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"Opinionatrix"
- 206 Friends
- 477 Reviews
- 16 Review Updates
- 297 Firsts
- 29 Fans
- 527 Local Photos
- 1 Event Submitted
- 35 Lists
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Review votes:
1760 Useful, 624 Funny, and 1112 Cool
Bellevue, WA
Yelping SinceApril 2006
Find Me Infront of a computer
My HometownBellevue, WA
My Blog Or WebsiteI give up. This is it.
When I'm Not Yelping...I'm a technical writer, editor, and mom.
Why You Should Read My ReviewsI live to eat. I love to eat. And I love to tell you what I like.
My Second Favorite Website The Last Great Book I ReadThe Beasts of Clawstone Castle
My First ConcertThe Scorpions
My Favorite MovieStrangers in Good Company (the Canadian version)
My Last Meal On EarthIf I was never going to eat again? Definitely meat lasagna.
Don't Tell Anyone Else But...I hate mayonnaise.
Current CrushMy husband. Duh.
DateBellevue, WA 98008
(425) 644-1111
Crossroads P Patch Community Garden
Categories: Community Service/Non-Profit, Gardeners
Oh, and OMG, those chocolate hearts at Valentine's Day were so good that I had to get more. The box my DH bought me was ample but I couldn't stop eating them... there's something about the perfect balance of sweetness and bite in her chocolate that makes it special.
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8/13/2008
You can't go wrong here. Cozy room, friendly people, and delicious free trade organic coffee and 100% organic baked goods and chocolates... and it's a local business with no big-chain ties! Elena (Ellen-uh) is bright and funny and will stay out of your business, but if you talk to her you will discover her quick wit and easy charm. I don't even much like coffee and I like to go here, and let's just say my husband DOES love coffee and is a daily regular here.
There's more parking, the covered arena is gorgeous, clean, and DRY, and there's plenty of quiet to keep the lessons sane... not like some of the bigger, busier stables where there are handfuls of horses coming and going all the time, five to six horses and riders trying to share the arena, and jumpers making the approach across the trails.
Carol's adding more weeks of camp this summer for the 6 to 12 year olds and if you have a kid this age, you've got to check out her website and get your deposit in ASAP! It's going to be a fun summer at the barn!
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3/11/2009
Carol's still an excellent teacher and her efforts, and those of my daughter, have improved my daughter's riding an amazing amount in six months! She can control a "normal" -- not easy -- horse at a walk and a trot, has a great solid seat that survives a horse being spooked under her, and she knows all the basic safety stuff.
Unfortunately, Carol's neighbors seem to have forgotten that they live in the WORKING neighborhood of Bridle Trails. Someone complained to the city, it turns out Carol didn't have ONE of the multiple permits needed, and they took public comments (many for, some against) and then shut her business down at this location. BOO!!
Carol will be partnering with several other outstanding trainers from a stable in Woodinville beginning 03/16/09. Joanne and I are going to follow them there, and we encourage you to do so too.
Carol is still a great instructor and she has a wonderful group of school horses; safe and reliable but not abused or beaten down. They will be getting a few more ponies and another horse or two as well so that they can take on more students in their new location, which has a COVERED, LIT arena... which means foul-weather and nighttime lessons are possible and more comfortable now.
Her prices are fair and she offers multi-lesson discounts via a pre-paid punch card, which also makes a great gift certificate. -
9/9/2008 First to Review
Carol Hopkins is an outstanding teacher and her school horses are wonderful. Unlike the usual string of tired, surly nags, these horses are well-trained and have pep left in them; students have to work to earn their respect though all beginners start out on the rock-solid leopard Appaloosa named Sam, who is wise, gentle, and really pretty. Isn't that how all 8 year old girls want to learn to ride?
Carol's prices are reasonable and her Bridle Trails location is much more convenient than the places in Fall City, Hobart, and Woodinville that offer similar lessons.
The results are stunning. We're not beautiful people (LOL) but in a whirlwind hour and fifteen minutes she took 370 photos of us on three different backgrounds and with several clothing changes involved too. I'm supposed to narrow it down to ten that I like for her to retouch and I can narrow it down to eighty -- there are literally twenty different poses and groupings of us to choose from!
We got a great deal and she's recently had to raise her prices but her new prices -- $150 for the session including retouching of five photos that you select from all of your photos, which she burns onto a DVD and gives you -- are still really fair. So few of the photos are closed-eye or looking-away duds that you will find yourself printing MANY of them at your favorite photo-printing kiosk. (She gives you a release to the rights, so you won't be hassled about copyright).
