The Tempest Boom Boom Champagne Cocktail. Photo by me.

I stopped by Tempest Lounge last night to talk bubbly with Denise Tempest. For New Year's Eve, Denise has all kinds of bubbles to sample - by the glass or in cocktail form. Denise's champagne cocktails pair well with a story in today's SoundLife section about making party cocktails using sparkling wine. Like the story we ran in SoundLife today, Denise has a French 75 on the menu. She also has an orange-vodka champagne cocktail she mixed up called the Tempest Boom Boom (see the pic above). Click the "read more" button for her Boom Boom recipe, and for a few other recipes for champagne/sparkling wine cocktails.

If you drop in at Tempest for New Year's Eve, here's something else of interest: A flight of three bubblies for $11. It comes with pours of Lady of Spain Cava (Spain), Lucient Albrecht Cremant Rose (France) and Jansz Premium Cuvee (Tasmania).

Happy New Year to all. Be safe.

Tempest Bar and Lounge
913 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Tacoma; 253-272-4904

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I dine at the Old Spaghetti Factory.

There, I've said it.

But only when my three screaming nieces come to visit.

One thing I've always appreciated about the Factory (beyond welcoming misbehaving children) are the prices. And now it's getting cheaper.

The Portland-based chain is celebrating its 40th anniversary in January. On Jan. 6 dinner will cost you $3. And then prices get knocked down 40 percent on Mondays and Tuesdays for the rest of the month. Here are the details from the press release:

On Jan. 6 at dinner, a complete meal, including a salad, entree and dessert, will cost about $3. The Old Spaghetti Factory's award-winning kids' meals will cost about $2.

Guests will have their choice of six complete dinner items, including salad, a spaghetti entree, fresh bread and spumoni ice cream. This special anniversary menu includes Spaghetti with Tomato, Meat, Mushroom or Clam Sauce, and the signature Spaghetti with Mizithra Cheese or the Manager's Favorite all for about $2.35 to $3.45 per person. There will be a children's spaghetti dinner as well, for around $1.95.

After the 40th anniversary special on Jan. 6, The Old Spaghetti Factory will offer guests 40 percent off complete classic meals on Mondays and Tuesdays for the following three weeks of January.

I was inspired by TNT Diner reader joelchang, who posted his good, bad and ugly list for 2008 on the You Plate Special thread.

Below is the start of my good, bad and ugly list. Click the "read more" button to see the rest of my list, plus joelchang’s list.

And now it’s your turn to post your good, bad and ugly lists. What makes your list? Comment here, or e-mail to tntdiner@thenewstribune.com and I'll post them here.

My good list for 2008 (in no particular order):

1. Pupusas at El Pulgarcito in Tacoma. These warm, gooey treats are a bargain at $1.95 and are representative of the quality eats that come from the kitchen of Salvadoran restaurant El Pulgarcito. If you haven’t been to El Pulgarcito yet, get yourself there and try the queso (cheese) or calabazita (zucchini and cheese) pupusas.

2. The Big Al’s Combo at Lucky’s Hot Dog Diner in Puyallup. Brian Britton and family make a mean hot dog in their downtown Puyallup store. Get the Big Al’s, which is a casings-on snappy dog on a poppy seed bun and dressed in the mustard-onion-relish trifecta of hot dog perfection. It's great walking around food. After you're done there, walk up the street to Indulge Cupcakes for a red velvet wonder.

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This in the TNT Diner inbox this morning:

Hello--
I'm a former resident of Tacoma, south end.  We used to go to two different Italian restaurants in that end of town, La Pergola in Spanaway, then South Tacoma, and Amerigo's in University Place ..... I am looking for some kind of contact or any recipe info the TNT might have published.  We're talking the 1950's.
Thanks for your help.
Richard White

Unfortunately, a hand search of our microfiche library could take days or weeks and I'm on deadline for two stories and a project this week and next (doh!).

I recommended the reader connect with the Northwest Room at the Tacoma Public Library for some background research. But I thought perhaps TNT Diner readers may have background information, fodder, maybe even recipes for this reader. If you do, please comment.

Marliese Hall, co-owner of the Alt Heidelberg Restaurant in Fern Hill, serves Creig Sundstrom of Auburn a lunch of a reuben sandwich, half red cabbage and half sauerkraut, with a side of potato salad. Peter Haley/The News Tribune

EDITOR’S NOTE: Drop-In Dining is a restaurant dining report where reporters drop in unannounced and sample the food, on TNT’s dime, then report what the scene and the food was like. Have a suggestion for a Drop-In Dining feature? E-mail us at tntdiner@thenewstribune.com.

Alt Heidelberg German Restaurant
Where: 8233 S. Park Ave., Tacoma, 253-472-1219
Hours: 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday; 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sunday. Closed Mondays.
Price range: $ (Entrees up to $14)

By Sue Kidd
sue.kidd@thenewstribune.com

The scene: Alt Heidelberg German Restaurant is like eating in someone’s home. The restaurant is as big as a living room and looks like one too, with homey knickknacks and photographic nods to Germany. A stray printer sat on a dining room table on one visit (just like home!). A compact kitchen with open pantry shelving, laden with containers of bread crumbs and jars of apple sauce, looks like a kitchen that grandma would putter around in. Alt Heidelberg has four tables and room for about 20 diners. You best call ahead to see if there’s a table. It fills with just a few parties.

