A reservation made months ahead of time turned out to be on the evening of a special cider-themed collaboration with Bushwhacker Cider. How fortunate. Kitchen and dining room: The chicories with leek ash and egg (no photo) were amazing. Chestnut soup with fried Jerusalem artichokes: Pickled quail egg, salmon roe… Gin-barrel-aged cider. And Alice (their granny smith cider) on tap. Butter turnips. Excellent rutabaga. And sure, some pork. ...
Apizza Scholls: still one of my very favorite pizzas in the US (New Haven style), up there with DiFara’s in Brooklyn and Pizzaiolo in Oakland. Amazing crust texture (thin, pliant, slight crunch), balanced tomato sauce… yes.
In Portland recently, I had delicious Indian street-food-style dishes I’d never heard of, in a casual airy space with mismatched chairs and Bollywood movies on a projector. The highlights were the vegetarian kati roll (paneer, egg, pickled onion, chutney rolled in a paratha– every bite delicious) and the vada pav (potato dumpling dipped in chickpea flour and fried, with chutneys).
Another food-inspired trip to Portland (Oregon) with friends. We ate well. In a few quick cell phone photos: Highlights: Evoe: This place still blows me away. I wish I could cook this effortlessly, casually well. Two chefs at a counter with a simple stove, fresh ingredients, and simple delicious plates prepared to order. Charred greens with egg and anchovy. Piperade (a Basque dish of peppers and onions topped with a soft egg yolks). A salad made from translucently-sliced thin raw squash, soft cheese, and good olive oil. Peach-speck-purslane. Two types of peppers, sauteed with salt. ...
Another year, another weekend trip to Portland to see friends, eat, and drink beer. Getting up early and going to sleep late– less to take advantage of the nightlife and more to fit in four meals a day. Some memories: Heart Coffee: Easily the best coffee of the trip. A very light roast, lemony, smooth. Highly recommended. Apizza Scholls: Oh, wow. I’d been here many years ago and remembered it being good, but the first hot slice of Margherita this time was one of the best slices of pizza I’ve had anywhere (including New Haven, Brooklyn, and Naples). Perfect. They nailed it. Thin crust without being crispy, elastic without being chewy, tender without letting grease soak through, tart distinctively tomato sauce without being too acidic, small pockets of excellent cheese and basil, and just the right temperature…. even 15 minutes later it wasn’t as amazing. The New York White Pie (fresh mozzarella, pecorino, ricotta, garlic) was also very good and moist, but not in the same league. ...
This is the final writeup from a weekend trip to Portland, focusing on our favorite beer places (Part 1: Portland Food, Part 2: Oregeon Brewers Festival). I half-wrote this right after the trip but hadn’t got around to posting it. Bailey’s Taproom(SW Broadway and Pine, downtown) A great place to taste beer– an informal space with plenty of seating and a rotating selection of about twenty beers on tap, including a lot of Oregon beer. For just $7.50 you can get a sampler of any five of your choice. I liked the Avatar Jasmine IPA (very faint hints of jasmine), but can’t remember what else we had (a scotch ale and one of the Upright beers, but I don’t seem to have notes). ...
Following on the Portland Food Recap, here are some notes about the 60+ beers we tasted at the Oregon Brewers Festival back in August. A side note before I talk about all the beers I didn’t like– yeah, yeah, it’s far easier to be a critic than to actually make something, these are just my opinions (well, combined with some comments and notes from James). The OBF as they call it was the initial impetus for visiting Portland that particular weekend, though plenty of other beer, food, book-buying, and friend-visiting activities fit themselves into the available time. ...
A few restaurant highlights from a recent trip to Portland (which also included beer tasting, biking around, and seeing a few friends, but I promised myself this wouldn’t be a blog that’s mostly long-winded stories about my day with only a passing mention of food): The Waffle Window(at 36th and SE Hawthorne): A waffle with sauteed mushrooms, spinach, roasted peppers, fresh tomatoes, and “marinated chevre”. The chevre had the consistency of a dense whipped cream and was a nice cool counterpart to everything else. Plus, look at that pleasing collection of colors with the blue-rimmed plate! ...