Verdigris Brunch

There are lots of wonderful weekend brunch spots, but avoid the lines or waits but also checking out everyday weekday brunches available, such as Verdigris Brunch. This French influenced neighborhood gem is a great spot for eats and conversations with your friends and family. I’ve visited Verdigris for dinner before, but wanted to spotlight their brunch food too.

Verdigris Brunch, available everyday not just weekends. Croissant French Toast with Butternut Squash Compote, Chantilly, Walnuts and the other dish of 60 Minute Eggs and Smithfield Ham, Duck Fat Fried Hash Browns, Brown Butter Hollandaise

Here’s a look at what I think is their best savory dish, the 60 Minute Eggs, Smithfield Ham, and Duck Fat Fried Hash Browns with Brown Butter Hollandaise. It sounds heavy, but it is just the lightest thinnest slight of ham, and then the hash browns providing the base instead of a bready english muffin on this take of Eggs Benedict.
Verdigris Brunch, available everyday not just weekends. 60 Minute Eggs, Smithfield Ham, Duck Fat Fried Hash Browns, Brown Butter Hollandaise Verdigris Brunch, available everyday not just weekends. 60 Minute Eggs, Smithfield Ham, Duck Fat Fried Hash Browns, Brown Butter Hollandaise

If you prefer the sweet touch to your breakfast, then check out the Croissant French Toast with Butternut Squash Compote, Chantilly, Walnuts that brings you the french toast flavor but with the heft of croissant so it doesn’t get as soggy, thanks to the flakey outside layer and then the bonus of the softer buttery insides.
Verdigris Brunch, available everyday not just weekends. Croissant French Toast with Butternut Squash Compote, Chantilly, Walnuts Verdigris Brunch, available everyday not just weekends. Croissant French Toast with Butternut Squash Compote, Chantilly, Walnuts

Where is your favorite everyday brunch available on weekends?

As an aside, I went to Verdigris for Portland Dining Month – for $33 we got to pick an option from all 3 sections of the regular menu of starters, mains, and desserts. They run this special for more then March – and it does work with their whole menu so great for a dining party! Here are a few photos from that dinner where my dining friends and I enjoyed an amuse bouche of a saffron bouillabaisse and bread rolls to start, and then went on to our 3 courses…

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Travel Tuesday: Artisan Cheese Festival Tour

As some of you may have seen in my Instagram and which I posted briefly about here on the blog, I went to visit one of my sisters who lives in the San Rafael/Bay Area recently. The specific event we had in mind to enjoy together was the California Artisan Cheese Festival, now in its 12th year, that celebrates California cheese with tours, seminars, tasting events, and a cheese market. Here’s a look at my review and recap of my experiences, divided among several posts. First I’ll start with my favorite activity during the festival, the Artisan Cheese Festival Tour.

I took off an extra day, Friday March 22, to enjoy the first full day of this 3 day, weekend cheese festival. The first day was devoted mostly to artisan tours to cheesemakers and local artisans via a bus with a group of 25-30 people. The tour I selected was called “Sensory Sebastopol”, which is basically the area 30 minutes away from Petaluma that our tour stops were concentrated on. The tour included a cheese seminar, a visit to 2 cheesemakers, a cheese lunch, and a visit with a distillery. I will cover the cheese seminar and the first cheesemaker, Bohemian Creamery, in this post.
Artisan Cheese Festival tour 2018, a visit with owner Lisa Gottreich of Bohemian Creamery showing us and telling us the story behind the scenes of an artisan cheesemaker. Here are some of the Bohemian Creamery cheeses. In the front, you see a bloomy rind cheese, the triangle soft cheese is a washed rind, and that in the back the harder aged cheeses of different aging periods are examples of natural rind cheeses. Artisan Cheese Festival tour 2018, a visit with owner Lisa Gottreich of Bohemian Creamery showing us and telling us the story behind the scenes of an artisan cheesemaker. We were able to also visit the 3 aging rooms as you see here.
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Urdaneta for Portland Dining Month

Earlier this week, I had a chance to enjoy Urdaneta for Portland Dining Month. I will also be back to Urdaneta shortly for their Basque Supper Club. If you haven’t heard, on Sunday April 8th at 6PM Basque Supper Club will be doing the only Portland screening of the film “The Txoko Experience: The Secret Culinary Space of the Basques”. Basically, Txoko is the Basque version of a supper club. This Basque Supper Clubevent, with tickets already sold out, includes watching the movie, a Q&A with the scriptwriter  and a Txoko inspired 6 course dinner by Urdaneta. Chef Javier was inspired to create Urdaneta and Basque Supper Club based on his own childhood experiences with his grandfather’s txoko so I am super excited to learn more about Txoko and get a personal take story-wise and food-wise from Urdaneta.

