Trader Vic’s Portland: Drink there

July 6, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Because of Portland Dining month and meeting someone after they got off the Amtrak, Trader Vic’s was a stop for dinner one evening in June. As my previous two visits, the drinks were delicious and tasted like there was no alcohol but do pack a punch while tasting like punch. This time, instead of the Menehune or Mai Tai, I tried out the Potted Parrot, a fruity concoction that allowed me to take the parrot on a chopstick home to hang out with my Menehune couple.

Trader Vic's Portland, Polynesian cuisine and cocktails

For appetizers, I selected the Crab Rangoon with Blue crab, spiced cream cheese, crisp wonton wrapper… the wonton wrapper was not very crispy, and it was more cream cheese than crab. The Edamame Humus are served with house-made lavash crackers, chili oil and daikon sprouts, and was a stand out only because those crackers are wonderfully seedy, the hummus had little flavor. But, you can also get those crackers, along with peanut butter, as part of Trader Vic’s “bread service”.

Trader Vic's Portland, Polynesian cuisine and cocktailsTrader Vic's Portland, Polynesian cuisine and cocktailsTrader Vic's Portland, Polynesian cuisine and cocktails

The entree was a beautiful looking in presentation but overcooked Macadamia Nut Crusted Mahi Mahi with ginger citrus beurre blanc, some thin grilled asparagus, and wasabi mashed potatoes that promised with its color but didn’t deliver with flavor. It’s a good thing the June Dining month deal was for the appetizer, entree, and dessert for $25… usually this entree alone is $24, and I would have been upset.  The dessert was a servicable Snowball – Vanilla bean ice cream, toasted coconut, house-made chocolate sauce, and the other entree was the Vegetarian Curry, which the best part was the rice (served separately) and the accompaniment of more of those seeds that are used on the lavash crackers on the side.

Trader Vic's Portland, Polynesian cuisine and cocktailsTrader Vic's Portland, Polynesian cuisine and cocktailsTrader Vic's Portland, Polynesian cuisine and cocktails

Still, the drinks are fun, and the bartendress very friendly and fast in servicing all those around on the bar. Check out the happy hour here- the best food I’ve had so far is still their shrimp, which is available on their happy hour menu, and that’s probably the menu you’ll want to use if you want any nibbles at all that are worth the price. There are plenty of other places to eat in the Pearl, so this could be a good warm-up before that better meal for your dollar some place else- soak up the laid back atmosphere and the tiki drinks, pretending you’re in a tropical kitschy place… and then move onward in your adventures… or probably misadventures, the way these drinks can sneak up on you.

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Oven & Shaker: Portland Dining Month

June 29, 2012 by 3 Comments

Next Portland Dining Month 2012 destination: a dinner at Oven & Shaker, the new venture from Cathy Whims of Nostrana fame and success (including being a James Beard Finalist 2012). This new joint is in the Pearl District and focused more on the pizzas and cocktails. For $25, you get to choose a salad, pizza, and scoop of housemade gelato or sorbetto.

We sat at the counter right in front of the pizza oven, and got to see for ourselves the assembly line as they carefully created each pizza and as soon as the food was ready, a runner was called to dispatch it hot to the table.

We started out with the Nostrana salad with radicchio, parmigiano, rosemary-sage croutons, Cæsar style dressing, with the creamyness of the Caeser dressing countering the slight bitterness of the radicchio, and also the Shepherd salad with spring greens, pickled onion, walnut vinaigrette, egg, goat cheese, bruschetta (but without the egg). Both salads were great starters.

Oven and Shaker, Cathy Whims, Pearl District, Portland, wood fired pizza, Nostrana salad with radicchio, parmigiano, croutons, Caeser style dressingOven and; Shaker, Cathy Whims, Pearl District, Portland, wood fired pizza, Shepard salad, spring greens, bruschetta

The pizzas, fresh from the wood oven burning pizza: Wild Fennel Sausage – potato, tomato, chilies, scallions, smoked mozzarella and Wild Mushroom – yellow foot and hedgehog mushrooms, fontina, green garlic.

Wild Mushroom pizza with yellow foot and hedgehog mushrooms, fontina, green garlic, Oven and Shaker, Cathy Whims, Pearl District, Portland, wood fired pizzaWild Fennel Sausage with potato, tomato, chilies, scallions, smoked mozzarella Oven and Shaker, Cathy Whims, Pearl District, Portland, wood fired pizza

Both also delicious in different ways, the sausage balancing the seasoned sausage with little bites of spicy chili, while the mushroom slight crispness at the top from the oven was a nice textural contrast to the fresh green garlic. We definitely want to go back- as we watched the pizza production we were quite intrigued by the zucchini pizza we saw with chili oil, spring herbs, and finished with willdflower honey and marscapone.

