My mom clipped out a restaurant review from the Metro last week and suggested we go because they had ceviche.  That’s basically all she said, just because the review raved about it, she wanted to go. I sure didn’t mind, I love ceviche anyways.  If you don’t know, that’s what my first post ever on this blog is about! Click to read my post about ceviche.

So the restaurant in question is eight 1/2 restaurant lounge. Located on Eight and Main, you probably wouldn’t even think a restaurant exists here. Going north on Main St, you’ll want to turn left on Eight st and it’ll be at the end of the block.

Hopefully you’ll spot this big sign they have hanging out.

This is what it looks like when you’re in front of the restaurant.

I should have taken a picture of properly describe how TINY this place is. This doesn’t give you a good perspective of the place.

So we walked in, and they said we could sit anywhere we want. I wanted to sit at the end where they had this nice window/lighting, as you can see, but after we put our order in, they DIMMED the lights down. WTF I sat here cause of the nice spotlights. Not wanting to seem weird or anything, I didn’t ask them to turn it up. I was tempted to take the plates to another table by the window and take pictures though…

Anyways, I think they’ve been open for half a year or less, not really sure on this. The menu is just a paper print out, and as you can see all the prices end in 1/2 to keep with their theme.  The prices are fair for the type of restaurant it is, pick a couple appetizers and an entree to share and you should be fine. I do however hate the abundance of these kind of tapa style restaurants.

A little mix up with the menus occurred when we were trying to pick which pate we should get for the Charcuterie platter, the server told us there was only one. Turns out some of their menus were older and had two kinds of pate, but they really only have one. Ehh…….okay? So I don’t remember the names of these, except the cheese involved beer, hence the dark coloring. Probably Guinness? Pate didn’t stand out, just something simple that you could get at the market and make at home. The cured beef was good though. The bread that came with were a little crusty and hard. The platter was $15.50.

I really wanted pizza, so I picked the Margherita pizza (tomatoes, mozzarella, basil, extra virgin olive oil) ($8.50). Lots of cheese and although it’s a very simple type of pizza, it was done well.

My sister picked the Pesto Prawn Pizza. ($10.50) This wasn’t as great, seems they left it in the oven too long as the crust and dough were both really hard and crunchy, and the toppings seemed to have dried a lot.

The last thing we ordered was Ceviche. Well, two orders of it at $8.50 each.

Chock full of halibut, shrimp, and tuna, this was definitely a lot for its price. I would come back again just for a couple orders of this to share with friends.  The other stuff I’m not completely sold on.

What’s interesting is how it was presented. Nacho chips on the left with some melted cheese, and a little bit of “salad”.

The “salad” consisted of some julienne’d apples, mango and chopped salad, on top of.. I can’t remember what it’s called right now.

The bill for all the above, split amongst 4 people. $15 each, not bad for a dinner.

This is the what it looks like facing East, you can see the people sitting outside. There’s like..5 seats there. Overall though, this is an interesting place, and I think would be a great place to take a date. Or the next time you’re looking for something different from the usual places you eat with friends. Not sure about the hours, sorry, there’s no information on their site.