Ed,



What is the most current review of the Blue Olive in Tacoma?



Thanks

That e-mail from a reader was in my in-box this morning. I Googled to find out: Nov. 12, 2004.

I’ve written about Blue Olive a few times since then, in round-ups on martini bars, happy-hour haunts, downtown restaurants and romantic restaurants.

But I haven’t written a full review of Blue Olive since Nov. 12, 2004.

Blue Olive is on my list of second-bite suspects – restaurants I’ve previously reviewed and

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No word yet on Mark Wambold’s post-Brix 25 restaurant (he sold the Gig Harbor restaurant earlier this year), but his current work is a beach. He’s consulting with Port Orchard’s Baja Outpost.

Wambold calls Baja Outpost “aspiring beach-themed casual dining.” He said the restaurant wants to expand into Gig Harbor and Tacoma. He’s eyeing a site on Sixth Avenue.

Two South Sound restaurants are among 16 Washington restaurants honored for what Wine Spectator magazine calls “a commitment to a fine wine list, with a sufficient selection of better producers along with a thematic match to the menu in both price and style.”

Brix 25 of Gig Harbor and Waterstreet Cafe and Bar of Olympia will be listed in Wine Spectator’s Aug. 31 issue, along with a host of Seattle restaurants.

The Melting Pot, a chain with a location in Tacoma, also made the list.

Plate-lunch kahuna L&L Hawaiian Barbecue has opened its first South Sound location: 32225 Pacific Highway South, Suite 105 Federal Way, 253-946-0788.

A Lakewood location is expected to open in a few months (somewhere in Town Center), joining locations in Renton and Lynwood.

A 30-year-old chain based in Honolulu, L&L opened on Pacific Highway (near 320th Street, in front of Trader Joe’s) about six weeks ago.

L&L’s 54-item menu features all the usual island suspects: Loco Moco, Spam musubi, kalua pork, lau lau, katsu, and, of course, plate lunches featuring heaping helpings of barbecued meat

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I’m trying to come up with a food story for the Western Washington Fair, which runs Sept. 8-24. Here are some 2005 fair food factoids I stumbled across in my research:

988,250: the number of scones baked

60,445: pounds of hamburger patties served

41,171: pounds of chicken served

38,913: pounds of pork spare ribs served

7,509: pounds of wieners and sausages not served on sticks

2,640: pounds of wieners battered and fried for Krusty Pups

690: pounds of buffalo burgers served

Source: TheFair.Com

Are you a member of The Lost Tribe of New Orleans?

A New Orleans physician and artist wants Katrina’s displaced diaspora to sit down to a ritual meal on the Aug. 29 anniversary of the hurricane. Do it where you can. Bring your own voodoo or Passover traditions.

"I humbly offer a basic outline of the first ever ‘Katrina Dinner’ to be held on the one-year anniversary of this momentous event," Justin Lundgren writes on katrinadinner2006.com.

"The outline does not have to be acted out literally, although you’re certainly welcome to follow it word

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Dale Chihuly’s Venetian glass sculptures at The Swiss. TNT photo by Bruce Kellman

I don’t usually condone the use of cell phones in restaurants and pubs. But I’m making an exception– and a cell-phone call – over this one.

The Swiss Pub — Tacoma’s home to more Dale Chihuly sculptures anywhere outside of a museum or Chihuly’s studio – is one of the cell-phone stops in Ear for Art, an audio tour of Chihuly

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Deep-frying OC dudes have raised the cholesterol stakes. The Los Angeles Times reports on the $4.95 chicken-Krispy Kreme sandwich at the Orange County Fair: chicken breast and Swiss cheese inside two slices of a glazed doughnut, served with honey.

“It’s a lot like eating sweet chicken,” one dude said.

“It’s why I come to the fair,” another dude said.

Deep frying went over the deep end last year when one OC hombre deep fried an avocado, stuffed with carne asada and cheese. After I stopped thinking about that concoction, I started to wonder what’s going

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