Hot Dish Review

Despite the heat, I love outdoor dining in the Summer. And LC likes to hear live music. So when considering our options for Saturday night, I conjured up a place with a patio and a band….Park Tavern. Plus, I had a craving for their tuna tacos and a bottle of cold unfiltered sake.

With its ideal location on Piedmont Park, the restaurant and its banquet rooms are a popular choice by brides for their nuptuals. We arrived to find a wedding in progress upstairs as well as a wedding reception in a tent by the park. As luck would have it, an entertaining cover band was playing inside the tent, so we chose a hightop table nearby where we could hear the music…and because those tables have comfy padded vinyl chairs.

Our server came by for our drink order and returned with LC’s margarita and hot filtered sake. I didn’t bother to taste it. We ordered edamame to nibble on. Her second attempt was cold filtered sake, so I gave up and ordered a glass of prosecco, which she delivered in a highball glass. Good Lord!

We enjoyed the soybeans, vibrant green against the white dish, as we watched the sunset. A stray bride made an appearance. And so did our order of tuna tacos. These little gems are made with fried wonton wrappers, filled with avocado, jalapeno slaw, and thick slices of seared rare Hawaiian sashimi-grade tuna, drizzled with wasabi mayo and sweet teriyaki. The quality of the tuna is evident….it melts in your mouth. A whisper-thin slice of fresh jalapeno garnishes each tiny taco (there are five per order), adding an extra kick to the sweet, salty, spicy dish. We love them!

When our server returned I ordered another prosecco, this time requesting a champagne glass. We followed up the tacos with a sushi roll called Dyno-mite, with tempura shrimp, spicy tuna, and avocado inside, topped with hamachi, crab, and spicy mayo. I usually shun sushi (say that 5 times fast!) with fried ingredients, but this one contained too many tempting elements to ignore. What goes better with sushi than onion rings? We got a side order, but it was only three huge ones, a little heavy on the breading.

We enjoyed the wedding party’s band and sipped our drinks while we waited for our sushi to arrive. Another bride whooshed by followed by three bright blue bridesmaids. The festivities captured the essence of the evening….romantic and optimistic. The sweet mood was contagious, prompting an impromptu proposal from LC.

So spur of the moment, in fact, that no ring was handy to make the words official. Guess we shouldn’t have eaten all three of those onion rings!

Turns out the tuna tacos aren’t the only thing we love.

500 10th Street NE 404-249 0001