DaNet Review for 2016

I wrote well of DaNet last year in 2015 when I attended and had a belly busting time with the Russian food at the pop up. Since then, DaNet has reduced their pop up to only once a month, which means when they announce their dates you better hop on the phone ASAP. The next dates for DaNet are 6:30 PM Saturday, July 16, 2016 and Saturday, August 20, 2016. The dinners are served family style and are $65 per person with beverage pairings or drinks a la carte extra. Call Imperial to make your reservation 503-228-7222.

It still takes place at Portland Penny Diner and is presented by Imperial and Chef Vitaly Paley, so the best way to get the scoop is to be on the mailing list for all the fun and delicious events they do. Recently in May I was able to get into one of these hot Russian dinners, so here’s my updated DaNet Review for 2016 of what the experience is like.

The doors open at 6:30 PM, where you then check in your name, are given a welcome punch beverage.

You are also here given your  assigned table letter so you know which table to head to, and your dining party name is placed at each seat. Unless you are a large party of 6+ people that will take up a whole tabletop, expect to make new friends / comrades at your table.

With the only one night a month, DaNet has expanded to take up the entire Portland Penny Diner.

The entire diner has been decorated to suit the theme with new artwork and lots of tchotchkes on any decorative shelf available and even the posts had pre Soviet era posters.

Once you find your seat, you should see two menus before you. The larger dinner menu one has an overview of the four family style courses you will be enjoying. The smaller menu is the specific list of the Zakuski that the dinner menu vaguely refers to as “variety of Russian drinking appetizers”.  The first thing you should do is turn the dinner menu over, which is where the beverage menu is located. I highly recommend selecting a vodka flight to share with your group, or maybe some vodka infusions, to go with the zakuski. Alternatively, there are also several cocktails to select from, or you can choose to have a wine pairing with the first 3 courses. The Bar Czar will probably be at your table shortly to take your drink order.

Since I wanted the full Russian experience, I decided to order all three of the vodka infusions offered –  an infusion with pear and clove, an infusion with elderberry, and an infusion with apple and ginger. I thought I would sip on these three throughout dinner, but they went so well with the various zakuski I found that I needed a new beverage for the other 3 courses!

I switched to cocktails for the other two courses since I knew there would be tea with the dessert. I tried the tart !pa ye kha lee! or Let’s Get Started cocktail with bubbly, honeyed campari, lemon, and radish gastrique. The radish is a nod to when Chef Paley was on Iron Chef and won Battle Radish where radish was the secret ingredient.

Meanwhile for the third course with the lamb and cheesy bread, I went with the slightly more bracing but cleansing !za vas! or !to you! cocktail with horseradish and dill infused vodka, mp roux, tea infused vermouth, fermented apple, and peychauds. Although I didn’t try the wine pairings, my other table mates really enjoyed them, particularly the Clos Cibonne Tibouren Rose 2014 was raved about from the second course pairing, and a few asked for an extra a la carte glass of the Lucien Crochet Sancerre 2013, which was paired with the first course, both wines are from France. The third pairing was Gotsa Mtsvane 2013 from Georgia, making the third course fully Georgian.

First Course: Zakuski

I definitely advise being prompt to the seating as while the drink orders are being taken, some of the zakuski will be served as passed hors d’oeuvre by a server stopping at your table. For this dinner, this included Buterbrodi with sprats, herring butter, cucumber, radish, and green garlic cheese spread.

The Stuffed Eggs with beet and sumac

Then, the family style service started with the zakuski of PicklesPicklesPickles that included pickled mushroom, rhubarb, beet, cranberry and strawberry which was perfect with the vodkas

Then there was the Monkfish liver served with Everything Matzo crackers

More fish on the table arrived via the Smoked Fish Plate with steelhead, herring, and black cod

Stan’s Meat Plate with horseradish

Herring Under a Fur Coat, salted herring layered beautifully withvegetables, chopped onions, and mayonnaise.

This was a particular highlight by Chef Paley as he read from friend Anya Von Bremzen’s book Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking about Salade Olivier

My favorite, as always, is the Warm Blini and Potato Latkes with steelhead caviar, melted butter, and sour cream

Here’s my almost done zakuski dish (minus the Herring Under a Fur Coat which is still coming around to me) with my plate displaying from the left and clockwise the Warm Blini and Potato Latkes with steelhead caviar, melted butter, and sour cream; Smoked Fish plate items of steelhead, herring, and black cod; Salade Olivier; Stan’s Meat Plate stuff with horseradish, and Monkfish Liver with Everything Matzo

Second Course

We got another reading from Chef Paley to introduce this course, this time from friend Anya Von Bremzen’s book Please to the Table The Russian Cookbook about Ukha

The introduction was well worth it to appreciate the complexity of this Fish Ukha, a fish stew that boasts crayfish, prawn, salmon and halibut in the broth and tender morsels of those as well. Chef Ken Norris, who is working with Chef Paley on the new seafood restaurant Headwaters that will be at the Heathman, and who was in the kitchen as part of this DaNet dinner,  is showing off again his sophisticated seafood skillz.

And then there’s this seafood rastegai with fish mousse inside to accompany the Ukha.

Then there was a Birch Juice palate cleanser, a tradition from Belarus, though the birch here is from Alaska

Third Course

The main course featured Georgian cuisine, specifically Lamb Shashlyk with grilled vegetable caviar (eggplant). A little clay pot offered Lobio Beans, another traditional Georgian bean dish.

To accompany the lamb was included Khachapuri cheesy bread with cheese inside of havarti, mozzarella, and feta. There were also three sauces that included ajica (a spicy red pepper sauce), herbed yogurt, and a tkemali wild plum sauce that Chef Paley picked himself at Sauvie Island

My dish seems small, but I was already having a had time finishing it – all the one of everything adds up!

Fourth Course

This dessert course included Steven Smith Teamakers DaNet Blend black tea from samovar with accompaniments of which jam is the usual sweetener rather than sugar though it is available. This is along with desserts of Eskimo with smoked milk and chocolate, Pistachio halva made with sesame and tahini, and deep fried dumpling Cherry Vareniki. There were birthdays being celebrated at our table, so an additional candle was added to our dessert platter.

At the end, your check will arrive with gratuity already included. Just like after Thanksgiving, you will probably feel overly full and want to lie down, but are also completely satisfied with the little bit of everything that was your Russian meal tonight.

This really is a unique experience to be able to join in on a Russian dinner like this and experience a communal table in a familial atmosphere and Russian food that both respects tradition but also takes advantage of the expertise of someone so experienced like Chef Paley to also improve upon it and take advantage of fresh Northwest bounty. I am always thrilled whenever I can have Chef Paley’s Russian food, and this food is not necessarily easy to prepare – sometimes taking days of work to get ready for this night, and much of it comes from his childhood to recreate the flavor experience he had and techniques from generations of grandmothers so you can have that same love and deliciousness communicated through painstaking patient effort. A big banquet like this would have taken a kitchen full of grandmas aunts and mom’s even with the know how. Fortunately Chef Paley has the skilled staff of Imperial pitching in.

After the Soviet revolution these foods that had proudly been passed through generations of Russians became only a memory for most, and it’s time to bring it back and celebrate it. I can’t recommend DaNet enough for a one of a kind dinner experience. For everyone who wishes there was a babushka in your life, we’ll at least now there’s DaNet and Chef Paley and Imperial.