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Recent Portland Food News
| · Seattle-Based Dinerware Opens Portland Office (2/24, 00:25) | | · Wine Country Thanksgiving Marks 25th Anniversary of Wine Touring in Oregon's Wil (11/10, 00:00) | | · Holiday Celebrations at the Heathman Restaurant and Bar Begin with Bountiful Tha (11/4, 00:00) | | · November 2007 Wine Wednesday Flights at Paley's Place (10/30, 00:00) | | · 6th Annual Beaujolais Nouveau Fête and Wine Auction at the Heathman Restaurant (10/28, 00:00) | | · Great Pumpkin Event -- Free Pumpkins, Carving Contest, and Fall Treats (10/25, 00:00) | | · Simpatica Dining Hall Events This Week (10/18, 02:05) | | · Vinideus: This Weekends Tastings & Events (10/18, 02:04) | | · An invitation from Alma Chocolate (10/18, 02:02) | | · Andina Restaurant Hosts Book Launch Party for Author of "Gluten-Free Girl" (10/18, 02:00) |
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Caesar Salads (Part 3): Alameda Brewhouse, Basta's, Cafe Castagna, Heathman, Ken's Place
Posted by extramsg on Wednesday, September 05, 2007 @ 03:13:26 PDT
Cafe Castagna's Caesar
When I recently told a friend that I'd be renewing my caesar reports, revisiting places I had backlogged from when I started the surveys, they asked, "Why do you bother with such a boring dish?" For them, the reports I do on eyeball tacos and raw vegan lasagna are what they look forward to. For them, it's more about entertainment than information.
Caesar salads are simple. They're easy. They're ubiquitous. Not that exciting, sure, but they are a great indicator of how committed a restaurant is to quality. There's no excuse for a bad caesar.
Caesars are like a canary in the coal mine, for lack of a less tired metaphor. If a restaurant can't prepare a balanced, uncooked dressing with only a few ingredients, what can you expect from a complex sauce? If a restaurant does something special with a common $9 salad, how much more will they do on a $30 dish with an exotic ingredient? If a restaurant gives you wilted, rotting greens, what is their fish like? In Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential he warns that if a restaurant can't be bothered to keep their bathrooms clean -- a place their customers will see and smell -- they almost certainly won't do better with their kitchen, an area generally hidden from their customers.
So, yeah, caesars aren't the most exciting thing on the menu. But they taste good, many restaurants around town have them, and they're a cheap way to compare what's coming out of Portland kitchens.
For this report, I've included five restaurants: Alameda Brewhouse, Basta's Trattoria, Cafe Castagna, the Heathman, and Ken's Place. While Ken's Place is closed, I decided to include it anyway, which I explain below. One of these salads has changed over the years, was one of the best in town before, and has possibly even improved. So click on...
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Cooking with the Enemy: Impromptu Vegan Meal
Posted by extramsg on Monday, August 27, 2007 @ 02:27:06 PDT
Rushing to a business meeting Saturday, my wife called me to say that her brother would be coming over that evening with his family for dinner. She wanted to know if I wanted to cook or if we should just order pizza. We live in Vancouver, so "ordering pizza" means something like Bellagios -- or at best -- Pizzicato. Blech.
Normally the choice would be easy: I'd cook. Despite all the restaurant reports on this site, I usually cook much more than I eat out. But my wife's brother and his family are vegans -- people who don't just believe meat is murder, but those who stand up for the rights of cows, chickens, and bees to be released from their indentured servitude. Green beans without bacon is a disappointment. But green beans without butter is a damned shame.
I told my wife I'd have to think about it. Could I get excited about cooking a vegan dinner? My friend, Scott, has been surveying vegetarian fine dining in Dallas. He calls the restaurant ahead to give them an opportunity to prepare something, assuming they don't have vegetarian options on their menu (which is usually the case in Dallas). I've wondered what I could come up with on such short notice. Also, I'd eaten at Nutshell recently and had my complaints without having much firsthand knowledge of the demands of vegan cooking.
I decided to take on the vegan meal as a challenge. I called my wife after my meeting and told her I'd do it. I'd only have about four hours until they arrived to do my shopping and prepare the meal. I decided on four courses, and here were the results:
Chilled poblano-avocado soup. The roasted peppers added a modest amount of depth to the dish, plus a bit of spiciness, which was mitigated to a large extent by the richness of the avocado. The avocado also provided the elusive creaminess so difficult to achieve in most vegan dishes. Crostini kept the texture from becoming tiresome. A nice chunky salsa, perhaps made of diced tropical fruits and onion might have been a good contrasting bright flavor.
