Trader Vic’s

Good riddance!
I’d been there for dinner once when it first opened… when it actually had enough customers to warrant reservations.
The food was awful… the language of the menu made my entrée sound amazing… but my taste buds were underwhelmed.
When I saw the bill for such mediocre food and a table for 3, (nearly $ 200 including drinks) I silently vowed to never eat there again.
I was persuaded to go to happy hour there on a couple of occasions within the last two years. Both times, the bar was fairly empty, but it still took the waitresses forever and a day to serve us…

Too bad, so sad … they’re closed folks. :-(
I for one will miss me some Trader Vic’s happy hour. Stay tuned for it’s replacement — Pearl.

I go here for lunch only when I get sick of the green chili enchiladas at Z Tejas.

Nice atmosphere… you feel like you are on a cruise or a tourist in the Bahamas at a fancy hotel. Food is pricy, but good. You have got to try the lava cake!
Ordered (ratings out of 10, with 10 the highest):
— Bongo bongo soup — glazed cream of spinach with oysters…9/10
— Dungeonass crab cake — 7.5
–Seared scallops with madeira wine sauce…6.5.good quality scallop with so so sauce
— Pacific red king salmon cooked in wood fired oven.10/10
— Lava chocolate cake…10/10… the BEST lava cake in the world

Note: The 2 star is for the bar area and not the restaurant.
It’s true that we have eaten here many times and I haven’t reviewed Trader Vic’s until now. I should have because for the most part the food, service, and spirits have been really great. But a word of caution…
Don’t sit in the bar and have the same expectations. It’s day and night in the level of attention you will receive. I know bar areas are a rougher hewn portion of the overall restaurant experience but this was ridiculous! If you like being ignored on the whole… if you like flagging down your ADD waitress for the basics like water… or if you like having «Igor the plate snatcher» busboy remove all of your dishes when you obviously are not done with your food then settle your cheeks in the bar. The long gaps from the time we received our drinks, the appetizers, and the main course did allow for us to have good reflective conversations. Smiles shared all around.
The Drinks:
Zombie: A good try, but no zombification occurred. My will was strong.
KAMAAINA: Very good! A refreshing drink that didn’t taste too girlie. If anything Vic’s does hook up the drinks and I enjoyed hers better than mine to tell the truth.
The Food:
BBQ Pork Spareribs:
Good flavor but a bit greasy. The sauce doubled as a dip for the calamari due to the tasteless wasabi aioli.
Crispy Calamari with Wasabi aioli:
Unremarkable, salty, and the wasabi aioli was sans wasabi. Green Kermit the Frog juice is what it looked like.
Phad Thai, Sugar Snap Peas, Beans sprouts, Carrots, Cilantro & Peanuts Tofu:
A poor attempt, tasted like glazed sugar noodles with more bean sprouts than noodles. The tofu was the only tasty element of this dish.
Ok, so we will try Trader Vics’s again. Just not in the bar. The restaurant is fine and I’ve always had a good experience there. The drinks are strong enough (with a strong price) so go at HH. The food is good too, just stay out of the Bermuda Triangle that is the bar area.

Best Happy Hour in Bellevue– hands down (and I do a lot of happy hour-​ing)! Great menu & price of food and good selection of drinks. Try the Vodka mai tai — yum (although it tastes different every time I go). I’ve tried all food items on their current HH menu and would recommend pretty much everything except the spring rolls and fried rice. Group favorites have been the calamari, prawns, bbq sliders, and sushi. Items range in the $ 3-​$ 5 range and you get a really good portion. Side note, I’ve heard the cosmos are excellent here. They aren’t stingy with the alcohol too. I’ve had to ask for more mixer on several occasions.
I’ve been here a couple of times for lunch/dinner…not really interested in going back. The menu is boring and the food not so great. I only go to TV’s for HH.
Parking is free in the Lincoln Square garage. The ambience is festive. Waitstaff is not always attentive, but this place can get pretty busy and chaotic.

