It wasn't long ago that a place like Nirvana would have felt out of place on Vashon, but then the Dairy Queen closed and the Hardware Store (restaurant) opened and the way was paved for new venues offering much better ambiance, food, and drinks. To me, Nirvana is a welcome addition to Vashon's once lazy and boring restaurant scene (if you can ucall it a scene). If this place were in Seattle I could quibble a bit more, but Nirvana brings such a solid, diverse menu and dining experience to the island that it's hard to criticize. The menu has something for everyone, the flavors and preparation are good, and the service is friendly. It also has a very nice little bar. All in all, if you're looking for a nice meal out on Vashon Island, Nirvana is worth checking out.
Review Source:The atmosphere was pleasant and the bartender was very nice but the drinks just were not good. I appreciate what this spot is attempting and feel the potential is there but the drinks just missed their mark. I felt like I was drinking muddled wood chips through a straw.
Lastly, this is not a criticism but a suggestion... If Nirvana was 1/5th the size you could get a cool little cocktail scene going. Cheers.
-Tacoma Pessimist
After waiting six months to visit the latest incarnation of an "Indian" restaurant in this location we were very pleasantly surprised to learn it isn't Indian Cuisine in the slightest. Â Don't get me wrong, I love Indian food but the last two businesses that were here figuratively and literally left a bad taste in our mouth.
We went for the all you can eat Sunday brunch buffet. Â Delicious and homemade biscuits and gravy, cheese blintzes, sausage, bacon, even bangers and mashes! along with fresh fruit, Roaseterie coffee, and a perfect mimosa. Â All for under $65 for the three of us.
Checked out the dinner menu and it looks enticing. Â
We'll be back to check it out... and soon.
I can't imagine anyone returning for a second meal...
If you would like to have an expensive, poor quality, bad-tasting meal with poor service, then this place is for you. Â If not, basically any other place on Vashon Island is better (May's Kitchen being easily the best, Snapdragon is also good).
This place has recently been "reincarnated" into a pretentious, soul-less, expensive "modern cuisine" restaurant. Â I guess that's what "Libations" means? Â
The food was so bad (and expensive), that I nearly got sick. Â No, not sick as in food poisoning, but the flu. Â I had rubbery chicken with roasted potatoes that were mush like they had been cooked several days earlier and microwaved before serving it. Â The whole dish is served sizzling, for no apparent reason, and smoke filled the room and burned the food. Â The menu looks like its been put together by searching on Google for 20 minutes.
The service was equally as bad. Â Pretentious, non-existent service.
Nope! Â
I am a big supporter of local businesses but this place just wasn't very good. Â First, they were out of everything, a classic dying restaurant. Â No corned beef for the Rubin, no blue cheese for the salad, no heat for the soup, wilted greens for the salad. Â Soggy bread on the bottom of the turkey Rubin. Â OK fries, overpriced wine. Â
No way I'd go back for a $50 lunch that included a single entree, a bowl of soup, a single glass of wine, no dessert and a microscopic wilted salad. Â
Decent waiter though.
But pass on this one.
I had a five-star rating on this one before the reopening. Their original chef was more authentic Indian than you will find in the indian-populated bellevue. All my friends - a russian girl, two north indians, two south indians, one vegetarian, and one obnoxiously picky person - all of them were satisfied.
I went there again later, and a new chef had been brought in. He had some new-age experimental cuisine. Wasn't horrible exactly, but my sister was disappointed. We did give him feedback and he was very gallant in listening to her go on and on with her suggestions.
To find Indian food on Vashon is a stretch in itself, and to have found that guy was like hitting Gold! I hope the new chef has got his act together, and makes me upgrade back to a full five stars!
We ate at Nirvana shortly after they reopened, and we really enjoyed it. We had good service, the food was well prepared and they really seemed to be striving to do well. Today we went by for lunch, on a whim, and it was a big mistake. Our waiter seated us, then ran across the street to the florist to drop off a vase. He was supposed to come right back and take our order. He bumped into a couple of high school buddies, so it took him several minutes to get back. The chef was hanging in the bar, where we were sitting, watching football, and wanted to chat (we didn't). Then, when we finally got our food, it really wasn't good. My "croque Vashon" was just ok, the Mornay sauce was uninspired and my husband really did not like his Rueben at all. Meat was flavorless, the dressing had no horseradish kick as promised on the menu and the house made ketchup tasted like medicine. I never did receive my side salad. The waiter ended up comping my wine, but it was really a very unsatisfactory experience.
