Triple Door happy hour: Satays and other Wild Ginger appetizers now on the menu

HAPPY HOUR |

The new happy-hour menu at the Triple Door should look familiar to Wild Ginger regulars: boar meat, fragrant duck on bao buns and Vietnamese beef satays.

They're appetizers from the Wild Ginger menu, only cheaper at the Triple Door during happy hour (mostly $2-$4). So Wild Ginger devotees come here early and often now.

The Triple Door and Wild Ginger are both under one roof and under the same ownership, but they offered different bar menus.

Triple Door's bar food had not been as nuanced or as interesting as Wild Ginger's. Now, the Triple Door's bar menu is pretty much the same menu that Wild Ginger in Bellevue serves during its happy hour.

Satays are a Wild Ginger specialty — and now featured at the Triple Door: a Vietnamese beef satay with a pleasant whiff of lemongrass and some tender, honey-sweet short ribs.

The pot stickers can be a bit doughy, but you can morph them into crunchy morsels by ordering them deep fried, like the cooks and barmen here do on their breaks.

Those fragrant duck sliders, though, didn't have that crispy skin and star anise aroma I've had at both Wild Ginger locations.

Better, the Indonesian chicken wings, with a crispy skin covered in a rich, sweet Hoisin glaze, one of its best bar bites.

The Triple Door, 216 Union St., offers happy hour 4-6 p.m. daily and again at 9 p.m.-midnight Sundays-Thursdays. During the night happy hour, the discount only applies to the bar food. $2-$8 satays and other snacks, $3 draft beer, $4 well drinks, $5 house cocktails and $5-$6 wine (206-838-4333 or www.tripledoor.net).

Tan Vinh: 206-515-5656 or tvinh@seattletimes.com