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Shaken, Not Stirred
Getting drunk with class at Olives
. . . by Heather Goodman

Let’s face it: March can get depressing. If you’re not trucking through the snow on your way to the Rock or watching the snow fall from your dorm room window, you’re probably lamenting the fact that Brown’s spring break is so goddamn late and that all your friends from high school are currently sunning themselves in places like Acapulco. The solution to such winter malaise can be found at Olives, a bar and restaurant conveniently located on North Main Street. With sparse, warehouse-like digs, high ceilings, and a bar that seems to go on for a mile, Olives offers a lil’ something different than what we find up on the hill. Cushy, intimate booths and larger round tables make this a great place to have an event (in fact, the night we dined at Olives, there was a birthday party going on at the table next to ours), to go out for a date, or just to hang out with some friends and relax after a long week.

Olives, like any good restaurant, knows that the secret to pleasing its customers is immediately providing two important staples: drinks and bread. And Olives happens to do both extremely well. Our young, perky waitress Daphne brought us a complimentary basket filled with soft, white bread served with a tasty garlic-infused oil and (surprise, surprise!) feta-stuffed olives.

As far as drinks go, it’s easy to get pretty lost among the fifty-some-odd martinis on the menu. Luckily, Daphne patiently entertained our questions while we tried to decide. Nicole, my dining mate, took her recommendation, finally settling on the Pink Diamond Martini (Stoli vodka, Hiram Walker peach schnapps, cranberry and pineapple juice, garnished with a cherry). And she wasn’t sorry. The drink was “tropical,” but not too sweet, almost reminiscent of a Bay Breeze. “I feel like I’m sipping a drink on an island,” she later remarked.
I chose a Cosmopolitan (Stoli vodka, Hiram Walker trip sec, lime juice, and cranberry juice garnished with a lime). It was an interesting and delicious take on your everyday Cosmo. Mat, our third, went for the apple martini (all $6.75) garnished with an apple, which we all agreed was the weakest of the three—a bit too sweet and almost medicinal in flavor. If you’re a “high maintenance” diner like me (i.e., you’re extremely picky and know what you like in a very specific way, like Meg Ryan’s character from When Harry Met Sally) you can even “create your own” martini (also $6.75). For those hardcore traditionalists out there, Olives offers classic martinis ($8; Tanqueray gin and vermouth straight up). The martinis are served in typical martini glasses, with flasks on the side.

Though the martini list may take up more than half the menu, that’s not all Olives has to offer: there’s pretty good food, too! The food menu, like that of the drinks, is greatly varied, divided into six categories: appetizers, pasta and seafood, specialty sandwiches, salads, pizzas, and meat and poultry. The appetizers (ranging from $4.95 to $8.95) not only appealed to us the most, but also came the most highly recommended by Daphne. The selection included pita chips and hummus and Szechwan wings. Nicole and I started by sharing the crab cakes ($8.95): two snow crab-filled cakes, pan seared, and served with a grilled corn salad and scallion oil. The two cakes were very good, heavier on the crab meat than on the breading and delectably complemented by the flavorful corn salad. Mat started with a garden salad ($5.95), an extremely generous helping of fresh, mixed field greens, cucumbers, plum tomatoes and grilled Bermuda onions lightly tossed with an orange balsamic dressing which he generously shared with us.

For our second course, Nicole and I, both craving seafood, sampled the shrimp cocktail ($8.95), which was an assortment of five jumbo black tiger shrimp served with traditional cocktail sauce. The menu did not lie: the shrimp were large, in addition to being fresh and very tasty. Mat devoured his veggie pizza ($8.95), a thin-crusted affair featuring spinach, red peppers and plum tomatoes heavy on the feta and mozzarella cheese topping—definitely a good, standard, bar-type pizza that complemented our martinis.

Desserts were not made on the premises, but were from a local bakery, and that they change nightly. The night we were at Olives, desserts included an amaretto biscotti torte, Oreo crème pie and apple crisp. The amaretto biscotti torte, which sounded the most interesting, turned out to be slightly disappointing. The amaretto mousse on the bottom and top of the biscotti layer was a bit too strong and almost tart, though the blueberry and whipped cream garnish was quite delectable. If it’s chocolate that you’re craving after your meal, consider sampling the Chocolate Covered Strawberry martini (Stoli strasberi vodka, white crème de cacao and Bailey’s Irish cream in a strawberry lined glass garnished with a strawberry) or the chocolate-tini (Stoli vodka, Bailey’s Irish cream and Hiram Walker crème de cacao topped with chocolate shavings).

As Nicole so deftly put it: “Olives is a good place to come if you want to get drunk with some style.” Be adventurous with the martinis, indulge in the bread and stuffed olives, sample some appetizers, and end with a martini for dessert. The menu says, “There is something about a martini…” After my visit to Olives I would agree that there is definitely something about a martini, but I would add: there is definitely something good about Olives, straight up!

Olives108 N. Main Street, 751-1200

Heather Goodman B’05 looks like she’s over 21.

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