There are a few restaurants that I look forward to going to and recommend to friends with little hesitation. Bloom is definitely on my short list of such places. It is located in Scottsdale at the shops at Gainey Village. My boss was in town and we needed a place to have a dinner meeting, so I recommended Bloom. I hadn’t been there in a few months, so I got to see if they still had the right recipe for success.
Happy Hour
Bloom has an open floor plan with two tiers of tables and booths. It has a retro-modern feel and it’s a swanky looking place. The bar is a nice size that curves vs. being an ‘L’ shape. Bloom knows how to do happy hour and they now run it daily from 3:00 – 6:00p. The Happy Hour menu has over a dozen offerings and is mainly stocked from their dinner menu’s “appetizers and salads”. That is great because Bloom does small plates as well as anybody. The Crisp Calamari and the Spicy Tuna Tartare are both excellent.
Their drink specials during happy hour are awesome, especially if you’re a wine lover. ALL their wine is half off, not just a select number of labels. The 50% discount applies to flights, by the glass, or the whole bottle. That basically means the bottle cost is really retail (or less). You can order a very nice glass of wine and a couple small plates of food and get a great meal for $20 (including the tip).
Dinner
We sat in a booth on the upper tier. The booths are ‘U’ shaped, deep, and comfy. From here, you have a good view of the whole restaurant. They were a little less than half full this night and it was very easy to carry on a conversation across the table. Our server seemed a little disconnected and preoccupied. She would ask us if we needed something and would almost be walking away before we could answer. It almost felt like she was asking things because she had to, not because she really cared to know the answers. Other than that she was pleasant and fairly attentive.
Happy Hour
Bloom has an open floor plan with two tiers of tables and booths. It has a retro-modern feel and it’s a swanky looking place. The bar is a nice size that curves vs. being an ‘L’ shape. Bloom knows how to do happy hour and they now run it daily from 3:00 – 6:00p. The Happy Hour menu has over a dozen offerings and is mainly stocked from their dinner menu’s “appetizers and salads”. That is great because Bloom does small plates as well as anybody. The Crisp Calamari and the Spicy Tuna Tartare are both excellent.
Their drink specials during happy hour are awesome, especially if you’re a wine lover. ALL their wine is half off, not just a select number of labels. The 50% discount applies to flights, by the glass, or the whole bottle. That basically means the bottle cost is really retail (or less). You can order a very nice glass of wine and a couple small plates of food and get a great meal for $20 (including the tip).
Dinner
We sat in a booth on the upper tier. The booths are ‘U’ shaped, deep, and comfy. From here, you have a good view of the whole restaurant. They were a little less than half full this night and it was very easy to carry on a conversation across the table. Our server seemed a little disconnected and preoccupied. She would ask us if we needed something and would almost be walking away before we could answer. It almost felt like she was asking things because she had to, not because she really cared to know the answers. Other than that she was pleasant and fairly attentive.
The wine list is very nice and is broken into groups by color and then varietal. Some varietals are split between more inexpensive options and separate “Sommelier’s Selections”. Everything is available by the glass or within a flight and the list is fairly comprehensive, albeit they are mainly New World offerings. It’s a nice approach that allows you to try something new without having to pony up for a bottle. Wine markup was pretty consistent at 2x retail. We both went with a flight of Zinfandel ($15) that consisted of: Klinker Brick, Rosenblum (from Paso Robles), and Seghesio. I happen to like all three of these wines and it was a nice presentation of zin from Lodi, Central Coast, and Sonoma.
Bloom’s food offerings can be a little eclectic with some of the ingredients, but trust me when I say it all works well together. The dinner menu split between “Appetizers & Salads” and “Entrees”. All of the salads are excellent and I usually opt for one of them as a starter. The dinner entrees cover all areas of food: vegetarian, pasta, pork, lamb, beef, poultry, and seafood. There may be one or two options from each, but they all look delicious. I really love having the problem of too many good things to choose from.
That night we each started with a salad. I opted for the chopped spinach with gorgonzola, glazed, pecans and green apples. The spinach is tossed with very light, sweet-tangy vinaigrette and it is one of my favorite salads. My boss ordered “The Everything Chopped Salad”. I initially thought it may be some lame knock-off of the superlative chopped salad at Cowboy Ciao, but after it arrived I saw it was indeed its own unique creation. A variety of greens, vegetables, nuts, bacon, and fruit with a mild and creamy cucumber dressing all had my boss smiling. Two thumbs up from her.
We had held off on ordering dinner until we finished the salads and we decided that we would opt to split an entrée. The server told us the specials. Bloom has an ‘ever changing’ ravioli and that night it was a mushroom variant with a butter and cream sauce. I could feel my arteries hardening just hearing about it, so we took a pass. The other special was a skin-on whitefish that had my boss turning green around the gills, so that was out, too. Since we still had parts of our zin flights left, we focused on some meat dishes. The contenders were: Aged New York steak with crimini mushrooms, Herb crusted rack of lamb, Bacon wrapped pork tenderloin, or Roasted ribeye with Roquefort potatoes. Each sounded divine in its own right, but the roasted ribeye just called to me, so we opted for that.
The kitchen split the entrée evenly onto two plates for us, which was a nice touch as most places usually do a single plate of food and give you two empty plates to divvy it up yourself. The ribeye was served on top of mashed potatoes spiked with just the right amount of tang from the Roquefort cheese. It also came with sautéed French-style string beans that were crisp and tender. The steak was cooked perfectly as ordered to medium-rare and was very juicy. Everything was excellent and it turned out to be just the right amount of food. I will add that it is so nice to actually get some sides included with your dinner selection. I’m sure you’ve picked up on the fact I’m not a huge fan of strict a la carte menus.
Neither of us had room for dessert, but it’s not for a lack of wanting it because the selections are very tempting. The best bet is always the “Bars of Sin”. Don’t even ask what it is, just order it. It has won awards for best dessert and after you have it, you’ll understand why.
Final Take
Bloom continues to impress me. The menu is always full of fresh and inviting options. Some items are mainstays and others get tweaked or replaced as time goes on, but it always seems to have something for everybody. The service is usually good and the wait staff is always friendly. I feel it is well priced and you get real value for your dining dollar. Whether you want an easy happy hour or a formal dinner, Bloom delivers it all with aplomb. I have eaten here several times already and I can easily say that Bloom has solidified its spot on my short list of places to dine in the East Valley.
Overall Grade = A- (excellent)
The EV Foodie
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