After reading some of the reviews on here, I expected this place to suck. You know how when you go into somewhere with low expectations, but often times, because your expectations were so low, things end up seeming way better? I think that’s what happened when I came here…
I just came for happy hour. But I had a Vodka Mai Tai and the Curried fries which were pretty awesome! The drinks were STRONG too! I think someone had written that the drinks were weak… but I was sitting with a friend and didn’t know the bartender was pouring our drinks. He free poured Skyy vodka into a glass and I remember jokingly saying «Wow, good luck to whoever that’s going to» (which happened to be me).
The curried fries were way different than I expected but really good! I love how the fries were really thinly chopped rather than the chunky, fat ones. The spice on there surprised me at first, but I found myself oddly addicted.
The happy hour was really well priced & I was able to get a seat right away at the bar! I think I’d definitely come back here!

I’ve been here 2 or 3 times for happy hour and once for dinner. The happy hour is good, but gets busy fast so get there early. The menu items are yummy (except the sushi was waaay too salty when I had it). Mai tai prawns were excellent and fried calamari was to die for. I didn’t even know I liked fried calamari, but I do here! The drinks are all full of tropically goodness, which I like because I’m an alcohol wussy, but some other friends who just had regular drinks complained they were weak.
When we had dinner, it was good, but I actually like happy hour better. I didn’t pay for my dinner, but if I had, I probably would have been irritated. I got pad thai and it was pretty sweet, which was kind of strange, and I didn’t even eat half of it.
Odd location too, you’ll miss it if you don’t know that it’s in what I can only describe as an alleyway that leads to the parking garage.

I came here for a lunch meeting in a private room today… after I found the place. I was super late since I didn’t think to look under the mall across from the Westin. Oops.
Service was far better than I am accustomed to seeing in Seattle. Therefore, I suspect the staff is not from here.
Quality of entrees varies drastically, so order with care.
I should come back for the HH sometime. The place is festooned with a ridiculous amount of «ZOMG BEST COCKTAILZ» plaques and stickers.

Excellent HH. The food is super inexpensive during HH and their HH wine is decent. The best part about it was that they have complimentary Valet parking if your going to the restaurant, so you don’ t have to deal with parking in the main lot and hiking it over the restaurant.
Some day I will have to try a meal in the restaurant, but you gotta try the HH. :o)

I have only visited Trader Vic’s once, but I enjoyed it immensely. The prices are not low, but not anything worse than what you’ll pay at any other upscale restaurant serving unique gourmet food in the Seattle area. Tucked in a lower level of the Bellevue’s Lincoln Square, The outside looks cave like, stepping into the Trader Vic’s is an instant transportation to a tropical nostalgia.
I started off with the «Scorpion» cocktail. It came with a beautiful, fragrant Gardenia floating on the top. The drink was interesting, not too sweet, and large with the perfect amount of alcohol. I’d have to say it was most deserving of its $ 10.00 price tag. The best part was, I got to enjoy the beautiful sweet-​scented Gardenia throughout my whole meal.
Hawaiian bread was delivered to start off with. It was sweet and tasty, but it wasn’t warm and the butter it came with was unsalted and hard. Two pet peeves of cold bread, unsalted butter and mine! I ordered the Halibut with Shiitake Mushrooms. It came with bok choy and the potato croquettes. Everything about my dish was perfect. All of the textures balanced together perfectly. The halibut was moist and tender. The mushrooms were amazing. The croquettes are super delicious-​perfectly creamy on the inside, light and crunchy on the outside. Perhaps there could have been a little more sauce drizzled on top of the croquettes. But, I was definitely craving these things a week later!
My boyfriend had the Duck. It was good, but I remember my dish much more fondly. Our waiter was OK, not bad but not outstanding.
I really enjoyed Trader Vic’s throwback to the WW2 era’s «South Pacific.» Trader Vic’s in its heyday was compared to Seattle’s elite Canlis restaurant. Perhaps the scene is not as vibrant and popular today as it once was, it also means something different to our generation.
Try to take it for what it is, enjoy the food, and the ambiance. Try a Mai Tai straight from the person who invented them. Still apprehensive? Check out the happy hour specials, they are pretty unbeatable. I think Trader Vic’s is a lovely vintage tropical getaway, in a not too far away destination of Bellevue.