Heirloom tomato and bread salad. Fairly classic and straightforward, this was really all about the wonderful bread from Pearl Bakery and the terrific seasonal heirloom tomatoes from New Seasons. After that, it was just a matter of trying to enhance, but not overwhelm, the flavors with a simple vinaigrette, capers, olives, basil, and nuts. The lucques were a good choice because they're more sweet than briney in contrast to the capers. This was tied for favorite dish along with the next one.
Vegetable terrine. The zucchini, onion, and potato create a mild base flavor for the corn puree, which is sweet, garlicky, and rich. This came out very subtle, but balanced. The peppery fruitiness of the olive oil rounded out the more direct sweetness of the corn and the caramelly sweetness of the garlic. I'm torn on whether this would have been improved with something tart like a drizzle of reduced balsamic.
Watermelon-peach soup. I like very few vegan pastries, so this allowed for an uncompromising vegan dessert. It was also a light, refreshing end to the meal. The plucot makes for a tart accent against the mellow soup. I had planned on serving it with some Valrhona manjari chocolate, a nice fruity dark chocolate from Madagascar. However, our guests brought vegan brownies and they worked well with the dish. The brownies were a little oily and gooey, but had a great flavor.
Photos and recipes follow.
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Portland Mexican (Part 6): Taco Truck Directory
Posted by extramsg on Wednesday, August 22, 2007 @ 01:23:17 PDT
3 Hermanos (moved and renamed La Chiquita)
Last December, Robb Walsh, a Beard-award winning food writer from the Houston Press, contacted me about a project he was working on. You'll notice one of his books has regularly been featured on my site in the left column. I own several of his books and respect his work a lot, so I was honored to have him contact me -- to even know who I am.
The project? Taco trucks outside the southwest, how they provide "formerly virgin taco territories" the opportunity for some truly authentic comida -- an article for Gourmet Magazine. Would I like to help? Hell, yeah.
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Beaverton Farmers Market Late Spring 2007
Posted by extramsg on Friday, July 06, 2007 @ 13:03:25 PDT
Clockwise: garlic spears, strawberries and tomatoes, spring veggies, cherries
The Beaverton Farmers Market is clearly one of the largest in the area, on most days the largest. Only during a festival does the Portland Farmers Market challenge Beaverton's on size. And it's still a very good market. While the percentage of produce vendors may be lower than some markets, there are no craft booths like in Vancouver, Gresham or Eugene. It's truly a farmer's market.
I rushed out on Saturday about a month ago before heading to judge a BBQ competition in Aloha. I was hoping to taste bagels from a fellow PortlandFood.org member, "Krunchky", but he was at a wedding. It was drizzly which made for fewer market-goers, easier photos, and an opportunity to talk with a few of the vendors.
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Moreland Farmers Market Spring 2007
Posted by extramsg on Monday, July 02, 2007 @ 01:56:27 PDT
Boones Ferry Berries
Was driving through Westmoreland after an unsuccessful attempt to visit Curds & Whey one afternoon just over a month ago and I happened upon the Moreland Farmers Market. I'd never been, so I stopped. It's at the corner of 14th & Bybee, just west of Milwaukie, a short walk from Adobe Rose, Oaks Bottom, Caprial's, and so on. It's a small market, but diverse enough to make a quality neighborhood farmers market, especially for only being in its second year.
DISCUSS MORELAND FARMERS MARKET ON PORTLANDFOOD.ORG
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Hillsdale Farmers Market Opening 2007
Posted by extramsg on Saturday, May 19, 2007 @ 02:38:54 PDT
Mini Tarts from Little Pots and Pans
The Hillsdale Farmers Market, one of the few in Portland Metro to run year round, is a great farmers market. Sure, it's smaller than Portland Farmers Market, Beaverton Farmers Market, and possibly a couple others. But it has its own character and several terrific vendors that you can only find there or who only provide a certain product at the HFM. It's also on Sundays, a bonus to me since I've been doing the deli on Saturdays.
Two weekends ago, I rushed to the market just as it was opening to snap some photos and buy some treats before a noon flight to Chicago. Good thing for my pocketbook I had that flight to keep me from over-buying.
