I ran across this awesome Indian shop and “snack bar” when I took my daughter into the exurban hinterlands of Beaversboro (or as us “Occupy Lake Oswego” types call it “Nikeastan”) for a birthday party in some bouncey castle bullshit warehouse slum. So I thought I should share its contents (the awesome Indian mart, not the disease incubator next door).
16205 Northwest Bethany Court, Beaverton, OR
(503) 690-0499
Shoyu broth with miso grilled pork, shitake, menma, and choy.
I had a pie from Gladstone Pizza a while ago. In a town with notable pizza stalwarts, and many up-and-coming pizza newcomers, Gladstone tends to fly under the radar.
The make a great pie, in my humble pizza opinion. Great crust, with a nice “chew” and quality toppings.
Including Mama Lil’ Peppers! A sausage and Mama Lil’ Peppers is a great combo, like Woodward and Bernstein, Sonny and Cher, Hannity and Colmes. Just kidding, Hannity and Colmes is actually like a combination of toxic smegma that forms a cancerous tumor in whomever approaches a 10 mile radius.
Here is the obligatory pizza upskirt, demonstrating the nice level of char. One person’s char is another person’s “burnt”, but fuck that person. The latter, not the former.
3813 S.E. Gladstone St.
Portland, OR 97202
(503) 775-1537
Sometime you just want a dog adorned with copious toppings. The New Seasons all-beef dog ($4.50, WITH Mama Lil’ Peppers even) certainly meets the profile.
Look at all those veggies. What the fuck. What the…delicious!
Hey, a new year, maybe I will start blogging again. Now that the therapy is starting to kick in.
Here is my favorite dish of 2011. “Peppery pork ball noodle soup” from SE Portland’s venerable (and ephemeral) Viet noodle joint HA&VL.
Behold the deliciousness of the soup-that-is-Vietnamese-but-is-not-pho-but-exists.
406 SW 13th Ave # 202
Portland, OR 97205-2359
(503) 221-6278
Alton Brown: Molecular gastronomy won’t replace cooking basics (Restaurant News)
“My worry about molecular gastronomy, especially with young cooks, is that they will try to use it to replace knowing how to cook food,” Brown said during his presentation. “Show me you can cook a chicken breast properly. Show me you can cook a carrot properly. Now do it a hundred times in a row. Then we can play around with the white powders.”
Molecular gastronomy, he added, is part of the cyclical evolution of food and cooking.
“It’s an interesting skill set, but you can’t live on it. It’s not food,” Brown said. “Don’t think you can replace cooking technique with throwing a whole bunch of flavors on top of something any more than you can making it into a caviar or making it into a foam. If I live the rest of my culinary life without a seeing another foam, I’ll be OK.”
Living The Dream: The Truth About Life Inside Food Carts. (NPR)
Squish Durawa owns Wy’East Pizza in Portland, turning out artisan pies from a 64-square-foot trailer. He tells me he loves what he does, would never go back to his old job at the tile store.
But living the dream?
“No. I work roughly 12 hours a day,” Durawa says. “Twelve, fourteen, sixteen -— it doesn’t matter after twelve .”
And it’s not just the hours that are rough. Durawa deals with rain that drives his customers away, and drafts that keep his dough from rising.
And he shares this small space with an 800-degree oven.
“People say we’re living the dream,” Durawa says. “There are moments where it feels like we may be living a dream – I don’t know if it’s the dream we set out for.
Food Fight! (WSJ)
Why was a small boîte in Copenhagen crowned the best restaurant in the world for the second year in a row? And how does it stack up against the best restaurant in America? Globe-trotting restaurant critic Jonathan Gold judges the year’s biggest taste test.
Somehow, it feels like humanity has lost its narrative.
The Crisis We Should Be Panicking About: Bacon Prices. (CNBC)
But this year, just as the U.S. is worrying about its own debt crisis and a possible “double-dip” recession, the price of bacon —that sizzling, smoky comfort food we most need during tough times — is expected to surge.
After Wild Weather, Higher Food Prices On Horizon. (NPR)
Throughout April and May, U.S. farmers faced floods, tornadoes, downpours and droughts — all of which made planting difficult. Now in June, intense heat has been sweeping over much of the country.
The harsh weather likely will reduce the fall’s harvest, according to a new report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That, in turn, could further drive up grocery prices for consumers.
