Grazing the Tacoma pampas (El Gaucho)
August 4, 2011
Restaurant website
Location: Tacoma, WA, near the Tacoma glass museum
Price to dine two: Trust me, you don’t want to know
“May I escort you?” Todd asked gallantly, holding out an arm. I laid a hand on his elbow and he walked me past the kitchen grill, to the door of the ladies’ room.
“How did you know that’s where I wanted to go?” I asked, curious.
“Oh, I’m a trained waitperson,” he assured me, looking like a cross between a matador and an orchestra leader, “They teach us what to look for.”
Black Bear Diner
July 13, 2011
Restaurant website
Location: Beaverton, OR
Price to break one fast: $12
Ann had high cheekbones, a magnificent fall of chestnut hair done up like a Barbie doll and a shrewd, cheerful grin, but I wondered if anyone would stop chowing down long enough to notice: If the fresh-squeezed-tasting orange juice was any indication this was gonna be a great breakfast place.
She watched me smacking my lips as I set down the empty glass. “A convert!” she crowed, “That is hands-down the best orange juice you’ve ever had, right?”
Not quite, but it was still pretty good. I ordered another.
Black Bear Diner is just down Canyon Road in Beaverton, and it plays hard on the bear theme: Bearpaw prints lead you up the sidewalk outside, a chainsawn totem bear wears a welcome sign at the door (along with a coffee dispenser for those waiting for a table) and even the wallpaper and murals inside are stuffed full of bears.
I’ve driven past this place for eight or nine years without going in, but Izzy the Pad suggested it for a Sunday morning breakfast and we decided to give it a shot. I’m not a huge fan of theme restaurants, especially not FRANCHISED theme restaurants, but there were some good smells coming out of the kitchen that gave me hope.
Black Bear tries hard to look (and act) downhome, but it is a western restaurant chain, sort of a chummier and much less corporate Denny’s. There are 50 BB diners scattered across the western US, their ursial carvings and wall murals are the work of professional artists instead of the owner’s wife, and they’re actively selling franchises.
The food was still pretty good. I ordered the small volcano. “It’s like training wheels for the big boy breakfasts,” Ann assured me.
I may never make it to big boy status here: The small volcano includes a sausage link, a piece of bacon, a scrambled egg and three ginormous pancakes.
The pancakes were rich but a tad heavy and very slightly underdone. The sausage had crunchy skin and good flavor, the bacon was crispy, the scrambled egg was fine… and I couldn’t finish it. The juice was great, the coffee a bit burnt. The cream came in those little plastic cuplets (I much prefer just getting a baby pitcher of it, but you can’t have everything)
Unlike downtown breakfast joints there’s plenty of parking here–with a stuffed-to-the-gills restaurant there were still spaces in the lot–and the service is swift and cheerful. So, chain or not, it goes on my break-the-fast list.
Protected: The cats
July 7, 2011
Hamhocks & beans
January 28, 2011
Supposedly I was gonna get snowed in this weekend, but glassland weathermen being what they are, that didn’t happen. Still, on the off chance they’d made a mistake and were actually accurate this time, I stocked up at the grocery store…and saw a packet of smoked hamhocks.
Hamhocks & beans. If there’s a more perfect snowed-in supper, I’m not sure what it is.
They came out well, too, though a bit salty. Mom and Dad drove through the drizzle to share them with me tonight, so I thought I oughta share them with you, too. [Read more]
Buster’s Texas-style BBQ
January 26, 2011
- Restaurant website
- Location: Tigard, OR (SW Portland burbs)
- Price to dine stuff one: $10
YOU try finding an equally inconvenient meeting place for a bunch of people who pretty much nail each corner of the greater Portland metro area.
Old Town Pizza
November 5, 2010
- Restaurant website
- Location: Downtown (near Chinatown)
- Price to dine one: About $20 with tip and drink
It was hot, muggy (muggy in a Portland fall?), noisy and dark. There were plenty of places to sit but nothing that would accommodate five people. There were a few off-limit tables reserved for a birthday party, but the bulk of tables in this restaurant seemed to be made from old sewing machine trestle tables and would probably seat two. In a pinch.
