Recently from a cart… Khao Man Gai

July 10, 2009 by 2 Comments

I first read about Nong’s Khao Man Gai cart in the Oregonian, the article is now posted online at the Oregon Live website, and there’s a great review of it at Portland Food Carts Website. Her cart is located by 10th and Alder, right across essentially from Jake’s Grill, which I had visited for a happy hour on Wednesday. When I spotted the cart, I vowed to go back the next day to grab my lunch from there.

The cart is just as pictured on her website: a small 2-person operation with her dishing out the rice that was steamed using a chicken broth for more flavor, and then a man in the back efficiently chopping the poached chicken into individual servings. She scoops the rice from the giant rice cookers into a neat dome, he tops it with chicken and adds the garnishings of cucumber and chinese parsley, meanwhile she is scooping the winter squash soup broth into a container or wrapping the package up in the paper, securing it with a rubber band, and slipping the plastic fork wrapped napkin underneath before taking your $6.

Khao Man Gai, a chicken and rice dish from the food cart, Nong's Khao Man Gai, Portland Oregon

The chicken? 4.5 stars- I only don’t give it 5 because I’ve had the fortunate experience of having home-cooked version of this from a Thai mom in Chicago who is known for this dish, and her chicken is much more flavorful- though the bones are still there to pick through, and Nong’s chicken pile on the rice is boneless and very tender and moist.

The rice? 3.5 stars. Again, same comparison, and even some of the rice I’ve had with this dish in Thailand have had more flavor. Maybe my rice came from the rice cooker that was a bit older- but this trip, definitely nothing special. But if you haven’t had it before, you will wonder why you ever make rice with just water when you could use broth.

Khao Man Gai, a chicken and rice dish from the food cart, Nong's Khao Man Gai, Portland Oregon

But, the sauce- that is one of the keys to this dish. And Nong definitely gets 5 stars on this one, and the soup broth is a great addition to the whole lunch package to cool down the tang of the garlic and giner. I could go for a bit more chili, but I know as a standard baseline this is a fine flavoring sauce to the dish given this is Portland.

Good simple food- not necessarily the kind that should have a cult following like some of the carts in Thailand, but still a good choice even in Thailand of basic good food, and definitely still a great choice from a cart here in Portland! I particularly like this dish on colder days, where the comfort of the chicken in chicken form, deeply infused in rice, and in soup all warm me up.

Khao Man Gai, food cart, Nong's Khao Man Gai, Portland Oregon

Khao Man Gai, a chicken and rice dish from the food cart, Nong's Khao Man Gai, Portland OregonKhao Man Gai, a chicken and rice dish from the food cart, Nong's Khao Man Gai, Portland OregonKhao Man Gai, a chicken and rice dish from the food cart, Nong's Khao Man Gai, Portland Oregon

Nong also has her own storefront now on SE Ankeny and 6h, which offers more homey dishes- I hope to visit it soon. Unlike with the food cart at SW 10th and Alder, you don’t have to go walking around trying to find someplace to sit and balance this package on your lap or bricks to eat since you have access to chairs and tables and all! From when I’ve passed by, the inside is very authentic and feels like stepping into Thailand little street restaurant!

Khao Man Gai, a chicken and rice dish from the food cart, Nong's Khao Man Gai, Portland Oregon

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The Original: A Dinerant

June 20, 2009 by 2 Comments

Across from F's workplace they finally finished building the Courtyard Marriott, and along with it came a new restaurant that is a twist on a diner: they call themselves the Original, a dinerant. Perusing the menu, I was amused by offerings such as creme brulee french toast, lobster corn dog, duck and waffles (with duck confit), lobster popcorn, pigs in a blanket with kobe frank with cheddar fondue, fried bologna (mortadella, onions, shallot mayo, smoked mozzerella on ciabatta), and a voodoo doughnut burger (natural beef and cheddar on a Voodoo doughnut). I put together a small group for an after work happy hour to see if the execution would live up to the potential in the menu.

