A Happy Hour when you Need One

We had business in Palo Alto recently and were returning home to Santa Cruz around 2pm and realized we were famished and wouldn't make it home without some sustenance. We hadn't had lunch and it was still too early for dinner, so we decided to try to find a happy hour that started early.  After some searching around on my iPhone I found a place that got unanimously great reviews and they had a well regarded happy hour that went from 2-7pm! This sounded like our kind of place, It was in Campbell which was right on our way home.

 The place is called Grill 'em and seems to be a popular "cook your own steak" kind of place, but a lot of the reviews single out the happy hour as being worth the visit.  During happy hour beers are $3, well drinks $2.50, margaritsa $4 and appetizers $5.  We checked the menu online and it had a nice range of apps, so we were on our way. Grill 'em in on Bascom Av just south of Dry Creek Road. We'd passed this area many times but have never noticed this place. Nice sign, but the building is kind of dark looking. The posts we'd seen about the place mention this and also say ignore and go right on in, its a friendly place, and this was true, the hostess/waitress was really friendly and started to lead us into the dining room, I mentioned that we were here for happy hour, as a lot of places require that you sit in  the bar to get happy hour deals, but she just said, "Great", and proceeded to seat us in a nice booth in the dining room. Since we came smack dab in the middle of "dead time" at most restaurants, I can't comment on how busy the place usually is, but there was another table of people in the dining room and the bar had was pretty busy.
  The appetizer menu has a nice selection and we had some trouble making up our minds, but we finally settled on the Chicken Potstickers, BBQ short ribs and Chicken Quesadilla. For drinks we had a Sierra Nevada and since it was Thursday we ordered the $3 Mojito.

 Service was quick and our orders arrived fairly quickly. The Potstickers came with both hot and sweet dipping sauces. These are not the large doughy kind of Potstickers, they're more of what I see as Gyozas, that are served in Japanese restaurants. Crunchy but not hard on the outside and the filling was pretty tasty.  Take my word for it the hot dipping sauce if HOT!, but really addicting, the sweet is a nice compliment, both very good. Nice size order, 8 pieces.
  They arrived first and soon after our other two appetizers arrived. The Quesadilla was really nice, filled with cheese, chicken and grilled onion, served with a side of salsa and sour cream. Good size and very tasty. The salsa wasn't too spicy but was a good complement to the quesadilla.
  The hit of the trio was the BBQ short ribs, Korean style. I'm always wary of these because I've had a few too many fatty, tough versions. Here their exquisite. We had contemplated getting some bread to go with them but didn't and a good thing as the order comes with pieces of garlic bread, perfect.  These boneless short ribs were very tender, with enough fat to make them moist and delicious. They had been marinated in a teriyaki based sauce which was not overpowering and imparted a slightly sweet finish to the flavor.

  Drinkwise my Sierra was very cold and fresh tasting, and went perfectly with the meal. The Mojito on the other had seemed on the watery side, it seemed like a correct combination of ingrediants, but like maybe it had been premixed with ice and the ice had melted. I had read some reviews that said the same thing about the Mojitos and others that said they were STRONG. Unfortunately I got the former rather than the latter. If it had been later I would have ordered another cocktail to get a better impression of what the bar can do, but that'll have to wait till another day.
  All in all I'd say we had a nice light meal and we'd definitely return, the food was good and the prices were right and you can't beat the hours for the happy hour.


Grill 'em
2509 S. Bascom Avenue
Campbell, CA