Being a vegetarian who hates spicy food, your appetizer list is out, though I woud love to try an apple dumpling soup without the chicken. Why not have two separte soups with the option of combining them?
Pineapple Briase & Plus Cobbler sound yummy.
Another foodie checking in. I call myself a pleasure foodie, rather than a technical one I’ll try almost anything once, and like nearly all of it. I love spicy foods and dairy.
That said, If I had to make a choice based on the menu alone, I would pass it up. A couple of points:
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Not everyone is familiar with fancy terms. If there is a better way to state this for clarity’s sake then do so. I didn’t understand several terms, and though I’m certain I’ve HAD such items before and enjoyed them, I don’t like having to google my menu.
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You need to highlight the main part of a dish better. For most people that means the protein, whatever it is.
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You need a beef dish. Unlike other posters I suggest straying far away form the traditional fare, but add something that reads “Hearty” to me.
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Pricing is adequate on the mains, but exorbitant on the starters IMHO. There is a trend about right now to make the starters higher to grab more money out of the lunch crowd that splits and app and drinks. That is lame. Nothing on that menu justifies those prices. Chill it down by two bucks and I’m all over it. If not, then I better be able to make a small meal on it. Though I’m a big eater, inadequate portion sizing/ cost will drive me off faster than anything else in an otherwise decent restaurant.
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I suggest a few plainer options, cooked elegantly simple for those who are not so adventurous. Most likely a grilled whitefish of some type and perhaps a simple pasta, or salad?
I don’t know if I am a serious foodie or not, but my party and I would order one of everything and share.
I will go against the tide and say the menu sounds delicious. Add a beef dish, and you’ll never get rid of me.
Regards,
Shodan
I’d start with the avocado-roasted corn salad and then move on the the roasted chicken. If you’d chosen a different fish for the fish and chips (I don’t see salmon really working for fish and chips) to some sort of firm white fish like a fresh trout or grouper, then I’d totally go for the fish and chips.
And the habanero tres leches… ooooo… she sexxxxy. 
I’m just going to go through these one by one and comment on whether or not I’d eat it.
Savory Black Bean Pastry
Layers of black beans, poblano and jalapeño peppers, pancetta and queso fresco. $8.95
Yes.
Avocado-Roasted Corn Salad
Avocado, roasted corn, queso fresco and banana chips, drizzled with a balsamic reduction. $7.95
Yes.
Dumpling Soup
Chicken and apple dumplings in broth, garnished with fried scallions. $7.95
Yes.
Chile Pepper Fries
French-fried Fresno and jalapeño chiles, served with mango mayonnaise. $7.95
What is mango mayonnaise? Maybe.
Crab Empanadas
Empanadas filled with Dungeness crab, cream cheese and bell peppers, served with plum salsa. $9.95
**Oh hell yes. **
Fish and Chips
Pan-fried pistachio-encrusted salmon fillets, served with blue potato wedges and red cabbage slaw. $16.95
No. I’m tired of fish and chips, and wouldn’t order them unless I had some reason to believer they are particularly awesome.
Veggie Burger
Lentil and split pea burger, with house-made farmer cheese, poblano relish and mayonnaise; served with yam fries. $13.95
Hypocritical Option: Add pancetta for $3.
No.
Roasted Chicken and Savory Cranberries
Herb-roasted chicken; cranberry sauce roasted in the bird; château taro roots. $15.95
Sure. I wouldn’t be super-excited about it, but it seems fine enough.
Pineapple Braise
Pineapple braised in a roasted peanut-tomato sauce; served over savory vegetable cornbread. $14.95
Yes
Spinach-Chorizo Sauté
Sauté of spinach, house chorizo and couscous in an arbol-pineapple sauce; served with yogurt and an apple-walnut salad. $14.95
Spinach chorizo? Okay, yes.
I almost never order dessert at a restaurant, but if I were going to for some reason, I’d probably get the cannoli or plum cobbler.
I like you. 
-MOL, who doesn’t even have ketchup in her fridge.
Vegetarian who loves spicy food, here. I knew the food terms; for some of the more difficult ones, you might consider a tiny list at the bottom of the menu, defining them. I know that Vie in the suburbs of Chicago does/did similar, and they got a Michelin star this year.
The braised pineapple sounds interesting, but I’m worried that the description doesn’t make it seem like it fits the pricing, compared to other entrees.
I see veggie burgers everrywhere in restaurants, right behind the grilled portabella mushroom sandwich/burger. The description at least makes it sound like it’s interesting and homemade.
Agreed with the ‘random fruit’ comments - banana chips are especially not interesting here. Some fruit is fine, but on a menu this small, it’s overdone.
I’d order either the Savory Black Bean Pastry or the Crab Empanadas, depending on what my husband was ordering (so we could trade bites and sample two dishes).
None of the listed entrees look like something I’d order so I’d prbably skip that and just order dessert. Depending on my mood that day, it would likely be the Rose Mousse or the Habenero Tres Leches.
Nothing on that menu at all. If thats all your having, I think you’d have a hard time finding business. Why not at least have a hamburger?
Because some of us actually eat outside of the kindergarten. Believe it or not, there is a whole wide world of food out there. I’ve had some damn fine gourmet burgers, but I don’t think this menu is the place for one.
I’m not a foodie, but on thinking more about it, I have a couple of practical points. First, a restaurant absolutely must have a broad appeal to be successful. The key here is that most folks don’t go to a restaurant alone. Suppose your restaurant appeals to, say, 30% of the population. That doesn’t sound too bad… Except it means that, out of randomly-selected couples, you’re only going to get 9%. For parties of three, you’re down below 3%, and for parties of four, there’s less than a 1% chance that they’ll all like it (and therefore over a 99% chance that they’ll reject your place out of hand). And even once you reduce to those small percentages, you’re still competing against the places with a wider selection.
