Version 2.0 of Extramsg.com’s dining guide and tip sheet for the Portland metro area is finally finished. You can visit it here or by clicking the link at the left under Portland Food News.

The tip sheet has been greatly overhauled. Categories, such as Indian and Sushi/Japanese have been added, but also many of the entries in each category have been updated or completely changed. There’s also a new listing of “Quick Picks” by neighborhood in descending order by price.

Hopefully this tip sheet will help visitors and new residents of Portland — or those looking to expand their culinary horizons. If you would like to criticize or comment on the tip sheet, please follow the link in the dining guide itself.

Portland Dining Guide and Tip Sheet

God, I love dairy foods. I’ve always hated the filmy coating milk puts in my mouth and I stopped drinking it when I was about five and discovered a big black fly floating halfway up a tall glass of the white liquid. But cheese, yogurt, butter, and ice cream — drool… I went through a period in my life where I couldn’t handle acids. Soda, orange juice, chiles, and anything with lactic acid, especially melted cheese and ice cream, put the GI into fits. Of those, cheese and ice cream were what I missed most. When I went on my original diet and lost over 100 lbs, I probably went a year without eating either.

That’s all behind me now, and just to prove it, I went to lactose intolerant hell Saturday, the American Cheese Society’s Festival of Cheese, and then followed that up with the 3rd Annual Pix Ice Cream Social. I love you dairy foods. You weren’t mad at me for leaving you, were you? Quiet now, I won’t leave you again. That’s a good cheddar. Mmmmm. That’s right, ice cream, nothing can keep us apart now…

Radishes from Groundworks

Despite a chilly April Fool’s Day teasing with sun, but threatening with rain, this year’s Portland Farmers Market opener was packed with people as if it were July. There were so many market-goers vying for a taste of cheese, a loaf of bread, or a bag full of mushrooms, it made it darn near impossible to take a decent picture. (How dare they!)

While there weren’t many new vendors, there was a good range of products….

Cheeses from Foster & Dobbs

I was brainwashed. Behold the power of advertising, or rather, public service announcements. To this day, when my “get up and go has gone up and went, I hanker for a hunk of cheese (yahoo!).”

That hankerin’ has got a whole lot easier to indulge lately. In the last couple weeks, two new cheese shops, Steve’s Cheese and Foster & Dobbs have opened. Add to that this summer’s opening of Curds & Whey. Suddenly we have three new cheese-focused shops in a town that previously had none. That means Portlanders are now infinitely better off than before.

Well, that’s not totally true. Portland has had several gourmet/organic markets with laudable cheese selections. New Seasons, Wild Oats, Whole Foods, Pastaworks, Elephant’s Deli — all have extensive selections. Even lesser places from Zupan’s to Fred Meyer’s carry gourmet cheeses. And Trader Joe’s stocks a small number of cheeses, but prices them significantly lower than any of their competitors. Their Irish cheddars — cheeses I find superior to domestic favorites like aged Tillamook, Grafton, and Cabot — are fantastic values at less than $4/lb.

But Zupan’s, Fred Meyer’s, and Trader Joe’s do not have knowledgable cheese mongers to guide you in your selections. Nor can you taste cheeses before you buy. Therefore, I’ve limited this survey to eight markets: Curds & Whey, Elephant’s Deli, Foster & Dobbs, New Seasons, Pastaworks, Steve’s Cheese, Whole Foods, and Wild Oats. Update: I’ve now also added Market of Choice.

Each mini-review that follows contains a semi-random list of their cheeses with pricing. However, I’m starting this report with a price comparison of some popular cheeses along with a rough count of their stock.

(Note that I round up or down on prices. Anything above seventy-five cents gets rounded to the whole dollar and anything below twenty-five cents gets rounded to the whole dollar. Also, note that I did not make a serious effort — but there was some effort — to ensure that producers were the same for the same type of cheese in the lists. Therefore, one gruyere may be from a more respected cheese maker than another. I’ve tried to indicate a few obvious differences.)

KEY: CW = Curds & Whey, ED = Elephant’s Deli, FD = Foster & Dobbs, MC = Market of Choice, NS = New Seasons, PW = Pastaworks, SC = Steve’s Cheese, WF = Whole Foods, WO = Wild Oats
* The Parmeggiano from CW was a 3 year and the one from ED was a 5 year.
** Only an 8 month while others were a year or more.
+ 7 Corners NS was surveyed; Hawthorne PW was surveyed; Vancouver WO was surveyed.
^ I consider commercial cheeses those that are pre-cut and sold in commercial packaging. This includes everything from Tillamook to pre-packaged Cabot to slices to Denmark’s Finest to Kraft. At minimum, a gourmet cheese should be sold whole to the shop and in most cases be able to be tasted. There’s not a perfect division, but I think most people could distinguish the two in the store.
N/A Some places noted that they will be rotating in cheeses that I’ve listed as not available.

