Bacon pancakes at Original Pancake House.

TNT Diner reader Heather e-mailed me asking me about the new Original Pancake House on Meridian in Puyallup. I dutifully went to research pancakes and found a great discovery - bacon pancakes. It’s an efficient and tasty way to eat breakfast - bacon and flapjacks all in one vessel. What’s not to like?
The Original Pancake House, a Portland-based chain, also has about 15 other kinds of pancakes besides bacon: Banana, coconut, potato, blueberry, buckwheat, sourdough, corn, wheat germ, granola, Georgia pecan, Hawaiian pineapple, blueberry, chocolate chip and the classic pigs in a blanket. And there's a lot more breakfast on the menu - in fact, that's all they serve.

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Puyallup High School grads from left, Wade Reynolds, Jordan Caine, Tim Satre, and Scott Reynolds, right, opened Bagel Boyz Bakery July 19 in Puyallup. Photo by Dean J. Koepfler/The News Tribune.

Tonya Reynolds remembers when the idea for Bagel Boyz Bistro was just small talk around her kitchen table.
Her sons – fraternal twins Wade and Scott Reynolds – were kvetching that there weren’t any bagel bakeries in Puyallup. They grabbed a notebook and started jotting down ideas – those ideas formulated the yeasty origins of Bagel Boyz Bistro, which they opened with Puyallup High School classmates Jordan Caine and Tim Satre on July 19 in downtown Puyallup.

The four partners – all 19 years old – are 2008 graduates of Puyallup High School. They run the business with help from friends and family like Tonya Reynolds. The four partners are self-funded – they paid cash to start up the business. Wade is the foodie. He worked as a line cook at The Rose restaurant in Puyallup. Jordan and Wade both were students in the culinary arts program at Puyallup High. Scott and Tim lean toward the business side of Bagel Boyz.

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The strawberry cupcake served at Le Cupcake in Graham showcased the seasonality of the cupcakes.

A blueberry cupcake with a hidden center of caramelized blueberries and homemade caramel. A coconut-marshmallow-chocolate cupcake that’s a kitschy spin on a Hostess SnoBall. A peanut butter-fudge cupcake that made me a little weak, it was so rich and chewy. A strawberry cupcake with a base of buttery pound cake. There's a revolving daily cupcake menu at the new bakery-cafe Le Cupcake, which opened five weeks ago in Graham. You never know what will be in the display case. I like the element of cupcake surprise.

Owner Faith Guptill’s grandmother won awards for her cakes and desserts at the Puyallup Fair decades ago. Today, some of those recipes appear in the dessert case at Le Cupcake.

Guptill’s family has lived in Pierce County since her grandmother migrated to Tacoma from Sweden.

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The Rainbow roll at Sushi Island

Two dollar sushi rolls automatically make me suspicious. It makes me think of gas station sushi. Sushi is not like a cheap burrito. It takes skill to make.

I paid a visit to Sushi Island, a new South Hill sushi restaurant that opened last week, not knowing that menu prices were as cheap as the dollar store. But there it was: prices for maki rolls in the $1-$3 range. The rolls were four pieces, not the typical six to eight. Even with fewer pieces, it still was bargain sushi.

A deal is not necessarily something I want from sushi- specifically maki rolls.

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The margherita pizza and ham and brie sandwich at Minoela. Craig Sailor/The News Tribune

For popcorn fiends who also like to nosh, it might be a duel between The Grand Cinema's popcorn – I know people who say they go to the Grand just for popcorn – and Minoela, the new bistro wine bar that Danielle Kartes opened last week next door to the nonprofit arthouse cinema off of Sixth and Fawcett. (For background on Kartes, read this story I wrote in May).

I don’t know if the popcorn really is better at the Grand, or if it tastes better because the environment provides far more interest than a generic chain movie theater. Regardless, the Grand’s popcorn makes for great snacking. But filling, it’s not.
Enter Minoela: it seems on first perusal the perfect place to grab a substantial something before a movie at the Grand. And, based on a first taste this week, nosh lovers will like Minoela.

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Roseanna Donely and Dale Jarosz, owners of The Ark Smokehouse. Peter Haley/The News Tribune

Sometimes it takes a boatload of people to get a restaurant to float. In the case of the new Ark Smokehouse in Tacoma, Roseanna Donely relied on a crew of helpers when things began to tank.

A year ago, the restaurant veteran – with nearly 40 years’ experience operating the family-owned Caveman Kitchens in Kent – was looking to branch out with her sister Dale Jarosz. They intended to open a smokehouse in Tacoma. They found a location – the Olde Shipwreck on Marine View Drive – and leased the property, taking out a line of credit to complete building improvements.

