Happy Hour!

Published 8:00 am Thursday, March 1, 2007

To fully enjoy happy hour at Lola, don’t look too closely at the dinner menu, or you’ll be tempted to stray from the bargain offerings, as I was. It didn’t help that a couple of garrulous servers sidled up to me, announcing their plans to duplicate Lola’s pork-belly-topped Brussels sprouts with honey at home. I gave in, ordering them off the dinner menu. I have to admit, these pork-salted, sweet-sauced cabbages ($8) were quite a decadent pleasure. Seated at the bar (and only the bar—happy hour is not served in the dining room’s cozy booths) Monday through Friday between 4:30 and 6 p.m., you’ll be offered a limited menu of savory, inexpensive indulgences. The squid kebabs ($4.50) were super tender, dressed in a spicy chili chermoula sauce, while the lamb kebabs ($5) arrived on a sizzling plate, which the bartender doused with ouzo to help the onions ot it caramelize—a dramatic touch. The savory doughnuts ($3) were more unusual: rich, quick-fried dough speckled with intensely flavored kalamata olives, served with an herbed yogurt dip. My dining companion sampled two Greek beers (not such a common thing), finding the Alfa ($2) more flavorful than a not-so-surprising pilsner, Mythos ($2). Fancy stuffed-olive martinis tend to put me off, though Lola’s happy hour cocktail (there’s only one), a feta-stuffed green olive Greek martini (mixed with gin or vodka, $5), was surprisingly drinkable, with delicate ice slivers shimmering on the surface. Seated under red neon squiggled into the shape of flames (what, the bar is hell?), we enjoyed a downscale menu compared to the one in the Tiffany-lamp-lit dining room—though our neon-lit pleasures were no less rich. ADRIANA GRANT 2000 Fourth Ave., 441-1430, www.tomdouglas.com/lola. BELLTOWN