Quick Bites PDX: Miwon BBQ

When hunger hit midday on another classic spring day here in Portland....driving rain, then sun breaks, then driving rain and hail, repeat as needed....I was seriously in need of some comfort food. I had read a blurb about Miwon BBQ in the Fubonn Plaza in the Willamette Week "Cheap Eats" guide. Talk of crispy skinned duck and bbq pork, bowls of steaming noodle broth, and all at a stupidly affordable price....you know I'm in! So with a downpour chasing me through the door of Fubonn, I wandered the halls and made my way into the very brightly lit interior of Miwon BBQ. Taking a seat, given a menu and tea and immediately knew I had to have the Super Bowl "A". Okay, I was also tempted by the Triple BBQ Delicacies with steamed rice....I mean with that name how could you not be? But is was soup and noodles with generous amounts of protein that had my head. This was a really great bowl of soup. The duck was perfectly cooked, and most importantly maintained its crisp skins even sitting in the broth. And no, I don't know how they do that. There were numerous slices of bbq pork, and two ground pork dumplings with a satiny smooth wrappers that melted in your mouth. This was all on top of noodles with baby bok choy. For $8.50, there was more than I could work through. Most importantly, it makes me want to go back and try even more of their menu....soon! They have about twenty different noodle soups that run from $4-$6.50, and about the same number of Lo Mein dishes all priced at $6.75 (I'm already craving their crispy roast pork lo mein even without having it!). You can also buy whole or half roast ducks and various pork products by the pound. I am seriously smitten!!
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one year ago today @ E.D.T.: Vintage Chicken is mom-style comfort food!

Sushi surprise at Toshi Sushi

If it wasn't for great Asian restaurants would strip malls even exist? I'm thinking not. Excepting of course those people who get that nicotine jones and have to hit Tobacco Town or Butt World or whatever they call places that are usually right next door to the great Asian restaurants. Case in point is Toshi Sushi here in Portland, or more accurately out in the far reaches of the suburb of Beaverton. In a shabby strip mall...oh wait, that's a redundancy isn't it?...just off 185th Avenue (pretty much in any town I'm out of my element when the streets hit triple digits) sits this funky place that looks like the essential sushi shack. You know, the kind of place with the clock where instead of numbers there's plastic nigiri, posters for Kirin beer on the walls, and tables jammed together so tightly like they're serving a band of Lilliputians. Plus the requisite counter where the true believers like to sit.

So that's where w and I bellied up to the other day when I went to suburbia to take her to lunch. With warnings to me to behave myself since she goes there regularly (why she would say that I have no idea!), I was ready to indulge. We started with a cup of pipng hot green tea and maybe the best miso soup I've had in town. You know that weak, insipid swill you get in way too many places. This wouldn't be that. Rich, textured. Nice stuff. Then we had a couple of nicely done rolls as a prelude to some of the best nigiri I've had. Then came what can only be described as deliciously cute. A little pile of deep fried baby octopus (top left), their tender round heads and crispy tentacles waving an invitation to devour them in one bite. Perfectly fried, dipped in a little soy, I could eat an octopi of them (I looked that up. That's what a group of octopus are called). Walking in to this place, with its shambly Japanese hole-in-the-wall charm, you wouldn't expect some of the freshest, cleanest fish we've ever had, but that's exactly what Toshi-san puts out in his perfectly prepared nigiri. The salmon and yellowfin were outstanding. Then came the toro, the fatty tune belly, that almost melted in our mouths. So-o-o-o good. Like the other nigiri, it almost had no taste it was so clean. I love that sensation, where it's almost like you're getting the essence of the fish. Amazing! Best of all this pleasure comes at a cheap price. If you need to get yur suburban groove on, this is the place!

Cheap Eats PDX, pt.1: Serratto

I don't get out for it often, and don't know how widespread it is in other cities, but here in Portland you can eat for a ridiculously cheap amount of jack by hitting happy hours at various restaurant bars. And here it's not just divey bars offering semi-petrified hard boiled eggs floating like a science experiment in a jar behind the bar. Practically every high end restaurant in town has some sort of cheap eats. Usually it is a discount on their appetizer menu, or a special happy hour menu. This is the first in what I promise will be an ongoing report on how tio get yur food groove on for less. One of the best in town that I've come across is at Serratto on NW 21st & Kearney. We stopped in yesterday for a quick bite. The burger above, with smoked bacon, white cheddar, house-made bbq sauce and crispy fried onions and a nice size pile of frites was a mere six bucks! And it was actually one of the best burgers I've had in town, perfectly cooked, a good quality hand-formed beef patty, meltingly cheesy, although next time I'll have them hold the bbq sauce. It was good but I'm not a big fan of that particular condiment. It was a crazy bargain! Serratto has a ton of other tempting options you can snag from 4:30-6:00 every day, including pastas, pizzas, french onion soup, etc. We opted for a really delicious bowl of manila clams steamed with saffron, white wine, and other well chosen flavoring agents ($6), an excellent beet, pear, and chevre on baby greens salad ($4), and their crispy fried calamari with a lemon-caper remoulade ($5) that was slightly underdone but if it was made correctly it would be a killer deal. Let's see...four different (not small) plates of satisfaction at one of Portland's best restaurants for $21. Let me hear you say "Hell yeah" people!!