Beaverton Farmer's Market: Hey PDX, it's worth the drive!!

Usually the mere thought of leaving the city and driving to the suburbs of Portland induces a slight panic. Why would I possibly leave this place where everything is at my disposal (except access to TGIF's and Cheesecake Factory without which I still seem to be living a remarkably full life)? What compelling reason could there be? I thought none, until last Saturday when my PR friend Bette S. encouraged me to give a visit to the Beaverton Farmer's Market which is held every Saturday in the remarkably charming "old town" area of Beaverton. So last Saturday, on a dazzlingly sunny morning, w and I packed up C-boy and headed west into the great unknown.

On the surprisingly short 20 minute drive over (that from our house in the Mt. Tabor neighborhood), we talked about how could this be remotely as good as PDX's famous downtown PSU market, which has received national press as one of the best in the nation. It is an amazing market, albeit getting almost too crowded as throngs attend every Saturday, many of whom I suspect go just to go. You know, those people who consider themselves, in a term that has come to represent a sad type of neediness, "foodies", just because they show up at the market. Not too mention the parking chaos, doublewide strollers (ours, BTW, is a slender single, small uppababy that should you be in the market for an umbrella style stroller is worth every penny. Funny thing, too: if you had asked me two years ago, before we found ourselves in this parenting predicament, what an umbrella stroller was, I would have had zero idea), and a distressing number of small dogs being carried in bags by their owners, which in any setting is a very disturbing, seemingly anti-evolutionary development. So we arrive in B-ton, park about 1/2 a block away, and wander into what I have now decided is probably the best, most shoppable farmer's market in the metro area.

I was first struck by the size of the market. Much bigger than I would have suspected, with row upon row of vendors, spacious aisles between them, and in this high season for farmer's markets everywhere, an eye-popping array of beautifully presented produce. We wandered around to get our bearings, noticing appreciatively how many more small farms were representing, then dove into the bounty. A little over an hour later, with C-boy relegated to mom's Ergo carrier since his stroller was overflowing with edible goodness, we went back to the car with days of dining fun ahead. I'll give a few of the many highlights followed by a must-try tomatillo recipe....

Blindingly bright carrots from the too-cutely named Gathering Together Farms, to be made into baby food for C-boy

one of w's favorite things, plucots from Alex Farm Produce

Always great cured meats from O.P. We took home the awesome Chorizo Rioja!

Tomatillos from Sosa Farms which were the key ingredient for the fabulous appetizer recipe below

This is not to leave out all the other splendor to be had: a 9am beer tasting of superb ale from Captured By Porches Brewing; the freshest cilantro and french radishes from Galin-Flory Farms; deliciously surprising coconut milk yogurt from Gata Foods (which I'm eating right now); peaches from Baird Orchards (some of whose perfectly ripe peaches went into a disastrous recipe for peach cobbler from Paula Deen. If you see it on the Food Network site, avoid it! We used the rest to make more food for C-boy); and so much more. This, my Portland-centric friends, is a place totally worth the drive. And if you need one more reason, the temple of all things fresh, fishy, and Asian, the Beaverton Uwajimaya market, is a mere five minutes away!
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Tomatillo Guacamole
By Martha Rose Shulman/NY Times
"This is a guacamole with a punch. The roasted tomatillos blended with hot chilies add acidity and spice to the creamy avocados. It has the luxuriousness of guacamole at just over half the calories."- Martha Rose Shulman

ingredients:
1/2 pound fresh tomatillos, husked
2 or 3 jalapeño chilies, seeded if desired and roughly chopped
10 cilantro sprigs, plus additional leaves for garnish
Salt to taste
2 large ripe avocados
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lime juice

method:
1. Preheat the broiler. Cover a baking sheet with foil and place the tomatillos on top, stem side down. Place under the broiler at the highest rack setting and broil two to five minutes, until charred on one side. Turn over and broil on the other side for two to five minutes, until charred on the other side. Remove from the heat and transfer to a blender, tipping in any juice that has accumulated on the baking sheet. Add the chilies, cilantro sprigs and salt to the blender and blend to a coarse purée.

2. Cut the avocados in half and twist the two halves apart. Scoop out the flesh into a bowl or the bowl of a mortar and pestle. Mash with a fork or pestle. Do not use a food processor or a blender, as you want to retain some texture. Stir in the lime juice, the tomatillo mixture and salt to taste and combine well. Transfer to a bowl and serve with baked or microwaved tortilla chips or crudités, or use for tacos or avocado sandwiches.

Yield: 1 1/2 cups, serving six.

Advance preparation: This will hold for a couple of hours in the refrigerator but is best eaten soon after preparing.

Quick Bites PDX: Ping

It was something new and much anticipated, and I so much wanted to love it. Like when w got her new Mini Cooper, I was almost as excited as she was. And we both LOVED it. Totally exceeded expectations. That was the hope I had when we met with friends at Andy Ricker's new Portland spot Ping, his love letter to the street food of southeast Asia and a follow-up to his über-popular Thai joint Pok Pok. The buzz had been huge in town. Talk that this could begin the revitalization of our incredibly lame and tired Chinatown/Old Town area. Its location on NW 4th Avenue is excellent, with windows along two sides, and across the street from the parking lot that hopefully...please God...will become the downtown Uwajimaya store. The place itself is very cozy, with tables to the right and left and a bar facing the open kitchen. The wood paneled walls gave it a warmth, and the vintage radios along the north wall (that had been salvaged form a radio repair business in Old Town) were a pretty cool touch. So was my love requited?