OGG’s Portland chapter board had picked Old Town Pizza for our monthly meeting, and from the looks of things we were going to be eating standing up. But at last, the folk at one of about three bigger tables got up and left. Whew.
Old Town Pizza is supposed to be haunted by the ghost of a murdered woman. If she was our waitress, that would explain the service, which was pretty much “get your food at that window, your drinks at the bar, and stop bothering me.”
All in all, I had a less than impressive introduction to Old Town Pizza, so lucky the food was so good, right?
Uhm…not exactly. The lasagna I had was about on par with a good high school cafeteria, i.e., nothing to write home about, and it was missing the promised salad. I didn’t see my dinner companions smacking their lips over their selections, either. The soft drinks were sold at arm-and-a-leg bar prices, so it was hard to get out of the place cheap.
Old Town is housed in an historic old hotel building; the owners say it was a center for white slavery and prostitution in bygone days. The ghost of Nina–who they say hangs out in the basement and likes to watch diners–is supposedly an ex-hooker who went straight and was murdered for it. It lends a little extra spice to the food, and given the murk of the place, I really didn’t have that much trouble believing it.
But I sure didn’t see whatever it was that led noted gustolebrity Rachel Ray to like the place. With the gazillions of wonderful places to eat in Portland, Old Town Pizza is what she talks about?
Ok, to be fair, we didn’t order pizza, being unable to come to consensus on the crust, let alone the toppings. It’s a pizza parlor, so maybe that’s where all the joy is. Maybe the other stuff on the menu is just there to keep the pages from being blank.
But given the ambiance of the place I’m not inclined to go back and find out. Not even for Nina.
Cafe Nell
October 21, 2010
- Restaurant website
- Location: Upper Pearl District
- Price to brunch two really well: About $40
From the front, Cafe Nell looked like a Volkswagen-stuffing contest, with folk obviously standing around waiting for a table.
Kinda discouraging, that. I’d been seeing the Cafe Nell sign for months, whenever I drove down Lovejoy toward the Pearl. When my friend Sara suggested going there for brunch, I’d really been looking forward to it, but from the looks of the crowd, we were never getting in.
Fortunately, Sara was at the bar, just past the door. She’d gotten there early, made reservations and so we sailed past the mob into the restaurant. The folks at Cafe Nell gave us a nice seat by the window all to ourselves.
I’m not sure how to characterize Cafe Nell–downhome northwestern Frenchish locavore nouvelle cooking?–but whatever it is, I like it. We got a kick out of the Sunday brunch bloody marys (above), which had three or four skewers of garnish apiece, from prawns to salami to olives. “It’s a whole meal in a drink!” Sara marveled.
Sara ordered an eggwhite omelet with lobster, which was huge and delicious, with big chunks of sauteed lobster. I frankly thought mine was better–a smoked salmon eggs benedict on a home-made English muffin with a pile of fresh fruit. The hollandaise was light, the salmon got to breathe a bit…and I got to eat the whole thing.
The waitstaff was attentive, seemed genuinely proud of the place and pleased that we liked our breakfasts. We sat and talked (a lot), they made sure we had plenty of beverage, and the crowd strolling past our window in the crisp autumn sun made a perfect floorshow.
About the only criticism I have of the place is one endemic to most Pearl District bistros: Noise. Most of the surfaces are concrete, steel, stone and glass in these places and they act like amplifiers. When the restaurant is as popular as this one at brunch, you pretty much can’t hear yourself think. It’s chic and probably easy to clean, but sometimes I wish we could go back to velvet walls, carpet and drapes.
Minor quibble, though–Cafe Nell is definitely a keeper.
Cupcake supremacy
September 18, 2010
When two blogposts collide, this is what you get. Yum.
Remember awhile back when my friends and I did the cupcake shop review? And when the watermain down the street from my house blew up (literally)?
