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I wish they delivered, but at least they carry many different brands of food with human-grade ingredients that my dogs truly love. For a small pet store, they have pretty reasonable hours and prices...
I wish they delivered, but at least they carry many different brands of food with human-grade ingredients that my dogs truly love. For a small pet store, they have pretty reasonable hours and prices that were also reasonable. (Of course, this isn't PetSmart. All the Best Pet Care sells only quality foods, so you pay for what you get.) I checked out the prices on their collars, leads, and beds. They had options I'd never seen at Petco. Prices on these items were at least comparable and sometimes even less.
The store also has a refrigerator/freezer section where you can get specialty food items. My in-laws bought some interesting treats for their dogs from it when they came to visit. The selection of rawhide treats is also impressive.
The staff are extremely friendly and helpful. I got a lot of good suggestions when I first came in looking for a new brand of dog food. They also gave me an armload of free samples to try out with my finicky dogs. That was a very classy touch that ended up working in their favor. I don't buy dog food anywhere else anymore!
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Banya 5
Category:
Beauty Salons
217 Ninth Ave N
Seattle, Washington 98109
(206) 262-1234
I prefer my spas to be serene, so Banya 5 is less than perfect. You have your Russian families, but you also get what I call the Abercrombie set. They're young and their chattiness makes it hard to...
I prefer my spas to be serene, so Banya 5 is less than perfect. You have your Russian families, but you also get what I call the Abercrombie set. They're young and their chattiness makes it hard to get fully immersed in what should be a peaceful experience.
However, Banya 5 is conveniently located and its parilka (dry sauna) is scorchingly hot (200 degrees F), so it gets plus points for that.
The facility is smaller than I thought it would be, but the hot tub is smaller still. So much so that it seems like an afterthought. Maybe the hot tub is not a key feature in traditional Russian baths? With four people in the hot tub, you are practically sitting shoulder-to-shoulder.
I do like the local touches. The tepid salt pool is kept at the same degree of salinity as Puget Sound. It accommodates many more people and is an interesting feature. The cold plunge (55 degrees F) is kept at the same temperature as Puget Sound and is deep enough that you can submerge most of your body quite easily just by slipping in. It's also small, but no one spends too much time in there.
The steam room is really nice. It uses just enough eucalyptus to get your nasal passages clear. It also gets steamier than any other steam room I've ever been in, which is a pretty cool effect.
However, my favorite is the dry sauna. It's like an oven, from the heavy Brothers-Grimm-style wood door to the stone fireplace that occupies a quarter of the room. The sauna is huge, though only one side has a bench wide enough to allow you to lay down comfortably. It gets hotter than any other dry sauna I've been in and really lets you feel like you're getting cooked.
The free teas and the nap room upstairs are nice touches. I also really enjoy the twenty minute, thirty dollar honey/oil/salt scrub.
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I love visiting Dr. Tony Wong's office. I get a thorough eye exam from
people who are friendly, helpful, and capable. I can be honest about
my less-than-perfect eye care routine at home because...
I love visiting Dr. Tony Wong's office. I get a thorough eye exam from
people who are friendly, helpful, and capable. I can be honest about
my less-than-perfect eye care routine at home because the doctor
doesn't berate me for it. Instead, we acknowledge what I am doing and
he suggests steps to improvement instead of expecting full repentance
and a complete overnight turnaround. I have actually gotten more
mindful of my eyes as a result. I like that Dr. Wong is understanding, but also effective with me.
I asked questions about everything, soliciting medical answers about
eye health, why this test or that, to personal opinions about how
eyeglass frames looked on me. I was extremely satisfied with all the
responses I got. I spent two hours in their office and Dr. Wong and
Tamara were both attentive to my needs the whole time.
As a nice bonus on top of it all, they have an excellent selection of
modern and trendy eyeglass frames. I've never found so many suitable
glasses in one place before.
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A little over six months ago, my husband and I hired Student Painters.net to paint the exterior of our 1928 home in Seattle. When the crew leader came out to do the estimate, he told us about a...
A little over six months ago, my husband and I hired Student Painters.net to paint the exterior of our 1928 home in Seattle. When the crew leader came out to do the estimate, he told us about a house just around the block that they had also painted. In doing the estimate, we were given lots of options on where we could cut costs or make upgrades. It was nice to see they had some flexibility. After we got the estimate, we walked up to the other house to check out the paint job. Seeing what we liked, we knocked on the door and spoke with the owner. She told us about her experience and because everything she said was good and because they were reasonably priced, we hired them.
The crew leader paid us another visit to leave us with paint chips to decide on the colors. In the end, he was the one who choose the right white to achieve our desired look for the trim. The crew leader continued to be very accommodating, acquiring quarts of paint to do test patches on the house before we committed to a color. When we didn't find exactly what we wanted, he custom-blended the color that we eventually went with.
The crew was very professional. Everyday, one or two guys would show up. They worked around the various obstacles in our garden. They even put up with our dogs. We let them leave their equipment by the side of the house and in the driveway overnight. The job was done in about a week, with most of the time spent on prep work--taping and scraping. I don't think we could have asked for better results for $3500. Everyone we know agrees it was a vast improvement over the previous bad paint job and color.