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Cinco de Mayo 2007
Posted by extramsg on Friday, May 04, 2007 @ 13:15:53 PDT
Mexico Lindo's Posole
Cinco de Mayo is one of Portland's better festivals. It has a character. It's not just another county fair on the waterfront. In 2005 I lamented the event's cultural decline compared with the wonderful 2004 Cinco de Mayo, my first. There were fewer real artists. There were more commercial promotions selling credit cards and the like. And basically, this year's is the same. There were only four to six real artists selling Mexican crafts. The majority consisted of the crappier Saturday Market vendors -- bad jewelry, cheap imports, and caricature artists.
That said, it's still worth visiting. The latin musical entertainment is worth the admission price, especially the folklorico and mariachi. And then there's the food...
DISCUSS CINCO DE MAYO ON PORTLANDFOOD.ORG
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Taste of the Nation 2007
Posted by extramsg on Tuesday, May 01, 2007 @ 05:37:37 PDT
Viande's Sausage and Peppers
This was my fourth year at Portland's Taste of the Nation, but my first as a vendor rather than a volunteer. I enjoyed meeting so many food lovers. I was gratified by the response to Kenny & Zuke's pastrami, pickles, bagels, etc. But come on -- I like to eat.
The event seemed smaller than years' past, but apparently there were both more food and drink providers than ever. I had to feed and photograph fast and furious to finish before the VIP hour ended and the masses overwhelmed our booth. I got done with five minutes to spare. I tasted most of the offerings, at least the food, and got pictures of most as well. (I do apologize for my interior photos which are a little grainy from the low light.)
I can't remember a single bad dish. There were some ho-hum items, like Salty's chocolate fountain, Celilo's ceviche, or Pazzo's salmon tartare on scallion pancake. But even these weren't BAD. They just suffered in comparison to the following dishes that were so good I wish I could pile them up and lay face first making chow angels.
DISCUSS TASTE OF THE NATION ON PORTLANDFOOD.ORG
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Portland Farmers Market: 4-21-2007
Posted by extramsg on Wednesday, April 25, 2007 @ 03:00:00 PDT
Clockwise from upper left: Gathering Together Farm, Market Gourmet, Misty Mountain, and Osmogaia
Futile hope for a weekend as sunny and beautiful as the week that preceded it got the deli off to a slow start this last Saturday. I took advantage of the situation, shirked my hosting responsibilities at Kenny & Zuke's, and sped down to the Portland Farmer's Market. Since starting the deli my Saturdays have been spoken for. I haven't been since some time midway through last year.
Drizzly and cold, the market was still packed. I tried my best to get photographs of some of my favorite vendors and other vendors that I hadn't photographed before, squeezing between the shoulder-to-shoulder market-goers.
Following are some of the highlights and lowlights from the market.
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Portland Bagel Mishegas: Albertson's, Bagel Land, Elephant's, Finicky's, Kettleman, Kornblatt's, Mother's, My Favorite Muffin, Noah's, Nob Hill, Sunrise
Posted by extramsg on Wednesday, April 11, 2007 @ 03:53:09 PDT
I suspect bagels made their way up the left coast to Oregon from L.A., like my parents, rather than across the continental divide. The Jewish branches of my family tree may have stopped budding when my great grandfather married a Hollywood shiksa goddess, but I can't ever remember a time without bagels. Growing up, I associated them more with hippy culture than Jewish culture. The same people who ate bagels ate granola, wore Birkenstocks, and listened to the Grateful Dead -- people like my mom.
But more puzzling than how bagels got here is the question of when a bagel became a soulless roll with a hole. Talking to New Yorkers, they just assume that the doughnut shaped Wonder Bread we call bagels are endemic to the west. I won't argue that our average bagels were ever as good as New York's, but I definitely remember bagels being chewier when I was a kid in the '70s and '80s.
The bellow of the bad bagel is a constant refrain on foodie message boards. I assumed that among the many commercial bagels for sale, many from places specializing in the Jewish bread, that at least a couple offerings would be decent. I didn't hold out hope for any truly good bagels, the kind that would make a transplant from the lower east side weep, but I never would have guessed the truth: all bagels in Portland suck. That's not entirely true. If you read on you'll see there are some caveats, but for the most part it is.
DISCUSS PORTLAND BAGELS ON PORTLANDFOOD.ORG
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123 Stories (13 Pages, 10 Per Page)
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