I’ll recap that experience and meal later, but for now I can’t emphasize enough that you have 2 meals left to get over there for Portland Dining Month. Fortunately, some of the dishes are also on their regular menu, so even if you can’t make it today and tomorrow you can still enjoy some of these dishes.

This is not part of the Portland Dining Month, menu, but it is impossible to resist ordering some pintxos every time I come here whether I am only coming here for Dumpling Week or for Portland Dining Month. Go ahead and give in and get a few starter bites after browsing the menu with the marinated olives. A sherry flight or sangria or Basque cider (sidra) would also be great choices to wash down your pinxto bites.

The Urdaneta pinxtos you see are the

  • Sobrasada, a soft chorizo in fry bread with grilled halloumi and truffle honey;
  • Albondiga, a lamb meatball with house tater tot, spicy brava sauce, apple, sofrito aioli;
  • Camarón, grilled shrimp al ajillo with tomato conserva, ajo dulce, chili, dill, and toasted bread;
  • Morcilla, a grilled blood sausage with dad’s marinated peppers, piquillo jam, piparra, and toasted bread
    Urdaneta olives Urdaneta flight of sherry Urdaneta pinxtos, skewers of bites to go with your libations Urdaneta pinxtos, skewers of bites to go with your libations

Now onto the Portland Dining Month options…

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Fimbul Icelandic Dinner Spring 2018

Fimbul PDX is a pop up focused on Scandinavian and Icelandic cuisine. I raved about the dinner I attended last year, and am excited to see what they do this year. They took a little bit of a break as Matt and Aurora welcomed their beautiful daughter last year, but seem to be ramping up for more this year. After a short research trip by the Matts to Iceland, there is a possibility that we’ll be seeing more frequent offerings of Fimbul dinners (possibly even twice a month?!), so make sure you are following them on their email list (sign up on the website) and social media to be in the know! In the meantime, he’s a look at the recent dinner I attended, the Fimbul PDX Spring 2018 dinner on March 13.
Fimbul Icelandic Dinner Spring 2018

They do have one dinner already planned – a collaboration with Johan Vineyards for their annual wine dinner in the vineyard on August 25th, 2018. Tickets available through Johan (info@johanvineyards.com). Expect that dinners may sell out, and you need to make reservations. The usual Fimbul pop up dinners are ticketed off their website, and you can choose to purchase just the prix fixe dinner, add on wine pairings, or purchase beverages a la carte there. The wine pairings for this dinner were all Wines by Johan Vinyards, and there were also spirits like Brennivin and Opal, both which are Icelandic liqueurs.

For the Fimbul Icelandic Dinner Spring 2018 edition, I attended the 5:30pm seating, and they did an amazing job of prepping beforehand so that we were out as the 7:30pm seating was coming in. Here’s the menu, and then I’ll go through my thoughts course by course.
Fimbul Icelandic Dinner Spring 2018 Fimbul Icelandic Dinner Spring 2018
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The Magic Play at Portland Center Stage

This past Friday, I went to see The Magic Play at Portland Center Stage, running through April 1. The Magic Play follows a young magician (performed by actual actor/magician/illusionist Brett Schneider – this role was written for him) trying to get through a live show just hours after his partner (actor Sean Parris) has left him. As the performance progresses, he confronts the fact that the tricks of his trade don’t serve him as well when it comes to building truthful relationships. You the audience bear witness not just to a dozen demonstrations of magic throughout the show, but also the effects of a heartbreaking love story.
Brett Schneider as The Magician in The Magic Play at Portland Center Stage. Photo by Patrick Weishampel/blakeye.tv courtesy of Portland Center Stage at The Armory. Script By Andrew Hinderaker Directed by Halena Kays
Brett Schneider as The Magician in The Magic Play at Portland Center Stage at The Armory.
Photo by Patrick Weishampel/blankeye.tv courtesy of Portland Center Stage at The Armory. Script By Andrew Hinderaker Directed by Halena Kays

The play is different every night because there are multiple points where audience participation is called for that can affect the energy of the show and the ending. Here’s a bit of a hint/sneak peak of a scene early on that shows a bit of the magic of Brent’s prowess with cards while simultaneously interacting with an audience volunteer and telling a story and acting the emotional connection with his fellow actor/partner character.

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