We went in with five people, knowing that would give us a pretty good chance to work our way through a lot of the menu. We each had a cocktail or two, and I thought the gin collins was just about perfect. Tart, fruity, great paired against the spicy food to come. Our server dropped a plate called Miang Kham (pic at left) on our table. Peanuts, ginger, thai chilies, fried dry shrimp, toasted coconut, lime, and shallots to wrap in betel leaves. This was an incendiary intro to their menu. Two words: be careful! Then we made our way through the menu, ordering in two rounds to avoid to much table crowding. Among the offerings we tried:
-Vietnamese style short ribs skewer (bottom in pic at right)....good flavor, slightly skimpy, but decent.
-Baby Octopus Skewers....could these have been any chewier? Again good seasonings, but way too tough. One of our friends (who owns a restaurant in town and understands such things) was somewhat surprised as she chewed away, going "is this ever going to go away?" A huge step below the perfection that is the Andina Octo Skewer.
-Quail Egg Skewer....a tiny, perfectly cooked quail egg wrapped in bacon with a slightly spicy mayo sauce that I could have eaten dozens of. Delicious!
-Spicy Chiang Mai Sausage...that wasn't that spicy or flavorful, surprising considering all of the listed ingredients.
-Plaa Meuk Ping....was toasted dried cuttlefish (top in pic at right) pressed and served with a sweet chili sauce. Hint: take it out of the toaster earlier next time to avoid that burnt taste.
-Steamed Gai Lan....I love gai lan, and the Ping version was steamed just right, with a nice bite. But what's with the pool of garlicky oyster sauce. The sauce was good, but there was way too much of it.
-Ju Pa Bao....a bone-in pork chop that is served unadorned in a soft roll. This was good, classic street food, but I don't think you'd lose any authenticity by cutting the bone off before serving. It made for a somewhat awkward eating experience.
-Laksa....a Malaysian coconut curry noodle soup. I thought it was pretty good, but three people at our table thought it had a funky element going on.
-Salted Duck Egg Salad...again, some nice spice, but seemed to lack a little soul. Not that exciting.
-Rice Soup....in a pork broth, this was also goo0d, but didn't have the depth or impact it could have.

The overall impression we left with was this is good, and of course has great possibility, but somehow the execution seems to be lacking. Some things were very good, some not so, and it's that unevenness that needs work. While we were sitting at our table we talked with a couple of friends who stopped by to say hi, and when I asked one of them what she thought, she said she had been there the previous week and had a so-so experience, but it was better tonight because now she knows how to order. Which to me isn't good, because you shouldn't need to 'know how to order". Everything should be good.

We were talking about in the car with our restaurant friend, and she posited that sure, Andy really knows this food, and how to prepare it, and what it should taste like, but just because he does doesn't mean it is so easy to teach cooks here. It's one thing to eat it over there with people who have worked with these flavors their whole lives. Quite another to try and teach cooks here what to do with what are unfamiliar ingredients to most of them. It is one of the reasons that I think that a lot of people I know have had somewhat uneven experiences at his Pok Pok restaurant as well. Would I go back to Ping? Sure, but I wouldn't rush back. I liked the vibe, the service was good, and I'm interested to see if things come together.

The Source!

This is new to me. After years spent walking out of New Seasons (which I still love shopping at) with my hands heavier with two bags of groceries but my wallet lighter by about $65, I have found the source. It gives heading east a whole new meaning. I have recently discovered the joys of shopping at two of PDX's great culinary secrets. The real goods at supremely inexpensive prices can be found at two of Portland's best Asian markets: Fubonn Supermarket (2850 SE 82nd Ave.) and ABC Seafood Market (6509 SE Powell Blvd.). Here you'll find some things you'll have to work at to use, i.e.:

But I am enthralled with the possibilities walking the aisles of Fubonn and dreaming....or drooling. We've been buying wonderfully fresh whole trout here lately. Oh, and at $2.68 per pound vs. $4.98 at Seasons. One of the reasons you get such fresh fish at these markets is the incredible turnover. And if you think that carp on the right isn't calling to me you'd be wrong....
I was reading on some food site recently that pork belly is a big new ingredient, and based on what I'm eating our local boites I'd have to agree. But at the same time I was thinking "Sure, if I had a wholesale meat account, I'm sure I could grab a slab, but where's a poor schlub like me going to get a pound or two?" Well, if you look about two feet to the left to the left of these pork shanks, you'll find all you want....
Mmmmm, pork products! In case various unusual animal parts don't grab you, the packaging will....
And for fresh Dungeness crab, you won't do any better than heading to ABC Seafood on SE Powell. We were turned on to this crustacean paradise by our pals Kevin and Monique of Castagna Restaurant. Sure fresh crab is slightly more work...if boiling a big pot of water can be called work...but the flavor is far superior to the pre-cooked store bought crabs. It is so much sweeter and fresher. Plus at $3.49/#, it doesn't get much cheaper. And they really don't put up a fight...it's the lobsters that are the bad asses who will try and rip your finger off on the way into the pot. The crabs just kind of Caspar Milquetoast into the boil. And don't listen to anyone who says use that Old Bay garbage. Per Kevin, and we heartily agree, all you need is saltwater....period! And for you Uwajimaya fans who swear by their fish, a few weeks ago when w and I were in line at ABC. I poked w and whispered "Look on top of that stool" which was right behind the counter. Sitting there was a check for about $3,000......from Uwajimaya. The source, get it?!