Ramie — Restaurant in Seattle

Amazing! Taste, presentation, service and pricing. Exceeded our expectations! My husband and I are foodies and I am a very good chef so going out for us usually ends up with him bitching about not good flavor and me thinking I could have done better but this place def was not that. We went here because it is the sister resturant to Basa (resturant in Bainbridge island) that we love. It’s amazing that Vietnamese food can be Americanized, elevated without lacking in flavor. This is an example of how things can be twisted to add more flavor. Okay let’s break it down to what we ordered: 2 appetizers: Bo Tai chanh and Rice rolls with shrimp head butter.

The Bo Tai chanh is like beef carpaccio. It’s a thinly sliced beef w oil seasoning topped with a bed of water crest. The fried shallots on top gave it a great mix in texture and flavor.

The rice roll was super fresh and eveyone knows that shrimp head has the most flavor. I love the mix of flavors, it was very rich and delicious. I really like how the resturant uses calamasi for all their citruses. Calamansi is commonly used in Filipino cuisine but love the use of it here becuase it provides a sweet citrus finish. Great for comfort food. Keeps its fresh and compliments the Umami.

Next up were the two main courses. We ordered the grilled chicken and the grilled Benzino fish. The chicken came out with 3 sauce's and cucumber kimchi. The sauces were super flavorful and complemented the chicken very well. The chicken was cooked perfectly, and the kale was great. The side sauces reminded us of Korean Banchan. The fish was displayed perfectly and even was mostly deboned.

One very important piece of information is that the freshly made in House banh Tiêu (fry bread with sesame) with the honey butter was so good! Eveyone must order their own. That honey butter was to die for.

The desserts were top tier ! They looked so beautiful I didn’t want to eat it but it tasted as great at it looked.

I’m so happy I can say we ate at a fine dining experience that was memorable and worth every penny. Will def be coming back and...

Tl;dr - We just dined here tonight and my main thought walking away was that this place feels destined for greatness. Please go!

We got nearly everything from the menu, off the top of my head: the fried bread, oysters, hamachi crudo, beef carpaccio, rice rolls, queen's oyster mushroom, risotto, charred rice, branzino, pig trotters, and both desserts (a black bean mousse deal and a fruit pavlova). The mushrooms were a real standout: perfect texture, balanced sweetness, excellently cooked in butter. The hamachi crudo had an interesting sorbet pairing that combined the crudo's saltiness with some acid and sugar. If it were possible to just have a bowl of the black bean dessert I would've had it to go.

If I had to pick nits, the branzino's presentation (deboned, on a plate topped with confit (?) scallions and fried shallots) was a little plain compared to all the other stellar arrangements. On the flip side, I liked that the plate was flanked by a trio of sauces that represents Vietnamese cuisine in the north (onsen egg fish sauce), south (sambal), and by this restaurant (chimichurri). We also thought the risotto didn't taste quite on the same level as the other dishes, but as a mostly-vegetarian I understand the levers are a little limited.

I also had their version of a martini and it was fantastic. I'd love for vermouth blanc to take off!

Service was excellent, we all appreciated that, as they took our drink orders, it was already being communicated to the bar via some handheld device. Our server was also kind enough to formally hand us off to the next person when his shift ended.

Ambiance: the outdoor seating looks excellent, but we sat in the middle as a party of six. One compliment I heard was that, in the space's previous iteration, the place we sat was usually blinded by the Sun's reflection from across the street, but whoever designed Ramie evidently added solar shades to blunt the effect. Nice!

Last but not least, yes the place is firmly not on the cheap side, but if you've read this far into the review, it's clear I think...

My partner and I came here for their Valentine's Day dinner (5 course menu) and were really excited. Unfortunately, we left before we were served all the dishes. It was a very disorganized and chaotic operation inside.

Here is the sequence of events: -arrived at 7:50 pm for our 8 pm reservation, there was a backed up line at the hostess booth -waited in line for 40 minutes before getting seated at the bar at 8:30 pm -8:50 pm: finally got seated to our table -9:12 pm: the amuse bouche came -9:17 pm: first course came -9:26 pm: second course came -9:50 pm: still no sight of the 3rd course -10:00 pm: my partner and I complained about the slow service and asked to get refunded so we can leave

We had high hopes for this restaurant and are willing to come back on a normal night, as I am optimistic that experience would be better.

Pros: -Cocktails were great and innovative, loved the Vietnamese inspiration in them -Ambience is nice, they had roses and petals decorated everywhere for Valentine's Day -Owner and wait staff are very kind and understanding of our complaints

Cons: -Understaffed that night; we saw our designated waitress once during our whole seating -First course was a ravioli that was severely undercooked -Second course was a salad that had no flavor -Slow service

If the restaurant sees this review, my advice if you plan to do set course menus in the future would be to offer set reservation times for each wave of guests, i.e. 5 pm for first wave, then 7 pm for second wave, and 9 pm for last wave. This allows for better flow of guests coming in and out at the same time, and for the courses to come out all at once in sequential order. I think the staggered reservation availability offered online made it more chaotic for the kitchen and staff, and tables weren't clearing out...