PDX Quick Bites: eating Portland!

I haven't done a round-up of my latest eating exercises in a long time. Not because the baby is keeping us home, because we've found plenty of opportunity get out while the fat boy sleeps (not counting the hour I spent driving around with him after a meltdown at Red Onion while w stayed and ate with friends. She was kind enough to get me some noodles to go). So with that, here's some quick hits of things I've been loving...and one thing I don't....
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You could get two of the most satisfying lunches and dinners by going through two doors ten feet apart on SE 22nd and Division....
TASTE UNIQUE- I've raved before about the lunches I've had from owner Stefania Toscano's temple of Italian authenticity called Taste Unique. Her hole-in-the-wall house of all things Italian and homemade is really a remarkable place. Saying that, if I didn't love it before then the lunch w and I had there the other day cemented it's place in my food loving soul. The reason: the richest, most heart-stoppingly decadent plate of pasta I have ever had. Stefania's Spaghetti alla Carbonara should come with a coupon for an angioplasty. The plate appeared before me, all yellowy and sending billows of porkily aromatic steam skyward. I mentioned to w that they must have used a ton of egg yolk in the pasta to make it so yellow. Then one bite and I knew; it wasn't the pasta, it's the sauce. Bite after bite of decadence. I make carbonara all the time at home from a recipe from Marcella. It's not this. I don't even know if I could take this on a regular basis. I asked Stefania why hers tasted so wrong but so right. I said when I make it I use two eggs and yet it isn't anything close to what she made. She looks at me and simply says "Oh, you have to use no whites, only yolks." Lesson learned. If you see this on her lunch menu (served Tue-Sat only, 12-2), you have got to sample this bit of cholesterol-laden heaven. Amazing!
Also I have been hearing raves about Stefania's semi-regular, regional Italian dinners. One seating for 10 people, family style. Just $25. The comment I heard back from a couple who went to her Roman dinner was it was outstanding, but they had one complaint: there was too much food. Too much of Stefania's food? Um, count me in! Check her website for details.
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BAR AVIGNON- Just about 10 feet east from Taste Unique's front door we had another stellar meal at Bar Avignon that Colman thankfully slept through (although we've become the couple there for the 5:30 early dining scene). The highlight among many (the beet salad with fig salsa; the perfectly cooked bavette steak; the deliciously relaxing and spiritually invigorating Aviation cocktail Nancy made me) was one of those rare...for me..perfect pairings of food and wine. We ordered their sensational app of Persian Spiced Albacore Crudo with chickpeas and a meyer lemon olivada. Randy suggested trying a glass 2008 François Chidaine "Touraine" Sauvignon Blanc. Wow! Absolutely spot-fucking-on, Randy. I would happily stop by BA just to have these two together. The snap of the sauv blanc perfectly set off the creamy, fresh richness of the Albacore. If it is still on the menu, this a must try combo!
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GRUNER- I went on a happy hour exploration at the newish Grüner with a couple if buddies a few weeks ago. Grüner is chef Chris Israel's homage to the food style of the Alpine areas of Europe paired with the fresh, seasonal food of the Pacific northwest. We sampled a few dinner's worth of Happy Hour treats (followed, perhaps unwisely, by a full three course meal at Tabla), including a very credible burger, some beet-pickled hard boiled eggs...a great take on that dusty dive bar staple...beet ricotta dumplings, and a nice charcuterie plate among others. But the addictive must have HH plate: fried "smashed potatoes" with herb aioli. Perfect bar food...salty, hot, slathered with garlicky mayo. Loved them. There was almost a fight over the last couple of bites. Plus, if you ever wanted to explore the various white wines of this part of Europe, Grüner is your spot. Sommelier Dana Pickell has a list that includes, among other treats, 11 different rieslings on the night we were there. Whether this is a good or bad idea I'll leave to you, but from someone who feels that great European riesling continues to be the most under-appreciated food wine in the world I can only be impressed.
