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Complimentary savory doughnut appetizers, Ahi poke with a tangle of seaweed, swordfish skewers coated in chimichurri, sublime roasted duck, pitchers of sangria – all with a waterfront view of the Foss Waterway. I’m ready to move in for the rest of the (pseudo) summer at Social Bar and Grill, the newest restaurant that opened July 26 on Tacoma’s urban waterway.
We’re in the midst of a restaurant flurry. I can’t remember a time since 2006 when so many restaurants were opening one after another. By my count, 10 interesting new and noteable restaurants have opened since June or will open by this fall. Keep watching this column in the coming weeks for more details, or visit blog.thenewstribune.com/tntdiner to see a list of new restaurants open or coming soon.
Doner kebab, gyros, shawarma – plenty of names describe the rotating tower of meat slowly cooked on a vertical grill and eaten throughout the Mediterranean and Middle East.
On opening day of Lefty’s Burger Shack last Saturday, she ran out of food. She ran out of food Sunday, too. On Monday, she served 450 burgers. Four hundred fifty burgers. In tiny restaurant terms, that’s like an indie band selling out the Tacoma Dome – small fish, big numbers. The line? Out the door.
Bus, truck, trailer. It doesn’t matter what you call a taco truck. They’re all vehicles for delivering delicious, affordable, portable Mexican food.
Bus, truck, trailer. It doesn't matter what you call a taco truck. They're all vehicles for delivering delicious, affordable, portable Mexican food.
I sat in a booth across from a group of four men. As my dining partners and I waited for our burgers and steaks at Bonney Lake’s Midtown Grill, I watched the table of men with their eyes glued to different flat panels. One had his eye on a soccer match; another watched the daily sports highlights. They talked, ate and kept their eyes on the scores.
The sophisticated Italian restaurant Marzano. The mom-and-pop Mexican restaurant Reyna’s. The now-defunct Cajun eatery From The Bayou. Parkland long has been a destination for interesting dining.
The South Sound restaurant scene has the market cornered on teriyaki and Thai and it seems you can’t turn in a circle without finding a new Vietnamese restaurant. But when it comes to Polish or Russian food, it might be easier to have someone’s grandma do the cooking because those restaurants are in short supply
A Tacoma cupcake bakery has opened a second outpost in Puyallup, a new craft cocktail lounge and restaurant will open on the Foss Waterway later this summer, and an Irish pub will open in downtown Puyallup this month. Read all about newcomers to the South Sound restaurant scene:
A new Italian restaurant and a high-end restaurant featuring oft-overlooked proteins are opening this summer. Interesting things are happening to the South Sound dining scene. Take a look:
One is a bar, the other is a burger shack. Both make decidedly upscale burgers with value in mind. Certified Angus beef, fresh-cut fries – magic words for burger and fries lovers. They sucked me in, and I left impressed. Dirty Oscar’s Annex on Tacoma’s Sixth Avenue and the Gourmet Burger Shop in Gig Harbor both opened in recent months. Both should be on your burger radar.
When the wine bar and restaurant Northwest Vintage opened the first week of April in South Hill’s Sunrise Village Shopping Center, the response was overwhelming.
Bagels once were the food trend du jour. Like frozen yogurt and pastel shoes, the concept faded but didn't disappear. As with many a food fashion, the locally owned mom-and-pop shops that sprouted up around the trend remained while chains pulled up shop and left town once consumers showed palate fatigue.
When the weather warms, I know where I want to sit and sip pinot noir: The patio of Al Lago Ristorante, a lake-view restaurant in Sumner with a rich and flavorful Southern Italian menu brushed broadly with Northwest ingredients.
Vivian Irish, a young chef and Tacoma native who got her culinary start at Pacific Grill, will be taking over the helm of Maxwell’s. Check out our Q&A with the new executive chef of the popular St. Helens neighborhood upscale eatery.
As with all things in life, it’s the support staff that runs the show. Such was my valuable lesson at Emerald Queen Casinos in Tacoma and Fife.
Spring brings chicks and showers, daffodils and farmers markets. Here are locations, hours and other vital details of South Sound farmers markets. Some markets have already opened and others will open soon.
The assertive scent of cinnamon and sweetness drifted down the long, nearly empty corridor at Freighthouse Square.
Good luck getting a table at JW this weekend. You can call, but the restaurant will be sold out. Such is life for the tiny 30-seat restaurant that opened March 4 on Harborview Drive.
Along Martin Luther King Jr. Way, a lively blend of restaurants turns the Hilltop neighborhood into an eating destination like no other in Tacoma.
The third time I circled the block in downtown Puyallup, I knew the restaurant was going to be packed.