This was my first time at a Trader Vics. I normally stear clear of ‘Asian Fusion’ joints b/​c if you’re Asian you know thats code for non-​Asians attempting to make Asian inspired dishes but have no freakin clue what their doing. And the prices are usually way overpriced.
But the tiki torches and tropical décor sucked us in & It was only place did not have a wait on a FRIDAY night (tip: this is ALWAYS a bad sign) and we were desperate as it was dinner time. So we go in & sit down, I open the menu and BLAO! — prices are CRAZY expensive! e.g. half roasted chicken with teri sauce = $ 22, coconut something crusted pork chops = $ 27, etc etc. I end up ordering the Imperial Beef with vegi’s and shitake mushrooms. comes with a side of rice. Flavor and portion was decent but not worth the price. The rice was WACK — uncle bens I think. Service was good, our server was OK. She didnt offer up what the specials were, which was disappointing. Overall, another ONE & DONE!

I’ve been here a half dozen times, now, and I’ll go back. Dinner was less than spectacular and will not be my main draw. The food, while well prepared and generally decent, was not worth the money I was paying for it. Nothing in the three times that I’ve had dinner here has blown me away. The flavors were generally bland or, if they stood out a little subtle — not in a good way.
However, happy hour is very good at Trader Vic’s. The drinks are appropriately priced. The bar is well stocked. The food? Well, so-​so, but better than many a bar food and at a decent price during happy hour. Try the curry waffle fries — best thing there.
We took over a section of the bar during happy hour to celebrate a birthday party. The waitress did a good job of managing the group of 12. They didn’t blink an eye when we told them what we were up to. We had a good experience.

I’ve visited the (now defunct) Beverly Hills Trader Vic’s, so I wasn’t expecting much from the Bellevue location. I was in town visiting my sister, so I suggested we go there for happy hour. This TV’s is located at the bottom of a big building and next door to a big hotel. It looks fairly new, which kind of stinks because most of the charm of the BH Trader Vic’s was the kitschness of the place. The interior makes up for the bland exterior. All that you see outside are 2 well endowed tiki statues. Inside, there’s stuff hanging everywhere. fishing nets from the ceiling, tikis on the table, masks, all sorts of things to look at. The bar was empty at 3pm. It smelled like urine near our booth. like it was in the air :(I don’t know why, but it did. Eventually we got used to the smell and could no longer smell it, but that’s just gross. Our waitress was also the bartender. My sister and I both ordered a $ 5 happy hour cocktail. a Zombie for her, a Bellevue Beach Bum for me. We figured for $ 5, the drinks would be weak. Not even close. All we needed was that one drink each. They were SUPER strong. We also ordered some happy hour munchies. edamame ($ 3), cajun spiced waffle fries ($ 3) (damn good), and macadamia nut and coconut chicken tenders ($ 4) (also damn good). The happy hour appetizer portions were really big and good quality for the prices. So for $ 20, we both had a really strong yet nicely tropical drink, and 3 yummy appetizers. Not bad at all.
I docked a star for the pee smell, and another for the lack of pretty tropical garnishes that TV’s is famous for.
I will defintely return next time I’m in the Seattle area, but only for happy hour.

Like the atmosphere, love the service, but I would only go back there for happy hour. Took my boyfriend there and we JUST missed happy hour (traffic, blah, blah) but we decided to stick around for dinner. Neither of us were very impressed with the food and for the price, that was a huge disappintment. I was hyping it up beforehand, too. So I just got him drunk on Mai Tais and called it good.
Anyhow, point: Great drinks, very cool atmosphere, an ideal place for an after-​work happy hour or other HAPPY HOUR outing, but not so much for dinner.

Wow, they serve food?
No seriously, I’ve never been here to eat. My usual M.O. is to go buy tickets for a movie, then come down and have a foofy tropical drink and go the movie. Drinks have always seemed fine to me. Never had one watered down. Where I certainly wouldn’t go here for a martini, fine tequila or a nice scotch, they certainly fit the bill when I want something with tropical fruit and an umbrella.
But really folks, if you go here expecting something other than a kitschy tiki bar, the problem is probably not with the bar.

Somehow I always end up here. It isn’t because Tony is manning the bar most nights, or the fried selections such as Crab Rangoon or Crispy Prawns are gut bombs, or the free parking. In fact, I don’t know why I do this at all, until tonight that is…
Why visit Paris anymore when the brand new general manager here is the most impersonal, non Industry french national working a room in the Northwest? I am actually saving money getting this kind of abuse locally! What a bargain!
As I pride myself for being the Hedda Hopper of Seattle food and beverage, it is with sinister pleasure hearing how the staff simply despise this new situation. Fortunately, the food is as average as it ever was, and the room? as unexciting as before.
Message to Trader Vics: You have fantastic brand name locations, why is this one such a dud? Can you say, DJ? Promoter? Perhaps a little history lesson about what Trader Vics was? Errol Flynn and Bill Powell hanging from tiki lamps… but today? Copper wiring salespeople killing time before the appointment @ Microsoft procurement department for server farms. Whoo hooo, Party Over Here.
Something, anything.
Merci.