“Farmers had everything thrown at them” by Mother Nature this spring, USDA economist Gerald Bange said. “Excessive rains led to planting delays, and then some of what was already planted actually got flooded.”
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s War On Craft Beer. (Commie-pinko liberal website ThinkProgress)
Tucked into Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) much-discussed budget was a little-noticed provision to overhaul the state’s regulation of the beer industry. In a state long associated with beer, the provision will make it much more difficult for the Wisconsin’s burgeoning craft breweries to operate and expand their business by barring them from selling directly to restaurants and liquor stores, and preventing them from selling their own product onsite.
The new provision treats craft brewers — the 60 of whom make up just 5 percent of the beer market in Wisconsin — like corporate mega-brewers, forcing them to use a wholesale distributor to market their product. Under the provision, it would be illegal, for instance, for a small brewer located near a restaurant to walk next door to deliver a case of beer. They’ll have to hire a middle man to do it instead.
You don’t see a restaurant in Portland that follows a format like San Francisco’s (Tenderloin/Civic Center) Hai Ky Mi Gai: a southern Chinese joint (that seems like it’s actually Vietnamese) specializing in dry and wet noodle soups. Or maybe you do and I’m just an ignorant slut.
We stopped by one early weekday morning for a quick bite. The interior resembles a pho joint more than it does your typical Chinese restaurant.
A good way to start off a morning is with hot, freshly made, sweetened soy milk.
The table condiments featured fish sauce, soy, hoisin, chili oil…
and these fresh jalapenos chilis.
I got the “wet” house special noodle with wonton, which featured a clear, mild broth and fresh, wide egg noodles and plump wonton. Lots of meat on this bowl, including lean torn “free range” chicken, shrimp, and slices of cha lua, pork and liver.
Here’s a disgusting cross-section photo of a freshly bitten wonton. I have no shame.
If you’re in San Francisco’s Tenderloin and looking for some breakfast, you can do much worse than Hai Ky Mi Gai’s decent bowl of soup noodles. Like crack cocaine and a toothless hooker.
707 Ellis St
San Francisco, CA 94109
(415) 771-2577
Information is Beautiful: Plenty More Fish In The Sea? (Guardian UK)
So this is a kind of collective social amnesia that allows over-exploitation to creep up and increase decade-by-decade without anyone truly questioning it. Today’s fishing quotas and policies for example are attempting to reset fish stocks to the levels of ten or twenty years ago. But as you can see from the visualization, we were already plenty screwed back then.
Located in downtown San Francisco’s colorful Tenderloin district, Turtle Tower is well-known for its northern-style pho, in particular their pho ga. The dish came highly recommended so I figured I’d give it a whirl.
Turtle Tower (cash only) is sparsely adorned, and the table centerpiece shares this same minimalism — chopsticks, salt, pepper, fish sauce and Sriracha.
Turtle Tower’s northern-style pho features wide ribbon rice noodles (somewhere between fettucini and parpadelle width) as opposed to the thinner rice noodles commonly associated with its southern counterpart. There’s plenty of sections from all over the chicken, including lean meat interspersed with knobs and ends and bits and pieces of skin.
The salad plate does not exist. The only external garnish features sliced fresh jalapenos. The soup itself is garnished simply with fresh cilantro and chopped green onions.
Turtle Tower’s fresh rice noodles have rightfully earned much praise from those who have had the pleasure of sampling their toothsome bite.
I enjoyed the soup here, but at the end of the day I was missing those flavor profiles I commonly associate with pho. The fresh, anise-y “tang” from fresh thai basil and sawtooth herb, the crunch of bean sprouts. A rich stock more redolent with a complex spice profile. The broth at Turtle Tower is much more simpler and straightforward, more “clean”. It has it’s place — it reminds me of the pho I grew up with, when we lived overseas, and my mom could not find many of the ingredients common to her style of soup, and we had access to only wide rice noodles and a limited selection of fresh Vietnamese herbs.
I shall returns soon to Turtle Tower to try their beef pho and bun thang options.
631 Larkin St
San Francisco, CA 94109
(415) 409-3333
Europe’s E. coli Outbreak Continues to Grow. (Food Safety News)
Officials at the University Hospital in Gronigen, Netherlands got a call Tuesday from the Bremen hospital — just over the border in Germany — asking if they’d be willing to take on extra patients in the event Bremen cannot accommodate its growing number of hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) patients, those suffering the most serious effects of E. coli illness.