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EVOE- I've been seeing a new-to-me oyster about town. I first spied them at EVOE on SE Hawthorne, where chef Kevin Gibson's simple yet flavor bursting food continues to astound. The oysters we sampled there were Kusshi oysters from the east coast of Vancouver Island. I've always been a huge Kumamoto fan, but these Kusshi's have immediately leap-frogged to the top of my oyster infatuation list. Perfectly shaped, small, meaty, briny, and rich, if you see them you have to try them, preferably with a crisp glass of Muscadet or a crisp and zingy northern Italian white. We also loved Kevin's beautifully composed beet salad that may or may not still be on his blackboard menu. It doesn't really matter though, because at EVOE there are virtually zero bad choices!
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ACME COFFEE- out in our Hawthorne neighborhood we have recently taken to stopping by ACME Coffee House at 1431 SE 40th Ave (truly a coffee "house"., located in an old Portland home-turned-business) while out on our Colman walks. Warm, funky, very Portland where owner Ken will give you a warm welcome them whip out a perfectly made double shot of espresso made from the PDX's own Ristretto Roasters coffee. He pulls a great shot, just enough for a few sips instead of the usual cup of diluted swill that passes for far too many coffee joint's espresso. Check him out of you happen to be in need of caffeination in SE. As you can see from the pic Colman definitely needed a wake up call, but you know what they say about sleeping babies....
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GINO'S- In the VINO 'hood of Sellwood, Gino's continues to be a beacon of neighborhood conviviality and warm welcomes. w and I made a long overdue pilgrimage to Mark and Debbie Accuardi's corner spot and as always left very satisfied. Gino's isn't food that is looking to wow you or impress with some faux cutting edge attitude. It's just good, honest Italian inspired home cooking, allied with the best priced wine list in town (how about a 2000 Moccagatta "Bric Balin" single vineyard Barbaresco that was drinking beautifully for just $66!), now overseen by their most capable sommelier Tia Hubbard. After a starter of their legendary caesar salad, my tender filet came, as ever, perfectly cooked with two veg sides and a huge pile of creamy mashers. w was happily slurping down her briny bowl of Cioppino (make sure you order extra bread for sopping...you'll need it).
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APIZZA SCHOLLS- Ah, Apizza Scholls. How you madden and delight at the same time. How I love your perhaps best in America pies with their simple yet delicious toppings and blistered, blackened crusts. Your pungent caesar salad which is also one of the two or three best in PDX, preferably topped with anchovies. The fact that you serendipitously chose to open on Hawthorne a mere 3.5 blocks from my house (which thankfully negates the need to endure their unendurable waits as we go sign up, go home for a cocktail, then wander back down). And then...and then...there are nights like I experienced a couple of weeks ago. A night where after making plans to meet friends for a night of Apizza indulgence I volunteered to stop by and add our names to the list on my way home from VINO. I dutifully show up at 6:25, the wait was was already quite long but who cares, and look at the signup sheet where I am confronted by "NO MORE NAMES BEING TAKEN TONIGHT!" WTF?? No more names, at 6:-fucking-25 in the evening?? Now, I've seen Apizza pull this at 8 or 8:30, where it seems a tiny bit more logical, even though posted hours are open 'til 9:30. But 6:25? How could they possibly not have enough dough to the point where they would stop taking names before 6:30?? I know they do their own thing and think very highly of what owner Brian Spangler has accomplished, but again I have to say...6:25?? Was this a test of my love? Perhaps, because like a manipulative lover they know I will keep coming back. Yet I feel for those who drove across town thinking they had plenty of time only to be slapped upside their unsatisfied appetites. If not for me, Apizza, then for them: there really is no excuse!