She brought out great expressions and smiles from my 10 month old baby, my easy-going 9 year old, and my often-surly almost 15 year old. My normally reticent husband begged for a few more pose combinations of him with the kids. And I tear up every time I look at the photos she took of the baby and I interacting at the end of the session -- they are ALL lovely.
Make the drive, which was almost exactly an hour door-to-door from Bellevue. You won't be disappointed!
If you'd like to see our results, private-message me and I will send you my Picasa link.
Kirkland, WA 98034
(425) 245-3728
The Bathery Electrolysis & Skincare
Categories: Skin Care, Hair Removal
I'm going to try sugaring too... it will be interesting to see how it compares to hard wax for the Brazilian I like to get a few times a year. i certainly won't be embarrassed having Cassandra do it, which is a plus, and I trust her to have really good skills.
Her prices are fair to excellent, her treatment room is small but clean and quiet, and parking is easy at this office building next to Michael's.
This place wouldn't touch any of the best places I know in North Carolina, but it's certainly on par with many of the beloved fast-food barbecue lunch places there, and since that's what this place is trying to be, I think they should be considered successful.
Will you have a mouthgasm in the middle of the restaurant? Probably not. Will you be glad that you skipped another day of McPuke? Definitely.
Their sides. by the way. were universally really good too... not five star OMG level, but really solid four stars all the way.
Restrooms were clean and warm enough. Points for that.
As a result, Grazie is only open now in Mill Creek and Tukwila, both lots of miles from us (we live in East Bellevue, about 4 miles from Factoria). Management is bitter about the Factoria experience but hopes to open again in the "central Eastside" area -- Bellevue or Redmond -- since many loyal customers of theirs are in those towns.
I am really sad. And I have written a passionate letter to the Factoria Mall management, encouraging them to put local representation in place (apparently, they are managing the mall from upstate New York!) and to give more consideration to the long-term relationships many of the businesses and their customers enjoy.
Please continue to visit Grazie in its other locations, and consider trying Vino in Renton, Pizzaria Guido and Firenze in Crossroads Mall, Bellevue -- all are owned by the same family and all of these restaurants are excellent in their own way. Still, Factoria Grazie had a special place in my heart and I was really sad to learn that they were forced out several months ago.
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7/9/2006 First to Review
This restaurant is special to me, being the very first place I dined when I arrived in the Seattle area. The service that day, eight years ago, was as fantastic as the food, and it really set the tone for the first months of my life here. It remains a favorite of my family.
The menu changes seasonally to take advantage of local ingredients. Everything on the menu is super-tasty, homemade, and served in good-size portions. It's not uncommon for me to take leftovers home, and I don't mind, because it's still great the next day.
Service is consistently good, even when they're really busy, which is fairly common on the weekends. They handled my daughter's birthday-party group of 20 people with dexterity and an adequate number of servers to bring the food out all together and to keep everyone happy, and they weren't cranky about splitting the checks up either, which is very rare for large groups.
We've had exactly one waitress ignore us a bit too much out of probably 45 visits, and it turned out she was about to go off-shift after working a double... it's not our fault she was tired, but I forgave this slight lapse in light of the rest of the service we've gotten.
My favorite entree is the chicken parm (that's my Italian test-a-restaurant dish), which is served as a giant portion of hand-pounded and breaded chicken breast with beautiful marinara... the side that comes with it is lemon penne, but I always ask for fettucini with marinara and nobody minds. The meat lasagna is really delicious, and the salads are generous, crisp, and tasty.
Vegetarians who have dined here with me are quite happy; there are many choices for them beyond the garden salad, including excellent eggplant parm. The kids' menu has a good range of choices and my daughter actually likes most of what they offer. She even likes their calamari! (That's on the grown-up menu) :-)
The wine list is pretty extensive and there's a good range of by-the-glass options.
Grazie is family-owned and there are three locations (the other ones are in Bothell and in Tukwila). Each Grazie offers a slightly different menu, which makes going to the different ones more interesting than it otherwise would be. The family also owns Vino in Renton (higher-end and more romantic), Firenze in Bellevue, and Guido's Pizzeria in Bellevue. I've yet to be seriously disappointed by ANY of these restaurants!
