Stephanie "Hobo Pie" P.'s Profile

You see them on every road trip - those roadside stands with big hand-painted signs yelling "FRUIT!!!"  But how are you, the out-of-towner, to know which ones are worth stopping at and which aren't worth a drive-by?  Well, if you happen to be around Lake Chelan, you should definitely pay a visit to the Sunshine Farm Market.

Located right next to the Tunnel Hill winery, the market is more like a small open-air grocery store - there is fresh local produce, but about half their stock is pre-packaged jams, jellies, mustards, candies, and the like.  It's pricey, but they also have really good stuff that's worth paying a bit more.

Stuff to look for:

- The Rainier cherries were crisp, ripe, and delicious as of mid-June, and reasonably priced at $4.99/lb.
- The veggie salsa sold by the tub is flat-out AMAZING.  It's like a pico de gallo, but with little or no tomatoes - just a bunch of fresh chopped veggies in a tart, tangy, spicy sauce.  The owners said it gets snapped up as often as they can order it, so if you see it, get it!
- AJ's Walla Walla sweet onion mustard was a favorite of our hostesses.
- The organic gummi fruit slices are $9/lb, but seriously, they're worth it.  You can buy small prepacked bags or buy in bulk.

Oh, and they have baby goats in a pen outside the store!  You can't feed them, but you can pet their noses and take pictures of their creepy sideways eyes.

They also sell frozen treats, soft drinks, and bags of ice for $1.50, so you can stock the cooler and take home perishable snacks even if you've got a long haul ahead of you.  FRUIT!

Thrifting is an essential part of every vacation, but we were still surprised when our hostess at Lake Chelan insisted that Wenatchee was a thrifting treasure trove.  "You have to go to this one place!" she insisted.  "It's in a crazy house that goes on and on, and it's Christian, and they have pay-by-the-pound bins..."  SOLD.

Well, she was right on all counts.  From the "WWJD?" sign out front to the Christian-themed murals around the fence, this place is pretty strongly religious.  It's an odd hybrid of thrift store and gift shoppe - there are obviously new beaded purses and jewelry for sale, plus soaps and bath products.  But then there's also the racks and racks of 47-cent clothing out back.  Did I mention the live doves?

Other than the 47-cent racks, most of the items seemed priced a bit high, but I did find a cute top and my shopping companion found a reflective safety vest in the 50% off section.  The cashier didn't want to sell it to him because she said someone else had come in earlier looking for one, and the cashier had promised she would call them if one turned up.  He ignored her hints and bought it anyway (he needed it for legitimate safety purposes), and then she gave us a loaf of stale bread.  I guess that's Christian charity, or maybe we just looked hungry.

I wouldn't go here expecting to find super bargains,but if you're in Wenatchee, it's worth a quick visit just to check out this Winchester Mystery House of a thrift store, and maybe get some free bread while you're at it.

You know what sucks? Getting in a car accident. You know what sucks even more? Getting hit when it isn't your fault, yet you're the one who has to go through all the work and inconvenience of having your car repaired.  Thoroughbred Collision Center did a great job of making that process as painless as possible.

My car had the passenger-side mirror knocked off and a front panel deeply scratched, and the person who did it wanted to avoid going through insurance. So I called around to some places, and found that Thoroughbred had comparable rates (they quoted $880 for the repairs).  They are open M-F 7:30 to 5:00, and currently there's about a one-week wait to bring your car in.

Both in person and on the phone, they were always friendly and helpful.  The initial quote took only about 10 minutes to do, and they said they would need my car for 3 full days.  I dropped it off first thing on Monday, and it was ready by close of business on Tuesday!  

The only slightly weird thing was that in cases like mine, where someone besides the car owner is paying for repairs, they insist that the payor comes in AFTER the car is dropped off, to avoid having unused funds on their books.  They wouldn't even take credit card info in advance (also, if the payor is not the car owner, they have to go there in person to authorize the payment).  This gave me a mini-ulcer when I had to drop my car off for repairs and just hope that the other person would pay in time.  She did, and it worked out fine, but because of their payment policy, I would recommend just having the other person pay you cash directly and then paying for your own repairs once cash is in hand.

If you're in West Seattle, this is an easy spot to get to, just a couple of blocks from the Junction and very close to a 54/55 stop.  I wish they had later evening hours for people who work 9-5 jobs, but overall they did an excellent job and I'm very satisfied with the result.

