sparkrobot

Wild Orchid is one of our favorite Asian Cuisine restaurants in Tacoma. Certainly, I’d admit we’re fortunate. There are a number of good, local Asian restaurants in the area. Wild Orchid sits on the northwest corner of 6th Avenue and Cedar streets, convenient from any address in Tacoma, and serves a variety of entrées with a Southeastern Asian theme.

We’ve visited Wild Orchid many times, and always have a great experience — this time was no exception. We ordered fried wontons to start things off along with a lemon basil martini for myself and a Saporro for my wife. My martini arrived ungarnished without frills. I found quite a bite to this one, a piquant basil tone on the first sip but finishing nicely with a lingering citrus and herb-infused flavor. There is nothing quite like fried cream cheese to augment such a sophisticated flavor. I’ll leave it there.

I ordered a Green Curry Chicken (four star spicy) and my wife, the Three Flavor Beef. Both arrived shortly and our server constructed our plates at the table. The Green Curry Chicken was an enchanting arrangement of red bell peppers, bamboo shoots, fresh green beans, mushrooms, eggplant and basil in a green curried coconut milk and served over steamed jasmine rice. Though the Three Flavor beef was served to my wife, her thoughts were spicy, sour and sweet. Mmm, Delicious.

For just under $50, we had dinner with appetizer, two beers and a fancy pants cocktail. We brought home enough food to serve as lunch today.

This outing also provided occasion for me to put to work my new Nikon D300, which is incredible and shoots in the dark with reckless abandon. I would totally make out with it if it were a person and not a camera. (My wife knows, okay? It’s cool.) Check out the photos. Hover over the image to move forward or back through the series.

Side note

We finished of the night with a first visit to the new Crown Bar where we were served by Dino, a very knowledgeable and friendly bar keep who served me my first made with Bookers Manhattan. There’s a first time for everything.

My first thought on entering the Crown Bar was, if you’re going to serve $10 cocktails, there should be a “we don’t have televisions” rule. I know everyone doesn’t, but I LOATHE the people who feel like they have to yell at televisions when their sports team is winning. It’s stupid to pay good money for a drink and have to hear a group of dicks screaming at the TV. I can go to the RAM for that.

Seriously people, it’s time to panic.

One of our favorite beer distributors just told us the average price of any beer by January might be $14 to $15 a six pack. The price of hops went from $3 a pound to $21 a pound, and all other grains went up at least 50 percent, if you can even get them.

via The Weekly Volcano.

Maybe I should cut back. Or just go huge.

Who doesn’t love beer and hot dogs? The Red Hot, a place specializing in sausage and brews is slated to open on 6th Avenue later this year. The ink on the lease has yet to dry, but the wheels are in motion. Earlier, I asked the proprietor of The Red Hot and author of the recently minted blog Beer and Hot Dogs a few questions about The Red Hot.

Some Questions. Some Answers.

SR = sparkrobot.com, TRH = The Red Hot

SR: What is The Red Hot?
TRH: “Your new favorite Tacoma hangout”

SR: Where is The Red Hot?
TRH: 2914 6th Ave, Suite B, intersection of 6th and Junett. It used to be the old dollar store. 1 block away from 6th and Pine (E-9, masa, Asado, etc.). Across from Schucks.

SR: What’s the deal with Beer and Hot Dogs?
TRH: Whats not to like?
SR: touche
TRH: Theres wine, pinball, tv, and atmosphere, natch. And nachos. And no lame jukebox
SR: that’s key
TRH: If you want to take your girl out, eat a legit dog, listen to T. Rex, be surrounded by Tacomacentricity, maybe catch a game on the tube, not listen to the horrible sound of a pool cue slapping the ground, and not be surrounded by knuckleheads all at the same time, you will like The Red Hot. Oooooh, and play pinball.

SR: 10-4. Sounds like it will be cool, unpretentious… Tacoma. So, why Tacoma?
TRH: Why not. It’s the city I live in, the city where I’ve decided to stay. There’s not a lot of suburban guilt that you find in Seattle, where a lot of bars tend to preach the blue-collar lifestyle. People who are blue-collar do not need to be reminded they are blue-collar. They just want a cool spot to hang out. And there’s hot dogs there. Whats not to like?
TRH: I. Heart. Tacoma.
SR: Nice. Good idea for The Red Hot teeshirts. I want a 60% cut. We’ll talk about this later.
TRH: what idea
SR: I. Heart. Tacoma.
TRH: thats my idea
SR: not anymore!
TRH: you get a free one, thats it

SR: When do you expect to unleash The Red Hotness on the Tacoma?
TRH: Hopefully mid-summer. I’d like to say end of July, but with waiting on paperwork to be processed, it could be August.

