Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Another Local Restaurant Recommendation

Last Friday, I attended a dinner to welcome the wing commander of my husband's unit, who isn't stationed here.

We had this dinner at a beautiful restaurant on the Des Moines marina. Huge picture windows gave us a wonderful view of Puget Sound. I only wish the sunset had been more spectacular.

Anyway, this building actually houses two restaurants. The upper floor is Anthony's Home Port, which is a bit more upscale with the menu to match. The more casual eatery - where we were - was on the lower floor, called The Oyster Bar & Grill. Same ownership, same chef. It's just a different atmosphere depending on which floor you prefer.

As you may have guessed, these restaurants (as with so many in the area) specialize mostly in seafood, but there are chicken and burgers for those who aren't into fish.

I shared a bottle of Washington State (Columbia Valley) Riesling with two of my dinner companions. Very very nice. And for dinner, I had Mahi Mahi tacos with tortilla chips and fresh salsa. Very mild and delicious. I thought the prices were pretty reasonable too. My entree, which was one of the cheaper ones, was about $10 or so. The bottle of wine that I shared was around $25, which doesn't seem so bad when split 3 ways (hey, I got very cheap wine in Europe...I guess I'm spoiled, so I had to balk just slightly at the price).

Most entrees on the menu were between $10-$20 range. So if you're more of an Applebees/TGI Friday's type when it comes to restaurant prices, this may be a place you only want to visit occasionally. But trust me, it's worth it. The service was impeccable as well.

For large groups however, the seating can be tricky. We were separated over 2 tables and it didn't make it easy for us to all talk together. You could really only talk to the people sitting around you.

Oyster Bar & Grill/Anthony's Home Port is part of a larger chain of restaurants scattered around the Pacific Northwest.

You can click here for their website.

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In other news, I have started my memoirs of my four years living in Germany. I brought the prologue and part of the first chapter to my writers' group today, and I got very positive feedback on it (and a few laughs, which is precisely what I was going for).

There is a writers' conference here in July where some nonfiction editors will be present, so that would be a good opportunity for me to hawk my manuscript and see if I can get any takers.

I'm very excited! My writers' group seems eager for me to bring in other parts of it while I'm writing it, so I would only be too happy to oblige.

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Upcoming posts: Friday night, I have plans to attend a performance of Giordano Jazz Dance Chicago in Auburn. So I will write a review of that, since they travel around and there's a chance they could come somewhere near you.

Also, in May, I will be going to Rochester, NY for 2 weeks for training for my new job. I don't know how much sightseeing time I'll get, since I'll be kept pretty busy, but I'll try to get out and see some of the local attractions. I'll have one weekend while I'm there, and I had thought about driving to Niagara Falls, but something has come up in my family where they will be in New York City around that time, so I may end up going to NYC that weekend instead. It won't be a sightseeing trip though, which is unfortunate, because I have never been to NYC except to pass through JFK Airport. But I'll try to have some content to put up here regardless.

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