In preparation for my national park visits, I ended up staying in Tacoma. What’s in Tacoma? Not much. But it’s a pretty large city south of Seattle. They even have a sports dome. They also don’t have much in the way of food after 8 o’clock on a week day. I drove round and round, did some research on the internet, but didn’t really find anything. So I just drove around.
So this is how I ended up at Pho Tai. It had a big “grand opening” sign on it. I thought why not. The place is swanky, and much fancier than your typical pho joint. They serve typical pho place fare, pho, bun, rice plates, etc. Here’s my bowl of brisket pho. Not the best, but not terrible either. Completely mediocre. But plenty of food and really quite cheap. And I was hungry, hungry, hungry, and so I wolfed it down. The pacific northwest in September. Really, it’s pho weather. But it’s probably pho weather every day up there.

Service was friendly. The food came out fairly fast, but not as fast as places back home. I think they’re a Seattle area chain. Oh, and it’s run by Koreans. How could I tell? Some of the prices and menu items were written over by hand, and I totally saw that it’s korean handwriting. Believe me, I know. So eating at nighttime in Tacoma, it’s definitely an option.

Pho Tai Tacoma
3814 Pacific Ave
Tacoma, WA
253-471-4221

Yes, seriously, Denny’s. Looka here, when you’re driving around SEATAC, there’s pretty much nothing to eat. And I mean nothing! We just needed a snack.
A with her chocolate shake.
Denny’s hash brown. Don’t any of you poo-poo this. I love me some denny’s hash browns.
I also got the caramel apple crisp a la mode. I was wavering between this and cheesecake and our super friendly server recommended this. Dude, it was so good. And now, I promise not to go to a Denny’s again for another 5 years.

For my last day in Seattle proper, we explored the Ballard neighborhood. After checking out one cute ass store after another, we got some lunch at La Isla, a puerto rican restaurant. I’ve eaten all kinds of ethnic foods, but I’ve never actually eaten puerto rican food before. So this was a first.
The place is pretty small, and the tables are packed quite close together. There is also outdoor seating. Everything is bright and colorful with ethnic art all over the place. We got there fairly early, and it was pretty much empty, but it started filling up quickly.
We got the plato de aperitivo, which was a sampler of their appetizers. We picked ours with shrimp empanada, veggie alcapurria, bacalaito, and tostones. The shrimp empanada kicked ass. I really loved it. The alcapurria was pretty good too. The bacalaito I did not care for. It’s a cod fritter, and to me, it just seemed like fried hard fish. The tostones were good too, but fairly plain.
For our main dishes, we both ended up getting empanada lunch specials. A got the papa empanada, which is made with a potato filling. She got plain rice.
I got the ground beef empanada, which was good, but nothing exciting. I preferred the shrimp one. I got mine with their rice and beans, which was quite amazing. And the sauce accompanying the empanadas is good too. But really, did I need so much?
Service was good, prices were quite reasonable. Although perhaps everything was a bit too deep fried for me, it was a fun introduction to puerto rican food. I would definitely try it again, but perhaps I’ll venture into the non fried category.