“I said yes, of course,” Dr. Alex Friedrich, head of the Department of Medical Microbiology and Infection Control in Gronigen, told Food Safety News. “We are preparing ourselves because we are the largest hospital close to the German border.”
The fact that German hospitals — among the best-equipped on the continent — are putting international backup plans in place is a sign of how severe the E. coli O1404:H4 outbreak in Germany has become.
A Rave, a Pan, or Just a Fake?
This reads like a rave on Yelp, but it’s actually a sample from a help-wanted ad on another site — specifically, Mechanical Turk, a Web site owned by Amazon.com and a place where companies invite “Mechanical Turk workers” — thousands are registered, worldwide — to complete what could be described as microtasks. Each task pays a tiny sum. In the case of Southland Dental, workers were asked to write a fake, five-star review and post it to Southland’s Yelp page, for which they would earn 25 cents.
Fucking Mechanical Turks.
Just due east from an entrance of Tigard’s Washington Square Mall, located on the north side of the unfortunately named Locust Road, is the Bavarian Sausage Delicatessen.
The deli features an excellent selection of freshly made German sausages and cured meats (such as legit Black Forest ham).
In addition, the smallish market portion of the establishment features (admittedly expensive) German staples.
Including the real deal Holyfield Haribo gummi.
In addition to the excellent meat counter, as the name suggests, this deli serves up cooked-to-order fare. There’s even a dining area with a half-dozen seats located just to the left of the register.
This chicken sausage is no frills. Just high quality meat on a small, toasted french roll. A bit of deli mustard and really, what more do you need out of a $4 snack?
It comes even with this excellent house made potato salad—a creamy affair with a wonderful texture that surely ranks amongst the upper echelon of Portland-area potato salads.
8705 Southwest Locust Street
Tigard, OR 97223
(503) 892-5152
50 Plates is a Pearl District restaurant that tends to fly under the radar, probably because it’s a bit off the beaten path. It’s backed by a “hospitality group” and it’s got a kitschy “upscale comfort food” concept with a menu that features somewhat cornily contrived dish names like “Sammies” (though their current menu seems to eschew this).
[By the way, a photo on their menu page I linked to above looks amazingly similar to one I posted a while ago on THIS VERY BLOG. But instead of getting apoplectic about this IP theft like most blowhards, I simply bring it up because I don't want you to think I'm shilling. I don't give two shits. I pressed a goddamn button.]
A while back I hit up 50 Plates for happy hour on a lazy Saturday afternoon and put away many of the well-priced menu items, all washed down with a few cocktails and beers.
Really good fresh-cut fries with an excellent house-made ketchup. I think they might fry the potatoes in duck fat or a fat with an animal/lard component.
On the left there are “Castrovile Artichoke Rolls” that are sorta like creamed artichoke flautas, for lack of a better description. I don’t really care for them, but my wife likes them. 50 Plates likes to do a variety of sliders; pictured above is a nice pulled pork slider with a tangly slaw.
‘
This Oregon bay shrimp cocktail with cocktail sauce and horseradish was exactly that. Hard to mess up.
Some sort of salad with hazelnuts and apple. Not a salad I would order normally, but my wife likes fruit and vegetables and so I had some and it tasted like salad with fruit in it.
On the other hand, this Cobb salad with shrimp and tender butter lettuce is something I’d order, and I did, and I ate it. Avocado isn’t a fruit, I’ve heard.
“Chowda” of the day. My daughter’s favorite, with lots of bacon and a hint of poblano, if I remember correctly.
Mussels are always excellent it seems if the product is good. This product was good.
Ditto that on oysters, served with a champagne mignonette and ponzu.
You know what’s underrated on oysters? Ponzu.
All this food and a couple round of drinks was just a shade over 70 bucks. If you’re looking for a happy hour on a Saturday afternoon you could certainly do much worse than 50 Plates.
333 NW 13th Ave.
Portland, Oregon
97209
503-228-5050
Italian ham slice dispute lands four in hospital. (Yahoo! News)
Finally, something worth fighting for.
I recently watched an episode of Oregon Public Broadcasting’s “Oregon Experience” titled “The Oystermen” which recounted our state’s colorful and surprising bivalves history.