Then came the economic storm, and The Ark’s line of credit washed away with it.

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I had to do a double take. Was this Capers Downtown? Or the new restaurant Seven-Oh-One? It seems the answer is – both. Sort of.

The same: The pastry display case that doubles as an ordering counter. The chef, as well as a lunchtime menu of interesting salads and sandwiches. Pretty, modern looking decor. The view of the old Tacoma City Hall from the window seats.

Different: The name, and the owner. Dinner service Wednesday through Saturday nights. And cocktails. $3 martinis, to be exact. Oh, and $8 bottles of wine with dinner on Wednesday nights. Did I mention the half-price menu on Thursday nights?

Pictured here: The Chinese chicken salad at Seven-Oh-One. Photo by Craig Sailor/The News Tribune

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The brushetta, brie with onion relish, and chicken pesto panini are noshes available at Harbor Greens wine bar in Gig Harbor. Photo by Lui Kit Wong/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 were like. Have a suggestion for a Drop-In Dining feature? E-mail us at tntdiner@thenewstribune.com.

By Sue Kidd
sue.kidd@thenewstribune.com

With dwindling dining dollars and more people searching for value, I took to two new South Sound wine bars in search of affordable splurges. My goal: a few glasses of wine and a few nibbles for around $40 or less.

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I headed to Freighthouse Square today in search of lunch on the cheap. In the last month, three new restaurants have opened at Freighthouse and signs indicate two more restaurants will open soon. Freighthouse always seems a revolving door of restaurants. Sometimes disappointing, sometimes hidden gems – what you get at Freighthouse always is a mixed bag.

My dining partner and I stopped in at the newly opened Cyber Pasta, located just off the main food court at the mall. It's an order-at-the-counter place with a pasta concept merged with coffee (serving Pura Vida free trade coffee) and free wifi. The restaurant offers mix-and-match pasta and sauces. Diners can pair penne, spaghetti, fettuccine, tortellini or linguine with seven sauces that range from marina to alfredo to a sesame ginger. Any pairing is $4.99.

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I stopped by the opening last night of Pizzeria Fondi in Puyallup's Sunrise Village Shopping Center – the upscale(ish) retail mall that includes the tenants L.A. Fitness, Target and the restaurants The Ram and Qdoba Grill.

It was a slow night for the new pizzeria, with servers and kitchen staff outnumbering the handful of diners. The restaurant is a fast-casual concept where diners order at the counter, take a number and a table and wait for the food to be delivered. The food is a slightly abbreviated menu compared to the sit-down versions of the chain restaurant owned by Restaurants Unlimited. The Gig Harbor Fondi location, like Puyallup, is a fast-casual restaurant, but the Seattle and Kent locations are sit-down restaurants with a longer wine list and more menu choices. (Restaurants Unlimited also owns Stanley & Seafort's, in case you're keeping tabs.)

Pictured here is the prosciutto and arugula pizza from Fondi, $12.95.

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The new World Café in Puyallup’s South Hill is a dual-purpose food destination. For the drive-by eater, it’s a fast, casual café with a limited menu of wraps, soups, salads, a few grain-based entrees, and a small breakfast menu of oatmeal, paninis and nutritious pastries. For the time-pressed cook (aka my fellow Puyallup moms), the cafe is a pickup place for Day By Day Gourmet, a meals ready business where frozen dinners can be picked up and stashed in a freezer until dinner is needed.

The company’s mantra is healthy food – nutritious ingredients, prepared with a nod to ethnic flavors. And the concept is helped along by a Northwest healthy eats pioneer – former public television cooking host Graham Kerr, who helped develop the menu (other credentialed culinary professionals also helped with the concept, check the website for details).

Shown here: A Thai chicken wrap, called a trumpette, comes on a sundried tomato tortilla with a smear of garlic scented bean spread, coconut, curry and cilantro marinated chicken and fresh greens inside, and on the side.

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I drove by the Giggling Greek a month or so ago and noticed the downtown Puyallup restaurant was closed on a night when they should have been open. There was a note tacked on the window saying there had been an emergency.

I drove by again, during the December storms –closed again. The streets were crummy, so that explained it. Another drive by after the ice mostly cleared, but they were closed again.

I dropped in again last week and found them open – and surprised at a new, lower-priced menu and a scaled-back Greek approach. Tacos, steak and meatloaf are daily specials. Probably half the menu is still Greek, but items like burgers and nachos also now are offered.

What gives?

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