This delightful poster was discovered at the University of Puget Sound (UPS) Student Center. I love the idea of trading cans for the local food bank against library fines. I was at the student center to meet some friends for dinner. What a great deal dinner is there! I had a freshly grilled hamburger with curly fries and a soda for about $6.00.
The Spar at 2121 North 30th Street
Tacoma, WA 98403 is another Tacoma institution. Yelp says that The Spar is the oldest tavern in Tacoma. That thing that I learned tonight is that I can now bring my teen here for lunch or dinner up until 8 pm. Good to know.
Dear daughter and I needed to stop for a quick nosh and we ended up sharing yellow curry with tofu at the Oriental Noodle & Grill at 1620 South Mildred in Tacoma. It is located in a strip center surrounded by other strip centers and freestanding retail buildings. The mural on the outside is a nice touch and the inside is also more than I would have expected. The meal was tasty and the service was excellent.
I don’t especially enjoy the South Hill area of Puyallup, but there I was looking for a place to grab dinner before an appointment. That area of town has block after block of chain restaurants and we were leaning towards Ivars when I spotted My Greek and Italian Restaurant at 13333 Meridian Avenue East in a small strip center. I had the steak salad with blue cheese crumbled on top and it was very good. Dear daughter had a shrimp dish which she enjoyed. Service was fast and friendly. I’d really like to go back and try the flaming cheese and hear the live music. I loved that in the sea of chain restaurant My Greek and Italian Restaurant is family owned.
http://www.mygreekanditalianrestaurant.com/index.html
Update: I went by today (7/31/2012) and the space was empty. Their website says that they are moving to Sunrise Village as of September 2012.
I had a little time to stop for dinner and didn’t want fast food, but didn’t have the time or funds for extra nice. And I’d been meaning to stop at Happy Dragon Chinese at 5104 Sixth Avenue, Tacoma. It was an early dinner for me and I was their only customer, though a couple of folks came in for take out. I ordered the curry chicken and it was good and plenty for two meals. The meal was served with white rice at no additional cost, which isn’t always the case now a days.
Saturday evening I joined the World Wide Photo Walk by joining a group walking around the History Museum in Tacoma. We walked from the museum, across the Bridge of Glass and down to the waterfront. Afterward the group of us went out to eat at Abellas at 1946 Pacific Avenue. Abella’s menu can be found here: http://www.allmenus.com/wa/tacoma/45349-abella-pizzeria/info/
The website for the world wide photo walk can be found here http://worldwidephotowalk.com/
And one last photo taken on 5/2/14
The Mandolin Cafe at 3923 South 12th Street near the intersection of South 12th & Proctor provides an occasional respite for us. It doesn’t have an extensive menu, but what it has is delicious. They do have a large selection of teas, quality coffee and wines. What keeps me keeping coming back to the Mandolin is the atmosphere, comfortable, warm, art filled and often eclectic live music.
http://www.themandolincafe.com/
Sadly the Mandolin Cafe closed in July 2012. It wasn’t because of their business, but instead a problem with the lease. I’m hopeful they will reopen in a new location at some point.
The Pacific Grill, located at 1502 Pacific Avenue in downtown Tacoma, has a splendid happy hour which extends fro 11:30 – 10 Monday through Thursday, 11:30 – 11 on Friday and 5 – 11 on Saturday. Besides the normal drink specials, most of the food on the bar menu is half price and delightful food it is! An appetizer handily makes a meal.
http://www.pacificgrilltacoma.com/
The restaurant occupies the lower level of the 1890 Waddell Building which was substantially renovated and incorporated into new Courtyard by Marriott Hotel in 2004. The building is listed on the historic register. A photo of the building as it appeared in 1979, prior to renovation, can be found here:
California Pizza Kitchen at 150 Andover Park West, Tukwila, WA 98188 had above average pizza and for as nice as it was I was expecting to pay more. Dear daughter and I shared a pizza and had some to take home. Even with our fancy dancy lemonade drinks we got out for under $20, plus tip. The manager appears to be a character, walking table to table checking on everybody. Altogether it was a positive experience.
This was our first time in a California Pizza Kitchen. There are three in Washington State with the others being in Seattle and Bellevue. The chain was stated in 1985 in Beverly Hills, CA.
Their website is here: http://www.cpk.com/
I signed up for the adult summer reading program at the library and have completed my first five books, so I qualified for a prize! Yippee! It is a darling, red snack sack and inside was a reading notebook, a coupon for 3 free games of bowling with shoe rental and a free appetizer from the Harmon Brewing Company at 1938 Pacific Avenue, Tacoma! Wow, that’s cool! So off we went. Dear daughter and I split the crab cake appetizer, which was delicious and also shared the very rich mac n cheese. We brought some of that home with us in a doggie bag. The service was grand and the food wonderful. What more could we want? The website for the Harmon is here: http://harmonbrewingco.com/brewery_eatery.html
