Line and Lure and Live Music

When people think of casinos, they think of usually the lights and sounds of the slot machines, the padded green tables and sound of shuffling cards or the roulette wheel. Me, I think of the food. It’s true in Vegas, one of the premier destinations in the US for eating I think – and it’s true at the nearby to Portland Ilani Resort and Casino. Don’t let the Ridgefield Washington location put you off – it’s 30 minutes or less drive from Portland. I want to go there to eat. In particular, I’m a fan of Line and Lure Seafood Restaurant.

Line and Lure may be most known by those in the know with their brunch buffet, available on weekends. It’s where I’d take my parents or other relatives if they were in town. But there’s more reason to come- for instance come enjoy the calmer vibe at happy hour or at dinner. You can enjoy Line and Lure and Live Music every Friday & Saturday from 6-10 PM: see the schedule here. The musicians are local, and in a good sign, it also helps bring in some local regulars along with the casino members. And now that better weather season is here dine out on their patio with firepit to start out a casino date night.

They have multiple lovely libations, but my favorite is both a drink and a snack: their Admiral Bloody Mary in concocted with their housemade bloody mary mix and Tito’s vodka, crab leg, prawn, bacon, pepperoncini, olive, onion, spicy pickled bean, fresh lime 
Line and Lure and Live Music Line and Lure and Live Music

Start with a seafood forward appetizer like Dungeness Crab Claws served your choice of either chilled on ice or steamed. Basic preparation but the best ingredients show off the fresh tastiness of the crab.
Line and Lure appetizers of DUNGENESS CRAB CLAWS with your choice: Chilled on ice or steamed

But, don’t afraid to go with a lot of prepared flavors – like the complex layered starter of the BBQ Shimp and Griddled Corn Cakes with grilled prawns, seared polenta cakes, spicy BBQ sauce.
Line and Lure starter of BBQ SHRIMP & GRIDDLED CORN CAKES, with grilled prawns, seared polenta cakes, spicy BBQ sauce Line and Lure starter of BBQ SHRIMP & GRIDDLED CORN CAKES, with grilled prawns, seared polenta cakes, spicy BBQ sauce

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Castagna Explorative Dinner

Castagna has been serving up fine dining prix fixe modern gastronomy menus for two decades now. Castagna and owner Monique Siu and head chef Justin Woordward have been nominated for James Beard Awards under the categories of Outstanding Restaurateur and Best Chef Northwest multiple years in a row. This past spring, they have decided to offer a new alternative to the tasting menus, one that is even more accessible in cost and time commitment. Now, besides the 13-20 course chef’s tasting menu, two days a week on Wednesday and Thursdays there is a new option of a six course Castagna Explorative Dinner Series menu.
Castagna

For the Explorative Dinner Series, the dinner courses have a theme that changes every two months. During my visit the theme was Surf and Turf (the first themed the series), but the new theme for July 2019 is the Green Menu. Unlike the chef’s tasting menu which sits at $165 with $85 wine pairing extra as an option, a Castagna Explorative Dinner will run $75 per person, with the optional wine pairing featuring west coast wines at $45.

Here’s a look at what a Castagna Explorative Dinner was like for me during my visit to give you an idea of the kind of dishes that might be created for a theme.

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Lunch at Restaurant Palaegade

Before the trendy but delicious Avocado Toast became popular here both for its visual appeal and tastyiness, there was smørrebrød. In Denmark one of the common traditional foods you will find is smørrebrød. These are open-faced sandwiches built on buttered dense sourdough rye bread – the word itself comes from the first two layers of butter (smør) and bread (brød) with the butter being the protective layer to ensure the bread does not get soggy. Then on top of that you’ll find additional layers that can run the gamut from herring to egg, mushrooms, roast beef, just cheese, and more. Many smørrebrød restaurants may offer a dozen to at some places more then 100 smørrebrød options! Smørrebrød is healthy, hearty and everywhere – I had my smørrebrød experience while on my trip last week to Copenhagen during lunch at Restaurant Palaegade.

