Red Dragon

This place was a rather good find. It's on Francis, near the Fred Meyer store, (on the North side of the road.) The servers were not as attentive as I think they should be, but  service was adequate however, the food, good and the atmosphere, definitely fun and Chinese. The decorative lights in the window flashed like Chinese firecrackers!

(This restaurant closed on 2009... moved to a new location... please see post for Red Dragon in  Hillyard


The Red Dragon, for whatever reason, just simply was not very appealing to me to try for along time. Maybe that's because it's sandwiched between a tattoo parlor and a hair salon and another Chinese food place. Finally Geo talked me into it, and we decided to go. He tells me he ordered take out from here before that he liked, but I didn't remember.  So, with a brief discussion of it all off we went to see what kind of Chnese food they had. It was good!

For appetizers we ordered the potstickers which our waitress said were homemade there at the restaurant. These were quite good as was the sauce they were served with. I kinda liked the idea that they weren't from a frozen box the chinese restaurant bought from Costco, know what I mean. I could make THAT at home!

They brought us a cup of soup while we waited for our dinner to be served. I was not really sure if this was because it came with the meal or because our meal wasn't quite ready. It seemed like maybe our service was a little slow. We ate it.

Geo ordered a new dish, well, new to him. It's called Moo Shu Pork. This was a delicious blend of vegetables and pork, mostly cabbage, in a stir fry that gets rolled up in Chinese crepes. It's served with plum sauce and very yummy. The crepes we had didn't stand up to it all too well. I think the key to eating them without a mess might be to make them and eat them promptly, not let them sit on your plate while you make one for a friend.

I ordered Mandarin crispy beef, which I thought might be a little like the dish they serve at Panda Express. It was different, but tasty. It had lots of veggies too.

We also ordered hot tea which was served in a teapot as loose leaf tea. We had to strain the tea with a special sieve which was given to us with the teapot after it steeped a bit. this could add or detract from your dining experience depending on your preferences. I kinda prefer not to have to strain my tea with unusual strainers, and this only because I almost forgot to lift out the strainer once and Geo forgot the strainer completely once and ended up getting leaves in his cup. All was remedied.

The Red Dragon does take out delivery and catering too. Kinda interesting that you could simply call them up and have food delivered to your door.

I do not think they deliver to my neck of the woods, but they might deliver to yours.

Just American Desserts

This place is not "really" a restaurant, but it is a place to get desserts. I had tried this place for a b-day cake once before and didn't really care for the high prices and what I had was a "not so great cake," but yesterday was a different story....

Some friends and I went here, picked up some of their wares and headed to a special indoor party "picnic." My friend ordered a Tuxedo Cake and an"Almond Poppy Seed Cake and both were simply delicious. I should also tell you that we did not order whole cakes. (Have to watch the waistline you know!)

Was it "expensive"? Depends on what you are used to paying for dessert I guess, and depends on if you do not mind paying a little more for something gourmet...  beautiful to look at, made with real butter and elegance. One thing for sure is that Just American desserts does have a reputation for is using real ingredients, like butter, cream sugar... you know the "normal" things. (The cakes were also very pretty, perfect for our little picnic.") to be fair though, I have to say that I do not know about the price because she went in alone and came out with the cakes!

As with most food experiences, a lot must be taken into consideration when determining if something is good or not or expensive or not. Alot of the time, I think it depends on what you are used to and knowing that not every day is always a perfect day.  I am usually willing to give something a second chance.

When it comes to desserts, some people just do not like chocolate. Yes, it's true! My friend Derrick does not like chocolate. and if you gave him some, he would not like it at all. He would say that whatever it was he ate that had chocolate in it wasn't good. He HATES chocolate.  That is just how he is, and how it is with food sometimes.

And as for me, I like chocolate and I loved the white chocolate on the Almond Poppy Seed cake!

Huckleberry's "Ninth Street Bistro"

Ninth Street Bistro is located at Huckleberry's Natural Market on Lincoln.

On Friday Geo and I got a bit of a late start to the evening so we didn't have the usual amount of time. We have different methods of picking where we go and tonight it was both, "Find somewhere that is not too far." and "Someplace quick would be nice." We wrestled with a few ideas, before making up our minds... and this too took a while. You see, one place we always seem to see and never want go was where we were near, and Geo suggested it again. I said no. Then I suggested Huckleberry's, and off we went!

Now, Huckleberry's, in case you did not know, is a food store that caters to folks who like nutritional supplements, organically grown produce and meat, and ecologically produced products. I was a little afraid Geo might worry about sunflower seeds in spaghetti sauce and the like because it also caters to the vegan/vegetarian crowd. But Geo, liked the idea. He had never been there before and he wasn't very hungry either. Besides that it sounded like someplace "quick!" So we trekked off to the South Hill to check out their Deli.

What a spread! They certainly have a lot of delicious looking things to select from. They claim to have 10-15 entrees, 15 different salads and 8 soup varieties daily. Our first stop was the soup bar.

We sampled a few soups and they were all delicious. Geo chose to have a chicken and noodle soup and I had the cream of mushroom. I. was hard to choose. We probably would have went with the Jalepeno chicken, but there was not enough left in the pot.

Every sandwich looked intriguing, as did the lasagna. One thing I noticed is that the people who work throughout the whole store are prepared to serve the customer and our first encounter with this was in the deli at the soup bar. It was such a hard choice that I decided to ask some questions of the attendant there. He told us about several of the items in the showcase when I asked him what things he liked to eat there. We selected the Gouda Chicken, which was then grilled like a pannini and cut in half for us.

It was great food and we ate every bite. After dinner we looked around the store a bit. At the bakery section we bought a marzipan hedgehog as a gift for a friend in town from England. After taking a peek at the bulk foods, groceries both organic and conventional and posting some flyers for an upcoming concert in the park that I had been carrying in my purse, we went on our way.

Huckleberry's is a fun place to visit. The little restaurant also has made to order items and you can take out or dine in. You can order waffles or pancakes, omelets, scrambles, burritos, burgers, or a little something from their hot pasta bar. There is espresso, Italian sodas and fresh juiced produce too. The grocery has a wine section, bakery, meat department, and uniquely diverse cheeses. They can make gift baskets and party trays too. They offer canning classes, (August 20th, 2009) have musicians come in an play on Saturdays, and sell flowers. For their sales see their website, or click here.

Huckleberry's on Lincoln has a lot of stuff for a little store, and they have good tasting, "quick" food at this great little bistro!

In April, I visited there again with Cherry and she liked it a lot.  We even had dessert!