PDX Quick Bites: Ping; Koi Fusion; + coffee, carts, bars, and Taboada's, oh my!!

Some quick thoughts/observations from eating around town.....
After a recent lunch at Ping with my friend's Denise and her man K I asked on a twitter post if anyone else was as underwhelmed with Andy Ricker's Ping as I am? This place opened with great hype, riding the PDX Asian street food wave created by his much better Pok Pok. Both times I have been to Ping I am always kind of "meh". Okay, so where are all these amazingly creative, vibrant flavors? From what I hear about Thai street food, you can have fireworks going off in your mouth. Ping is like a sparkler that gives you a minor thrill, then fizzles. It seems it has been dumbed down for local consumption. Some things I like: the octopus skewer (below right) was nicely al dente with the requisite fire. The meat stuffing in the pork bao (pic at top) was very flavorful, but the bun surround was too chewy (and not a good deal at $4 each). The other things were....nice...but seemed to lack spark. And finally, I have to join the chorus that goes "what the hell is up with the skewers HAVING to be ordered by the 2 each?" If I'm by myself, maybe I only want one skewer so I can try more things. Would the orbit of the Ping kitchen really come to a screeching halt if they had to put out...gasp...one skewer?!? And I have to say, the few small bits of over-cooked lamb on that skewer for $6 (oh, wait, I meant $3 each as they are listed on the menu, but you have to order 2...*#@!%^) were not a terribly good deal...or a just plain terrible deal. The greater mystery is how can Pok Pok be so good, and this place not so much? Answers, anyone??

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So, with being less than satisfied with the Ping lunch, Denise and I (sadly K had to go back to work) wandered a couple blocks down to Burnside and 4th, where the roving Koi Fusion Korean taco cart was parked for the day. In the food media world it seems you can't throw a tortilla without hitting an article about Korean taco carts. It started with the Kogi carts that are the hottest thing in L.A. dining. Koi owner Bo Kwon, inspired by a visit to Kogi decided to give us a Portland version. The Koi marinated meats are delicious. Fresh made corn tortillas, creative Asian style topping, and tender, very flavorful Bulgogi tacos and my favorite, the Korean Short Rib tacos are fantastic at $2 each (hello Ping? $2 each, and I can order ONE if I want). Both marinated in what their website calls "Mama Kwon’s secret sauce" they were spicy, savory, and sweet....and delicious! We also tried the spicy Bulgogi pork taco, which could have used a lot more seasoning. I can't wait to go back and try the two beef tacos again, as well as the Seoul Sliders, which are tacos with "Bulgogi BBQ beef, shredded napa cabbage, griddled onions, crisp bean sprouts and spicy mayo". You can find out where to get your Koi on by checking their twitter feed, and it is totally worth the chase!

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TASTY BITS: A double shot of good news for those who like to get their caffeine high going. I was hanging outside the Spella Caffé coffee cart downtown, swilling another of owner Andrea Spella's perfect double espressos, when I found out he is opening a store at SW 5th and Alder that he hopes to have going by Dec. 1st. Great coffee without the raindrops falling on my head? I am so in!.....The other coffee shot is the news flash that Billy Wilson, owner of Barista coffee in the "Pearl", dropped on twitter yesterday that he has just signed a lease for a space on NE Alberta. Billy is a fanatic about sourcing high quality organic coffee from small boutique roasters around the U.S., and his drinks, as you'd expect from a champion barista, are top notch.

Add Pok Pok: It was written up in our local fishwrap that Pok Pok/Whiskey Soda Lounge owner Andy Ricker is opening a bar just kitty corner from his always rocking spot on SE Division, so us poor bastards who wait outside in all kinds of weather can have a warm, dry place inside to get some alcohol fueled warmth and a few tasty bar snacks. The new space will become Whiskey Soda Lounge and Pok Pok across the street will be just that.
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Just opened in my Sellwood 'hood (and conveniently just across the street from the wine shack) is a new food cart called Bruce Lee Kitchen. I've checked out their phat thai and red curry, both around $5 and $6, and was really impressed. The phat thai isn't quite a classic style, being somewhat spicier than your normal version, but it was bursting with fresh flavor. And I was even more smitten with cart owner Liza's red curry (pic at left), which was a deep, rich, lightly creamy and pungently flavored blast of palate pleasure. Great values, and an excellent compliment to the goodness always coming out of the Garden State cart which sits right next to BLK. My life continues to receive many tasty blessings!
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Portland Monthly blogger Mike Thelin mentioned in his post Monday that Navarre's John Taboada is opening another space just down from Navarre on 22nd and E. Burnside he is going to call Luce (pron. loo-chay). It's a two room spot, one of which will house a large commercial kitchen, the other a spot Taboada hopes to turn into a dining room event space seating up to 60 people (a la Beast?). Taboada, whose Navarre was named "Restaurant of the Year" by The Oregonian last year, cagily says he should be open "Soon".

The Oregonian 2009 Restaurant of the Year is......

.....NAVARRE, in what has to be classified as a mild upset. Kudos to one of Portland's most under-the-radar chefs, John Taboada. Read all about it and all the others receiving their props on the Oregonian's website here.