Okay, no need to sugar coat this — this place is mediocre at best and mediocre and over priced at worst. And if it weren’t for the fact that my waitress was really charming and the drinks were really stiff I’d be giving them one star (that said the drinks were still not cheap).
For starters, the food is WAY over priced — but it is Lincoln Center — so I guess that’s just par for the course. That said, the food was totally mediocre. The ribs were over cooked, the calamari was so-​so, and the crab ragone was — eh CRAP.
I guess this is what I get for breaking my first boss’ #2 rule — NEVER eat at a tiki bar. Anyway, I could rant on for quite a bit on this, but let me just say its totally not worth the wait as the middle aged bellevue-​ites seem to flock to this place cause apparently your taste buds bland as you grow older and well — awe heck who knows why they come here. Let’s just suffice it to say its over priced, the wait is far too long, and aside from stiff well mixed drinks the food (from my sampling) sucks.

I understand Trader Vic’s used to be quite the hangout in the Seattle area 20 – 30 years ago until, like too many great places we remember, it fell into disrepair and subsequently out of favor with locals. Not having lived in Seattle during the Trader Vic’s heyday, I’ve got absolutely no nostalgiac yen beckoning me to cross 520 during rush hour in order to make the 4−6pm Happy Hour time slot. The gift card burning a hole in my pocket did do the trick, though.
After spending an hour in the car traveling between Queen Anne and Bellevue in the pouring rain, we were happy to arrive at our destination. Trader Vic’s is located in Lincoln Square, and we were thankful to have a parking garage in which to leave our vehicle.
Based on previous reviews as well as advice from our gift card giver, we suspected that visiting TV’s during happy hour would be the right choice for us. Upon sitting in a corner booth at the bar and opening up the gargantuan menus, we confirmed our suspicions. Great happy hour selections at good prices. The drink menu was extensive and quite inspired by the establishment’s theme. Stephen ordered a Grey Goose martini («too much vermouth,» he said), and I ordered a cosmopolitan (sweet, not the best but not the worst). Be warned: for slightly below average drinks, TV’s prices are high. Perhaps we should have gone with the island-​inspired items. Maybe some other time.
For the grub, we ordered a salad (tasty), butternut or similar squash soup (creamy but bland), shoestring fries (one of the best-​tasting items we ordered), kobe sliders (unremarkable), macadamia chicken tenders (plain; the dipping sauce definitely helped) and calamari (large plate, good sauces). We each had dessert, too, can you believe THAT? Oink oink. A gluten-​free girl, there wasn’t much of a selection for me, though I did wonder what a Polynesian Snowball was. I settled on the sorbet, which was very good, while Stephen selected the hot lava chocolate cake. The cake arrived in a bowl, an odd choice he pointed out, since a flatter surface allows the «lava» content to ooze out from the cake and onto the plate. Verdict: not enough lava.
We enjoyed the people watching, the opportunity to use a gift card from a generous friend, and a new dining experience. Will we be back? Certainly not for dinner – prices are way too high, especially if the quality is as average as what we tasted in the bar. Hit us with another gift card and an unbooked Friday night, however, and we’ll make the trek over the bridge into TV’s Polynesian paradise.

EDIT: I went here for dinner the other night and I have to say this place is excellant… food, service, drinks… I’m upping my previous report (Below) to 5 stars (from4), I hardly EVER give 5 stars out! Bring an expense account, but GO.
I love this place… tonight before hitting a movie at Lincoln Square we had some Pu Pu’s and they were great!!! I was a wee lad when I would sneak into the Trader Vic’s at the Plaza Hotel in New York. They took my fake ID and I was instantly addicted to Navy Grogs and Mai Tai’s. So tonight I had a Navy Grog…
The service tonight was VERY good, our server was very on the ball, fast and cheerful. The food came very quickly, and everything was really good. The prices are high, but what do you expect from a place that is in BELLEVUE next to the snobby Westin? It looked like Park Place motors out in front of that place…