I of course immediately ordered the lobster popcorn. When they cut the bag open, the aroma of lobster greeted the table. It actually did taste like lobster. The issue I had was that I have my lobster with butter- and my palate was only getting lobster. More butter! But seriously, it did need more butter. For $5, I was expecting at least AMC theater level popcorn, and this was more microwave quality- and not even the movie theater butter flavor.

Two people (the vegetarians) ordered salads, which hilariously, they each got the other person's salad and neither said anything but just ate it and only figured it out at the end as they reviewed their salad that it was not what they expected. Doh!

Even though I ordered my fried bologna after the other couple, for some reason I got my dish first. Bizarre kitchen timing. My first problem with the sandwich? They also fried the ciabatta. And ciabatta is like a sponge for the oil- making the sandwich greasier then it needed to be. They should have just fried the bologna. It also was a bit weird because the bologna did not taste right- probably because I'm used to only Oscar Meyer bologna. The upgrade in meat was still good, but I didn't get the tinge of nostalgia that I was expecting, and it didn't give the more powerful flavor bologna usually offers compared to other meats. It also would have been greatly, greatly helped by some sour or acid, say pickles, to help balance the richness, or perhaps a really strong cheddar as the smoked mozzerella was not smoky enough. The fries look better than they tasted- they were a bit dry and needed ketchup. This would have been matched really well with Rogue's smoked porter. 

Another diner ordered the pigs in a blanket, which I forgot to take a photo of. The frank portion was pretty chubby- think kielbasa size. And the cheddar fondue meant that fries became cheese fries, bonus! Sadly, for the $9.75 price tag at happy hour, the dog didn't come with fries- he had to poach his wife's fries with her burger (which was $7.25). The pastry dough that the piggies were wrapped in also were a little overdone- they should have been hey, more buttery and moist rather than browned.

The order of the Voodoo Doughnut Burger was greatly anticipated. Honestly, with the level of $5 burgers offered at many other happy hours in Portland, this burger's beef patty just did not measure up. Sure, it was on a doughnut, which turns out was a lightly glazed one, and had the consistency of a small super-soft bun that was a little sweet. I wonder if you could have achieved something similar with Hawaiian bread. I was disappointed they didn't even have a fun presentation:Voodoo Doughnuts are world reknown, after all, for their humorous take on doughnuts, and this dish had no humor to it. And yet, this dinerant offers gummy worms and doughnuts as toppings on its pancakes and waffles. 

Overall, I think they missed the mark slightly, at least with in this initial experience. The enthusiasm and sense of whimsy we had after we ordered just wasn't met when we actually took that initial bite. The premise is obviously comfort food taken up another level, but the issue we had was that there wasn't enough nostalgia and parts of the original that a customer would expect to really appreciate the update that was being done. You need a bit of both- the traditional and the contemporary, and in the samples we tried it just didn't marry them both. We wanted to have fun- and although we did, it wasn't fueled by the food, in my opinion. Of course, I've also tasted attempts of this same concept by Homaru Cantu and Grant Achatz, so I'm a bit spoiled.

All of these photos can be viewed larger at my usual Picasa Adventures of Pech 2009 Photo Album. 

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Japanese izakaya in Vancouver, B.C.

May 27, 2009 by Leave a Comment

At Guu with Garlic… Ramune is awesome. I mixed it with ohsu and crushed strawberries for their “Cherry Blossom” drink.

The food was good too. The faves were the salmon carpaccio, fried chicken tendons, and the balls. We also got three orders of the chicken wings. The third one was a surprise- and is why we didn’t order another new dish. But, since we took the mistaken additional order, we helped out our poor trainee waiter who couldn’t keep up with the two waitresses. Poor guy looked traumatized and nervous. We felt almost like we were in an anime, where this was the scene of him being such a klutz and being afraid and frustrated but trying to brave through it with determination. I’m sure after his shift he would sit in a meadow looking at the moon exhausted and thoughtful, wiping the sweat from his brow where some girl with big eyes would find him and give him words of encouragement, ha ha.

  

And the almond tofu dessert truly was smooth and left me room for a taste of La Casa Gelato that unfortunately was not enjoyed by the other travelers I was with.

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A Chinese Experience in Vancouver B.C.