Noble Rot rockets to East Burnside

What do you do when you're on the hook for a seven year lease at your now-closed restaurant, while at your other spot your landlord is trying to hit you up for a rent increase on your soon-to-expire lease? If you're Leather and Courtney Storrs, along with partner Kimberly Bernosky, you bail out on your original Noble Rot space on SE 28th and Ankeny and reopen at the defunct Rocket address with that killer fourth floor balcony (oh, plus full bar and brand new kitchen). As reported by Karen Brooks in our local fishwrap The Oregonian, that is exactly what's in store for Noble Rot, who along with Navarre pretty much started the wine bar craze that is still, somewhat inexplicably, rolling across Portland. According to Brooks, the move could happen as soon as early February.
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Also on The Oregonian website, posted yesterday, is an absolutely incandescent review of Bamboo Sushi by writer David Sarasohn, who called it "one of the most intriguing restaurants to open in Portland in a while" and heaping a knockout "A-" rating on top. I went to their press dinner before they opened and thought it was good, but wasn't overwhelmed. Hopefully they've amped it up and I'll look forward to hitting it again soon. Plus they claim to be "the first independent restaurant certified by the Marine Stewardship Council" which means you can eat well without any lingering sushi guilt.

Ha and Vl: Noodle heaven! + Genoa r.i.p?: Another view.

Always on the lookout for new and delicious ways to get my food fix here in PDX, last Monday I went to the food mecca that is SE 82nd Avenue......wait, food mecca AND 82nd Avenue?? Maybe, if you want to eat your Big Mac in the used car you just bought off one of the innumerable car dealers with the hooker you just picked up on the street. At least that is the shared perception. But as in most cities, where suburbanites fear to tread are where food cognoscenti know to find some of the best places to nosh on authentic Asian food. Where the rents are cheap is where the newly minted communities set up their shops, serving their native foods to others who miss that taste of home. I had read about Ha and Vl on the website of our local fishwrap The Oregonian, where Karen Brooks raved about their hand crafted bowls of noodle soup. Tasting is believing, so Monday morning found me pulling into the parking lot of the charmingly named Wing Ming Square, a mini-mini mall of all things Asian and entering through the portal of Ha and Vl. There's something exceedingly satisfying knowing that at 9:30 in the morning, when most office workers are wiping the powdered sugar off their shirts from that donut they just pounded, I'm sitting down for what turned out to be perhaps the best bowl of soup I've had in town. The room itself is fairly small, with brightly painted walls, and a TV in the corner that on this morning was playing a Steven Seagal blow-'em-up movie. Perhaps the perfect backdrop to the flavor explosions that were going on in my mouth from my bowl of Bun Rieu, a shrimp paste based broth with loads of noodles and pieces of pork, soft tofu, peppers, onion, and tomato with just the right chili bite to slap the last of the morning funk out of my head. Incredibly fresh, you can taste the care that goes into each bowl. Every day they do one soup (two on Sundays) that is usually sold out by noon. At $7 for a very large bowl, this is about as good as breakfast can get! Also don't miss their perfect Vietnamese coffee. I ordered it in "strong" mode. Like Steven Seagal, if I'm going in, I'm going in hard! Also Tanya (Tonia? Tonya?), who is the daughter of owners Owners Ha Luu and William Voung H. (the "ha" and "Vl" of the name) was SO nice. I've also got my eye on their exceedingly affordable bahn mi sandwiches. This is the real deal, and worth the trip to the badlands of east Portland. And for all you B&T'ers who travel in trepidation, don't worry, the hookers usually don't hit the streets until the afternoon...um, so I've heard.
Ha and Vl, 2738 S.E. 82nd Ave., 503-772-0103, 7:30 a.m.-3 p.m. Monday-Friday and 8 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday-Sunday
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In Portland Genoa Restaurant for over three decades was a Portland institution, a temple of Italian food that garnered loads of national press for it's authentic, usually impeccably prepared food. It was also the incubator for several of Portland's current top chefs, including Kevin Gibson of Castagna and Evoe, Cathy Whims at Nostrana, and John Taboada of Navarre among many others. There's been much hand-wringing over it's recent closure, with everyone saying what a loss it is and how could this happen. Yes, it was one of the first restaurants in town that showed how good serious restaurant dining can be. But I have to take issue with owner Kerry DeBuse's explanation that the current economic downturn had been lethal to his restaurant: "I've seen serious recessions over the decades at Genoa," DeBuse told The Oregonian, "but nothing to compare to the economic meltdown in which we now find ourselves. We cannot continue as an economically viable business." Gee, does that sound familiar? Like the auto moguls on view in the District this week, Mr. DeBuse seemingly wasn't willing to change with the times. His contention that "it all changed 180 degrees within a week of the recent (Wall Street) crash" isn't exactly a mea culpa. These things don't happen overnight. Stubbornly clinging on to his expensive, fixed-price, special occasion only menu like Ford clinging to its SUV hegemony, rather than offering ala carte options to make it more accessible to the masses, he saw customers leaving for the less expensive options in town when they wanted that "night out" experience. His corner location was also a prime spot, and I could never figure out how they wouldn't open it up to the street, drawing people in by making them curious as to what was happening inside, instead keeping the windows facing SE Belmont covered in a tired, frankly unattractive dull reddish wrap. The restaurant business is like any other be it cars, newspapers, my wine business, what have you. Like the dinosaurs found out, those who fail to adapt to changing times become pieces of history.