The lamb “popsicles” from Vij’s.

Salad bowl, melting pot — whatever food-related metaphor you want to use, Vancouver is it. Holding a strong kinship with the UK and the Continent, there are, of course, numerous English, Scottish, Irish, French, Germans, and other Europeans. But over a third of Vancouver’s population is Asian. Most of these are Chinese and Indian.

Driving the streets from one part of town to the next, for long stretches — up Granville, down Main, across Robson, name another and it will probably be true — there seem to be nothing but Asian restaurants. And that’s not even including the transplanted Asian suburb of Richmond, where we stayed, that I’ll touch on in a future report.

It was so terrific to see so many mixed-race couples. I wondered if the only non-mixed-race couples were tourists. I imagine this has something to do with the proliferation of great Asian restaurants in the city. When you have Chinese girlfriends taking their Scottish boyfriends to dim sum, or Japanese husbands taking their English wives to a ramen house, or Indian mothers cooking curries for their French-Canadian son-in-laws, the expectations, the knowledge, the passion for great Asian food will flourish. It helps, too, that Vancouver is right on the Pacific Ocean with a bounty of seafood.

The exchange of culinary traditions must work both ways because there certainly were more than round eyes and white faces ordering fish and chips, Belgian waffles, and stinky dairy products.

Clockwise from top left: Desserts at Pix; Margherita from Apizza Scholls; Cherries and blackberries from the Portland Farmer’s Market; Burger and fries from Cafe Castagna.

Version 1.0 of Extramsg.com’s dining guide and tip sheet for the Portland metro area is finally finished. You can visit it here or in the future by clicking the link at the left under Portland Food News.

The tip sheet suggests quality restaurants in a variety of categories and cuisines, plus places to shop for food. Following these recommendations are a list of dining options on Sundays and Mondays, links to online discussions of Portland eateries, and other dining guides. Finally, there is a list of over-rated restaurants to avoid.

Hopefully this tip sheet will help visitors and new residents of Portland — or those looking to expand their culinary horizons. If you would like to criticize or comment on the tip sheet, please follow the link in the dining guide itself.

Portland Dining Guide and Tip Sheet

Spring defined: flowers from Rick Steffen Farms.

As if Mother Nature herself was blessing an early start this year, the Portland Farmer’s Market enjoyed a beautiful beginning to its season: sun, pleasant spring breezes, blossoming flowers, and crowds lingering and spending money. Portlanders must have felt like the kids in All Summer in a Day, clamoring to the market to get a taste of the warm weather to come.

I got there a little after 9:00 am and it was already packed. Taking pictures was much more difficult than I had hoped. I was repeatedly bumped from behind just as I was snapping a photo and I nearly got caught up in two dogfights. Yet I still managed over two hundred images.

Following is a summary along with some of the highlights from the market opening, along with links to the 150+ images I uploaded.

It was hot. Dogs were licking my legs and I had to hurdle two-child strollers like an Olympian, but, oh, man, I’ve never been happier to be eating carbs again than when the Summer Loaf came along. The Portland Farmer’s Market claims it’s the largest artisan bread festival in the country. I don’t know about that, but I know that it was wall-to-wall people. (One of those people movers from Soylent Green would have been quite helpful and added some nice protein to offset the carbs.)

All the usual bakeries and pastry shops showed up, but also many fabulous first-timers. There was a baking competition and demonstrations from Tim Healea of Pearl Bakery, Brian Spangler of Olive Mountain Baking Co., Brian Flick of Guanaja Chocolatier, Steve Sullivan of Acme Bread Co., and Ben Davis of Grand Central Baking. Many fruits and vegetables were starting to peak. And there were even kittens for the kiddies to pet.

A blustery, wet Saturday should make for an empty farmer’s market, right? Nah, this is Oregon. We grab a Columbia jacket and shorts and head on out.

The market was packed and deservedly so. As good as opening day was, the market has improved in only a couple short weeks. Following are the highlights.

The Portland Farmer’s Market is the cool market, the city market, the college and wish-they-were-still-in-college market, the market where the hot chefs shop. The Beaverton Farmer’s Market may not be as cool, and may be in the burbs, but the quality, quantity, and variety of vendors is just as good. The two markets share several sellers, but Beaverton maintains its own identity through an emphasis on plants and flowers, more small vendors, many of which are Asian families selling specifically Asian produce, and prepared food tents that have no relation to restaurants.

Following are some of the highlights.