May 26, 2009 by Leave a Comment

I flew from Portland on a quick little hour flight to Vancouver B.C. to join 4/5 of my family for a Memorial Day weekend in Vancouver B.C. We had a day that were Chinese themed: Saturday all day. Here are the highlights from my Adventures of Pech 2009 Picasa album.

First stop at the Dr Sun Yat Sen Classical Chinese Garden:

A Dim Sum lunch afterwards at Kirin Downtown location:

 

Dinner at Sun Sui Wah in Richmond, BC before going to Night Market (the first not worth the wait, but the second surprise- which involved a waiter running over in excitement to draw us a map when the cashier didn’t know what we were asking about- well worth it):

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Belly Timber- perfectly executed, simple flavor profiles that work

May 6, 2009 by Leave a Comment

Belly Timber has closed.

I loved Belly Timber. Maybe the service was a bit slow to get to our main courses (we finished our cocktails, bread, appetizers, and salads and still waited noticebly for the entrees to appear), and it is a bit loud (we heard the belly laugh of a guy from somewhere in the house that we couldn’t even identify, but it echoed all around us…). You definitely do not feel any privacy. But, the food is good. Just don’t expect it to be romantic, despite existing in a beautiful house.

We started out with bread with softened sweet butter and coriander salt and chili salt.The butter and salt was great- the bread was chewy in the crust and doughy in the middle.

For salads, I didn’t order a salad, but was given one because the waitress got the order wrong. By pure luck, the salad I would have ordered is what she misunderstood! And, it was delicious. Perfectly cooked, the flavors and textures were well balanced. Look at how beautiful that small plate of asparagus with poached egg, duck bacon, and pistachio vinaigrette looks. Wonderfully savory rich starter. The other salad, beets, watercress, and carrot with goat cheese vinaigrette was very mild and a bit salty. Would have preferred this to be premixed rather than having all the sauce at the bottom as it made it uneven. Except for those small quibbles, it was still a good salad- just not as good as the asparagus (though of course, seemingly healthier)

 

lso as a snack while waiting for our entrees was the menu item that immediately caught my eye on initial scan: housemade fries with bone marrow aioli. Good, but I had high hopes for these and they did not match those expectations, though the fries were still crisp and tasty (though they could be even crispier). The aioli was more creamy with a subtle bit of meat in the after-taste, but it was very tame despite the description. I guess I am a frites connoisseur as they were not on the caliber of the crisp fries I’ve had at Firefly in Washington DC or the duck frites in Chicago at Sweet and Savories, or even the truffle fries at Rockit in Chicago . The fact that I can recall these fries off the top of my head so specifically says a lot about me.

 

The dinner entrees included for the vegetarian, first a side of stinging nettles risotto with asparagus, spring onion, lemon and grana. This dish was going to be shared between us, and it disappointed us both. At first, at the top, it was ok- not outstanding, but not bad. But, then the oil collected at the bottom and was just too much. The lemon was a nice addition to this though- the rest of the ingredients just didn’t balance out to anything.

The other vegetarian dish was an entrée of swiss chard, currants, and pine nuts inside of phyllo and resting atop ricotta salata and aged balsamic. This had a lot of flavor- in fact didn’t really need the butter phyllo as it weighed the dish down with its butter content (ironically since the phyllo is supposed to be light) – but maybe some other starch as a better counterweight would have been perfect. Great flavor inside the dough though- every forkful was a burst of intense juices and textures.

 

I had the best dish though: simple in description, but just genius. I ordered the honey poached chicken breast, then topped with crumbled crispy skin (genius combination! You get the juicy moistness and the crispy goodness) accompanied with glazed carrots and tarragon. Well executed, excellently balanced dish. If I could criticize anything, it is only that the chicken and carrots alone were so wonderful that the tarrogon seemed like a runt tagging along on the plate- but it didn’t hurt the dish though, I’ll take seconds please!

The little bite of dessert, Stumptown custard with caramel foam, is like having an airy coffee for dessert. Yum, a perfect ending. When we left and away from the echoes of all the people around us, we could finally sigh in contentment and take a little walk down this neighborhood of great window shopping.

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