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.
Pondicherrypie
July 30, 2010
Hey, all you math whizzes out there, solve this one!
How does
plus
plus
equal
?
Riddle me that, hmmm?
Cupcake 2.0
July 30, 2010
Now, listen, I LIKE cupcakes, don’t get me wrong. What’s not to like? They’re cake. They’re frosting. They’re portable. Portion-controlled creamy-sweet goodness you can stick in a lunchbox. With sprinkles.
But…high-fashioned eats? The hautiest of haute cuisine?
C’maaaaaaaan. They’re CUPCAKES, for heaven’s sake. Yet I kid you not, there are at least three specialty cupcake shops in Portland, and more coming. Some of the best bakeries in town are pushing cupcakes as the wedding dessert of choice.* [Read more]
Pressing the French
June 2, 2010
“A French press is a device for making very rich coffee,” he explained patiently, and described the little carafe-plunger apparatus and its workings. I had no idea what he was talking about, but I tried to look interested. After all, I’d asked for it.
Lemme back up a bit. This is about coffee, and as you may have guessed from previous writings, I am not a native coffee drinker, not by a longshot.
The Pause that really refreshed
April 21, 2010
- No website, so Pause’s phone is (971) 230-0705
- Location: Overlook (near the Killingsworth Max station)
5101 N Interstate Ave, Portland - Price to completely STUFF four people at lunch: $40
“Now, don’t you go writing about this in your blog,” Dennis warned, “It’s hard enough to get a table here as it is.”
Ooops.
Dennis, Barbara, Kat and I took a break from prepping for the Oregon Glass Guild Fusathon* at Pause, a little taverny kinda restaurant on Interstate not too far from the Harbor Freight. I had my doubts, looking at the neighborhood, but Dennis said he frequently came all the way down from Vancouver just to eat a Pauseburger, so I kept my mouth shut and my mind open.
Good thing. It was outrageously delicious and about half the price of similar eats in the Pearl District.
Pause is friendly, clean, a tad trendy without being obnoxious about it and they grind their own meat. Smoke their own pork. Make their own pickles. Bake their own buns, for all I know.
And the fries are those delightful hand-cut potatoes with the skins still on, fluffy inside and toasted crisp on the outside. That alone is worth the trip…but the meat’s pretty good, too.
My companions are old hands at Pause. They went straight for the house specialty, the hand-ground burger served with local cheese. I just hadda be different, so I ordered the Cuban. It wasn’t what *I* think of as a Miami-style Cubano, but it was a superb sandwich. There was home-smoked pork in there, some ham, maybe some beef, some really lovely cheese and I dunno what all, with a mound of home-made half-sours. (pickles)
Slurp.
It was also at least a third again as much as a human should eat for lunch, which made it a pretty remarkable deal for just eight bucks. I’m sure the desserts and other stuff would be equally delicious, but who in their right mind could possibly have room for those things after even a half-sandwich?
This is definitely worth a return visit. Just make sure you save Dennis a table.
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*The Fusathon is an annual charitable event put on by the Oregon Glass Guild. OGG members congregate at the Uroboros glass factory, where we all make small dishes and bowls from donated Uroboros glass. They’re sold at the Portland Blues Festival over the fourth of July, with all proceeds going to the Oregon Food Bank. It’s a worthy cause, lots of fun and this year Uroboros is planning some special sales and partystuff just for us. If you’re in town toward the end of May, join us.
Cassidy’s (American/Northwest)
March 3, 2010
Restaurant website
Location: I5 and Burnside, near the Crystal Ballroom
Price to stuff two: About $40
I pulled into the space, shut off the engine and a woman came flying up to the car. “You didn’t have to phone, I’m right here!” she scolded.
I peered through the open door–she sure wasn’t my dinner companion. “Uhm…may I help you?”
She stopped and turned beet red. ”Wait a minute–you’re not my friend! This is so embarrassing–you look like my friend and she drives the same kind of car…I’m sorry…”
“No problem,” I said, and went on into Cassidy’s, a restaurant that appears to have been a PDX fixture for maybe centuries (actually, since 1979). My friend Lyn waitressed there in college, had a hankering to see what the old place was up to and so we met at this old saloon-style restaurant for dinner.
I honestly didn’t expect much–these places usually serve barfood, so I resigned myself to indifferent burgers and chilifries or somesuch–but Cassidy’s surprised me with a really nice menu, almost budget-minded. They also offered small plates and large in a kind of northwest-tapas-chic-meets-a-lumberjack kinda way.
The menu emphasizes seafood and greens, and does them pretty well. We also tried the handcut fries with smoked pecorino and rosemary salt (well, we were in a saloon, for heaven’s sake, how can you NOT have something with potatoes?), then split off into small plates.
I had a really fabulous salad composee of grilled romaine spears with pickled egg, followed by shrimp in a sweet-hot sauce on lemon couscous. Lyn did crispy rock shrimp and calamari, after an arugula/pancetta salad.
Both were excellent and just exactly the right amount of food. The waiter was attentive, the owner came over to chat with Lyn about good old times when she worked there, and it just felt nice, like home.
So I’m not entirely sure why the restaurant was pretty much empty on a Friday night. Maybe it’s the parking; there was absolutely no street parking available so I wound up paying $5 in a parking lot. Or maybe it’s the location; the hotel next door seems to specialize in down-and-outers in what used to be known euphemistically as a “men’s hotel,” and they’re not shy about panhandling the customers.
Or maybe it’s the decor, which is tired and gloomy and not incredibly well lit. Whatever the problem, people should get over it–once you get inside this is a nice little dinner place and one I’ll go back to.
Chez Joly (French)
December 26, 2009
- Restaurant website
- Location: Pearl District
- Price to feed two (well) for dinner: About $40 (booze extra)
“Don’t you usually have a PRAAAAY FIX-AAAAAY?” I asked the waiter.
He looked puzzled for a minute, then asked, “Do you mean “prix fixe?” he asked, “Yes we do,” and he showed me the prix fixe menu ($20 per person for salad or soup, entree and dessert) while I blushed a bit.
OK, in most places in the US (outside New York and DC), if you ask for the “prix fixe menu,” you’ll just confuse them. “Prefix to what? Do you mean an appetizer?” they’ll ask, with a little eye roll. If you mispronounce it with long aaaaaaas, they just might get it.
Except in Chez Joly, which is the closest thing to a real French bistro I’ve seen in the great Northwest. [Read more]
Eleni’s Philoxenia (Greek)
December 24, 2009
- Restaurant website
- Location: Pearl District
- Price to dinnerize two people: About $50, booze extra
I parked the car about a block away from Eleni’s (I was meeting Sara there for dinner), got out and tripped over about a dozen tipsy Santas coming from a rally in the park. I looked around and saw HUNDREDS of Santas, dressed in everything from fur-trimmed red Lurex catsuits to the pillow-bellied real deal.
What in the world? As I pondered, a lady Santa ran full-tilt into me, grabbed me by the shoulders and kissed me right on the mouth. “MISTLETOE!!!!” she hollered, and handed me a tiny candy cane before running to her next victim.
Gremlins, baked goods and Ernie
September 4, 2009
Yesterday didn’t go at all well, so today I’m bright and early, hard at work, whittling down my giant to-do list. Just now, though, I’m at Sawtooth Bakery, enjoying an inexpensive breakfast, buying bread and having fun peoplewatching.