Bimbo's: Taste of one's youth recaptured

Smell and tastes bring back the most vivid of memories. Tacoma was the town of my youth. I remember pancakes from Wellman’s on Pacific Avenue, frozen dilly bars from the DQ next to Stewart Junior High, tater tots from Mr. Nelson’s A&W across from the Armenian rug sellers, Cartozians.

But these are long gone, and I thought another of my favorites, Bimbo’s meat sauce, was gone forever as well. But a News Tribune article (2-12) brought me home to Tacoma and a visit to my past was launched.

Bimbo’s was the only “star” restaurant in Tacoma. Its meat sauce was dark, almost black, but not burnt. Crisp, crunched and charred, this meat and tomato and garlic masterpiece is impossible to duplicate. You’ll burn it. You’ll make it too sweet. The meat will be the wrong meat.

So I believed my life of Bimbo’s sauce dressing a long piece of spaghetti was gone. But, no! Engine House No. 9 is serving it for the month of February. Stadium Thiftway makes it fresh every day and sells it by the pound!

I now have a stash in my freezer whenever I need to go back to 1964.

This story was originally published February 17, 2016 at 11:09 AM with the headline "Bimbo's: Taste of one's youth recaptured."