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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.
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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 were like. Have a suggestion for a Drop-In Dining feature? E-mail us at tntdiner@thenewstribune.com.
Creole Café
Where: 10716 A St. S., Tacoma
Hours: 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Friday and Saturday
Phone: 253-536-7881
Price range: $ (entrees under $30)
By Sue Kidd
sue.kidd@thenewstribune.com
Blandon Dillon grew up learning how to cook in his mother’s kitchens in Maryland, Germany and Tacoma.
It didn’t matter where the family was traveling for his father’s Army assignments, two things remained constant: The cooking teacher was his mother and the food prepared always Louisianan.
His mother taught Dillon to appreciate and craft classic Louisiana-style food from scratch, using as many native ingredients as they could import from his mother’s hometown of New Orleans. Those ingredients and cooking techniques are what Dillon brings to Creole Café – the Tacoma restaurant that he and his mother have operated solo or jointly in various forms since 1994.
Pictured here: Clockwise form left is fried catfish and hushpuppies; crawfish and crawfish etouffe. Photo by Drew Perine/The News Tribune.
