The Spot: 1130 the Restaurant, 455 North Third Street Phoenix, 602-368-3046, www.1130therestaurant.com.
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The Hours: Happy Hour is offered daily from 4 to 7 p.m.
The Interior: Although 1130 is a large restaurant with shaded patio seating, if you want the happy hour deals, you'll have to sit at the bar. The bar's backsplash and the high-top tables are covered in orange, baby blue, tan, black and white tiles. Seating is pretty lofty--every chair in the bar requires a small hop to get up, unless you're Yao Ming. While we don't mind letting our feet dangle while we drink, we could see how this seating would alienate some of their clientele.
The Food: Finally some happy hour menu items that aren't all taken out of a freezer and then fried. 1130 offers four price points on their happy hour food list, all under $10. We first opted for some cheesy spinach dip with tortilla chips, which, considering it was one of the most inexpensive happy hour items, was pretty tasty. The cheesy base with a generous serving of spinach and seasoned chips were still a little heavier than what we were looking for though.
Next we had the chicken sate-- three delicately grilled and seasoned chicken skewers. The chicken comes atop a bed of greens, lightly dressed with sesame oil, along with a mango fruit salad. All in all, it's a great late lunch/early dinner dressed-up chicken salad option for only $5.95. Finally, we go the lobster lettuce cups, after hearing a few other folks ordering them, the $7.95 plate came with three lettuce cups, which were difficult to eat but had a great crunch and flavor one you could manage it.
The Drink: The stand out attribute of 1130's happy hour is their drink options. While select draft beers and all well drinks are discounted, wine ($3.95 by the glass) and specialty cocktail ($3 off) drinkers finally have a nice place to stop by for a top shelf beverage. We started out with a cucumber mojito and couldn't move on to any other drink. The muddled cucumber, lime and basil laden drink was so refreshing and light, that we couldn't stop chugging them. We think we found our new go to summer cocktail.
The Conclusion: We're always excited to see specialty cocktails discounted during happy hour and the food was definitely fresher and of higher quality than most other bars we've been to. If they had comfier seating, this place would be an A+.
Grade: A-
