Chennai Masala
May 6, 2009
- Restaurant website
- Area: Hillsboro/tech corridor (across from the “Streets of Tanasborne” shopping center)
- Price to stuff two people for dinner, with leftovers: About $30
Many glasslanders feel that the best Indian restaurants are out in Hillsboro, close to Intel and the tech corridor which employs a substantial number of subcontinentals. That’s where Chennai Masala, i.e., “a taste of Chennai,” lives, and so far it’s probably the best Indian restaurant I’ve tried in this area.
Bay Leaf (Chinese vegetarian)
April 13, 2009
- Restaurant website
- Location: Hawthorne district (roughly)
- Price for dinner for two: About $28
Here’s the thing about vegetarian restaurants: They’re either exquisite, or they forcibly remind us why grass clippings belong in lawn mowers.
Bay Leaf edges a wee bit closer to the latter than the former, and that’s a shame, because it’s also one of the prettiest Chinese restaurants I’ve encountered in a long time. The surroundings are tasteful and immaculate, the people are friendly, the teas are diverse and tasty (although Typhoon beats them on variety) and the food is wonderfully presented.
But Bay Leaf’s offerings were a feast for the eyes, not the stomach: Most dishes were far too bland. Robyn and I started with an order of lettuce wraps, one of my favorite can’t-go-wrongs. It looked lovely, but pretty much tasted like stewed celery with a little soy sauce.
We chose vegetarian mu shu and a mushroom dish called Satay Lion’s Mane for our entrees, with steamed brown rice. The rice was nutty and fresh, possibly just a tad undercooked but certainly eatable. Alas, the vegetarian mu shu repeated the mistake of the lettuce wraps; it was nicely presented but bland as all get-out, with the only real taste notes coming from the plum sauce.
The Satay Lion’s Mane wasn’t as bland, but that wasn’t saying much. The lion’s mane mushrooms were limp and slightly off, with a slight alkali tang that didn’t pair well with the over-soyed satay.
Robyn had a bit of a cold and ordered Chrysanthemum Flower tea for its medicinal properties. I ordered plum green tea, which was delicious and is supposed to stimulate the appetite. I finished the pot but left most of the meal; even though the portions were on the skimpy side we didn’t finish what we had.
We left in search of something a bit more substantial than usual for dessert (and we found it, but that’s another story…).
Pho Thanh (Vietnamese)
January 18, 2009
- Restaurant directions (can’t find a website)
- Location: Vancouver, WA
- Price to lunch two (with plenty of leftovers): $20
There’s a little Vietnamese place across from the Arlington County Courthouse, near Washington DC, which serves the hands-down best eggrolls on the planet. A Pho restaurant on the outskirts of Alphabet City in Manhattan makes noodle soups to die for at embarrassingly low prices. And a Vietnamese beef-with-baguette stew served on the Rue Verneuil in Paris still has me dreaming, years later.
Pho Thanh in Vancouver isn’t quite of that caliber, but it’s pretty daggone good. It’s also a bit of a surprise; Mom and I stopped there for lunch after visiting Dad, who’s still laid up in the rehab center with all his broken bones and physical therapy stuff. “I didn’t even know this was here,” said my mother, “We’ll have to come back.”
Yup.
This is a strip-mall place that looks a bit seedy, but inside is bright, airy and clean. The staff is exceedingly friendly and anxious to explain Vietnamese cuisine–three different smiling employees stopped to instruct us in which sauces, leaves and sprouts should go in the soup. The menu choices range from “beginner” to “specialty” stuff that includes what I call American Iffies, i.e., tripe, soft-boiled quail eggs and similar stuff that American tummies can find queasy-making.
We split an order of my favorite, salad rolls packed with crab and raw vegetables. They were on the large-ish side, nothing fancy at all, but there really doesn’t have to be when the ingredients are fresh, and these were. “This is all I need for the whole meal,” Mom said, “Thank heavens I got the small bowl of soup.”
I grinned but didn’t say anything and, sure enough, Mom’s basin of chicken soup was big enough for a family of four. She looked at it in dismay; the waiter assured her that they had BIG containers for leftovers. It was quite good, filled with solid pieces of chicken and tiny rice noodles with the requisite plate of mix-in sauces, herbs and crispy bean sprouts.
I prefer kitchen sink-style phos, and the one I ordered complied, with a well-flavored broth and chunks of surimi, fish, pork, tripe, quail eggs, beef, chicken and probably a dozen other things I’m leaving out. It also came with my favorite big, fat rice noodles, beautifully translucent and looking like tentacles in the soup.
It was very nicely prepared and, if it didn’t exactly transport me to raving ecstasy, was quite good. I managed about a third before giving up and asking for a doggie bag. We reheated the rest for dinner and it was almost as good the second time around.