SR: Killer. Your family is to blame for creating the successful martini lounge concept, the One Ten Lounge out in Port Orchard. That’s really cool place. Will there be similarities?
TRH: Yeah. Our family doesn’t take shortcuts in our business. We don’t rip people off, or pretend to be something we’re not. It will have some of the lounge characteristics that are not common with “taverns” or “taprooms”. We try to create something that we would go to. It will be a comfortable place to go to, with atmosphere unlike any in the area. Plain and simple.

SR: So, what are we talking about? ballparks and pbr? let’s talk about beer and hot dogs, let the people hear a little bit more about what they can expect to eat and drink.
TRH: Street style hot dogs…not blistered up tough tubes of meat like at convenience stores. Chicagos, Coneys, Veggies, etc. Natural dogs, and skinless for aficionados of every ideal. Homemade chili (NO BEANS!!!), and homemade southern slaw will be in house. Cheap eats for the lunch-time crowd. Cheap eats for the anytime crowd.

TRH: Yeah, PBR will be on tap, but so will Fish Organic IPA. And other local breweries will be represented. It’s looking like 8-9 handles, with some bottles. It will absolutely have Rainier on tap, ice cold (it should be a requirement for every bar in Washington to serve it, even though it moved away…a matter of principle!), as well as a cider. Wine to be served in glass tumblers, because really…who else in the world serves a drink in a snooty piece of stemware besides America? I hate snooty.

SR: What’s the deal with roller derby in Tacoma?
I’m coach for the Homewreckers, a team on the Dockyard Derby Dames Roller Derby league. We have a exhibition going on during Art on the Ave, I believe, in July. We just had tryouts and got some more talent and fresh faces on the league. My team is now a 15 person squad. The next bout should be going down end of July or August. The Homewreckers are 1-0 so far and I think we’re also sending a League squad down to Vegas for a big derby event.

SR: Rollerderby. Beer. Hot Dogs. What else does Tacoma need?
It needs to keep building its communities like it has been doing…it needs for some people to get the idea of competing to be another Seattle or Portland out of its minds…it needs Girl Trouble to be played out of every church tower on the hour…and it needs for everyone to come down to the Red Hot and hang out.

SR: cool. anything else?
TRH: i dont guess so. my blog is blowing up
SR: i’ll drop that too

TRH: can i read it before you post it?
SR: why? are you my editor?

### end ###

Man, After all that, I’m ready for a beer and a hot dog right now. “It’s so damn hot… milk was a bad choice.“

According to The News Tribune, World Famous Bob’s Java Jive is reopening tonight at 8PM thanks to the work of volunteers who helped to whip the place into shape and up to code. Most of whom involved in some fashion with The Dockyard Derby Dames. On Saturday, the Dames resume the plans for their Pajama Party and Chris Trashcan’s new band the Gold Teeth will rock your face. Likely for 18 minutes in a row.

You should hit the Jive tonight to see what you almost missed. It’s going to be wild to see what they’ve done to the place. Hopefully, they’ve got enough beer. Historically, it’s not an insurmountable task to mid-week-drink-the-joint-dry.

We went downtown last night to meet some friends for dinner downtown. Their suggestion, the relative newcomer Two Koi Japanese Cuisine on Jefferson around 9 pm. Two Koi opened in September and I’d been looking for an excuse to check it out. When we were pulling up on Jefferson, I got a call from our friends. They were canceling. Fine. Whatever jerks.

The restaurant has a nice open and contemporary atmosphere. There’s a large dining room and a sushi bar to the right on entry. The lighting was moody and featured the entire front features windows looking out directly at the Tacoma Art Museum. Inside there were a few flat screen televisions, one of which featured an aquarium screen saver thereby qualifying as best use of a televison I’ve seen since last Thursday’s airing of The Office. Non traditional music was in the air. As I recall, ol’ Blue Eyes among other loungey classics.

