The American Grille

Taking my parents out for dinner one night, we wanted good steakhouse food without travelling all the way to Downtown.  I remembered having been to The American Grille before and had a good meal there, so I decided to take my parents there.

They are also in the Entertainment Book so there was all the more incentive to go!  Besides that, they are currently doing a “2 Courses for $28” promotion right now which we also took advantage of.

The restaurant has a very understated decor.  Nothing fancy.  They’re also not particularly busy but there seems to be a steady stream of people coming in.  I love the bread here.  Soft, fluffy and warm.  They give you a type of poppyseed cracker thing, also white and multigrain baguette.

For Mom, we took advantage of the promotion and ordered the combination of their Steamed Mussels (originally $10.50) and their fabulous 10oz Rib-eye Steak ($28).  Because of the mussels, it was $3 extra which was fine.

Now the mussels weren’t the best I’ve had.  They were pretty tiny and the broth (white wine reduction, garlic, diced tomato, warm filone bread) could be better, but it wasn’t bad.  It is still a pretty big bowl of mussels, very fresh and sweet.

The steak was done to a perfect medium-rare.  It was served with field mushrooms, Brew city onion rings, with rosemary jus.  It was a nice cut and hit the right spot that night.  Those onion rings were massive and Dad was very impressed.

Ruby’s Diner

Wendy and I have been in Washington State quite a bit this year.  We usually stay the night at her relative’s home and then roam the highways of the I5.   The funny thing is that we usually end up at Alderwood Mall.  Wendy loves her Sephora and I like sitting in that one shop with all the massage chairs and devices.  One thing we did this time but never before was to visit Ruby’s Diner.  It is basically at one end of the food court.  You really can’t miss it.

We didn’t really plan to come here, but we knew it would a place to blog about.  It has a 1950-60s decorum and all the waitresses were dressed similarly.

As evidence of my above statement regarding the waitresses.

Yum.  First meal of the day for us were milkshakes!  Wendy chose the Vanilla Blackcherry while I got the Butterfinger.  Both were definitely sweet as expected.  I REALLY enjoyed the Butterfinger bits and loves chewing on them.  The Vanilla Blackcherry shake had bits of cherry pieces in there as well.  A nice start to our meals.

Currant American Brasserie @ Gaslamp District, San Diego

We had originally planned to have dinner on Coronado Island.  However, the time we reserved for dinner and the time the last ferry takes us back to the mainland didn’t quite matchup, plus the restaurant is again on the other side of the island from where the ferry is, which is 10 blocks away, so we ditched that plan and had dinner at a place near our hotel instead.

Earlier on our walk to the ferry terminal, we passed by Currant Restaurant which is the hotel restaurant of historic Sofia Hotel. The menu looked not too expensive, and the decor looked really nice, so we decided to have dinner there.

It’s interesting because they have a window from the kitchen that’s open to the street, so you can actually see what’s going on in there if you really wanted to.

The greatest part of the restaurant really is in the decor. It’s one of those dark ones and it feels really high-end and intimate. I especially liked the chandeliers that add a sophistication to the overall ambiance. Service was good at the beginning. Our server however jokingly called us “princesses” afterwards cuz apparently we have too many requests? Not sure if a server’s supposed to say that. We were afraid to have too many requests afterwards.

Swiss Chalet Kitsilano

There are places where you hear about often, but never get around to going there.  For me, Swiss Chalet was one of those destinations.  I saw their commercials since I was very young and loved the shiny, oily videos of rolling chicken and wished to devour such a treat!  And finally, Wendy and I got to try it out!  We chose the broadway location since it was the closest one (where IS the next nearest one?) and we had $15 of Gift Cards!

Parking was quite convenient.  It is located in the back alley behind the restaurant.  There’s about a couple of dozen spots for access. This picture was taken from the side-street where the front door faces.

Indoors shots.  It was a quiet night.  We noticed that the demographics of the customers were mostly families or couples.

Anthony’s Restaurant at Squalicum Harbor

Welcome to the last part of our US Day Trip Trilogy.  After our short and sweet visits to Burger King and Auntie Anne’s, we wrapped up our trip with a visit to Anthony’s Restaurant.  It is located in Downtown Bellingham! (Yes, there’s such a thing!)  Honestly, I think that without a GPS, it would’ve been quite difficult to find.

Wendy told me that her aunt and uncle had always taken them to Anthony’s Homeport in Everett when she was small.  They have a “Sunset Dinner” set menu where between 4:30-6pm you can get a 4-course meal for $18.95.  Unfortunately we didn’t make it down there in time (you know ladies and their shopping…) so we couldn’t take advantage of that this time.

By the way, the shops at Downtown Bellingham were closed by the time we arrived.

The parking lot was quite empty when we got there at about 7PM.  It was probably because it’s a Tuesday night and perhaps because America is going through the worse recession since the Great Depression.  We noticed that the outside area around the restaurant was very spacious and just comfortable to be in.  There was a light breeze and the dock was very close behind the restaurant.

Wendy found the little markings of crabs littered around the sidewalk leading up to the restaurant to be very cute.

The waiting lobby area.