We didn’t try the beef dishes, the vermicelli stuff, the eggrolls or any of dozens of other tasty-looking treats. Sigh. I guess we’ll just have to go back again. 
Saburo’s House of Sushi
August 28, 2008
- Restaurant website
- Location: Sellwood/Westmoreland
- Price to fill up two people: About $30
Until I had dinner at Saburo’s, the words “sushi” and “jumbo” weren’t related. Now they are.
Robyn suggested Saburo’s for dinner; I checked it out with Trever, my resident Asian/Middle Eastern restaurant expert. “It’s really popular, but the pieces are a little big for me.” Didn’t seem like a huge problem, so we headed over there.
I arrived late (thanks to the closing of the Sellwood bridge, which sparked my quest for GPS, an entirely different story) and Robyn had already ordered so I’m not entirely sure what we ate. There were a couple different types of marinated eel sushi, a couple of rolls with crab and avocado, some salmon sashimi, but from the looks of it, just about anything on the menu is good.
Ours were delicious. They were also absolutely, completely ginormous, well beyond the realm of handling with simple chopsticks. At a guess, the slices of maki (rolls) were a good 3-4 inches across. The grilled (teriyaki?) eel on top of my favorite piece was longer than my hand.
I tried picking up a slice of roll with one hand–Robyn snickered–and discovered that sushi really isn’t structurally sound enough to hang out in space while you chew at the other end. It’s meant to be eaten in one bite, but I’d love to see the guy that could get one of these beasties into his mouth at one go. (Uh, come to think of it, I would NOT love to see that)
I don’t know if there’s an imperative here to follow the crazy American custom of barrel-sized sodas and supersized fries, if perhaps making one roll instead of six cuts down on labor costs, or the chefs are channeling Paul Bunyan, but I’m with Trever: Their sushi is too big.
Size aside, however, this is really good sushi at a bargain price. We couldn’t finish the $27-worth that we ordered, and we were both hungry. Our table-mates, a couple with a little girl, couldn’t finish half of what they ordered–it filled a take-out box maybe 12-inches square. “Uh, that’s for the dog. We have a Japanese dog,” the guy deadpanned.
Like many neighborhood bistros in Portland, this one is very crowded with neighbors and friendly chatter. The service is pretty good. The location, in one of those little boutique enclaves old Portland is famous for, is good for postprandial strolling. There are a couple of nearby parking lots and street parking for different lengths of time, I found a close-by parking place without a problem.
Definitely, put Saburo’s on your list.
Tip: Pay attention to the words “very crowded,” in this review; there were at least as many people sitting outside on the sidewalk, waiting to get in, as there were inside the restaurant…and that was on a Tuesday night. Took maybe 30-40 minutes to be seated, so pick your parking space accordingly.
Dragonfish Asian Cafe
August 18, 2008
- Restaurant website
- Location: Pioneer Square-ish, across from Fox Regal Cinemas
- Price to fill up two people: About $60, with dessert
After the movie (Kat and I had gone to see Bottle Shock), we headed across the street to Dragonfish. It was about 9:40 pm, and the restaurant was dark and deserted. “We have 19 minutes before we close,” said the host, “but you’re welcome to try the sushi bar and have happy hour there.”
I lived in the big city too long, I guess; I’ll never understand a restaurant, particularly one so close to the theaters, that shuts down so early. But we schlepped over to the bar, found a table…and got in under the 19-minute wire to try the dinner menu.
I’d eaten at Dragonfish once before, with my sister Suzi after her gabfest with the princess, and found it enjoyable. (Admittedly, we sat next to the big saltwater aquarium, and part of what I enjoyed was watching the fish.)
Dragonfish is what’s called Pan Asian, which I think means the that chef gets to fix whatever he wants as long as there’s soy sauce on the premises. As far as I’m concerned, it’s more usually snobbery and showmanship than great grub: Thai, Korean, Chinese and Japanese fight it out with no clear winner, the teriyaki may come stuffed in a lentil tortilla and topped with pesto, while your waiter instructs you in how to eat it “properly.”
Dragonfish mostly escapes those negatives and instead just fixes good food of slightly indeterminate origin. I had one of the specials, a rare beef tenderloin on dashi noodles; Kat tried the Orange Peel Beef. Both were very good, well worth ordering even if neither knocked Typhoon’s Beef with Grapes from its special place in my heart.
The waiter was very nice, made some good suggestions and talked us into dessert, a mocha creme brulee decorated with berries and small chocolate truffles. The brulee was OK, the truffles and berries were better.
But I do like this restaurant. I don’t know that I’d travel huge distances to eat here, but it’s a nice place to have a late meal. Just get there before 10 pm.