Chow down on bar food at Cheers Downtown, Vietnamese-Thai at Pho the Best and a surprise at Gig Harbor's JW.
Bruno's European Café was a hole-in-the-wall last April. In a tiny storefront off Pacific Highway Southwest in Lakewood, four tables provided seating for fewer than 18 diners. Now Bruno's is on the move and will reopen Friday in a Tacoma space about three times the size of its former Lakewood location.
Pupusas are neither tacos, gorditas nor quesadillas, but think of them as the Salvadoran cousin to all three.
Restaurant people might loathe me for writing this while experienced diners might quietly applaud me.
There are drip coffee drinkers and then there are coffee snobs. You already know which one you are: the 7-11 grab-and-go customer or the person who will stand 10-deep in line for a perfect macchiato made with Ethiopian beans.
A restaurant where I can get maki, nigiri, bulgogi, soon doo boo, udon and salt and pepper prawns? At the same table? And it’s all pretty well executed? And a good price? Sign me up. I really like this place.
Everyone needs a grilled sandwich joint in the daily rotation of lunch spots. Restaurants such as Villa Caffe and Imbibery near the Convention Center and the Rosewood Café in Proctor have been my go-to cafes for well-composed, quick and economically priced grilled sandwiches.
Think of the Cuban sandwich as a pork-filled, puckery, grilled cheese sandwich. A traditional Cuban, popular in the southeastern United States, is made with crusty bread grilled on something called a plancha press (a flat-top version of a panini press) or simply grilled.
If one can judge a year by what one ate, then 2010 was a banner year for my gullet. Hot dogs and pot du creme, tortas, soon doo boo and meatloaf sandwiches. And burgers. So many delicious burgers. Here are the 20 tastiest things I ate this year. Share your list at blog.thenewstribune.com/tntdiner.
Pacific Grill owner/chef Gordon Naccarato recalls discovering soy-brined jalapeños while working as a chef in Los Angeles.
Bar noshing doesn’t get any better than a big, cheesy gut bomb of a burger. It's the anytime accompaniment to a cold pint at your favorite watering hole. I've spent the past six months touring South Sound bars, taverns and pubs in search of perfect bar burgers.
Baby, when it’s cold outside, I head straight for a steaming bowl of soup. During this chillier-than-usual fall, I’ve been sampling the flavorful soups of Asia – Vietnamese pho, Korean soon doo boo and Japanese-style ramen. Here’s where to find excellent interpretations of all three:
During recipe testing for SoundLife’s annual Thanksgiving food sections, I was elbow deep in a cornbread stuffing recipe while stirring roasted pumpkin soup when I had an epiphany about why people don’t want to cook on Thanksgiving: It’s a lot of work. Dine out? Not a bad idea.
Southern barbecue and the Northwest aren’t exactly synonymous.
Some restaurants open with fanfare and glitzy marketing campaigns. Others open with a whisper. A quiet opening was what chef/owner Robert Green had planned for his Green.House restaurant that opened Sept. 12 in Uptown Gig Harbor.
Readers started calling within days of The Cliff House Restaurant’s closure last December. Then followed e-mails. More phone calls, then e-mails. Never have I received such an outpouring in response to a closure.
Despite its place minutes from Tacoma, downtown Sumner still seems like a small town. Heck, even Puyallup feels like a major metropolitan center compared with this little slice of Americana.
Meet Franco Cannava. If you dine at his Olympia restaurant, Sorrento Ristorante Italiano, it’s pretty much a given. Sorrento is Cannava and vice versa.
If anyone knows how to throw a big Greek feast, it’s the parish members and volunteers at the St. Nicholas Orthodox Church in Tacoma. For 48 years, church volunteers have thrown a Greek festival that has introduced countless Tacomans to baklava, gyros, melomakarona, koulourakia, paximadia and countless other dishes that many find unpronounceable but utterly delicious.
The Sixth Avenue district is a neighborhood that buzzes late into the night. There’s always a show to see, a meal to savor, a game to watch, a tattoo to get, a cocktail to swill.
TASTY:
If there are two things Ben Hilberg knows about fair food, it’s grease and portability. His Puyallup Fair food booths, Totally Fried and Food on a Stick, generated food buzz last year thanks to a menu full of kitschy eats. Case in point: A fried chicken patty with Krispy Kreme doughnuts as buns. Yes, you read that correctly. Hilberg served fried chicken doughnut sandwiches at the Puyallup Fair last year. And people ate them.
August brought the arrival of two modestly priced restaurants to downtown Tacoma and the Gig Harbor waterfront. In a time of dwindling dining dollars, restaurants serving food in the $10-and-under range are a welcome addition. Here are two first bites of new restaurants serving affordable eats:
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