Review Source:My wife and I tried Nirvana just after the reopening. After years eating in downtown Seattle this restaurant falls a bit short. Considering they seem to bill Nirvana as an upscale place I was surprised to see the decor seemed to be entirely furnished by Ikea, which probably wouldn't be so bad if done by a decorator but this seems like it was just thrown together. My wife got a glass of red and me white. Both wines were what I would call bottom shelf and I am no cork sniffer. Worse still was the bread sticks served in a glass with oil and vinegar. Come on guys at these prices splurge for some basic sourdough - breadsticks make the place feel like olive garden. So far the way things were going it was a 1 star review. However they saved the day with the entrees which we're both very good. Â I had the seared ahi and my wire the lamb loin and both were excellent in their own way. The owner and chef came by the table and were very friendly as was the waitress. We asked if they had a port and the chef ran out to the liqueur store across the street to get some which made our night.
Review Source:I wish that Nirvana could rate more than one star but the sad state of affairs in this restaurant just doesn't cut it.
First of all they just reopened after a remodel with a new menu. Just signifying that it is the day after reopening night. The new menu is ambitious but the decor trendy and dark.
Needless to say we entered with high hopes.
They were out of one of their 6 or so wines and had no suitable alternative. Three different cocktails were ordered and took maybe 30 minutes to get to our table.
We ordered the caesar salad, the vegetable stir fry, the clams and the Mac and cheese. These also took a long time to reach our table. It was almost nine o'clock as well, not even busy so there was no logical explaination for the wait.
The food was a joke. The caesar salad is described in the menu as being "served tableside" they mean that shoved into a wine glass is a very small salad that your waiter will dump onto a plate for you. No actual tableside preparation, they just dump it on a plate in front of you.
The mac and cheese is runny and the pigs stomach they put in it is not the right choice. It mentions that it is served with "broccolini" which is one overly steamed stem of wilted green. Its actually depressing.
The clams were steamed well but the sauce was disgusting. All four of us tried a little and promptly reached for our (luke warm) water. There were five whole cloves of garlic in the sauce which was odd since the sauce had no garlic taste. The cloves were also rock hard which was puzzling.
Have you ever had a stir fry TV dinner by healthy choice? That's what the stir fry was exactly like. Not a single defining characteristic. Utterly bland.
The three cocktails ordered were of differing qualities. The Margarita was disgusting (also passed around and deemed undrinkable by all) the champagne and gin cocktail refreshing and the fruity jolly rancher too sugary.
I had been to Nirvana before and actually enjoyed it. After the remodel I've got to say, they need seriously help.
From what I know about reincarnation, it seems how you do in your present life determines what you will be reincarnated as in the next life. If you have a good life now, it was because you were good in your previous life. If you're good now, you will be even better in the next life. That may be oversimplifying it, or it may be plain ignorance, but that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
As an Indian restaurant, Nirvana was really good. I'll admit, I hadn't had much Indian food before I ate theirs, but I had enough to know that what I was eating was some good, good stuff. It was a great menu with a little bit of everything and I truly looked forward to the times I would eat there. A part of me really misses it, but I know that sometimes change is for the best.
Especially when you live on a small island.
In a location where who knows how many restaurants have popped up and closed their doors, only to fade from memory slightly faster than they were even open, this is a tough place to run a restaurant. But Rohit and Shivali know what they are doing, and they know when to mix things up.
If the restaurant biz is "survival of the fittest", we may very well be looking at our own Bear Grylls -- and they are going to give every other restaurant on this rock a run for their money. If I were one of the "competition", I would be very, very scared.
My wife and I were invited to join them on the opening night after their remodel/reincarnation where the new look, new bar, and new menu were debuted. From the moment you walk in the door, the atmosphere perfectly captures the ambiance of the historic building. The hard wood floors, high ceilings, and exposed duct work are only part of it. The light fixtures, pictures on the wall, and the new bar go a long way to really set the stage for what's about to come.
The wait staff and servers are very friendly and conscientious about their work. Small details that I won't waste time explaining reveal that if they are this intentional about even the smallest details, then that philosophy most likely trickles up to the bigger ones.
The menu has a great assortment of different dishes within a great price range. I am convinced that the only person who wouldn't find something to eat on this menu probably doesn't like food to begin with.