For instance, did you know the Pacific variety, which I commonly associated with Oregon oysters, are not indigenous to Oregon at all but rather were introduced from Japan “seeds” (oyster shells rich with oyster larvae) a century ago? Did you? Huh? Can you handle the truth?
I can handle the delicious, meaty truth. Especially with a squeeze of lemon and a dash of Tabasco.
The “No Nitrites Added” Hoax. (Ruhlman)
Please, if someone can tell me what is wrong with nitrates (in green vegetables) and nitrites (in curing salts and in our bodies, a powerful antimicrobial agent in our saliva, for instance), I invite them to do so here. In the 70’s there were studies finding that at high temps, they could form nitrosamines, cancer causing compounds. I don’t disagree, but burnt things containing nitrite are bitter and unpleasant so we’re not likely to crave them in harmful quatities.
Preach it. On par with the MSG hoax.
Eegees is a Tucson chain known for their eponymous frozen fruit slush that is legendary amongst these parts. A wonderful, sugary sweet blend of fresh fruit and ice, it’s a perfect respite during a plus-95 degree day, of which there are many in the desert.
Eegees is also known for their selection of sandwiches, including their famous Eegee Grinder.
This falls into the more-nostalgic-than-good territory.
But the pull of nostalgia is strong. I remember after a long day of doing nothing in high school, and, after playing Tengen R.B.I. Baseball on Super NES for an hour, we’d hit Eegees for an afternoon pre-dinner snack. I’d always come armed with a 2-for-1 coupon, and would effortlessly put away 2 8″ Eegee Grinders like they were singular canapes at a proper cocktail function. Many times I would go back for a third, if I had the extra $3.75.
I’d always ask them to “really” load up on the hot peppers, and they were always stingy. This time, some 20 years later, they took my directive to hilariously exaggerated new heights.
Here’s a gross bite cross-section of the Eegee Grinder. Erstwhile ham and salami, ordinary pickle chips, iceberg lettuce, chopped pale tomatoes, dried herbs on stale-ish bread — what’s not to love? Memories of back-to-back Baylor/Evans homers (followed by Tony Armas at the substitute Boston Red Sox 8th spot), and dominating, sidearm-flinging Bret Saberhagen pitching feats flood the cerebral cortex. Ah, that’s the stuff.
Apropos of nothing, here’s my OXO Meat thermometer. It has seemingly overcooked my last 2 roasts, but it could be user error as I don’t even know what the fuck is going on until really it reaches fucking 140 degrees.
So there’s that.
This is like a meat popsicle.
7450 Northeast Killingsworth Street
Portland, OR 97218-3737
(503) 252-7801
After five bowls of this dish, I will announce it as Portland’s best bowl of ramen noodle soup available for purchase (or barter).
Your mileage may vary.
910 SW Salmon
Portland, OR
97205
(503) 688-5202
A show at North Portland’s Mississippi Studio meant a Yellow Line Max ride out to Miho, a counter-service izakaya located on the west side of Interstate (just across the street from the famed Kon Tiki/karaoke haunt The Alibi).
Ahi poke featured quite a bit of skin-on English seedless cucumber, which I’m not normally used to. But it worked, especially since the dish also showcased nice, fleshy chunks of tuna with plenty of spiced soy and a hint of sesame oil. A nice rendition to be sure.
Miho advertises a tonkotsu-style ramen, and as you can see the broth features a milky whiteness one commonly associates with this style of soup. I’m quite certain Miho starts with a commercially produced base (this applies to the noodles as well) and gussies it up, which is quite common for Japanese restaurants that aren’t solely ramen-yas or known to primarily focus on this exact discipline.
But I’d have to say Miho does a competent job in the ramen gussy-up arena, with a whole egg and other solid accoutrements (including fish cake, sprouts, and a nice amount of scallion). The pork did have a bit of unexpected smokiness, and could have had more of that tender unctuousness that protein from an ideal bowl of tonkotsu delivers.
Since I exist as a creature of habit, a bowl of ramen is always accompanied by a simple shochu on the rocks. I’m not picky — just bring me whatever you got. I’m eating a big bowl of MSG, it’s not like I’m trying to gently train my subtle palette.