The food: German on steroids. Big portions, big menu, big German oomph. Alt Heidelberg serves food that’s classically comforting in a brats-and-beer-and-shnitzel kind of way. Judging from the visible action in the open kitchen, much of it is created from scratch.

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Earlier this year, Kim Farnes and Carl Scanson, the husband and wife owners of Orting’s Around the Corner Café, hatched an essay contest to give away their café. They intended to hand over their business to someone else in order to spend more time with their daughter Kirsty, who will leave home soon and join the Air Force.

The idea was pretty novel: Those interested in winning the restaurant would send a $100 entry fee and write an essay about why they wanted to assume the café that Farnes and Scanson have operated for four years. The couple hoped to get more than 4,000 entries. They intended to use the money to pay off the loan on the building that houses their café, and also would offer the new restaurant operator six months free rent and a bargain on a lease to continue operating the business after that. (click the Read More button to see the story we ran in June about the contest.)

But, it just didn’t work out.

“We didn’t even get close. We got seven entries,” said Farnes. “Had we done this last year, it would have been totally different,” Farnes said. “People are too sketchy right now about taking on a business.”

They closed the contest Dec. 1 and returned the $700 the contest entrants had sent. But Farnes didn’t want that to be the last of it.

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The opening of Olympia's Ranch House BBQ Restaurant is the latest casualty of the winter storm dump. "We're on complete hold," said an exasperated co-owner Melanie Tapia when I talked to her on the phone a few minutes ago. She had hoped that the restaurant would reopen by Jan. 2 – just over a year after a mudslide closed the barbecue restaurant, located off of Highway 8 just outside Olympia in Thurston County.

But with heavy snow that has delayed construction and county inspections, Tapia thinks late January is a more realistic opening date.

It's been a terrible 12 months for Tapia and co-owner Amy Anderson. First, a mudslide last December closed the restaurant. Then, a roof fire in November destroyed the roof and some of the interior. The duo had been operating the Ranch House at Olympia's Governor Hotel since last January, but closed that location Nov. 30 after their lease expired.

But with a downside, comes an upside. Tapia and Anderson restructured the interior to include a bar and lounge (they gave up office space to do that), but much of the character will remain. "Our goal is to make it feel just like the old Ranch House. That’s what people want," she said. The menu won't change a bit. Despite the fire, none of the champion bbq trophies were destroyed. They'll be on full display, just like they always have been.

Check back here for updates as the opening nears.

Ranch House BBQ: 10841 Kennedy Creek Road S.W., Olympia; 360-866-8704. Website here.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Drop-In Dining is a restaurant dining report where reporters drop in unannounced and sample the food, on TNT's dime, then report what the scene and food was like. Have a suggestion for a drop-in dining feature? E-mail us at tntdiner@thenewstribune.com.

Trackside Pizza
Where: 201 N. Meridian, Puyallup, 253-845-7437
Hours: 11 a.m.-10 p.m. daily,
Price range: $$ (entrees up to $ 30)

By Craig Hill
craig.hill@thenewstribune.com

The scene: Owner Shaun Brobak said he initially didn't like the location next to the railroad tracks for his new pizza place. But, after examining it, he decided to embrace the location with a railroad theme. This means railroad signs on the wall, train names like "The B&O" and the "Puffing Billy" for the pizzas and, of course, Trackside Pizza for the name.

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It's cold and flu season, and it seems to have bitten much of TNT staff (me included, I've been out since last week).

Soup is what I seek when I'm sick. If you're ailing and looking for the same, my picks to help feed your cold:

Corn chowder at Alt Heidelberg. If I hadn't been nailed with this terrible virus, I would have had a dining report today of the new German restaurant Alt Heidelberg (watch for it next Friday). Last week, I ordered the corn chowder at Alt Heidelberg and it was close to the most perfect soup I've ever had. Thick, rich, creamy and snappy with corn that had a bit of a fresh crunch (so many chefs overcook the corn in soups). NOTE: It was a daily soup special last week, and may not be on the menu this week. But if they offer it, do order it. While there, order the schnitzel with mushroom gravy. Trust me.

Tortilla Soup #8766 or West African Peanut at Infinite Soups. Wendy Clapp, Todd DeShazo and Laura Adams are the architects of the best soup in town. And I don't say that just because the trio used to run the cafeteria here at The News Tribune (full disclosure alert). There are so many soups to like on the menu, but when it's offered, I find myself navigating to West African Peanut or the Tortilla Soup. When Wendy made Tortilla Soup here at The News Tribune, she would always write a different number on the daily menu board – like "Tortilla Soup #478" or "Tortilla Soup #74." I teased her once about the numbers and she said that every batch is a little different, so it requires a new number every time. That's true of all her soups – they taste a little different every time – but they're always solidly good.

Alt Heidelberg: 8233 S. Park Ave., 253-472-1219.

Infinite Soups: 445 Tacoma Ave. S., 253-274-0232.

I saw an obituary for Peggy Fulton in today's TNT. The header was "I'll drink to that."

The obit said Fulton's and her late husband Ken's happiest days were spent owning and operating "The Flame" restaurant "where no one stayed a stranger for very long."

They sound like a great couple.

I did some quick research on The Flame but came up empty. I asked a couple of our old timers here and they vaguely remembered the restaurant but couldn't say where it was.

Anybody out there remember it?