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Steve Belew, manager of AAA Roofing/Skylights, and his team (two other guys) did great work for me and my husband. They installed four skylights for us in one day. We only had them do skylight...
Steve Belew, manager of AAA Roofing/Skylights, and his team (two other guys) did great work for me and my husband. They installed four skylights for us in one day. We only had them do skylight installation and no drywall/finish work, so I can't say what the cost would be for them to do all the work, but I'm confident it would be at a competitive price. Steve visited our house before the job and gave us an accurate estimate. He kept up good communication via email, answering my many questions, giving me a detailed estimate, then a workorder/invoice that was always up-to-date in reflecting any changes I requested along the way.
Steve was able to give us a discount on the retail price of the skylights. If he doesn't mention it in his estimate, you might want to ask about it. He was so nice to work with that I can't imagine he'd deny you there.
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The best part about dining at Assimba is the honey wine. It's become something of a game to bet on what the server will say when asked for honey wine or "tej". The server will either: 1) stare...
The best part about dining at Assimba is the honey wine. It's become something of a game to bet on what the server will say when asked for honey wine or "tej". The server will either: 1) stare blankly and repeat, "Honey wine?" as if there's no such thing; 2) without hesitation, say some variation of, "We do not serve honey wine"; 3) pause before saying, "Let me ask" before walking off; or 4) Ask if you want the carafe or bottle. I've gotten all four responses from the same waitress on separate visits. Better still is the actual "reveal" of the honey wine. Various incarnations include qualities from the following list: 1) crisp and tart; 2) slightly carbonated; 3) rich and dark gold in color; or 4) milky and sweet. This all makes sense if you get the bottle and see that the wine comes with a reusable screw-on cap. That said, the tej is still good, albeit sometimes reminiscent of my college attempts to replicate the taste with chardonnay and honey.
Prices are very reasonable. The food comes in generous portions, with one veggie combo and one meat combo being enough to satisfy four with fairly hearty appetites. For larger parties, add dishes like the tender and buttery lamb tibs. Gored gored is good if you like very saucy dishes. The injera is thick, spongy, and just the right flavor and they sometimes give you extra without charging for it.
Kudos to you if you are seated in the front, as that room seems to be reserved for Ethiopian men and hard-core punk rockers.
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How they get off charging the prices they do is beyond me. The one thing going for my $17 plate of Pappardelle Cinghale was the generous serving of meat (that tasted how I imagine cat food must...
How they get off charging the prices they do is beyond me. The one thing going for my $17 plate of Pappardelle Cinghale was the generous serving of meat (that tasted how I imagine cat food must taste). Despite the server's assurance that the dish would include "lots of mushrooms," every brown morsel I plucked from my plate, thinking, "Ah, some porcini!" turned out to be more overly salty, fatty chunks of pork (wild boar). Though I knew by then that the waiter was thoroughly uneducated about the menu as well as strangely awkward, it was still a little surprising to me when I asked, "Was the meat salt-cured and then rehydrated?" and got a response of, "I don't know. It might be."
I felt terrible about it, but for the first time ever, I sent my order back to the kitchen. While waiting for my new order, I nibbled on bread that tasted like it came to the table right from a grocery store shelf. My replacement dish of pappardelle came quickly and was edible, though the peas and zucchini had had all the color cooked right out of them. Dessert consisted of a sickly sweet chocolate mousse with wet whipped cream and frosty strawberries that betrayed too long a stay in the restaurant refrigerator. In the end, the only thing the place had going for it was the atmosphere and the $16 carafe of very drinkable chianti.
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I'm sure that much of it has to do with the fact that my first visit there was the final destination of a very happy, magical tromp in the snow, but Harvest Vine has a special place in my heart. I...
I'm sure that much of it has to do with the fact that my first visit there was the final destination of a very happy, magical tromp in the snow, but Harvest Vine has a special place in my heart. I ate at Harvest Vine for the first time on my twenty-fifth birthday and have not passed over any opportunity to eat there since.
The chefs stick to the promises made on the menu. If an item is described as being "infused" with something, you can bet it will actually taste like an infusion instead of a drowning or drenching or stewing, or worst, a case of missing flavor. I am still amazed at the complexity of flavors in the food. You might easily get a piece of fish that tastes, at first, smoky, then like vanilla bean, and finally, like fresh herbs. In my opinion, this multi-tiered experience of flavors is a hallmark of Harvest Vine.
Harvest Vine is on the expensive side, but as you savor the food, you realize it's worth it. Perhaps to balance things out, the wine is relatively inexpensive. Or so it must be, since I've easily had much more to eat and drink there than at other similar establishments and somehow managed to spend just a touch more, even when four bottles of wine (including dessert wine) are on the bill.
The atmosphere is very low-key and friendly. Dining there, you feel like you are at the home of a friend who is a very, very good cook. It's nice to sit at the counter to watch the food being cooked, but I prefer sitting in the basement where the feeling is very cozy and rustic.
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