Thailand Restaurant
August 17, 2008
- Restaurant website
- Location: Beaverton
- Price to fill up two people: About $35
For several years now I’ve been moaning about the westside burbs of Portland and their chronic inability to get past the whitebread suburban restaurant mentality, i.e., that the restaurant spectrum can be neatly encompassed by McDonalds-Hooters-Cheesecake Factory.
I stand corrected–Thailand Restaurant, wedged between a Fred Meyer, a gas station and Costco in one of the whitebreadiest burbs around, is so good it belongs on the east side of town.
Robyn, Jeff and I went there last week after Robyn said it had gotten high marks on Portland CitySearch. I was skeptical, but figured that one meal of mall Thai wouldn’t hurt me. Instead, I got a really delicious meal.
The Pad Thai was excellent, the spring rolls just right and the sticky rice with mango (it’s in season now) was on target. I had something that I’d normally call larb, a mixture of slivered beef, spices, rice and minced vegetables that they called something else (just ask for #65), which was addicting.
Service was fast and friendly, nice ambience, quiet surroundings. Don’t let the strip mall exterior fool you–this is a restaurant to put on your list.
Koji Osakaya (Japanese)
July 27, 2008
- Restaurant website
- Location: Northeast (Lloyd Center)
- Price to fill up two people: About $40
My cousins and I hit up “Dark Night,” the new Batman movie on Sunday night. (As an aside, it was pretty violent and also pretty good, if a tad preachy.) Afterwards, we stood outside the cinema, blinking in the bright light, and tried to figure out where to go for dinner.
In true gadgeteer fashion I whipped out my PDA, activated Google Maps and searched for restaurants within walking distance. Koji looked the best of the lot, so we headed over that way. And in fact, there was a lot to like about it.
For one thing, there was this really cool hot sake machine in the corner that was fun to watch. For another, the selection was nice and the food was good. Jeff had a bowl of noodles while Robyn and I went to town on the sushi. Most all of it was good. They started miso soup; I had my favorite sunomono (vinegared cucumber salad with a topping of steamed shrimp and cress), and it was not only good but probably TOO substantial.
I wouldn’t say it was knock-your-socks-off memorable, but it was above average, workmanlike Japanese food at a fairly reasonable price. If you’re in the neighborhood, it’s worth a try.
Wong Kee BBQ Dim Sum Restaurant
May 29, 2008
- Local site (review)
- Location: Downtown/Chinatown (Pearl)
- Price to fill up two people for dinner: About $30
The signs outside (and in) said “Best dim sum in Portland.” The waitress, however, seemed puzzled. “You want dim sum?”
Yes, we said firmly. Dim sum.
She shook her head, went back to the kitchen (which, for some reason, was loaded with boxes of Smart Start cereal), and came back pushing a metal cart filled with little metal cans.
“Here’s the dim sum,” she shrugged, “You pick what you want. Ten minutes to cook it.” We smiled yes at some cans, no at others, asked her to add an order of Chinese broccoli, steamed, and she pushed off to the back to cook it. As she did, an older gentleman in t-shirt and apron popped out, hands on hips, looked at us, and shook his head sadly.
I got the feeling we were committing the dim sum gaffe of the century but had no idea why. [Read more]
Peem Kaew Thai in the Pearl
April 17, 2008
- PKThai website
- Location: Pearl district (Park and Everett)
- Cost to fill up two people: $30-$40
Despite a toxic mood, unassuaged even by an hour-long bubble bath up to my chin (long story), I headed down to the Pearl tonight to meet Robyn for dinner at Peem Kaew Thai. The folks at Bullseye Gallery had recommended it the day before, as a gallery favorite. I figured that excessively hot chow, sweetly served, might quench my curmudgeonliness. (Plus, I really wanted to see if there’s anything in town that beats Typhoon’s Beef with Grapes, currently on my top-ten list.)
Usual parking woes, but inside it was calm, nice art on the walls, and good conversation with Robyn that started my mental detox. And while it’s not quite beef with grapes, the food at PKT is very tasty and a bit less expensive than Typhoon. [Read more]
Mio Sushi
April 17, 2008
- Mio Sushi website
- Location: Pearl district (Hoyt/13th)
- Cost to fill up two people: $30 to $40
Gary and I hit up the Bullseye Gallery yesterday, some neat glass there right now. I got a kick out of Gary’s trick of asking gallery (and museum) personnel which piece they’d personally remove from their burning building. The answers were intriguing and not at all what I’d thought. (And as a bonus that question sent the guard at the Museum of Contemporary Craft all over the exhibit seeking unique PoVs for us…but that’s another story.) [Read more]