This week we ventured to one of our favorite Midtown spots for a nice meal at the bar of [tag]Ecco[/tag].  This was by far the most vibrant bar scene of all the places we have rated so far.  [tag]Sauced[/tag] had lots of cool kids floating around for sure, but Ecco has a great mix of people that made for excellent people watching and mingling.  The scene this Saturday at 7ish was a combination of regulars mingling with the friendly staff, couples dressed up for a date night having dinner before heading to the Fox, conference attendees working their way out of downtown, and a few people venturing intown from just outside of the city.   If we lived closer and could afford it, we would be here every week just to see if the one bar fly with chest hair coming out of his shirt has better luck with the ladies next time.

Eric was our fabulous bartender (pictured with us) and recommended two signature cocktails – both of which were given rave reviews by Jerry, our wonderful new friend we met while dining at the bar.

I went with [tag]Long Live the Queen[/tag].  This cocktail has been on the menu the longest and during that time has won numerous (national) awards and contests.  It has Bombay Sapphire with hints of Elderflower, lemon, and peach and is served up with fresh mint.

Ashley opted for the [tag]GiGi Says[/tag] – Eric’s own amazing contribution to the signature cocktail list- Hanger vodka, fresh ginger, and a squeeze of lime.  Served in a short glass on the rocks.

The great thing about all of the drinks at Ecco is the integration between the kitchen and the bar -  the chef mixes lots of the ingredients – such as the lavender simple syrup and guests get to taste them in the cocktails as well.  Yum.

Don’t forget our ratings scale is between 1 and 5 Olives.  One Olive = waste of my blogging time;  5 Olives = oh my goodness/yummmmm

My ratings for Long Live the Queen:

Presentation:  4.5 of 5 olives

Taste: 5 of 5 olives – very tasty, not too sweet, and very balanced.  Good stuff.

Creativity: 4 of 5 olives

Overall: 4.5 of 5 olives

Ashley’s ratings for GiGi Says:

Presentation:  4 of 5 olives

Taste: 5 of 5 olives – We both agreed this was one of our favorites so far.  Ashley does not like ginger, but it was such a nice mix that the ginger was very subtle.

Creativity: 4 of 5 olives

Overall: 5 of 5 olives – I realize this does not add up – but we needed more points for taste.  It was just sooo good.

You must go to Ecco for not just the cocktails.  The food is delicious and the staff is incredible.  We have enjoyed every dinner there thus far!   Oh, by the way, we saw Avatar after visit to Ecco and loved loved loved it.

Wow- I know all of you millions of readers wondered why we waited so long to post last week’s review of our outing.  Well, frankly, there is no why.  And it is not like we hated our drinks.  In fact, I think my own drink was my favorite thus far.

We headed to [tag]Sotto Sotto[/tag] with our dear friends, Erika and Jules, and enjoyed our delicious meal there.  We got cocktails before the wine and the cocktails were fabulous.  Alison really liked the Aviation  – which consisted of Zuidam gin, Luxardo maraschino, lemon juice, creme de violette.

Don’t forget our ratings scale is between 1 and 5 Olives.  One Olive = waste of my blogging time;  5 Olives = oh my goodness/yummmmm

Alison’s rating for the Aviation:

Presentation:  3.5 of 5 olives  – (we have decided all our drinks are starting to look alike, but this had nice flecks of ice)

Taste: 2.5 of 5 olives -she always orders this drink accidentally and think it is the ones she likes – but the French Pearl is better despite the name (that’s what she said).

Creativity: 3 of 5 olives

Overall: 3 of 5 olives

Erika and I got the Lovely Day and we felt like it was indeed such a lovely day drinking it.  I did love this drink – it was kinda like I could just gulp it because it was so refreshing.  Yet, I obviously did not gulp it – I sipped it like the lady I am.  The Lovely Day consisted of Miller’s gin, St. Germain elderflower liquer, lemon juice, simple syrup, FeeBros. grapefruit bitters and Angosutra bitters. Yum Yum Yum!

Presentation:  4 of 5 olives

Taste: 5 of 5 olives -could have had more than one!

Creativity: 4 of 5 olives -I rarely think I like bitters – but this drink rocked.

Overall: 5 of 5 olives. Ahhhhhhhh.

Enjoy your wonderful dinner and cocktail at the fabulous Sotto Sotto sometime soon!  You will smile like Alison is doing in this photo as she gets ready to sample the Lovely Day (to the right) and the Aviation.

Sorry we are a little slow this week.  The whole Super Bowl – Saints winning – threw us off so I am just now writing about our [tag]Week 6 of Drinks.[/tag]  Alas, we were a bit lazy on our choice this week – only because we waited until the last minute to do it.  We decided that after a day of shopping at the outlet malls on Saturday, that we would go some place we knew had specialty cocktails – and somewhere we could go that we could dress up since we were looking hot in our cocktail attire for Chip and Kim’s (it’s about time) Engagement Party…

We chose Repast since the owner, [tag]Jeff Truex[/tag], is a wonderful Louisiana man and again, this weekend was all about the Saints.  We sat down and ordered a couple of nice appetizers and (the best being the tuna tartar app…) and we asked our waitress to have the bartender (really, a true Mixologist) decide what we should drink.

The Mixologist chose [tag]The Pimms Shrub and The Blue Coat Gin Drink(name forgotton, Sorry!)[/tag].

I think had it been warmer outside, we would have enjoyed these drinks a bit more.  For some reason, they both were a bit more “Summery” to us and since it was freezing, the drinks -both on ice- made us a bit colder.  But, alas, they were superbly made. (The gin drink is on the left in this photo / the Pimms on the right!)

Don’t forget our ratings scale is between 1 and 5 Olives.  One Olive = waste of my blogging time;  5 Olives = oh my goodness/yummmmm

I made Alison drink the Pimms Shrub: She liked it better than I did.  Repast makes its own Pimms Number 5 and along with that, the drink consisted of fresh squeezed lime juice and fruit shrub (an acid fruit drink).

Presentation:  3 of 5 olives

Taste: 3 of 5 olives

Creativity: 4 of 5 olives – the fact that they make their Pimms is fabulous.

Overall: 3 of 5 olives..we needed a sunny day to enjoy this more.

I chose to drink the nameless Blue Coat Gin drink. (I think it had Bay Leaf in the title and again am sorry that I only wrote down the name of the gin…)  This drink consisted of Blue Coat Gin, Shochu (a Japanese clear distilled spirit similar to vodka,) bay leaf cello, and was topped off with a bitter lemon soda.

Presentation:  3 of 5 olives

Taste: 3.5 of 5 olives

Creativity: 4 of 5 olives – the fact that they even make drinks with shochu and bay leaf cello makes it worth your time.

Overall: 3.5 of 5 olives..again, had it been a warm summer day, I think we would have had more than one!

Get these drinks in the warm weather when you can slurp them down and enjoy chewing the ice and fruit left at the bottom of the glass!