Puerto Rico, Redmond style.
Image: Facebook
A few years ago, a bunch of Seattle restaurants began colonizing Bellevue in earnest: La Cantinetta, Monsoon East, Black Bottle/Postern, and more. These days Seattle’s satellite address of choice appears to be Redmond.
This hit me through the windshield after checking out Highscore Burgers, the Full Tilt Ice Cream folks’ first foray into actual food, located in downtown Redmond. (That’s the “downtown Redmond” down by the Redmond Town Center, not the “downtown Redmond” up by Overlake.) There, Full Tilt’s impressive and classically Seattle recipe of stunning ice cream, idiosyncratic servers, and arcade games gets a big beefy infusion of 5-ounce and 3-ounce burgers, in basic permutations. More on that joint later.
Winding my way back to 520 I passed shiny outposts of iconic Seattle chains, like Zeek’s Pizza and Top Pot Doughnuts. The Redmond branch of Tukwila’s beloved Bai Tong Thai Restaurant I knew about…but that swingin’ singles tequila-and-Tex-Mex haunt, The Matador?
Finally, La Isla—the lovingly run Puerto Rican joint that has lit up Ballard’s Market Street with rum and sunshine for nearly a decade—opened a sister spot in these streets just two weeks ago, with a similar menu of shrimp dishes, salted cod fritters, empanadillas, ceviches, yuca fries, and more.
Yuca fries, tequila shots, pinball: looks like Redmond’s going all metropolis on us. You don’t think this has anything to do with a big fat corporate HQ just down the road…?
|
|
|