The good news is that they've worked it out! The new restaurant was WONDERFUL tonight. I'd ding them a quarter-star for one thing, but I'll get there.
The welcome was warm and friendly. We were seated immediately. The restaurant is clean, spacious, and decorated much more nicely than your typical tacky taqueria. (And there's a place for that kitsch, but I'm old enough to be tired of it). Hot chips, spicy salsa, and ice water were delivered immediately, with ordered drinks hot on their heels.
We ordered our food, and then it came pretty fast. DH got the pollo con crema, his "test a Mexican resto" dish, the 8 yo had the cheese crispi, and I had the pork osso bucco. Everything was piping hot and served beautifully.
DH said the pollo con crema was a little flat, a teeny bit bland, but the homemade, fresh tortillas made up for that. The cheese crispi was not enough food for a hungry 8yp with a hollow leg, but for $4 you can't be surprised, and we weren't. She snacked off our plates. The Osso bucco was FANTASTIC. It is quite possibly the best dish and best presention I have EVER encountered in a Mexican restaurant, and I will definitely order it again here. The pork was meltingly tender and it was a lovely big portion... I was stuffed when I was done. The sauce was flavorful without being overwhelming, the rice was good, and the black beans were perfect (the baby got to try them for this first time and LOVED them!
The restrooms were clean, ample, and cold. Minus a quarter-star... but not really enough of a problem to bitch about in any way.
Service was friendly and polite. Everything was refilled at the correct moment and we were never without anything we needed.
Prices are completely reasonable. We're going back!
The comfort food is awesome as well if you are with a group that wants different things.
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6/16/2006
The kids call this the "airplane cafe" and none of us can figure out where the 12th Ave business name came from... it's off Gilman Blvd, and NOT on 12th Ave... I guess maybe they moved from 12 Ave eons ago. No matter. The food is by and large excellent, so who cares?
I like to order from the seniors/light bites menu... you pick a meat from a long list and two sides for less than $8. The meatloaf is good, the chicken is good, the soups are homemade. Ironically, I haven't often had breakfast there, but the rest of the family gives it high marks. The fries are a little mushier than I like them, but others in my family really love them, so it's just me.
Many of the staff have been working for the cafe a long time, it's true, but a few of them are fairly careless about getting things right, and that's cost them a star in my book. I've gotten sugar-Coke instead of Diet Coke a few too many times to be confident in their accuracy.
So we ended up at Friday's. WTF is up with the stupid layout of the front doors? BAD SIGN! If you hold the door open for your friend, you have to shut the door to let yourself in because of incredibly stupid pillar placement. Not friendly from the get-go.
We were seated immediately and our server was friendly, though he lost some points for calling us "girls" about five times... we're both over 30, thank you very much, and your pimples put you in your mid-20s. Show some respect. Sodas were brought quickly albeit in plastic 'glasses'.
There's too much to choose from on the menu. I've moved over to the Gordon Ramsay school of thought on this issue... a huge menu means that everything is brought in frozen and most of it will be crap. I'd rather have a short, all-fresh-made menu of things to choose from, or a menu with lots of choices that are variations on a theme (a la Red Robin, where the burgers are good even though there are many to choose from, because the basic ingredients are all fresh).
We ordered burgers which were made correctly to our order but were still just so-so. The sweet potato fries were better than the regular ones. The white potato fries seemed to get cold immediately; I didn't notice if they came to the table boiling hot, but my guess is that they did not. Come on! That is SO basic!!
The music and the TVs were a little loud for the number of people in the place. The restrooms were ample and clean. That's a nice change, especially at a restaurant of this type and age.
35 Lists
The community garden is a partnership with the City of Bellevue and the Pomegranate Center. Year-round plots cost $40 for a 5' x 20' or $60 for a 10' x 20' garden. (10' x 20's are available now, but won't always be). And we measured with a tape measure today; our 10' x 20' garden is actually 12' x 20'! Gardeners are responsible for the garden for twelve months; it either must be mulched, cover-cropped, or planted for the winter.
The garden comes with water for irrigation; a generous number of hose connections are provided. Gardeners are expected to use organic methods and are each expected to provide four hours of labor towards the overall garden improvements (our first project is going to be installing a fence!)
Everyone we've met so far has been friendly and kind, and I am looking forward to making some new friends in the garden! Most people are growing vegetables, by the way, but there's nothing in the rules to keep a person from making a Zen garden or a flower garden out of their plot, as long as it's neat and tidy.