The Red House

Another great restaurant. It serves tasty tapas and excellent hand made desserts.

More importantly, they sell wine at retail plus a $5.00 corking fee. Let me repeat that. They sell wine at retail plus a $5.00 corking fee. I love having a good bottle of wine with my dinner that doesn't double the bill.

The chef and owner, Gino, is very friendly. When we questioned the waiter about one of our dishes, he passed the question on to Gino. Gino came out and told us all about our food-- the ingrediants and the recipies.

Melrose Grill

The Melrose Grill is my favorite steak house. It's in a restored saloon that's been around since 1901.

The Melrose is part of the revitalizaton of Renton. All around it the buildings look run down. It's on a quiet street with no foot traffic-- if you didn't know about it, you wouldn't eat there.

But then you go in. It will be full of people and the wonderful smell of food. The steaks are excellent. The martini's are great. They have many interesting beers on tap.

Good Stuff.

Oliver's is in Seattle. Very nice. Kind of pricy. Their Martini's are $8.00 a pop and on the small side.

On the plus side everything, drinks and food, tasted great.

Casa Durango

Even though we've been going to Casa Durango for months, I didn't know the name until last night. We've always called it "The good margarita place." and it does.

It also has good simple mexican food and mexican kareoke on Friday nights.

Good stuff.

The Muckleshoot Casino

Sure it's out of the way, full of cigarette smoke and you'll loose money in the slots while you are waiting in line for dinner. But, for $17.50, the all you can eat buffet at the Muckleshoot is a great deel. It has Dungeness crab and prime rib. Enough said.

Thai on Hilands.

Sunset Blvd in Renton is odd. Much of Renton is being gentrified. Many of the crappiest streets are close to trendy coffee shops and great restaurants.

Sunset isn't there yet. It's full of run down strip malls, closed stores, plaza churches and 2nd hand stores.

Tonight on Sunset, Mark noticed a hidden plaza behind a plaza whose largest tenants are a dollar store and a closed fabric store. We drove through the hidden plaza. There was a computer and copy shop, a day care center, a plaza church, and the "VIP Spa," whose windows are covered with black garbage bags. What's that about?

We drove out to the front plaza and peaked into the window of the closed fabric store. The sign said "Closed, but knock if you are interested"

Some homeless looking people were milling about.

Near where we parked was Thai on Hiland. We looked in. The customers looked normal. Since it was dinner time, we decided to give it a try.

Marc noted that the place looked like a repainted 'Skippers'-- the square booths and boxy windows. Every booth had a statuette of a puppy leaning over a "Welcome" sign.

We ordered 2 stars spicy, but the food was a bit too hot for Marks taste. We had the fresh rolls, the chicken pad Thai and a grilled prawn salad. The food was good, but not great. The ambiance was nice but not outstanding. In short, I don't regret going to Thai in Hiland, but I won't rush to go back.

I have this theory that the crappier a Mexican place looks, the better the food. The peak of Mexican cuisine would come from an illegal taco stand in a broken down buss on the side of the road.

Don't laugh. These places actually exist. The illegal taco stand on Rainier here in Seattle is great. Over the next few months I will review these places, and let you know the results.