Kismet — Restaurant in Spokane

I kept hearing this place is so great so I needed to finally try it for myself. Now I'm starting to think the rave reviews must be paid reviews. 🤣(It is NOT great. Not by a long shot) First there is almost no parking, on the street, and it's in a pretty bad neighborhood so u don't want to park far away and get broken into. But we managed to grab a spot when someone left, so that wasn't the worst part.

When we walked in, it was one little room with several tables and a cpl boothes squeezed into a way too small space, and SO noisy it's more like a bar atmosphere, not a nice expensive restaurant. You know the type of restaurant where u have to yell to be heard by your dining companions while u eat dinner? Thats this place.

And immediately when we walked in, the older blonde lady who seemed to be running the front was INCREDIBLY rude to us. She snapped "Do u have a reservation?!!" And we said, sorry no, we dont...and she said "honestly I think we're going to be full for at least the next half hour!" like she was dismissing us, and I noticed that right behind her in a booth was a woman whose table was cleared and she was signing the check, and I said..umm, that lady looks like she will be leaving soon i think, and the older blonde lady with the short shorts LAUGHED at me, and said "well I'm not going to ASK her! But SURE you're welcome to wait around if u want!" 🤣 (I COULDN'T EVEN BELIEVE HOW RUDE SHE WAS TO CUSTOMERS!!)

Now why we didn't leave right then is something I wonder about now.. But I still really wanted to see what all the fuss was about! i was committed to the experience 🤷‍♀️ So we decided, ok if we can sit soon we will call this a one and done thing, we won't come back because of the terrible atmosphere and horrendous service, but at least we will see why ppl are saying this place is great and probably have some great food for tonight at least!

So right away the lady in the booth left and we sat b4 it was wiped down, (the dishes were all gone tho, it was just a cpl cups of water and the check left there.) And we didn't want to miss out on the booth. Lol.) (I did notice that the check for the couple who left was 146 dollars tho!! which should also have been a sign, because that's WAYYYYYY too expensive for a 2 person dinner. Lol. Especially in that type of atmosphere. But again, I digress, just another sign missed. The short shorts lady came by soon and rolled her eyes at us and snapped "OK, so we'll clean the table when we CAN!" 🤣 At this point we were already invested and had told the younger dark haired server our drink order so..we just looked at each other like "geez what is her PROBLEM?" 😳 LOL. It felt a little like we were being Punkd then. It was almost funny how over the top rude she was...so we kinda just laughed it off.

We still thought the food was going to be good tho, lol. So we ordered 2 appetizers, the Arepo cakes with pork and the grilled queso, ($16 for 3 tiny mushy corn cakes, and $13 for a round grilled cheese piece that was probably the best part of the meal albeit way too small for the price. Neither of us even wanted to finish the mushy corn cakes they were just 🤮)

We still had hope for the El Cubano sandwich with fries tho...(eternally optimistic i guess) and let me tell u, I've had cubanos before, good ones, and this was NOT a good one. 🤦‍♀️It was a very small sandwich with SO MUCH grease it was dripping, and had a very burnt flavor that was kinda icky too. I felt mildly sick for the rest of the night from all the grease in the food. The fries weren't bad, and the grilled queso was too small but also not bad, the rest was basically way over-pricey and way under-yummy 🤣

But I'm so confused why people like this place now! I really think they're paid reviews and also people wanting to be trendy, and maybe also that the people in this area really don't know what good Latin food IS? (As seen by the terrible local Mexican food options. Lol.) Whatever it is tho, when we left, I apologized to my dining companion for suggesting this place. Would not recommend,...

Kismet has a lot of promise as well as room to grow, based on the meal we had during Restaurant Week 2023. It's been on our radar since it opened, and we were really looking forward to trying it.

First, it's a great space. It's approachable, and though we don't have kids, it seems like a comfortable dining options for families. We started with some drinks (house margarita and spicy lemonade) which were solid. Not great but perfectly fine.

The Restaurant Week menu fell in the $35 tier, and overall we felt we didn't get that value from our plates, which were small and had some balance issues. Everything was perfectly edible, but felt disconnected from the space. Everything about the space says the fare will be casual, but the plating seemed like it was trying to force itself into the fine dining, small plates world. The good: the sauces were consistently good across all our plates. Not excellent, but tasty and punchy. The mango Mezcal sorbet was really enjoyable, and the tres leches cake was good. Also, it's hard to go wrong with short rib: tender and savory!

Growth opportunities: While the sauces had excellent texture and generally good flavor, some were slightly overseasoned and lacked balance. This was particularly true for the bocalo, which had a mole aioli which lacked the complexity of moles and felt aggressively salty and smoky. That sauce really competed with the curtido and the delicate white fish which was cooked well. That plate just felt a bit all over the place. This seemed to be a take on Bacalao - a salted cod dish traditional to Basque cuisine and other parts of the Iberian Peninsula - but really didn't land. The stuffed pepper was also disappointing. The chorizo - which was definitely in the vein of Latin chorizo rather than Spanish - was tasty. The salsa macha added a lovely nuttiness and was the star of the dish. I expect stuffed peppers to melt in my mouth, but the anaheim pepper was very al dente. The pepper also lacked the complexity of flavor I look for in chiles rellenos. I think it is possible to accomplish the kind of fusion Kismet is trying to do and there are so many unique culinary traditions in Latin American and Hispanic cultures that deserve celebrating, but this didn't work. The dishes just aren't there yet and lack cohesion.

We didn't feel like what we got was worth the $100+ tab, but we're glad we tried it. We'll be back and wish them the best of luck. It seems like they're still finding their groove and identity as a restaurant, which is totally...

I'll start off by saying this was picked by our random generator for nearby restaurants. The Customer Service was the best thing about this place. We came in on a Friday evening and when entering the building we were immediately greeted and told we'd need to wait a few minutes to be seated. This was expected it's Friday night places are normally busy. When we were able to be seated we were excited to try out a new place. Kathryn was our waitress and was very friendly and attentive. I ordered my favorite: Dealers Choice, My wife ordered the Chicken "Pot Pie". I also ordered a Dealers Choice Alcohol as well. I was presented with a Limeade the flavor was great. Our meal came; I was presented with Pork Tamales with beans underneath. The flavor of the Tamales was not there. The only thing I could taste was the beans that were stuck to the base of it. The plate has almost as much beans as Tamales if not more. Unfortunately not impressed with the food. My wife however enjoyed her food and only had 2 complaints. The black pepper that was used in the "Pot Pie" was overpowering the other flavors. We both agree on the last point. The portions / experience as compared to the price. They don't add up. Lastly we ordered a Dealers Choice Dessert. We were presented with Tres Leches Cake it looked like an angel food cake with whipped cream and strawberries but the cake it's self didn't taste light as we were expecting it was more packed together and lumpy. Again we want to thank our waitress and the other woman that helped bring us our food. you guys are doing amazing and thank you for your fantastic...