hour, all of my thumbs will be up. It’s a pleasure to find a decent happy hour in Southeast Portland, mere blocks from my abode. It makes homeward navigation so much less stressful.
Tags: Happy Hour
Uno-st!
I’m with you on the 6pm HH cut-off. Who out there with a day job gets outta work in time to enjoy the deals? Especially when putting in extra hours during these sketchy times…
The NW Basil sounds worth trying. Which reminds me, try the Tom Kha Martini at the Observatory.
Do you think if we start a petition, maybe we could get a law passed that all happy hours should last until at least 7 PM (preferably 8 PM)? I think you just proved via Lucy’s Pink drink, people will order from both the regular and happy hour menus. But, they are also more likely to come in if it’s happy hour in the first place. Especially if the food is good.
Isn’t there some sort of ordinance against calling it Happy Hour in this town? You can still sell cheap drinks at certain times, you just aren’t allowed to use those words in that order, or the brain police will throw you into the Conjunction Junction slammer. Wouldn’t want people to associate discount alcohol with happiness. Might spoil our reputation as the unhappiest city in America.
Chocolate Martini….droool.
Boo on the truncated HH, but YAY for candied rosepetals in your cocktail!
Somebody still labors under the illusion that these venues want to bring people IN during their happy hours? Don’t you understand that they can’t make any money if anybody actually makes a purchase at these times? Those ridiculously low numbers are simply posted to make us think we can get ahead of the game, similar to those billboards which display the latest powerball figures. They use those numbers to lure us toward their establishments, carefully timing the window of opportunity to conspire with your boss and traffic conditions to make it impossible for anyone to actually arrive before the cut-off time. And by the time you get there, you are so invested in the effort, that you are by god going to order yourself a drink at any cost.
John
Can you design these posts with a highlight box?
you know – just all the who what where info for ease of summary?
That is good sounding food at a good price. The calamari sounds good the way it is prepared.
@lisA,
But if I have highlight boxes, you might skim over some of my golden prose! I’m not sure I could live with myself. However, I’m nothing if not reasonable. We’ll take it under advisement.
I will show up at 4:01 and order the Long Island if you by the next two.
how could you write about this place and not mention that they have a blue drink?
We are extending the “Hobnob Hour” to 7 PM.. thanks for all the feed back!!
…the booze Spirits have now smiled upon us. Pardon me if I am somehow tempted to do a happy dance in awe of the power of Bar Pilot :)
Yay! Glad to hear there’s a good new place in that spot. Hey JC, if you finally go deaf from going to shows you should really become a full time food / drink writer.
Thanks Hobnob for extending HH! See you there very very soon!
Hats off to the power of the ‘new’ press. The Inter-tubes will not be denied!!
The squeaky wheel gets the grease.
Yay, Hobnob! Nice to see you interacting with the community.
I’m making a date NOW to testdrive your new happy hour hour.
Seriously, I am now going to check out Hobnob. Thanks for making that change. And congrats to the Bar Pilot for steering them in the right direction.
Serious kudos to hobnob. For the record, I live in the neighborhood and can walk to said establishment. I will def. be checking it out. First just because of the good review (Thanks BP!). But now because I know they are an establishment with a clue. May they be artfully & successfully be catering to our community for years to come.