Duchess of Downtown Tacoma

I thought I couldn't do this blog today because I didn't eat at any restaurants this week. Its kind of unusual for me since I am surrounded by great restaurants and most of my meetings take place in them but I was kind of reclusive this week. Then I remembered that I did get some butter chicken to go from India Mahal but since I ate it at home I didn't take any pictures. Here's a picture from a previous visit.   Look at those giant chunks of chicken! This butter chicken is the BEST!  On Thursday I visited Hotel Murano  to make arrangements for our visit there during the next ART BUS tour . I got a sneak peek at the new gift shop and was surprised by excellent parking spot this person was given. Right smack in the middle of the lobby! Talk about your VIP parking! :) What does this have to do with Menu Item Monday? If you ride the ART BUS in September you could win an overnight stay at Hotel Murano and breakfast at their restaurant ( BITE ) which is just up those st

I simply adore summer in Tacoma. So many wonderful events give me lots of opportunities to see my favorite people. I felt like I spent a lot of time at home working but looking back through my photos for the week I realized I was still quite social! Last Tuesday I visited 6th Avenue and had a lovely rooftop dinner with some of my favorite ladies. We feasted on Masa's delicious happy hour tacos. See pictures below:  Masa Restaurant 2811 6th Ave., Tacoma, WA http://www.masatacoma.com Connect on Facebook I can't remember which was which but everyone agreed they were scrumptious. And I'm sure that had nothing to do with the margaritas. :) Tacoma Farmers Market 6th & Pine St., Tacoma, WA http://www.tacomafarmersmarket.com Connect on Facebook I also snapped some shots of fresh produce at the Tacoma Farmers Market. Fresh rasberries ! Cucumber, blueberries, cherry tomatoes and more ... Peaches, plums, cherries - oh my!  This happened earlier

We took the week off last week, did you miss us? In her day job Lady Jacqueline is transitioning from one employer to another so she's training at one while still working at the other. Did I mention she has a husband and kids too? She's like a super woman! Not only that but we had a really exciting ART BUS tour last Thursday with Komo 4's Elisa Jaffe and TONS of great prizes so we really had our hands full getting everything ready. Despite all that, this blog reached a landmark while we were away. We've exceeded the 50,000 mark! As of this minute, we've had 50,230 pageviews! I am so blown away by the support for this blog! Another thing you might find interesting, is that this blog has visitors from all over the world. Countries that visited the Duchess of Downtown blog during the last 7 days include: United States: 1,242 Australia: 16 United Arab Emirates: 13 Mexico: 11 Russia: 10 Germany: 8 Canada: 6 South Africa: 6 Switzerland: 5 Philippines: 5

Sometimes I feel like there are not enough hours in a day for all the things I want to do. I'm preparing for the Royalty themed ART BUS on Thursday and I had it in my head that I wanted to have our own brand of playing cards for the card game so I spent most of the weekend working on them. I'm still not even sure they will be done on time! But now you know why the delay on the Menu Item Monday blog. I did find time for a couple of public appearances which I will go into also.   The Social 1715 Dock St., Tacoma, Wa http://thesocialbarandgrill.com/ Connect on Facebook I just can't get over how amazing the view is from The Social. Now that the sun is out I have a new appreciation for this place. The food is good, the place is classy and people I like tend to appear there. Sangria Kim Archer and Chris Hyde play there every Wednesday . No cover! The Office   813 Pacific Ave, Tacoma, WA http://www.theofficeonpacific.com/ Connect on Facebook Next in my series

During the month of July I'm trying something new with the Menu Item Monday Blog. Once a week I will arrange a dinner party and have each of my guests give a few words about the food they had. Sound fun? This way I get to meet new people, introduce some of my friends to other friends and basically just expand the circle. I was going to invite people in a very formulaic way (one from the non-profit sector, one from the business community, one from the arts, etc) but then I threw all that out the window and just started inviting a bunch of random people who happened to have the same name. This week I dined with Kathy's and had a terrific night! I called it the Chatty Kathy dinner and we had such a great time we decided to do it again sometime! A few of the Kathy's couldn't make it so next time they can come too.  Kathy #1 is with Hilltop Artists in Residence. Kathy #2 owns Good Karma Center for Joy and Kati (who's real name is Katherine and thereby qualifies a