Wild Mushroom pizza with yellow foot and hedgehog mushrooms, fontina, green garlic, Oven and Shaker, Cathy Whims, Pearl District, Portland, wood fired pizzaWild Fennel Sausage with potato, tomato, chilies, scallions, smoked mozzarella Oven and Shaker, Cathy Whims, Pearl District

We finished with a bay leaf gelato and a strawberry sorbetto, each topped with a waffle cone triangle. My drink, the Pineapple Trainwreck original, was nice as well, a mix of Bacardi Anejo, freshly pressed lemon juice,  in house pressed and extracted pineapple juice, with some house made spicy ginger syrup and dashes of Peychaud Bitters and Angostura Bitters.There were plenty of other impressive, varied selections on the cocktail menu as well which also are calling me back to try them out.

It seems that Oven & Shaker does do justice its namesakes of producing good food from the oven and shaker. They have some regular topping combination pizzas, but others that rotate seasonally, and as we saw from our seats, they do use quality ingredients for their toppings, and put them together in unique new combinations.

The restaurant is loud and feels communal in terms of how close all the seats are, with the space clean with some wood for warmth as universal mingling music plays in the background as you are surrounded by trendsters as the vibe around is definitely outgoing.

The kitchen is churning out those pizzas as fast as they can, and send them to you as soon as they are ready, but in the small space they have, there is only room for about 4 people, and only so many in the oven, so hopefully you are not looking for a fast experience- you are willing to be patient and focus on socializing while waiting (oh, they are “casual” so don’t take reservations, only walk in and be lucky or walk in and get your name on the list), and you are looking for creative unusual combinations atop pizza not the traditional comfort ones full of cheese, and you are forgiving on dough. Of course, they are relatively new to the area, so the hype may die down to make the wait more reasonable, or we came on a very busy night.

They do have some other bites, but I didn’t see many of those going out the kitchen… and while we enjoyed our salad and pizzas, the dessert was nothing special so try another dessert offering. Still, I might try some next time, if there are enough to share pizzas instead like in this visit ordering one individual pizza per person (each pizza is probably enough for two).

Oven and; Shaker, Cathy Whims, Pearl District, Portland, wood fired pizza Oven and; Shaker, Cathy Whims, Pearl District, Portland, wood fired pizza

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Clyde Common: Happy Hour and a Dining Month Dinner

June 9, 2012 by 1 Comment

A happy hour at Clyde Common: I love the drinks here. The seasonally changing cocktails available thanks to Jeffrey Morganthaler (he manages the bar, both crafting those liquid treasures for patrons to enjoy and borning them from his imagination using  a wide variety of liquid libations as an ingredients palette…) makes the hipsterness at this place and the communal nature of Clyde Common and the fact it is so loud in there a little more forgivable.

I started out my Clyde Common experiences with multiple visits for happy hour. My very first time I fell in love with the Clover Club drink, composed of Broker’s gin, lemon, raspberry gum syrup, egg whites. I love drinks with egg whites, it takes me away on a cloud of lightness that goes down way too easy.

So to make sure I don’t drink a glass of these every 10 minutes… I needed something else. Yes, you, Heart of Darkness, composed of Ramazotti amaro, demerara rum, lime, egg whites. A smoky complex drink that contrasted with the bright citrus of the Clover that I can’t help but sip so I can enjoy the swirl of those flavors.

I went back another instance and the Clover was gone- replaced with a new drink called East Of Eden with Broker’s Dry gin, lemon, egg whites, gewurtztraminer reduction, elderflower, so similar concept. Also delicious, though quite sweeter then the Clover.

Another time, it was the Strega Sour that called out to me, a concoction of Gin, Strega, lemon juice, egg whites, tea-infused honey syrup, a balance of tar t and sour that was cleansing- and it would be a good balance to the dinner meal which I’ll describe shortly because the acid cut through the richer fat of the plates. I was also tempted by the house aged cocktails, and recently they have added bottled sparkling cocktails as well… well, more visits to come.