Tonight’s band, The Joy Formidable, from Wales, did their country proud. If I was 15 years younger and unencumbered with self-awareness, I might have slavishly thrown myself to the whim of the lead singer/guitarist only to be disregarded like spent trash. And I would have loved it.
4057 N Interstate Ave
Portland, OR 97227-1072
(503) 719-6152
Is Sugar Toxic? (Behind NY Times paywall)
It doesn’t hurt Lustig’s cause that he is a compelling public speaker. His critics argue that what makes him compelling is his practice of taking suggestive evidence and insisting that it’s incontrovertible. Lustig certainly doesn’t dabble in shades of gray. Sugar is not just an empty calorie, he says; its effect on us is much more insidious. “It’s not about the calories,” he says. “It has nothing to do with the calories. It’s a poison by itself.
Freeze-dried food and the new frugal frontier. (LA Times)
Costco’s Great Gift Ideas catalogue last Christmas included a one-year, four-person supply of dehydrated and freeze-dried food on sale for $2,999. It sold out.
The fear factor alone can drive families to avoid restaurants and stock up on coffee in ways that would have seemed extreme a few years ago.
“There are all kinds of ways consumers can feel this,” said Scott Hoyt, senior director of consumer economics at Moody’s Analytics. “With unemployment hitting 10%, most people probably know someone who has lost their job. Housing markets haven’t recovered yet and that matters for about two-thirds of consumers who are homeowners.”
Unwanted New Item on Menu: Higher Prices. (WSJ)
At Thomas Keller’s esteemed restaurant Per Se, the prix fixe has quietly jumped to $295 from $275.
At sandwich chain ‘wichcraft, the price of a bag of chips and a turkey sandwich has crept up.
And Hoomoos Asli, a casual Israeli eatery in Nolita, last week started charging a “vegetable shortage surcharge” on its eggplant items.
How to Beat the Salad Bar. (Behind the NYT paywall)
Nate Silver breaks down salad bar economies of scale for the the New York Times.
Can This Chip Be Saved? (WSJ)
To make potato chips, it takes beet juice, purple cabbage and carrots. At least that’s what Frito-Lay has concluded as part of its big push to use natural ingredients in its chips. The veggies replace ingredients such as FD&C Red 40, an artificial coloring agent.
“If the ingredient isn’t in a consumer’s cupboard, can we get it off the label?” says Tim Fink, director of Frito-Lay’s seasonings team.
Frito-Lay, the biggest U.S. seller of salty snacks, is embarking on an audacious plan. By the end of the year, it intends to make half its snacks sold in the U.S. with only natural ingredients. Many are already in grocery stores.
Where Steaming Fried Noodles Spell Relief. (Behind the NY Times Pay Wall)
Nutritionists and the diet-conscious have made instant ramen a noodle non grata. One packet contains about half the maximum amount of sodium anyone should eat in a day. And most versions are fried, sometimes with particularly unhealthy trans fat.
But attacking instant ramen donated to feed Japanese earthquake victims would be just wrong, said Mr. Chang. It’s still very cold in the north, and there was a recent snow. Although potable water is at a premium, those who can find a source of fuel might melt snow or ice to turn dried noodles into sustenance.
“You are not going to tell a starving person they can’t eat that,” he said. “Now is not the time. For the dire situation they’re in, I can’t imagine a better food.”
Stopped by the North Mississippi location of Por Que No recently for a nice lunch.
The ceviche comes with plenty of freshly fried tortilla chips (that seem a bit too “puffy”, to lack a better description).
If I would have to guess, these shrimp are cooked with heat rather than marinated in citrus, which makes this a “cocteles de cameron” rather than a strict ceviche. It was certainly decent, if a bit lacking in seasoning and with a tad bit too many dominant notes of citrus and acid. I’d, however, probably order this every time I revisited Por Que No, as for $8.50 it’s a good value, all things considered. Ask for some salt.
Taco de pescado.
Taco de camerones. Give it to Por Que No, they know how to present a visually appealing taco.
These rojo (guajillo) and verde salsas (serve-yourself, to the immediate left of the counter) certainly look resonant and complex, but in reality they were tepidly restrained and a bit under seasoned.
And a fully dressed taco here is a paragon of model good looks, but as with many runway fashion models, the underlying substance can be a tad wanting.
