Pretty Classy For A Strip Mall

Zato Grill

20609 State Route 410 East

Bonney Lake, WA

(Jason's Experience)

If you haven't been to Bonney Lake in a while you may be a surprised to see all the restaurants and bars that have sprouted up. Zatos Bar and Grill is the location where Jen and I decided to start a chicken wing blog. When I walked into Zatos I immediately got the feeling that this place is too cool for school. It's dark and there are strange murals on the wall. Also there is a room that looks like it could be a VIP room? I immediately looked back from the outside from whence I came to make sure that I remembered correctly walking through a door located in a strip mall next to a smoke shop and what used to be a Godfathers. I made a joke that Zatos is probably the fancy restaurant that the kids from Buckley take their prom dates to.

On to the wings. We ordered the Chipotle wings. They were surprisingly delicious. I have been a big time nay sayer on anything Chipotle. I have never had anything, until these wings, that I liked that was labeled with Chipotle. I once moved out of an apartment because the put a Chipotle near my complex. These Chipotle Chicken Wings are really good. I have had them twice and they have been equally scrumptious each time. I was a little disturbed to see that these wings were not served with carrots and celery. Oh the celery was there, puke, but instead of delicious quartered carrots there were some strange white spears. I was puzzled to say the least, so I asked our server, "Pray tell, fair wench, what is this mysterious vegetable that has been served with my tiny fried chicken limbs? Now don't tarry, fetch me a flagon of mead so that I may slake my thirst!" Or something like that. Anyhow, she informed me that is was jicama spears. I was a little apprehensive to eat jicama. It wasn't too bad, it was like eating a giant peace of water-chestnut.

I will definitely be back to Zato's specifically for these wings. Also the waitress said that they are starting a new happy hour soon with specials from $2.00 to $5.00. So if you happen to be venturing up 410 and have a hankering for some delicious wings and an atmosphere that is diametrically opposed to what you would expect to be in a strip mall in Bonney Lake then hit up Zatos.

(Jen's Experience)

The atmosphere is a little weird, it appears that they are trying to make it look "upper class", but that doesnt last long. As soon as you see the 2 drunk trashy girls hitting on the bar tender, its easy to remember you are in Bonney Lake.

There are 2 different kinds of wings, the chipotle, and some other kind of wings that are not supposed to be spicy, so we didnt even try them. I, like Jason, am not a huge fan of chipotle, but I will give anything a shot. They are about 9 dollars, and I think if you go during happy hour they are half price, but since we didnt go during happy hour, I could be wrong. The wings have a good amount of sauce on them, and have pretty good flavor. I dont think these wings make it in my top 7, but they are good. I do like that it comes with celery and jicama, however, when I think of jicama I think of this horrible job that I used to have and it brings back bad memories, but I guess that is something I will have to get over. The ranch is weird. I am sort of indifferent about it. Its a bit chunky with some green onions and some other spices...decent, but not great. I will definitely eat the wings here again, but if I am craving some amazing wings, I am not sure this would be the first place to pop into my head.

Hooterific

Hooters
6812 Tacoma Mall BoulevardTacoma
WA 98409-9088



(Jen's experience)
Oh Hooters...I love you!

Let me first start off by saying we almost didn't make it to Hooters because Jason said he likes Wingers better. I know what you are thinking, but yes, he is straight. It was my brilliant idea to go to both, so that's exactly what we did.


When we arrived at Hooters we were kindly greeted by our server named "Ashely" she was pretty and very nice. We learned a lot about her (it was slow in her section), and found out we knew some mutual people.


We finally decided on ordering a pitcher of bud light ($8.00 for happy hour, $12.50 for not happy hour) and 20 wings. We got 10 hot, and 10 spicy garlic. Both very good! We ordered the wings with extra sauce cause we LOVE lots of sauce. The spicy ones came out with plenty of sauce but the spicy garlic, not so much. We had to order additional sauce for those. Once we got the extra sauce, the wings were probably the best I had all day. They would probably rate in my top 6 for sure.


Unfortunately we do not have pictures of the wings. We took pictures of the waitress, and myself, but no wings. As you can imagine we got a bit distracted. Oops.

(Jason's Experience)
By the time we got to Hooters I was sufficiently primed. I dig Hooters because you know what you are going to get. Decent wings, decent looking waitresses that are required to be very friendly, lots of televisions with sports on them and cold pitchers of beer. I know that technically it's a family restaurant, I just couldn't get over how many parents bring in their small children to Hooters. I can't define why I thought this was not a great idea but I remember being shocked at how many children were there.