PDX Quick Bites: the Po' House; Nong's Khao man Gai; and this 'n that

The Po' House
I wasn't quite sure what to make of The Po' House (@thepohouse on twitter) cart on SE 44th and Hawthorne. I hadn't really checked out their menu, even though it is just a few blocks from our house. Then w told me Saturday she had just had some crazy shrimp etouffée there for lunch, so when the opportunity came to stop by during a bike ride Sunday, I was in (that's w looking all cute while she buys my lunch...which only makes her more attractive...in her nutcase bike helmet). A New Orleans style cart, we ordered their shrimp etouffée ($6, and a steal) and a red snapper po' boy (also a great deal at $6), with a side of cheese grits (very nice, spicy flavor but a smidge too runny). Um, I just have to say that etouffée they are making was absolutely fucking incredible! Made from a dark, remarkably intense roux, this had oodles of buttery and a depth of flavor I would happily drown my taste buds in. Ridiculously cheap, this is as good as I have ever had, New Orleans experiences included, with plump shrimp adding their own rich texture...wow! The snapper po' boy was also spicy and delicious, with lightly crusted fresh snapper filet tucked with veggies in a crusty roll. Put this on your to-stop-by list soon and prepare to be impressed! The also make a damn fine lemonade to wash it down, but order a small or medium for next to nothing, or share a large, which comes in a quart-sized tub.
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Nong's Khao Man Gai
Chicken and rice. If you asked me to go to lunch and said that's what we'd be having with no further explanation, I would probably find an excuse to bail. After Monday, if you asked me go with you to Nong's Khao Man Gai food cart on the SW 10th and Alder cart pod for chicken and rice, I would be there before you finished asking. So how does something so simple become so good? I have no idea, but this was absolutely astonishing. Plain, yet moist and succulent, poached chicken on an ethereally scented jasmine rice. I'm almost speechless trying to describe how good it is, especially when you dip it into cart owner Nong Poonsukwattana's dipping sauce made with fresh ginger, garlic, sugar, fermented soy beans and chili. Chicken and rice is all she does. Apparently in Thailand it's tradition if you have a food cart you do one thing...and in Nong's case do it fantastically well. I washed mine down with a bottle of Palm Juice, which was slightly sweet, tasting like a blend of vanilla and coconut. Next time I'll bring a cup of ice, a slice of lime, and a flask of rum and make a killer cocktail! For $6 Nong's chicken & rice reminds how freakishly well we eat off of our PDX carts. For further info, click here for the Oregonian article on Nong's.
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Was sorry, but not surprised to hear the news about Caprial's closing their doors on Portland Food and Drink. Business I know had been way off. What I didn't know, but was detailed in this story in The Oregonian, was the bankruptcy filed by owners Caprial and John Pence in 2006 that they couldn't recover from. Interesting backstory from the O.
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Sweet story (click here), "Ode to a Greek Diner", by very talented Portland writer Nancy Rommelmann on Niki's, a Greek café on the corner of SE Morrison where it runs onto the bridge. Details the reality of I'm sure so many old school cafés around the country. Check out her story on zesterdaily.com, a very worthy food writing site.
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Also Oregonian related, today online Karen Brook's has a short article about the two carts moving to the new cart pod on N. Mississippi and Skidmore called the Mississippi Marketplace. We walked by the other day and they did a remarkable job renovating the building on the corner that will house a beer joint, with the food carts surrounding it in the parking lot. The first two sign ups are the highly regarded Sugar Cube and Nuevo Mexico carts. Click here for Brook's story.
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Not to overstate what everyone knows, but we had another round of pizza perfection at Apizza Scholls last night. We always fall for the half margarita and half sausage, and I have to stop myself from finishing my half of the pie....and w's! Their crust knows no peer in Portland, blistered with black spots, crispy from outside edge to the center. Plus their caesar salad is one of the best in town. My wine tip: slurp down glasses (or bottles) of the 2006 Casamatta Sangiovese (and not to shamelessly pimp myself, but it is available at VINO if you need it), a perfect fit with their version of pizza heaven. Better news is that Apizza is now tossing their pies 7 days a week, which hopefully will relieve some of the pressure, although it was rocking as usual last night. If you think I'm not grateful their front door is just three blocks from mine, you'd best think again. It makes signing up and going home for a pre-dinner libation to avoid waiting in the restaurant all too convenient!

Quick Bites PDX: Bunk Sandwich, pt.2; and Apizza Scholl's "Sicilian Sunday"

w's comment about Bunk Sandwich midway through lunch the other day: "It's very manly in here". She was referring I think to the overwhelmingly male clientele who happened to be working their way through meat meister Tommy Habetz's menu of fleshily fabulous sandos. She could just as easily been talking about the atmosphere. The hood was barely keeping up with the smoke off the grill adding to the olfactory assault, and right in front of us the guys on the line were chopping and slapping together the various offerings. My friend Joseph happened to wander in and grab a seat next to us at the counter...by far the best seat in the house....and he correctly observed that even though Bunk had only been open about three weeks (at that point) it had the feel of a place that had been around for years. Also the sandwiches with chips when they're put down in front of you don't look that big, but every time I'm done I am stuffed. Of course it also be the added and must have sides of incredible bacon and egg potato salad and the best red beans and rice in the city that I also consumed, but this is old school lunch the way it was...and now is!
I had to try the Meatball and Parm Hero (top pic), having heard raves. It was solid, nearly equal to the perfection that is the Garden State version. w, being one not to be intimidated by all the perceived testosterone, ordered the grilled eggplant and pepper sandwich (above). It was about as good as a vegetarian sandwich can get, although going veg at Bunk seems roughly akin to asking were the condoms are at your local Christian supply house. That's not what you should be tere for, right? In any event, more kudos to T.H. for nailing a concept and creating my new Monday addiction.

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A couple of Sunday's ago on a cold ass night, w and I were searching for sustenance after getting our holiday fix at a so-so performance of The Nutcracker by Oregon Ballet Theater. Now it had been snowing ever so slightly and the streets were mildly slick, so of course every person in Portland went into a panic and bars were closing all over town. Which is another reason east coast transplants laugh at us. We wanted a drink and a snack, and headed up to Higgins. Now I know a lot of people who are slavish devotees of Greg Higgins food, but I always seem to look at the menu and find it incredibly uninteresting (with an accompanying wine list that offers very little value). w and I grabbed a couple of seats in the bar, checked it out, and both of us were like "meh". So we beat it out of there, and continued the search. After driving by a couple of other places that were, of course, closed, we ended up in our 'hood at Apizza Scholl's, which has recently opened Sundays for their "Sicilian Sunday", where they offer meatball hero's and Sicilian-style pizzas with a thicker crust than their usual crisp crust version of pizza perfection. We had a half pesto-mozz/half meatball pizza (that's it in the lame cell phone pic) and it was rocking. The shocker is that this is the one day you can also order pizza to go. Of course you have to order in person, but for Apizza's "our way or the highway" mentality that is a seismic shift. Plus the Sunday thing, which runs from 4-8, is much mellower than the usual Tuedsay-Saturday mayhem.
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one year ago today @E.D.T.: going old school with a classic Sidecar Cocktail!