I can't believe it took me over a year after moving to West Seattle to try this place!  Maybe it's because it doesn't look like much from the outside - you'd probably drive right past if you didn't know to look for its unobtrusive yellow sign.  

We thought we were hungry enough to eat everything they could bring, but Kokoras spanked us with their giant portions.  If you're getting the gyro ($7.50), a fork-and-knife Mount Olympus piled high with meat, feta, onions, and lettuce atop a fluffy plate-sized pita, then you definitely don't need the "small" Greek salad ($7.50), a too-rich, oily olive-and-cheesefest that's more than enough for 2.  The skordalia, a cold garlic-potato puree served with pita ($4), was interesting and tasty, but they skimped on the pita wedges.  Luckily, there was plenty extra on my huge gyro.

The service was fast and friendly, even on a Friday night - we waited maybe 10 minutes for our table.  The dining room is TINY, and there's not much of a waiting area, other than hovering over still-eating diners and staring at them intently.  I wish I could have tried the baklava or avgolemono, but there just wasn't room!  But we agreed that it was good enough to go back, so maybe next time... it's no Mediterranean Grill, but this is a whole lot closer than Bellevue, too.

I've been to different Hair Masters locations before and found them only so-so, but this time I had some very specific requirements:  a) it had to be near where my grandma lives (she was the one getting the haircut), b) they had to be patient with her hearing problems, and c) it had to be at a price that wouldn't offend her thrifty Depression standards.  Would Hair Masters Renton be up to the challenge?

Actually, they were!  The girl I talked to on the phone was happy to make a same-day appointment, and totally understood when I explained her needs - I think they get a lot of little old ladies coming in, as it's right around the corner from Fred Meyer. The shop is clean, spacious, and bright, with plenty of chairs free on a Sunday afternoon.  They were ready for us with no waiting, even though we were a little early, and within 20 mins. we were out of there.  Fast!  A shampoo, cut, and blow-dry was only $19, which even impressed my grandma.  "They charge more than that at the place I went to before!" she said.  

The haircut itself is OK, not amazing, but she wanted a wash-and-go kind of thing, which it is (and, to be fair, we weren't very specific about the finer points of the desired style).  My grandma was impressed and really liked her new short summer style, and any place that passes muster with her makes my life way easier.

Probably not the place to go for a super-trendy hipster 'do or high-maintenance looks, but you can't beat the price, speed, and convenience.

Full disclosure: I was here for the Yelp elite event, which apparently was also their dress rehearsal before the grand opening the following night. So our experience was probably somewhat different from a typical paying customer's... especially once they get the grand-opening kinks worked out.

Cinebarre is a 21+ movie theater slash bar slash restaurant, where they offer table service for food and drinks right to your seat.  It's a neat idea, especially on the kid-free front (though there are other similar theaters in the area), but there are definitely some flaws to the system.

Normally they offer pizza, sandwiches/burgers, appetizers, popcorn, and desserts, plus alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks, but for this event they had a limited menu of pizza and drinks only.  There were at least a couple hundred people there, all ordering pizza and drinks, and the kitchen was obviously overwhelmed - we ordered well before the movie started and waited a good 50+ minutes for our food.  But at least we got our pizza during the movie - I saw some servers apologetically handing out to-go boxes at the end of the movie, and the people next to us walked out after never receiving their food.  The servers did the best they could and were friendly and helpful, but it is a little distracting to have people scuttling back and forth in front of you throughout the movie, blocking the screen.  The theater is also a little noisier than a typical theater because there's always some conversation between servers and customers, which can also be distracting.  

I'm told movie tickets will be about $10.50, but I don't know how much the food will be, since we got girl menus with no prices (and didn't see a copy of the full menu).  The thin-crust pizzas were good, not outstanding - I had the Braveheart, with spinach, goat cheese, sun-dried tomatoes, and artichoke hearts, and it was tasty with a somewhat dry crust.  It's a good thing the sodas are huge!

Evidently, they would normally stagger showtimes so that they're only serving one theater at a time, which would cut down significantly on the delays.  But I can't help thinking they shouldn't have staged such a large event if they couldn't handle the theater filled to capacity with hungry guests.  Still, I'm willing to try it again in about a month, when they've figured things out, though overall I probably wouldn't drive out to Mountlake Terrace just for the novelty of lukewarm hour-long-wait pizza with my movie.