The wings were good. I do like that at Hooters they serve the whole wing. I love eating the little crunchy tips along with the meaty parts. The Spicy Garlic sauce was not only yummy on the wings but makes a great french fry dipping sauce.

One of my favorite things to do is to make my single friends uncomfortable by attempting to set them up with a waitress or bartender. This day was no exception. I was doing my best to try and get the waitress to tell us where the Hooters Girls go after their shift to unwind. She, of course, was not having it but was very kind anyway.

Going forward I am sure we will visit other Hooters Restaurants. I promise we will try a larger variety of what they have to offer.

Love, Peace and Chicken Grease!

Sports Page 2-20-2010

Sports Page

2802 Auburn Way North

Auburn, WA 98002

Bienvenidos!

I welcome everyone to Jen and Jason's wing experience blog. We decided that we have so much fun going out and eating chicken wings that we needed to document and share with the world.

I promised Kathy at the SportsPage in Auburn, WA that we would review her chicken wings/bar first.

(Jason's Experience)

Let me first say that I love this bar. I love this bar and not because it's close to my house, or close to my work, or cause I sometimes get free drinks when I play my cards right. The Sports Page was all those things to me before Kathy and Joe took ownership. Now it's a bar that is close to my home and work and has occasional drinks gratis, with a great atmosphere.

I had always heard that the wings here were not good so I never purchased them. This is no big deal as "The Page" has a plethora of deep fried snacks that are very tasty. Recently, however, I did purchase their wings not expecting much. To my surprise the Buffalo wings are above average. I would say that they are the second best wings that you can purchase in the city of Au burn. (There is a certain bbq restaurant with pianos that has amazing wings. Perhaps we will review them one day in the future but not soon)

To the good stuff. The wings here are good not great, better than most. I would call them above average Buffalo Wings. We always order with extra sauce. They are definitely worth the price and you get carrots and celery with them which I like.

Come to the Sports Page if you want to see a very accurate cross section of Auburn's drinking population. These people are professional drinkers, and are not to be trifled with.

Food, drinks, and "experts" on all of society's issues are abundant.

I would also like to to note that this initial blog was written under duress as my retarded roommate sang the white blues to me incorporating ideas from my fiance's Cosmopolitan Magazine. Not an ideal writing environment...but I can't complain.

(Jen's experience)

I too love chicken wings. They might be my favorite food, which is why there will be plenty of them at our wedding. I love my chicken wings like I love my men...yummy! Okay that probably made no sense, but you will get used to my sense of humor.

I went to the sports page on this particular day with the intent to eat chicken wings. We were meeting some friends to watch UFC, which I hate, but decided I would be in good company with great friends and the adventure of trying some new chicken wings which is always fun for me. I have been to the sports page probably 6,000 times and like Jason had never tied the wings. They were surprisingly good. My favorite part of the chicken wings were that they came with carrots. I don't really care about this, but I get tired of listening to Jason bitch that no one serves carrots with their chicken wings anymore. So thank you sports page for being the only ones that serve carrots and celery!

The rest of the night went well. While the 300 people in the bar watched UFC I was watching the UW basketball. I don't remember who they were playing or what the score was, I only remember that UW kicked some butt, and there was a guy on the UW team wearing a t-shirt under his basketball jersey that I didn't like. The next thing I knew the night was over and I was full.

I would also like to add that Joe and Kathy have done a great job turning the bar completely around. It is really a great place to hang out now, and their awesome customer service does not go unnoticed.

(Special Guest....Marc)
Generally speaking, going to the page is a matter of simple convenience. It's the least common denominator of the Auburn bar scene. Plus it's right by my friend Joe's house and he's a pain to try and brace while he stumbles home but we all agree that it's easy enough to roll him back and forth now that he has taken on a curiously perfectly spherical shape. I would be remiss if I did not mention the speedy and freindly service of the staff at the page. Most bars in Auburn leave much to be desired here, but not the page. Even on a very busy night where they were offering a free viewing of the human dogfighting, the service was still outstanding. I can't say that I would ever go to the page if I were specifically craving hot wings, but they do not disappoint. I do however patronize the page when I crave Irish Nachos and Hog wings which are the best items on the menu.