Send comments, gossip or complaints to: tntdiner@thenewstribune.com.
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/tntdiner
Got something to say? Here's the place to comment on and discuss what's on your plate and on your mind. Don't wait for us to post something to respond to.
Want to find the best deals around town? Here's the place to find out how to best spend your dining dollars.
Sue Kidd is the Lifestyle Editor at The News Tribune and the ringleader for the Food and Home&Garden sections. She has worked as a food journalist at Northwest newspapers since 1993, most recently as a food writer, editor and restaurant reviewer in King County before joining The News Tribune in 2004. Her food obsessions at the moment are honey, cheese and oysters.
Craig Sailor is the Arts&Entertainment editor at The News Tribune. He grew up on a garlic farm near Gilroy, Calif. and now farms oysters in his spare time at Willapa Bay. He’s traveled the world from Kyoto/Kuala Lumpur/Hong Kong to Zanzibar in search of great food.
- All
- All-Purpose Stuff (169)
- Bacon! (3)
- Beverages (134)
- Breakfast (7)
- Changes and sales (77)
- Chefs (27)
- Cool Things (80)
- Customers and kids (18)
- Dining trends (44)
- Downtown Tacoma restaurants (54)
- Drop-In Dining reports (53)
- Ewww! (24)
- Extra! Extra! (24)
- Farmers Market Fresh (6)
- Farming and growing (49)
- First Bite (44)
- From the Gut (27)
- Happy Hours (4)
- Help Wanted (43)
- Homework (14)
- I love cheese (4)
- Industry stuff (61)
- Live Blogging (50)
- Media (12)
- Multimedia Specials (6)
- Parking (6)
- Pubs (34)
- Reading Room (30)
- Restaurant closings (45)
- Restaurant openings (157)
- Reviewing (50)
- Second Bite (1)
- Send It Back (corrections) (4)
- Service (34)
- Simmering Question (28)
- Steals, Deals and Discounts (9)
- Store grazing (2)
- Swag Heap (3)
- Ten in One restaurant series (3)
- The Surveys Say ... (4)
- The You Plate Special (16)
- Tipping (9)
| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| << < | Current | > >> | ||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | |
| 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 |
| 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 |
| 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 |
| 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | |||
- August 2009 (16)
- July 2009 (16)
- June 2009 (13)
- May 2009 (22)
- April 2009 (22)
- March 2009 (17)
- February 2009 (18)
- January 2009 (26)
- December 2008 (21)
- November 2008 (14)
- October 2008 (27)
- September 2008 (27)
- More...
Does the post below taste bitter? Yeah, well ... Here's a sweet thing I've been working on from home: caramel.
It's amazing what sugar does when it gets hot. Add butter and cream and a shot of vanilla and -- wow.
Besides trying to figure out how to pronounce the word -- do you say "care-uh-mel" or "car-mull"? -- here are a few things I'm doing with the gooey good suff this weekend in advance of my deadline on Tuesday.

Chocolate-dipped caramels, on my deck.

Caramel paste baskets, on my deck.
Want to see why you need to be safe when working with molten sugar? Click below.
The other day I blogged about a miserable service experience at a Tacoma restaurant. So bad, in fact, that the restaurant would have done better for its customers by outsourcing the servers' jobs to India.
Now, a reader who claims to be a server -- and, more importantly, claims to have some dish on customers' bad behavior -- has a request:
How about a post on the polar opposite? I would like to hear from professional wait staff that read this blog. Tell us your experiences of inept customers and the ridiculous things they ask. I'm sure you have a few…I know I do!
I'd like to hear them too. It's Friday. This here forum is yours' through the weekend.
But before you share your tales of customers gone wrong, I have one more anecdote from that Tacoma restaurant whose service staff needs better training and a lot more attention from the owners.