Consider my expectations exceeded!  We ended up here last weekend when the place we tried to go to was closed.  Hungry and wanting to get out of the rain, we went to Mr. Lu's on a whim and were very pleasantly surprised.

The interior is cheerful and bright, but no-frills, and the tables aren't especially clean (I had to brush stuff off of ours).  But they were friendly and quick to take our order at the counter.  The food seemed to take a long time to come, considering that nobody else was waiting for food at that point, but it was worth it.

Burgers run from $5.75 to 7.95, and fish-and-chips stuff goes up to $12.75, but almost everything is well under $10.  They have some chicken sandwiches and veggie burgers too.  I had the mushroom cheeseburger (grilled mushrooms, swiss, aioli), which was VERY juicy and messy, but also very good.  The burgers are thick, good-quality, and skilfully grilled.  All orders come with fries, which were hot and crispy and perfectly done, and this awesome (though too watery) bacon/ranch dipping sauce.

It's a very casual atmosphere, clearly geared toward students, right down to the buy-12-get-one-free punch card.  On a Saturday afternoon around 2, it was quiet inside with just a couple of tables occupied.  They were playing music, but not at the obnoxious volume that other reviewers mentioned, so apparently they've figured out the background-music thing.

Tasty, well-made burgers, good prices, and friendly service = new favorite burger joint in the U-district!

WOW. This was hands-down the worst dining experience I've had in a long time - even worse because I had heard such good things about what an amazing place it was.  If I could give it less than one star, I would.

We were a group of 14 people who were there for a birthday dinner.  Large group of repeat customers and first-timers... you'd think they'd want to make sure we had a great experience, right?  Nope.  The problems started when we sat down - they didn't have a table arrangement large enough for us, so we had to sit at two separate tables and carry our own food platters back and forth.  The birthday girl who had organized the dinner had spoken on the phone with the owner about setting a $20-per-person price for a family-style dinner, but the waitress made a face and said, "Well, our family-style starts at $25 per person."  We agreed to that, thinking that with wine, it would be about $35-40 per person - a lot, but I had been assured by several people that it would be a ton of great food.

Wrong again!  In fairness, we had several veggie/vegan people in our party, so they had different main courses.  But I had a salad, garlic bread, a small serving of pesto pasta, a small piece of lemon chicken, one glass of not-great white wine, and a tiny piece of tiramisu... for SEVENTY DOLLARS.  Many of us weren't even full, because we were taking tiny portions to share and because we thought there would be much more coming.

Of course places like this make their money with the booze, and they were charging $30 a bottle for wine that definitely wasn't worth that much.  At some point, a tray of limoncello cordials appeared... it was never mentioned that this was extra, or how much it would cost, but we later found out those were TEN DOLLARS each.  Needless to say, they weren't ten-dollar drinks.

When we got the bill, it wasn't itemized, just a vomit-inducing total of nearly $1,000 (including built-in gratuity).  We tried to get the waitress to explain but never did receive an itemized bill, or any proof of, say, whether the amount they charged us for wine corresponded to the actual number of bottles we consumed (empty bottles were instantly whisked away and replaced).

Unbelievable.  I never thought I would hear myself calling Pasta Freska a good deal, but we paid less there and had about twice as much food, including better ingredients (steak, shrimp, fish) AND a ton of yummy wine.  This experience was so awful that I'm writing DeNunzio's a letter to give them a chance to respond and make good, but given what I've seen of them so far, I'm not optimistic.  DO NOT go here for any reason, and especially for big group dinners, unless your idea of a good time is spending 30 minutes having an ulcer over the bill.

5/7/09 UPDATE: After I sent my letter, the owner, Luigi DeNunzio, contacted the birthday girl, not me - even though I specifically asked him to reply to ME (to spare her further hassle over this).  She told me they had a very awkward, confrontational conversation - he was hostile, unapologetic, and defensive, and attempted to blame us for any service problems, e.g., saying we showed up with a larger party than we made reservations for (not true).

