Ocho — Restaurant in Seattle

Horrible experience. We visited this place hoping to find delicious tapas based on the reviews from Google. We ordered three dishes, the mushroom toast, dumplings and salad. To our surprise, all of these dishes were made spicy by adding red pepper flakes despite not being stated in the menu.

When we told the waiter, he replied with "Spanish food is always spicy". My friend, who is from Spain, was quick to point out that this is very far from the truth and should be listed in the menu since she's sensitive to these peppers.

So we decided to order another mushroom toast, but this time without the red peppers. The waiter said this wouldn't be a problem; however, when he brought the food it came with the red peppers again.

At this point, we were not happy with the service and went to speak with the waiter one more time. He became extremely irritated and told us that we had been disrespectful by criticizing their food and that he had warned us that the food was all pre-made with spicy peppers. This was not what he had told us earlier, so he was clearly lying to us now.

We asked to speak with a manager, and the waiter said he was in charge. However, another person came from the bar, spoke with us and voided our tab.

We left this restaurant in complete and utter shock given how poorly we were treated. When we asked the waiter how we had been rude/offensive to him, he refused to give us an answer and instead kept saying that if we didn't pay our bill we would never be allowed to dine in that restaurant ever again.

Pro tip: If you work in the service industry, you cannot treat your customers this way. This issue would have been easily resolved by simply speaking to us and not acting...

TLDR: Deviled eggs are really good. No flavored rum. Very dark at night.

A bit loud and cramped so expect to speak up over your small table. Limited side table seats and a bar (it is after all a small bar). Extremely dim atmosphere at night. No, opening your eyes wider won't help you see better. Paparazzi beware of low light conditions! I felt so primitive eating with the tiny tea light next to my meal. The tightly packed and dark setting just about made it feel like I was a caveman. Don't get me wrong, it's a nice place to hang. Ladies and makeup beware--you won't see most of your artistic facial work here at night.

Service: seat yourself, order at the table, check will be brought to you. They do not carry flavored rum.

Menu items are a bit hard pronounce if you are not a native speaker. I just resorted to the old fashioned pointing at what I wanted since it was loud anyway. The alcohol menus is pretty elaborate--they do custom drinks too as long as they have the right stuff.

Deviled Eggs: the best thing on the menu. Sad part is that those suckers cost $2.50 each. I'd sit here and eat them all day otherwise. Nice tang from the capers and the yolk is so creamy and melt in your mouth. The salmon roe was also a nice touch.

Garlic Bread: oh so warm and tasty. Just the right amount of crunch on the outside and soft on the inside. It was a bit on the salty side just by itself so we didn't use much of the butter or olive oil that it came with.

Fried Potatoes: fried to perfection--crisp on the outside and soft inside. Beware that red sauce is spicy! If you can't handle it, I suggest requesting it on the side because it is poured over the potato...

Instead of going to Ocho, here's my advice: take about $80 or $100 in paper money -- it doesn't matter in what denominations -- and burn them in your sink or your backyard or just out on the sidewalk. If you're not the kind of person who thinks burning cash is a good idea, then you probably are the kind of person who shouldn't go to Ocho. Yes, it's small and it's sort of New York-ish, if you like that sort of thing. It is also one of the loudest places I have ever been outside of a Rammstein concert, and I'm talking about a Wednesday early evening when not even all of the tables were full. It is deafening in there. As you can imagine, however, what really galls me about Ocho are the prices. I was actually doing reasonably well until we got to the deviled eggs. They sell one half of one small deviled egg for $2.50. Let me repeat: one half of an egg. A small egg. $2.50. The signature cocktails are interesting or perhaps I should say "interesting." They are definitely for people who think things like rosemary and beets belong in booze. I do not happen to be one of those people. I am especially not one of those people when the cost of said cocktail is $10 ($2 less if you go during happy hour). I am most assuredly not one of those people if I have to sit next to some Steve Bannon-looking gentleman complaining about how the "help" is screwing up the remodeling of one of his several houses. But that's who they're looking for here. The prices are meant to keep ordinary people out and give people with cash to flaunt a place to flaunt it, not because the proprietor cares about providing a pleasant experience. So, well done Ocho, you've kept us out, and we...