Restaurant Palaegade offers 40 options of smørrebrød at lunch, and I picked to have lunch at Restaurant Palaegade because they are in easy walking distance from popular sites like Nyhavn, Rosenborg Slot, and Christiansborg Slot so it’s a perfect stop between visiting these three locations (I’ll talk about my visit to some of these attractions next week on my Travel Tuesday post). Restaurant Palaegade was my pick from a list of possible locations that also included Restaurant Schønnemann (old school place with more then 110 options!), Restaurant Kronborg (traditional cozy setting), and Cafe Gammel Torv (located in a cellar!). I liked how Restaurant Palaegade offered traditional as well as new takes on smørrebrød. They also had seats outside on the sidewalk, but I was too cold it turns out. Also, this was recommended to me by Gary the Foodie, so I had to try it out!
Restaurant Palaegade in Copenhagen offering traditional Danish smørrebrød. These are open-faced sandwiches built on buttered dense sourdough rye bread

I started off with a Snap – that is, a small shot of aquavit, and restrained myself from squeeing too much at the glass already set at the table even before I ordered. How can you not have a snap once you see this glass waiting at your place setting?
Restaurant Palaegade in Copenhagen offering traditional Danish smørrebrød and snaps - aka aquavit shots, like this

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Feast Fab Collab – and way to win tickets to Feast!

I have been attending Feast Portland for many years now, and am an enthusiastic supporter of the amazing 4 day food festival event that helps brings awareness and raise money for charitable partners fighting against hunger. Feast Portland also celebrates the delicious local bounty of the Pacific Northwest, ranging from producers of food products to those who transform ingredients into dishes on a plate or in a glass – restaurants and chefs and mixologists and more. Most of the events at Feast bring together various makers of food to collaborate to create a limited time offering for Feast. Of the 40+ events during Feast Portland, many are sold out, but there are still a tickets to some events, and there are ways to participate in Feast without a ticket, thanks to the Feast Fab Collab.

Feast Fab Collab 2018 Feast Mode Lager Beer (sold in cans) with 10 Barrel Brewing Co., a lager featuring pilsner malt, flaked rice and a subtle hopping for an ultra light and refreshing beer. $7.99 for a four pack of 16 ounce cans (so four pints), available at New Seasons Markets + Feast Fab Collab 2018 Olympia Provisions Chef Sausage Series with Salumist Elias Cairo + Ava Gene’s Owner Chef Joshua McFadden, a specialty Italian pork sausage spiced with garlic, fennel, chili flake, and stuffed with kale and provolone cheese, available at New Seasons Markets = perfection

Now in it’s third year, the Feast Fab Collab is a collaboration of products you can purchase outside Feast – in this case you can find them exclusively at New Seasons Market. The food items are limited edition just for Feast, and created in partnership with famed chefs and food producers also participating in Feast. And, you’ll still be doing good – a portion of gross sales from all Feast Fab Collab items are donated to Feast Portland’s charitable partners to be part of the fight against hunger too. This year the partners are Hunger-Free Oregon and Urban Gleaners.