I had read a few comments about Two Koi that suggested the service had not yet worked through the kinks, but this was not our experience at all. Our server was attentive, friendly and “totally adorable” according to my wife. Who am I to argue? From the window seat, we were able watch people stirring about the snow-covered plaza and participate in a favorite pastime; pointing at people and making fun of them. (Oh come on, you know you do it too.)

My wife is not a huge fan of raw fish, or anything from the sea for that matter, so we started with an order of edamame and some California Rolls. A pretty safe bet no doubt. I ordered Yakisoba Chicken plate and Dionne the Tonkatsu. Both were promptly prefaced by miso soup and house salads with a lemon ginger dressing. My dish arrived sizzling on a skillet. The presentation was well arranged and garnished with seaweed. I might add it was among the best Yakisoba I’ve tasted. A lot of places have a penchant for delivering a ginormous greasy plate o’noodles and calling it Yakisoba. Thankfully, this it not the Two Koi approach. The Tonkatsu plate served with white rice was also well garnished and tasty.

Though we did not have much sushi or sake, Two Koi is open late (2am) on the weekends for late night sushi fix and features 40 varieties of sake for the binge-drinker deep inside you.

With one glass of Pinot Noir and a Sapporo, we dined for $52 sans tip. We’ll definitely be back.

Two Koi Japanese Cuisine - 1552 Jefferson Ave, Tacoma (253) 274-8999

I helped some friends of mine put together a simple website for their newly-opened, retro-themed Martini bar in Port Orchard. Located at 110 Harrison in Port Orchard, the One Ten Lounge opened earlier this year to serve specialty cocktails in a comfortable, laid-back atmosphere. I visited the place a while back on a Friday evening and a diverse crowd packed the place. Dionne created a logo and some printed materials for the lounge, and this was set as the aesthetic used to design and build the website. If find yourself out in Port Orchard and looking for a place to relax, check it out. Link to http://www.onetenlounge.com/

Nerdy stuff: Wordpress was used as the cms for the site, Justin Simoni’s excellent Dada mail for the newsletter and Todd Dominey’s SlidshowPro and SlideshowPro Director for the photo galleries. All open source software that makes publishing websites so much easier than it was even just a few years ago.

Bounced into the Parkway Tavern on Saturday afternoon to check out the IPA Festival their blog post described as “An all-day celebration of hops featuring 18 of the finest regional IPAs.” Who doesn’t love India Pale Ale? There was a crowd of already quite rowdy people in the Parkway when we popped in about 5 in the afternoon. India Pale Ales are notorious for being just chock full of alcohol, up to around 10%. The Parkway was bumping. I picked up the scent a block away, there was a bbq out front and kielbasa sausage was being grilled. I haven’t been there in quite a long while, it’s all been redone inside and it looks great. On our first trip to the bar, an outwardly lit older woman instructed me to “try the erection beer”. Okay, guess I will.

She was talking about the Walking Man Homo Erectus Imperial IPA brewed in Stevenson, WA by the Walking Man Brewery. The brewery describes the beer as “An Imperial IPA brewed in celebration of being erect for two million years.” I ordered a 6 ounce glass. This was a bold IPA containing 10% alcohol by volume. Very nice. Even after several libations and cloudy judgement, she had recommended a stellar beer.

I sampled two more IPAs before leaving, the Bend, Oregon-based Deschutes Brewery’s Inversion IPA and Denver, Colorado’s Great Divide Titan IPA. Deschute’s makes killer beer. Already a big fan of their beers, especially the excellent Mirror Pond Pale Ale, it came as no surprise to me that this was my favorite of the afternoon. The Great Divide was also very tasty.

My faves in order:

1. Inversion IPA
2. Titan IPA
3. Homo Erectus Imperial IPA

Eavesdropped the table behind us: “I’ve been listening to Dead Kennedys again recently. I haven’t listened to it since I was about 13 years old, but I realized their musicianship was amazing”. To which I leaned over and injected “Welcome back.”.

The Parkway was still going strong when we left around 6:30. They were giving out tickets to win novetly bar prizes (tee shirts, hats, etc.) and the boisterous crowd roaring and cheering with every glass broken behind the bar. Like I said, IPAs are strong as hell. Better to leave early in the evening than be that guy at the bar who’s lost his pants and is crying uncontrollably at 9:30 PM. You know? Not like I’ve ever done that. I’m jus’sayin’…