Wildwood
August 20, 2010
- Restaurant website
- Location: NW, 21st above the Pearl
- Cost to feed four for dinner: About $125 (plus wine)
My colleague was doing Atkins, the low carb thing, and however tasty the bread, she couldn’t eat it. So the chef at Wildwood braised some veggies, added a mild vinaigrette and served them as the classiest (and tastiest) crudites I’ve had in quite awhile.
So when my houseguests offered to take me to dinner, and asked for a “Portland local” place that had good veggies, I sent us to Wildwood.
Good choice.
Carol, Laurie and 9-year old Emelia know food. (Emelia’s favorites are mussels and tomatoes, so yes, this family KNOWS food) What they got at Wildwood tonight was impressive.
Service was exquisite–the waiter was as passionate about the food as he could be (and he clearly loved his job). Every one of his recommendations was spot on.
I had an absolutely fabulous chilled cucumber soup; Emelia and Carol had the roasted beet salad with blue cheese and walnuts while Laurie tried a slightly tamer salad. Delicious, all of them, though I think my soup had the edge.
We proceeded to lightly seared tuna on a fresh tomato risotto that was absolutely incredible. “I don’t know,” said Laurie, “I personally think the duck confit was exquisite.” And we all loved Emelia’s mussels.
(I love houseguests that believe in sharing plates in a nice restaurant.)
For dessert, we mixed up the chesterberry pie with honey-basil ice cream, the lemon tart and the Varlhona chocolate whatever. My top vote went to the pie.
Lovely, lovely meal. I haven’t been to Wildwood in awhile; this trip reminded me of why I need to go back.
Cafe Du Berry
August 8, 2010
- Restaurant website (actually, this is a reviews link–can’t find a restaurant site)
- Location: Johns Landing on Macadam, toward Lake Oswego
- Price to break the fast of two: About $25 with tip
Thank heavens for GPS, I thought, as I hunted up a scarce-as-hens-teeth parking space. Despite living seven years in Portland I still can’t reliably locate Macadam Avenue or Johns Landing without computer intervention.
But at last I made it to Cafe Du Berry and met my friend Serena, sitting at a table for two on the patio. With sounds of cars whizzing past at high speed it wasn’t exactly the most pastoral of settings, but the trellised greenery and quaint brick wall made up for it a bit.
Serena had a noon appointment nearby, and we picked this place almost at random. Its online reviews were a puzzle: Half loved it to death and recommended (highly) the french toast. The other half lambasted it with tales of hour-long waits, rude waitstaff and lousy food…and then they got nasty.
I gotta say, guys, that we encountered none of that. The waitstaff was friendly and–when we could get their attention, they were pretty busy–almost TOO attentive. We were there on a Monday morning, which may have had something to do with it, but had no problems with long waits for anything.
Serena ordered two eggs, over easy, with the usual accompaniments; I got the french toast with fruit. Both were served promptly. Coffee was good, raspberry jam was great, toast was nothing special, orange juice was from concentrate, not freshly squeezed (but also not $10, which was what I paid for my last glass of FSJ in a restaurant).
My french toast came with berries on the side, not a lot but enough. The toast itself was a single huge piece that pretty much filled the plate, and it was accompanied by a mound of very nicely flavored hashbrowns. I enthusiastically gobbled berries and potatoes.
The french toast? Not so much, but it wasn’t really the fault of the cook. There are two varieties of french toast: In the first, you briefly dip the toast in an egg-milk-spice batter and saute it until crisply browned. In the second, you soak the bread in custard until it’s more like bread pudding than bread, then hit the skillet.
Du Berry’s was definitely in the second category and well done for custardy toast. Unfortunately, I prefer the drier, breadier variety so I didn’t much care for it. It was soft, creamy and not oversweet, with a nice crust. I did not ask for a doggy bag.
Serena and I can yak for days unless something stops us, and the waitstaff respected that. For about two hours they kept our cups and glasses full, discreetly removed empty plates and otherwise left us alone. A little mouse peeked out from under the deck and accepted nibbles (we were outside after all).
Overall? A little on the pricey side for breakfast, but not out of line for the area. I’d go back.