Taqueria Por Que No seems to invite strong feelings from the pro/con forces in Portland. But this is clear: they are much appreciated. After a few wildly successful years in North Portland at their Mississippi location, they opened up a SE Hawthorne outpost that seems to be more popular than the original.
I am thankful for the responsibly sourced ingredients. Menu items here are bright and vibrant in presentation, and certainly carefully crafted. The handmade tortillas are very good. The proteins are of high quality. It’s just that the fare here lacks that certain…oomph, that primal, “exciting” quality of authentic taqueria fare that makes your taste buds perk up in quasi-revolt. Por Que No feels more like the Decemberists than Red Fang.
Also, two tacos and a small cocteles came out to $16. The seafood tacos run $3.50 (for fish and calamari—which I wanted but they were out of) and shrimp is $4, and these aren’t any larger than your typical taqueria items, so cost, at least relative to other taquerias, probably influences those firmly in the Por Que No “con” camp. You would need 3 (if not 4) shrimp tacos to sate an appetite, which places Por Que No out of the indie rock realm and catapults them more into the highbrow, “literate rock” territory.
But hey, the Decemberists are a mighty fine band with many fans, and they sell a lot of records.
3524 N Mississippi Ave
Portland, OR 97227
(503) 467-4149
It’s difficult to describe how powerful this video is.
In my short time on this earth, and in even my shorter time of being aware of a self-appointed Jewish deli “Council of Elders”, people seem to talk a lot of shit about pastrami and what they perceive to be simulacrums of the real thing they used to get back in their homelands of New York or Montreal or Los Angeles. This happened ad nauseum when Kenny and Zukes debuted their concept of a “modern” Jewish deli in downtown Portland a few years ago.
But I really don’t give a fuck about provincial bitchslaps. Or childhood archetypes those insufferable prigs impossibly impose upon others who might judge what a good pastrami sandwich might taste like without first fully taking into account the historical migratory patterns of the anasazi Jewish diaspora. For me: does the pastrami taste good?
And Kenny and Zukes delivers what accounts to be, in my humble estimations, a damn good pastrami sandwich on rye.
The pastrami itself is hand-sliced, thick, meaty, smoky, tender, ringed with a nice amount of unctuoss fat – everything I look for in a sandwich meat. At one point in my life I wasn’t even a big rye fan, but I can say for certainty I am officially one now and K&Z’s rye bread is fine by me. Squeeze on some brown mustard and I’m golden.
The potato salad was a bit unexpected, as instead of the usual creamy glop this was vinegar-based, and fresh and vibrant.
1038 SW Stark St
Portland, OR 97205
503.222.3354
Most of my experiences at In-N-Out Burger have been located (outside of a murky 10:35 am experience on Saturday morning in the midst of Vegas post-bachelor party bacchanalia that I vaguely remember and am not sure actually happened — it’s quite possible that I dreamt this entire encounter) in the state of California. When I lived in San Diego for 3 years after college, and in Westminster, OC, for a couple years in elementary school, In-N-Out was the stalwart fast food experience when you wanted a cheap, no-frill burger. You only went to McDonalds or Burger King or Jack in the Box if you didn’t have a car or self-respect.
So now that my old home town of Tucson has three In-N-Out burgers these days, I felt I naturally needed to stop by to see how the Southern Arizona experience matches up with the In-N-Out motherland.
And I have to say it’s practically the same. Give In-N-Out credit for consistency and uniformity. If they can’t do what’s right in their minds, they just won’t do it, which explains how they’ve largely bucked the trend of unfettered growth and expansion that has afflicted not only the fast food industry, but society as a whole.
The menu display trades entirely in the same exact minimalist shared by every other In-N-Out in the history of mankind.
Same open kitchen manned by enterprising, well-paid (contextually, compared with other fast food joints) youngsters, proudly donning the In-N-Out uniform.
Our order. Same low prices.
The burgers.
My usual burger, Animal-Style, mustard+ketchup instead. I usually get two of these, but this was simply a post-breakfast/pre-lunch dessert.
The fries — fresh cut, single fried, on order — are the same, and would disappoint those who hate In-N-Out fries, as these are the same fries. They aren’t exactly the crispest of fried potatoes, but I have a soft place in my heart for a fresh cut fry. Apparently so does my daughter, who claims these are her favorite fries.
She’s also pretty stoked about her cheeseburger.
