The Park Pub

Upon an invite to $5 burger night with my middle school best friend and her boyfriend, I headed off to check out what $5 could buy you at the Park Pub. Well, it turned out to be quite a good deal. When I sat down, the other two had already odered, so they were ready to inform me that the Portabella mushroom burger wasnt available. I went with a bacon and bleu cheese instead. I also got my choice of a schooner of any draft beer. Not bad, really. Though it does remind me why we normally order these things in pint form. Because the other two ordered before me, I assumed the pile of fries dumped on the table was for them and that mine were coming. They weren’t. But that was okay, I tried a few and they were somewhat dry. The burger on the other hand, was delicious and moist. It was chock full of delicious things like lettuce and tomato that you don’t always see on a pub burger these days. All in all, for a $5 burger I was extremely impressed (that $5 includes the beer too!).

Szechuan Bistro

First I think I should admit to having ate their food twice in two days. Now I can continue.
We stopped in here because we wanted something hot and spicy due to the illness contracted by the ol’ bf. It advertised hot and spicy, and that wasn’t really what we got. The service was quick at first (probably because we went in at 5pm) but slowed down as the phone started to ring and people came in. Most people took the food to go, which is unfortunate because I had a sizzling plate of noodles and the best part was definetly the sizzled bottom! Brett had the mongolian beef which was good, though nothing out of the park. It was all hot and tasty enough, but nothing exceptional, other then the sizzled part of my hand shaven noodles.
Being a sucker for hand shaven noodles as I am, I then indulged in a little delivery action from them last night. I had the fried dumplings, which were good but not great, though the dipping sauce was exceptional. Anytime a restaurant differs from the traditional dumpling sauce I am pleased, this was a reddish spicy sauce. The salt and pepper pan cake, however was like chewing on tasteless cardboard. I also tried the spicy hand shaven noodle house special chow mein. The noodles were good (though not as good as the sizzled ones, but the meat was somewhat frightening and there was a lack of any vegetables. Furthermore the delivery took almost an hour.
That said, they are dirt cheap (under $7 for most entrees) and have hand shave noodles, two things I love in a chinese restaurant. The third thing I love in one? Delivery to my house. So I will go ahead and say yes to Szechuan bistro…though I might try to stick to noodles!

Wingmasters

24th and 58th in Ballard

Wingmasters is exactly what all dive bars should strive to be. I will issue this with a warning that I would not go in there alone. Nor would I reccomend any other females doing so. Even with my boyfriend holding on to me, I am still incessently hit on and groped here. Harmless drunks, all of them, but nonetheless, warning issued. There tends to be a high ratio of extremely wasted people in this bar at all times. There was also the selling and buying of cocaine occuring. That said the food is delish.

The mozzarella sticks here are the size of pilsbury cookie dough rolls. Crunchy on the outside, soft, warm and gooey on the inside, what any mozzie lover could want. The true highlight, as the name suggests, are the wings. Todd, the chef, warns us every time “I added some extra jalapenos to the jerk rub this time” but we order anyway. This jerk rub chicken wing could kill off a buffalo wing with both hands tied behind its back. But do be warned–tears fall from the eyes of grown men because of the spicyness of these!

We also happened to be there for game night: Spelling bees and bingo. While I did manage to misspell binoculars AND counterfeit, I did feel like everyone, myself included, was having a great time.