Second, I notice that your menu has very little overlap between ingredients. A successful restaurant will generally have a small number of ingredients, but which they combine in a large number of ways. This is important for reducing waste: At those prices, I expect that all of your ingredients are going to be very fresh, which means that at some point, you’re going to have to discard anything that isn’t fresh enough any more. If, say, you end up going a few days where you sell less of the fish and chips than you expected, that means you’ve got extra salmon, and extra blue potatoes, and extra cabbage, and possibly extra pistachios, none of which can be used in any of your other dishes instead. By contrast, if I look at my favorite local restaurant (a Korean place), if they don’t sell very much of the bulgogi on any given day, they can use the same beef in bi bim bob, the same vegetables in pretty much anything on the menu, the same sauce in about half the menu, and the rice or noodles are pretty much interchangeable for all dishes. They have many more options on the menu than you do, and yet they’re much less dependent on predicting exactly what anyone will eat.
Frankly, I think that a restaurant might be the wrong path for you. It looks to me like what you should really be pursuing is a TV cooking show. That way, you wouldn’t have as much need for a unifying theme, you wouldn’t have to cater to the tastes of whole parties, you could buy exactly the ingredients for each dish and no more, price wouldn’t be an issue, and your presentation (which seems to be your strongest point) would be in the forefront.
What? Where do you eat? Without exaggeration, 99.9% of restaurants I have visited use too much salt.
I also think you are thinking too much about “what do I like” instead of “what would my customers like”. You have to consider that once in a while, an adventurous eater is going to come in and bring a much less adventurous guest. You have to be able to have at least one or two things for that type of guest, otherwise, that guest will feel like you’d feel in a Denny’s.
You may not want to be all things to all people, but if you are only one thing to some people, that’s a recipe for failure.
ETA: What Chronos said.
I consider myself to be an adventurous eater, but this menu does not thrill me at all. even sven pretty much hit all the nails on the head with his analysis.
I would probably get the chorizo-spinach saute, but I’d still be suspicious. Sauteed spinach in my experience works best with a moderate to heavy amount of garlic and a savory, not sweet preparation. And what the hell is the yogurt for?
Nut-encrusted fish should never be construed as “fish and chips.” Salmon is not the right fish for fish and chips. I could see the salmon working with different sides and branded as something else.
Plum cobbler sounds appealing but none of the other desserts seem exciting enough to warrant the price. I wouldn’t want any of the appetizers.
Most of these dishes just seem to use odd ingredients for the sake of being odd without any real synergy between them.
Southern dumplings? When I first read it, I was thinking pan-Asian style dumpling soup, so the scallions made sense. Now, not so much.
I’m a non-foodie, unadventurous, picky eater in the Seattle area. And none of the foods on the menu seemed unfamiliar or strange. They all seemed like typical ingredients for restaurants in that price range. I don’t think you’d get confused customers or people who didn’t know what you were cooking… You might get people who didn’t want to eat it, but I don’t see think you’d have “what’s a _________?”
Anyway, I’d probably get the dumpling soup (even though it’s the wrong kind of dumpling), the spinach-chorizo (spanish chorizo? I’m guessing?), and the tres leches.
It’s a lot of sweet. I like sugar, I really like sugar, and there still looks like there’s a lot of sweet in that menu.
All of the first courses sound good and I’d order any of them. Making a choice I’d probably pick the empanadas.
The choices for the main course are easier. I’m not big on veggie burgers so that’s out. Chicken and cranberries doesn’t appeal to me either. The pineapple sounds interesting but I’m not really big on meatless entrees. Of the remaining two, I’d choose the salmon because I love salmon.
I usually don’t order deserts and there’s nothing on your menu that would probably cause me to change my mind. If it was a situation where I had to choose one, I’d go with the cobbler or the cannoli.
Not to be unkind, but in all seriousness, Joe Sixpack is NOT going to drop the 30 or 35 bux needed to eat a meal in your restaurant.
I have spent many, many nights eating out in Seattle, and your prices are higher than 80% of the mainstream (similar type) places in that market.
PLEASE consider the economy and the financial outlook of your target market before leaping in.
I would love to see you become a smash hit in the Seattle culinary scene, and hope that your future is filled with great success!!!
Good luck, MPB
There are certainly picky eaters who go to expensive restaurants. Steakhouses thrive because of them.
Jeezus, I didn’t think his goal was to make The Greatest Restaurant There Ever Was™. If this restaurant were near me, and I saw the menu, I’d like it. Apparently whether or not it is expensive is open to much debate, but in my mind, those prices are reasonable. Might be because I’m from Los Angeles, but an entire menu under $20 does not seem extraordinary to me.
Even if I had the money, I’d look at that menu, say “WTF?” and move on.
One further point: you’ve had to explain a number of your ingredients here. Jane Public isn’t going to stop to ask.
And I’m another one who can’t take spicy foods.
Crab, chorizo, and plums. And a glass of ginger ale with a splash of cranberry juice.
What’s the wine list like? And do you have specialty coffees, lattes, etc. to go with dessert?
I would probably double or triple up on the appetizers - the Savory Black Bean Pastry, Avocado-Roasted Corn Salad, Dumpling Soup, Crab Empanadas are the most appealing things on the menu to me.
Of all the mains, probably the Spinach-Chorizo Sauté. The Herb Roasted Chicken would be something I’d be interested in except for the fact that I hate cranberries. If it were just a sauce, I could get past it, but roasted in makes me want to try something else. As I alluded to above, I’d be even more likely to ask for two or three of the appetizers.
I don’t care much for licorice, but I love it that you have milk and cookies on the dessert menu. That just makes me smile. The cannoli for me.