Also, none of these drinks are their happy hour cocktails. Most around me were going with the Daily Punch (genius on the bar manager part because it can all be prepped before) or the regular Heavy Petting crowd pleaser (Monopolowa vodka, grapefruit juice, Aperol, quinine syrup, lemon peel), although there a a couple other choices on the happy hour options as well. But I didn’t care. If you are going to a movie at the Living Room Theaters, this is where you should go after. L to R pictured below are Clover, Heart of Darkness, East of Eden, Strega Sour.

Clyde Common, Portland Oregon Clyde Common, Portland Oregon

Clyde Common, Portland OregonClyde Common, Portland Oregon

If you can get a seat at the bar after work, do make a plan to enjoy the happy hour food. They have a daily $6 grilled cheese which I like to get with their perfectly executed crispy fries with harissa and crème fraîche ($3). The harissa is supposed to be spicy, but is tamed into mildness. The grilled cheese pictured is one with pesto- other times it has been a mushroom grilled cheese, or with roasted peppers- so it’s a dish that is both dependable but a grab bag surprise.

Clyde Common, Portland Oregon Clyde Common, Portland Oregon

Here are photos from dinner, which I was finally convinced to try rather than my usual happy hour visits thanks to Portland Dining Month. For the $25 3 course menu for June 2012, the offerings included a First Course of Late spring greens, pickled grapes, and smoked almonds; Second Course of porchetta, roasted garlic sausage with fingerling potatoes and pickle relish; and Third Course of Lemon-buttermilk pudding cake, walnut-thyme crust, rhubarb preserves, cream.

Clyde Common, Portland Oregon Clyde Common, Portland OregonClyde Common, Portland Oregon Clyde Common, Portland OregonClyde Common, Portland Oregon

In addition, we also ordered from the dinner menu for that day the Board, which that day featured seared guanciale, grilled bread, balsamic, burrata and a shot of chardonnay, and the vegetarian garganelli pasta dish (half portion- nothing to write about so I won’t), and an additional dessert of chocolate-peanut butter tart (very dense) with honey-roasted peanuts atop vanilla pudding. They change their menu daily, although some items persist at least for the season… and of that a couple stay all year long

Clyde Common, Portland Oregon Clyde Common, Portland OregonClyde Common, Portland Oregon

The MVP of the dinner was the Board, as well as the pickle relish under the super fatty porchetta which balanced out the heaviness of that meat dish (and the light lemon pudding cake with the tart rhubarb also finished it out as a cleanser). That burrata was soooooo good.
Clyde Common, Portland Oregon

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Bloody Mary Bar Planning

April 7, 2012 by Leave a Comment

I'm throwing a Brunchy Lunchy birthday party for my birthday at the end of the month this year! Part of the menu I plan include

For the brunchy, I'm thinking

  • Bacon Bloody Mary bar
  • a make your own quiche/mini-pie station
  • a veggie hash brown casserole
  • Emeril's breakfast casserole (has sausage and eggs)

For the lunchy, I'm thinking

  • wine and beer
  • stuffed pasta shells with homemade ricotta in marinara
  • french "cheese"/tofutti dip and bread,
  • chicken meatballs and veggie meatballs
  • vegetable tray

Friendly to carnivores and herbivores!

In this post, I'm going to cover what I think are the key things for the Bloody Mary Bar:

The ingredients to have (proceeding forward from left to right or wherever the line starts):

  1. Glasses with the option to rim them using a small saucer that has lime juice and kosher salt. I picked out compostable cups that are clear because I won't have enough glasses for my current count of RSVPd guests, which also have the advantage of leaving out a sharpie marker for guests to mark their cup.

  2. Ice! Don't forget the ice!

  3. A few shot glasses and at least two types of vodka: I like to use regular and also a flavored vodka like smokey Bakon Vodka or spicy New Deal Hot Monkey- for this occasion Bakon. Leave the vodka in the freezer at least overnight to make sure they are nice and cold and don't water down your drink with a lot of ice.

  4. Base of regular tomato juice, and I also like V8, partially to increase my perception that this is healthy. I know some people also use Clamato, but since I have to possibly deal with the leftovers, I wasn't planning on offering it- bring your own, sorry!

  5. The standard liquid additions of hot sauces: the hot sauces of my house include traditional Cholula, chipotle pepper Tabasco, and Sriracha. I also like to offer BBQ sauce for those who want to go smoky or sweet instead of spicy (or in addition to!). And of course, there will be Worcestershire sauce, and wedges of lemon for squeezin.