Sicilian Sundays @ Apizza Scholls!

Those iconoclastic dough spinners at the best pie joint in town, Apizza Scholls (although Tastebud is coming hard), who have also been called "One of the Top Five Pizzerias in America", and are also equally famous for their our-way-or-the-highway approach to special requests and to-go orders...both will be met with a fake friendly "Sorry", which I kind of like...and their proclivity for running out of dough and closing early have actually expanded their hours! Shockingly, they are now celebrating "Sicilian Sundays" from 4:00-8:00pm every Sunday. They've been doing it for 3 weeks and when w and I were in last night our server said it has been rocking, and their Sunday-only sandwiches (another WTF?! expansion of their menu), a Classic Italian Hero with Genoa salami, cappicola, mortadella, provolone, and the usual garnishes; and their Classic Meatball Parm Hero with house made meatballs, mozzarella, and parmesan are reputed to be awesome. I'll be reporting back to you all soon, I promise! Besides those two temptations the menu also includes a Sicilian Pizza (cheese & tomato) with your choice of 1 or 2 toppings off a list that includes sausage, pepperoni, meatballs, anchovies, mushroom, olive, onion, or ricotta. And you can also add garlic and basil for a buck each.. Their regular pizzas aren't available. You can also grab a House Salad or their Caesar (for my particular palate one of the best in town). Now here's the REALLY shocking part: people who walk-in (no phone-in orders) can also order to-go!! The end of days must be near, because with this seismic business shift and the opening of Por Que No Taqueria my edible life on upper Hawthorne is getting too good!

picture from slice.seriouseats.com

Pizza Madness!

This is yet another commentary tinged with a healthy bit of mixed emotion. First off, as you may have noticed, I love to eat. You all like to travel, like to drive your nice cars, like to read self-serving blogs like this. I LOVE to eat. It's very personal, this eating thing. Among us who live-to-eat as opposed to the vast, unimaginative eat-to-live crowd, pizza is a very personal thing. Here in Portland there really aren't too many places to get a good, authentic 'za groove going. Maybe only two. Some swear by Ken's Artisan Pizza, some are slavish devotees of Apizza Scholls. I count myself among the latter. Ken (of Ken's Pizza) is one of the nicest people in town, and a crazy talented baker (his walnut bread is insane!), but when it comes to pizza that has me drooling into my pillow as I dream about it, Apizza is the deal.
Interior of pizza heaven










This is where the mixed emotion part rolls in. At Apizza there is always a wait. I'm good with that, especially as w lives only a short three blocks away, so it's easy to wait at home with a glass of our favorite beverage, then check in. Then there is the pizza itself: Perfectly crisp, thin crust, lightly topped with a limited list of toppings. Here you have it their way or beat it. Which I'm also fine with...in fact I really respect that kind of attitude. Especially when they are cool with doing 1/2 and 1/2 pizzas.
Last night we popped in and sat at the bar...very choice seats. We ordered a couple of refreshing malted beverages, and ordered their superb seasonal salad. Then the pizza arrived...tonight we were all over a 1/2 of their margherita with spicy capicollo sausage and a 1/2 of their awesome tartufo bianco, which is a basic cheese pie drizzled with white truffle oil.
Soooo good! Their pizzas are almost always steaming discs of edible perfection. The crust is perfectly chewy and yeasty, blackened spots on the bottom adding crunch and flavor, the toppings are first rate and their tomato sauce rocks. Everything is really, really good. But then.....mixed emotion time....
There are times when we've wanted to go and don't plan ahead and maybe show up about 8:30 or so, which should be fine because they are theoretically open until 9:30. But it has happened more than once when we've walked up and the sign says:"Closed- out of dough". This isn't an occasional thing...it happens quite frequently. Hey guys, I respect the attitude inside, worship at the altar that is your pizza oven, can't wait for rosé season to pop a few bottles with your pies, but for christ sake, you know you're going to be rocking every night. Make more dough!! I feel for the poor schleps who drive in from the 'burbs, arrive hungry at 8:45 and get shut out. Of course, when one lives in the 'burbs one should expect certain penalties. Taking into account their unfortunate choice of real estate, even those people should be able to get their pizza groove on if they arrive before the posted closing time.
Given that, I'm a slut for Apizza pizza, and I'll keep going back. I'll even take the occasional punch in the stomach when that fucking "out of dough" sign is on the door, 'cause the bottom line is their pies kick every other pizza to the curb. Damn my appetite!