She stuck to her guns, and eventually he reluctantly agreed to refund a portion of our money.  He told her that he had not responded to my letter and he would not, which indeed he hasn't (posting a comment to my Yelp review is NOT a personal response).  So I guess I just don't count as a customer!  The refund check did arrive promptly, and my share of it was $15, so now I guess I paid $55 for an unsatisfying meal, rather than $70.  I'm pretty unimpressed with the "tell her I'm not talking to her" routine, and annoyed that the birthday girl had to be further inconvenienced and hassled over this whole ordeal.

I guess Luigi and I agree on one thing - I'm not welcome back! Show owner comment »

A few weeks ago, these snazzy-looking menu cards started showing up around my office - heavy stock, "weathered" pseudo-vintage logo, raised teal polka dots that reminded me of button candy.  Most exciting, however, was the big red dot on the other side that said "$5.54" - the price of every single pizza at MOD Superfast Pizza.

The restaurant is set up cafeteria-style, and you better know what you want when you get up to the counter.  An irked-looking employee listens while you rattle off your desired toppings (as many as you want, or choose from 10 pre-set signature pizzas), scribbles a secret code onto the paper mat with your circle of dough, and it's off!  Pay at the counter, stand around awkwardly for about five minutes while your pizza cooks in the high-fire oven, and then push your way through the crowd when they scream your name.  Friendly!

The quality seems pretty hit-and-miss.  I ordered a bunch of toppings on my pizza (chicken, artichoke, tomato, asiago, gorgonzola, red onion) and a pesto base, and mine was decently full.  But my friend ordered only three toppings and a red-sauce base, and his poor little pizza was a burned, barren wasteland studded with the occasional bell pepper chunk.  You'd think ordering fewer toppings would give you more of each kind, but no.  

I had wanted sun-dried tomatoes, but they explained that they'd had the menus printed before discovering that sun-dried tomatoes burn up in their ovens!  I also tried to order breadsticks, but the cashier explained to me that they were the same dough as the pizza crust - not the billowy, fluffy bread pillows I was imagining.  She did say they'll have something like that soon, however.

The portions are definitely large - you can finish a pizza, but you'll be pretty stuffed.  Two could share a pizza for a snack.  This didn't stop us from getting the hand-spun milkshakes, though ($3).  My huckleberry shake was super-thick and almost impossible to drink through a straw, but tasted good; my friend had chocolate and liked his too.  They also sell fancy sodas, beer and wine, and Ding Dongs for dessert.

It gets pretty busy during lunchtime and there isn't nearly enough seating - they could definitely fit in some more tables if they wanted.  We saw a lot of people getting pizzas to go (and there are more tables outside the restaurant, by the shops in the tunnel).  But hey, you don't go for the ambience or the comfy seats, you go for cheap and customizable pizza... and you get exactly what you pay for.

At least now I know how to say "major disappointment" in Italian.

My dining companion works nearby, and goes here sometimes for lunch.  But he's been hyping the hell out of this place for months now, and since I had MLK Day off and he didn't, we decided to meet here for lunch.

We got there a bit before 1:00, so the main lunch rush was definitely over.  In fact, there was nobody in there who was waiting for food, so there was no reason it should have taken over 25 minutes to make two sandwiches.  When our food finally came, there was no side order of pasta salad, which comes with the meal.  My dining companion asked about the pasta salad, and the guy behind the counter said there wasn't any.  He offered to give us a discount on the sandwiches because there was no side, but it seemed kind of lame that they were charging the full price and just hoping you wouldn't notice that you weren't getting everything you were supposed to.  When we went to pay, he rang us up for a table of four, then completely forgot about the discount he had offered, so we didn't get that either.

The portions were large and the sandwiches were hot and tasty when they did arrive (my eggplant parmesan sandwich was messy but good), but not worth waiting half an hour for.  They came on a rustic-baguette-type bread, not the focaccia that they usually come on.  The owner wasn't there, so it was just one guy doing everything while his four little girls played in the restaurant.  OK, it's a holiday and they probably wouldn't normally be there, but it was pretty disruptive to have four little girls running around our table, slapping their hands on the table, yelling in our ears, and putting their hands on the plastic forks and knives.

Sandwiches run from $8.25 to just under $10, which is enough that you'd expect to be getting your side dishes and be able to eat in peace.  My dining companion was totally bummed the entire time and kept assuring me that it's usually way, way better than that.  Maybe so, but I'm not sure I want to bother trying again.