I'll be honest, I wish there were more than just two Indian dishes on there, but I understand that you can only have so much, and in the name of cultural diversity of the cuisine, it makes sense.
We ordered the Mac and Cheese Extreme for the kids (four cheeses, applewood smoked pork belly, and roasted broccolini). My wife had the Kobe Beef Burger (1/3lb of waygu beef, Jack Daniels carmelized onions, tillamook smoked cheddar cheese, pub roll, chipotle mayo, and rosemary sea salt fries), and I had the Tandoori Chicken.
As the menu states, "Our food is made from scratch, to order, and organic when possible. Good food takes time and lots of love so relax, indulge, and enjoy!" This isn't fast food folks, so if you're in a hurry you should probably just keep going to the ferry and grab some crap on the mainland. Otherwise, set your watches to island time and learn to be still. It doesn't take an obscenely long amount of time for the food -- in fact, I don't think it takes much longer than any other sit-down restaurant -- but it is a great opportunity to try one of their specialty cocktails. My wife went for the "Rohito" -- a rose-infused mojito, named after the patriarch of the restaurant, Rohit. (There is also a cocktail named for Shivali which sounds really good too)
Once the food came, it was delivered piping hot so you know it wasn't just sitting under a heat lamp in the back kitchen waiting for someone to deliver it. The presentation was very tasteful and the portions were quite large. A great show that what you are about to eat is truly special.
Of course I had to try a little bit of everyone's.
The mac and cheese was amazing -- hands down the best I've ever had. Truly a gourmet treat. The only suggestion I would give was around the pieces of pork belly. They are quite large (which normally I would like) and chewy, so I think trimming the fat off the edges and perhaps making them smaller would be nice. Other than that, the dish itself was exquisite. Did I just use the word "exquisite" to define mac and cheese? Yes. Yes I did!
My wife's burger was one of the best burgers I've ever had. The bun was amazing and the hamburger was very tender and cooked to perfection. Amazing. Very well a contender for the best burger on the island.
My tandoori chicken was also extremely delicious and a huge portion that I couldn't finish, but was welcomed as leftovers the next day.
All in all, Nirvana just got a surge of energy that could very well propel them to the spot as the top restaurant on Vashon. Do yourself a favor and check them out!!
The breakfast wasn't bad, not the best I've had, and the prices were "okay." Â I've come to expect paying a few bucks extra on Vashon Island, if you don't, don't come here. Â
The complaint I have, is with one young busser, with longer dark hair, who I could hear talking to his girlfriend on his cell phone, than bitching to our waiter.
My girlfriend and I were the first ever to have breakfast served by their cooks as of 9/22/12, this morning...that's what the owner or head chef told us, anyway. Â
I do give credit to our young waiter, I could tell he was nervous and not that experienced, but he really did seem to care, and tries, I'm sure, after some time, he'll become an excellent waiter. Â
When I was a teen, I worked in the food service as a busser, and waiter, I know how it is, and tip my hat off to anybody who does a good job at it...
I do believe they need to work on their breakfast selection, was only 7 or 8 options, if I remember right, all for about 9 to 11 bucks, give or take. Â
I do like it better than the hardware store almost across the street, that place is a huge rip off. Â I honestly have no idea why The Hardware Store is such a popular spot!
We visited Nirvana a couple of times in December after it first opened. At the time, they had a very limited menu, but the food I did have - chicken tikka masala and garlic naan - was fresh and well-priced. We haven't been back recently, but their newly expanded menu looks wonderful. I've been happy to see more people frequenting Nirvana and I can't wait to try the potato samosas and saag paneer at my next visit.
Review Source:
The 5 best restaurants in the 2015 Denver Restaurant Week
3,611 Views | Category: Denver
The complete list of 2015 Denver Restaurant Week businesses
1,972 Views | Category: Denver
The tourists' guide to Portillos: 5 must have dishes
3,318 Views | Category: Chicago
Pho = Pronounced "fuh" not "foe" for pho-king sake
2,915 Views | Category: Denver
Indulgery selected to exhibit at Collision Conference
2,987 Views | Category: Press Releases
Not Logged In
BUSINESSES
Local Businesses
Near Me
My Favorites
SOCIAL
Blog & News
MY ACCOUNT
Login
Register
Contact Us
Add Your Business