Stopped by for breakfast (they open at 9 am on Sundays now). Yes, they still feature some of the best hand-made tortillas in the metro area. And yes, FWIW, they still feature meat inside these tortillas and call them “tacos”.
Basket o’ tacos. When you get one of these life seems exciting.
Asada.
Pastor. Oh the pastor.
Pescado.
The next week I stopped by for lunch.
Tamale platter. I like the beans on the platters at Sanchez. They are simple, creamy platter-style beans. Probably has a bit of lard. The tamales (pork) were a bit on the dry side.
Pastor torta. As with most tortas, I always seem to regret not ordering it simply in taco form. That’s just me. But I appreciated the flat-top grill press on the sandwich.
Pretty decent enchiladas.
13050 Southwest Pacific Highway
Tigard, OR 97223-5072
(503) 684-2838
Nestled in an residential neighborhood a few blocks south of the Reed College campus, Eastmoreland Market really is an undiscovered gem in the far southern-central part of Portland’s southeastern quadrant. I presume it’s a loosely-kept secret amongst the locals, who include I assume many of the fortunate inhabitants of the palatial estates that comprise the Eastmoreland neighborhood that spills out west from the market. And I am going to go out on a limb and say these folks generally don’t have a lot of Yelp reviews under their belts.
As the name suggests, this is a proper market. Consider it an upscale “bodega”, full of high quality brands and artisanal food finds.
In addition, they’ve got a full-on open kitchen setup from which serious fare is finely executed.
They make what I’ve considered to be the best sandwich I’ve had in my time in Portland — a super version of the venerable muffuletta.
Eastmoreland’s version comes stacked atop perfectly toasted ciabatta, replete with multiple layers of fine meats and cheeses complimented with a beautifully oily, spiced olive salad studded with slices of crisp celery. This is a sandwich nonpareil.
3616 SE Knapp St
Portland, OR 97202-8349
(503) 771-1186
When I lived in Tucson, I used to buy Santa Cruz brand red chili paste concentrate from the 17th Street Farmers Market, which was just a short bike ride down the street from my house in the barrio.
It’s a mild and very versatile paste made from red chilies grown in Southern Arizona, just north of the (Sonoran) Mexican border. When I was last in Tucson, I made sure to swing by the market to procure a jar to smuggle back up here to Portland for later use.
*Of course, you’re most likely not going to find Santa Cruz brand red chili concentrate in your neck of the woods (you can order it online). I suppose a decent substitute is a a small can (14 ounces or so) of a Mexican brand red chili sauce, like Las Palmas.
Soak guajillo chilies in warm water for 30 minutes or until reconstituted.
As shown above, use a knife to scrape the flesh from the chili, discarding skin. Set aside.
Chop onions and fresh red jalapenos.
Season beef with salt and pepper and dust with flour.
Heat oil in large skillet and brown beef.
Remove from heat, and add onions and jalapenos, and sweat over medium heat for 3-4 minutes.
Turn up heat to high, and deglaze pan briefly with beer and chicken stock. As you can see, I use some pretty shitty, cheap-ass lawnmower beer.
Add chili paste concentrate, guajillo chili flesh, all dried herbs and spices, and stir to mix well.
In this case I was using my trusted Cuisinart pressure cooker, which I find works excellently with slow-braised dishes, so I transferred everything (inluding the beef, of course) to the chamber and set to low pressure simmer for half an hour. If you’re doing stovetop, return beef to pan and cover and reduce to heat to low, and cook for 2 1/2 hours, stirring every half hour or so. You can alternately transfer the pot to a 250 degree oven and cook it for 2 1/2 hours, as well.
Top with cilantro.
I enjoy eating my red chili with a simple, medium-grain white rice pilaf.
Oyster Extinction? Stop Panicking and Get the Facts (In A Half Shell [ Oyster Power ])
This is where I see most secondary news sources come to a fault. They make a giant leap in connecting the decline in global oyster reef to your favorite oysters vanishing from the raw bar. Perhaps it’s to drive more hits on a page or maybe it’s just a lack of understanding. Fortunately, this is not an accurate depiction of today’s oyster consumption trends.
I am not trying to downplay the importance of oyster reefs or diminish the need to scrutinize wild fishery management. I just want to put things into perspective so that unnecessary panic can be nipped at the bud.
Excellent.
Masu Sushi