First, a good thing about Tigertail, the nonspecifically
Asian-themed lounge in Ballard: the flowering cherry tree painted in
the ladies’ restroom. It’s not so skillfully trompe l’oeiled that
you’d walk into the wall, but it’s a happy surprise. It calls to mind
the mural at the (also ambiguously Asiatic) bar Sun Liquor, which
depicts a more elaborate tree with monkeys sitting in the branches
holding fireworks. I imagined Tigertail’s men’s room with monkeys or
tigers or, preferably, tigers eating monkeys; apparently it’s got a
koi theme that carries over into the washbasin, which sounds happy,
too.
A bad thing: The flyer for the paintings currently hanging in
Tigertail’s main room was stuck to the table. The flyer from a
neighboring table, while not sticky enough to be stuck, had
clearly served many times as a coaster.
Tigertail is hard to get a grip on. It’s sleek and dim and pretty,
with richly colored, shadow-striped South American woodwork and
lashed-bamboo chairs; it wouldn’t be out of place in Belltown or
downtown Ballard. On the same small strip as the (great) grubby Tin
Hat and the Irish pub Molly Maguire’s, it feels marooned, an outpost of
upscaling. (Then again, the Dray—calling itself “a very good cafe
and bottleshop”—just opened right next door.) Tigertail has been
there since November, but it still seems not quite real.
The server delivered pan-Asian-small-plates/specialty-cocktails
patter. Assuming the cleanliness issue was confined to the tables, I
ate. The pan-Asian small plates ($3–$9): just okay. A special of
spicy Vietnamese meatballs: lukewarm, somewhat stringy, abandoned.
Chicken confit pot stickers: beautifully golden-fried, but with pasty,
not especially tasty filling. Skewered cubes of kalbi-style beef with
rich coconut sticky rice wrapped in a banana leaf: basic and good. The
specialty cocktails ($7) varied likewise: In a cucumber-wasabi bloody
mary, mighty wasabi annihilated timid cucumber (and the taste
buds). A Saigon 66—champagne, gin, and house-made lemongrass
syrup—tasted solely of the sparkling wine. A derby
widow—Maker’s Mark and elderberry liqueur with floating lemon
pulp—was quite fine, but in more of an Alpine-lodge than
pan-Asian vein. Fifteen kinds of sake are also available, which not
many people were drinking.
A couple of local guys opened Tigertail. They’ve gone out of their
way to do the right thing, using sustainable and salvaged materials,
sourcing some local foodstuff. One of them said they wanted to do
something that the neighborhood didn’t have, something a little
higher scale, something “not Euro-style tapas.” Nothing’s wrong
with Tigertail per se, but maybe it feels more like the product of the
process of elimination than like somebody’s heartfelt wish to share
their favorite things to eat and drink.
Tigertail, 704 NW 65th St, 781-TAIL.