For 2018, the Feast Fab Collab items include

  • Feast Mode Lager Beer (sold in cans) with 10 Barrel Brewing Co., a lager featuring pilsner malt, flaked rice and a subtle hopping for an ultra light and refreshing beer. $7.99 for a four pack of 16 ounce cans (so four pints).
    Feast Fab Collab 2018 Feast Mode Lager Beer (sold in cans) with 10 Barrel Brewing Co., a lager featuring pilsner malt, flaked rice and a subtle hopping for an ultra light and refreshing beer. $7.99 for a four pack of 16 ounce cans (so four pints), available at New Seasons Markets
  • Mini Ice Cream Sandwiches with Maya Lovelace (of famous Southern Appalachian pop-up Mae PDX and coming restaurant Yonder) and Ruby Jewel. The two flavors of mini ice cream sandwiches (it says mini, but they are still palm sized – it is only mini in terms of the ice cream sandwiches at Ruby Jewel are usually even bigger!) include Maya’s Southern Strawberry Ice Cream Sandwich with chewy cornmeal cookies from Bob’s Red Mill and strawberry buttermilk ice cream using strawberries from Oregon Fruit Products. The second ice cream sandwich is Grandma Mae’s Sweet Molasses Ice Cream Sandwich inspired from Maya’s grandmother molasses and apple butter sandwich cookies. If I had to choose between them, I prefer the strawberry one with cornmeal but really it’s just personal preference because I like strawberry and cream more then molasses flavors. Each sandwich is $2.99.
    Feast Fab Collab 2018 Mini Ice Cream Sandwiches, the Grandma Mae’s Sweet Molasses Ice Cream Sandwich with Maya Lovelace, available at New Seasons Markets Feast Fab Collab 2018 Mini Ice Cream Sandwiches the Maya’s Southern Strawberry Ice Cream Sandwich with Maya Lovelace, available at New Seasons Markets
  • Olympia Provisions Chef Sausage Series with Salumist Elias Cairo + Ava Gene’s Owner Chef Joshua McFadden, a specialty Italian pork sausage spiced with garlic, fennel, chili flake, and stuffed with kale and provolone cheese. I’m serving it below exactly as they recommended it, very simply just grilled the sausage and sliced it up with fresh pasta, olive oil and some garden cherry tomatoes – sounds simple but it lets the freshness of the summer tomatoes and all the flavor of the sausage really stand out! Maybe in retrospect I should have wilted some spinach, but at this point the sausage was oozing cheese and I wasn’t going to wait any longer to eat it. A package of 12 ounces of sausage runs $8.99.
    Feast Fab Collab 2018 Olympia Provisions Chef Sausage Series with Salumist Elias Cairo + Ava Gene’s Owner Chef Joshua McFadden, a specialty Italian pork sausage spiced with garlic, fennel, chili flake, and stuffed with kale and provolone cheese, available at New Seasons Markets Feast Fab Collab 2018 Olympia Provisions Chef Sausage Series with Salumist Elias Cairo + Ava Gene’s Owner Chef Joshua McFadden, a specialty Italian pork sausage spiced with garlic, fennel, chili flake, and stuffed with kale and provolone cheese, available at New Seasons Markets

The beer and mini ice cream sandwiches are available now at New Seasons Markets in Oregon and Southwest Washington states, and the Olympia Provisions sausage will be available this Monday September 3, just in time for Labor Day bbqs.

All of these products will also be featured at the Friday and Saturday Grand Tasting Presented By New Seasons Market, who is the main sponsor of the two Grand Tasting events. Thanks to their generosity, I am raffling off TWO tickets to the Friday Grand Tasting event!

So here’s how you can win tickets –

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Quaintrelle Happy Hour

I’ve always been a fan of Quaintrelle, and only regret that they are in a part of town I do not visit very often so I don’t go often enough. When I have some girlfriends looking to meet up, Quaintrelle is always one of the first that comes to mind that I recommend, thanks to the lovely beverages from Bar Manager Camille Cavan, and how the menu descriptions always include an experience descriptions of the flavors, not just a list of ingredients. Recently a chef shakeup replaced Chef Bill Wallender with previous DOC chef Chef Ryley Eckersley, and an update to the Quaintrelle Happy Hour menu. Now I think Quaintrelle’s happy hour may be among the most beautifully plated and fresh in showcasing Northwest products in Portland. Even if you don’t come to happy hour, you will be pleased to experience beautifully plated dishes showcasing the best of current seasonal ingredients at their peak.
Quaintrelle Happy Hour, Prohibition Punch, an ever changing daily punch inspired by a prohibition cocktail, for $6Quaintrelle Tomatoes, basils, ricotta, quinoa

You will find Quaintrelle happy hour runs every day from 5 – 6:30 PM, and on Sundays the entire evening (5-9 PM). If for some reason you are looking for wine instead of cocktails, consider coming on their Wine Wednesdays when they additionally offer 50% off bottles from a hand selected list (available all evening on Wednesdays). On offer for Happy Hour is always a Prohibition Punch, an ever changing daily punch inspired by a prohibition cocktail, for $6. If you don’t drink, ask for her seasonal mocktail – one visit this was concocted of cherry, mint shrub, lemon, lime, and ginger ale.
Quaintrelle Happy Hour, Prohibition Punch, an ever changing daily punch inspired by a prohibition cocktail, for $6

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