  6. What really makes a DIY bloody mary bar fun are the accompaniments. Of course the standard celery stalks will be ready standing in a nice iced glass for stirring your drink. And, this being Portland, there's all sorts of pickled garnishes to choose from- little gherkins, pickled green beans, pickled beets, pickled carrots, pickled onions, etc. for your toothpick. The sea salt and fresh ground pepper grinders, and bbq shaker seasoning, appears at this end of the bar as well.

  7. Bacon! This is the star of the bloody mary bar. Soak some skewers in water, and then put a slice of thick cut bacon on each one and then into the oven at 350 degrees until done. For the bacon, you can additionally treat it by coating it with brown sugar and pepper to caramelize it.

I wanted to put you in the mood, so here are some archived photos of some bloody marys of my past… varying from Sarabeth's in New York (last bloody mary I photographed), Sepia (most bacon) and Fireside (my first bloody mary bar) in Chicago to Simpatica (best mix I've had in Portland) and Tasty N Sons (best pickles and kick) in Portland.

 

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Gruner new year eve menu, Ringing in 2012 with Luc Lac

January 2, 2012 by 1 Comment

We started the new year with a stomach full of alpine cuisine thanks to a prix fixe dinner at Gruner before heading to Luc Lac Kitchen for the beverages portion of the evening and to ring in the countdown. While downloading pictures from our Christmas vacation, I left the camera out of my purse, and had to resort to my dying phone camera.

The meal started out with the hors d’ouerves of a polenta “sandwich” with fontina & speck, beet-­pickled egg with caviar, fried-­smashed potato with smoked trout & crème fraîche, radishes with dill & pumpkin seed oil. These three little bites, along with my pairing of a sparkling rose, were a nice fancy start, of which my favorite was the polenta sandwich. We also were given complimentary bread, which included the quite doughy pretzel (housemade) and a seedy soft country bread.

 

Next were appetizers of a salad of blood oranges, quince, pickled beets, radicchio,
endive, citrus vinaigrette and also tarte flambee “bonne anee”- alsatian pizza with sweet onions, maine lobster, smoky bacon, fromage blanc & chives.

 

This was followed by entrees: the vegetarian kabocha squash dumplings, buerre noisette, black trumpet mushrooms, fried sage leaves, parmesan; and also the meat-centered sudan farms rack of lamb en chamois red wine marinade, potato-­parsley root gratin with gruyere cheese, brussel sprouts. We commented on how I surely got my money’s worth of the prix fixe with that meat dish, while the dumplings though delicate and delicious were more sparse in amount. Desserts we selected the chocolate trio and an alpine cheese selection (brillat savarin with truffle), muesli cracker, quince preserves.

 

Luc Lac Kitchen was offering a tremendous deal of a New Year’s Eve- from 10-12pm, you could get in with a cover charge of $10 a person ($15 at the door) that would get you unlimited amounts of their four house cocktails, and the food were at happy hour prices of a mere $2 for small plates or $3 for their salads. Since I had so enjoyed the cocktails on my previous dinner visit, I was excited to try the new debut house cocktails. Yes, we tried them all:

  • Socola Tam: Bacardi 8, coconut cream, cocoa, toasted curry marshmellow. My favorite of the four, maybe because part of the prep is lighting it on fire for this warm drink that is all liquid chocolate and curry like a chocolate truffle.
  • Xanh Zing: tequila blanco, disaronno, jalapeno-basil, lime, disaronno foam, mescal spritz. A nice balance of tart and sweet, though I could have enjoyed a little bit more jalapeno myself, I understand not everyone likes spicy drinks.
  • Saigon Sling: bombay sapphire, benedictine, cherry heering, jack fruit, lime, ango bitters. I can’t believe they had enough little glass punch teacups for everyone as this was an extremely popular request all night
  • Little Ho’s Muscle Milk: drambuie, mandarin, lemon, condensed milk, full egg, champagne, ango bitters. Delicious but I couldn’t help picturing how many eggs were being ingested whenever I saw a glass of this leaving the bar

Above, you see me with the Socola Tam, then the Xanh Zing, and then the Little Ho’s Muscle Milk and Saigon Sling. Being fresh from dinner and fighting off a cold, I passed on any more snacks, but the ones I saw at the tables around me looked great. I just didn’t have any more room even as the chicken wings, mussels, and garlic string beans, even as they continued to called to me- I’ll get to them one day.

There was enough people to feel a cheery anticipatory atmosphere for the countdown while still allowing for speedy service of snacks and drinks and being comfy by enjoying seats at the tables and barstools (the cutoff was around 50 some people I believe) instead of having to stand around. It felt like a luxe private cocktail party.

Happy 2012!

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