Brunch at Brasserie Montmartre

When we came across the Brasserie Montmartre in downtown Portland, the menu alone was enough to convince us this was a place we needed to try when the timing worked out. We wanted to try brunch first, which they only serve on Sundays, and we typically stay home on Sundays. With all sorts of French-American classics and the promise of high quality results, today was the day we checked it out.

Located on SW Park Avenue next door to the Westin hotel, the restaurant is open and welcoming, with tables on the sidewalk should you so choose. A very large bar runs the depth of the long and narrow space, which opens up in the back around a staircase down to more tables, the open space well-lit with an enormous chandelier.

Despite the fact it was late morning on a Sunday the restaurant was less than a quarter full (hmm...) and we were seated promptly. After taking our orders the waitress brought us a croissant, our choice between plain or chocolate. This was not a difficult decisions; of course we both chose chocolate. The flavors of it were good, but the pastry itself wasn't flaky at all and was instead moist. We both liked it, but it's not a good example of a croissant.

I ordered the eggs Benedict, which came on a biscuit with pork belly, some avocado, and a side of roasted potatoes. (The pictures today are all taken with the iPhone 4S, using a flashlight app. I think we need to practice with that a bit more to avoid the shadows.)

This dish was pretty good. The pork belly was nicely cooked with a bit of a crunch, a welcome and unexpected element to the dish. The Hollandaise was tasty and the eggs cooked perfectly - not too runny, but still soft. They could have used a tiny bit more seasoning, tasting a little too much of, well, water (I realize they are poached in water, but it stills seems like something was missing). The potatoes were seasoned and crisped nicely.

Wifey ordered a special, a buttermilk fried chicken sandwich on a biscuit with tomato bacon jam and butter lettuce. With that came an order of pomme frites (thin French fries) and a side of garlic aioli.

The fries were excellent, cooked to a good crunch without being overdone, as was the aioli (garlicky, but we like that). The sandwich was, well, just okay. The biscuit seemed a little dry and also the wrong choice to use as bread and the lettuce was soggy. The tomato bacon jam added some flavor, but none of that flavor was bacon. The chicken seemed to be nicely done, but they claim to use only breast meat for their sandwiches and this was definitely brown meat. Uh oh...

Mini Rant: Why is restaurants don't say on the menu if they use a specific cut of chicken? And even if they do, why is it sometimes that's not what we get? This happened at Irving Street Kitchen the last time we went to, where we were told something was going to be breast meat and it was not. Is whether or not a piece of chicken is breast meat subject to interpretation? I thought it was pretty clear. I mean, if they menu says one thing or if the wait staff is told to tell customers a dish is made with breast meat, how can it possibly be made a different way? Is the chef in the kitchen making changes on the fly and hoping no one will notice or complain? And no, we don't complain...usually. Sometimes we do. Mostly we just use it as a checkmark against returning to a particular restaurant.

Overall the meal was just okay. Parts of it were oustanding, such as the fries, and some of it just makes me shrug. The staff was very friendly, which is always a plus if the food isn't great. Despite not being blown away with goodness I think we will give Brasserie Montmartre another chance, perhaps for a regular lunch or a dinner.

At least we know we won't have to worry about getting a table...

Pizza At Via Tribunali

If you've been coming to this blog for awhile now you know we love pizza. All kinds. American style, northern Italian, New York, Napoletana - anything. And between places like Ken's Artisan, Apizza Scholls, Dove Vivi, Nostrana and Lovely's 50-50 Portland has quite a nice mix of pizza varieties.

But until now Portland did not have a pizzeria with a pizzialo certified by the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana. What is that? The short version is they train and certify pizza makers (pizziali) in the making of pizza Napoletana - that is, pizza styled in the history of Napoli (Naples). Why there? Because, it's the best in the world. Anyone who tells you differently simply has not been there to experience it. (Full disclosure: I have. I spent the summer between my junior and senior years at the University of Oregon study at the Universita di Perugia per Stranieri (University of Perugia for Foreigners) and on one weekend trip we took the train all the way down to Napoli where one of my roommates, who had been to Italy before, took us to this tiny whole in the wall pizza place that was simply amazing. I don't know the name, I could never find it again, and I have no idea how it compares to what is considered the best in Napoli, but I will tell you the quality was simply amazing. It's difficult to put into words, to be honest. It's one of those things that when you put it in your mouth you just know you are having a transcendent experience. So yes, I'm a big fan of anyone who gets certified and will never say it's just another certificate. Well, maybe it is - a certificate of being awesome.)

Enter Via Tribunali. Via Tribunali started in Seattle and just a couple weeks back opened their first restaurant outside of Washington with a spot in downtown Portland next door to VooDoo Doughnuts on Second Avenue.

We tried Via Tribunali a while back on a food tour through Belltown in Seattle and really enjoyed it, so when the rumors started up almost two years ago about Portland getting their own outpost, we were of course excited, so on a recent weeknight when we didn't want to cook we checked it out.

First impression? Via Tribunali Portland is dark. Very dark. You walk in off the street and the building is long and narrow, with a bar to the right and booths on the left. At the far end of the bar sits the legendary pizza oven and a few more tables are to the left. In the very back is a stairway that leads up to more tables in a balcony (this is very similar to the setup at Little Bird Bistro and Mucca Osteria, so apparently this style of buildings is common in the older part of downtown Portland).

The tables are lit with candles and are the only thing with which to light the menu. I get the vibe they are going for, but it could be just a tiny bit brighter.

On to the food. We ordered two pizzas (sadly, no pictures since we forgot the camera, but the lack of light would have made it problematic). First was the MARGHERITA (pomodoro, fresh mozzarella, grana padano, olive oil, basil) for $13 (grana padano is a hard cheese, comparable to parmesan, and pomodoro is Italian for tomato, which in this case refers to the sauce).

To be blunt, this is one of the absolute best pizzas we've ever had. It's simple, but perfect. The crust had a nice char, thicker around the edges and thinner, almost soft, in the middle. The sauce also was perfectly seasoned and the cheese was spectacular. We'd get this again in a heartbeat.

Our other pizza was the VIA TRIBUNALI (pomodoro, smoked mozzarella, cherry tomato, ricotta, bufala mozzarella, grana, basil) for $17. This has an interesting presentation. Imagine a normal pizza with toppings. Now, imagine a quarter of it folded to the middle on each side. Then, sprinkle down the middle with bitter greens - that's the Via Tribunali namesake.

Just like with the other, the flavors were were very, very well done. If we had one beef it was with the topping distribution. The sausage and tomatoes didn't make it all over and clumped in spots. Again, the crust was nicely charred and hit the perfect amount of chewiness.

That crust...it's perfect. I told Wifey it transported me straight back to Napoli, it was that good. And really, that's the key to a real Italian pizza - the crust. Toppings are just there for flavor, not as the focus, and at Via Tribunali they take that to heart and execute it very, very well. It's no surprise their pizziali have the Napoletana certification.

Is this our favorite in Portland? Well...who knows, really? I tend to be most excited about whichever I've had last and each one of our favorites (mentioned at the top of the post) has something that is unique about them. This one, I will say, is closest to Italy and brings back those memories of a great two-month stay back in college. I really, really need to return so I can bring Wifey and so we can experience the flavors of Italy together. Until then, Via Tribunali, Nostrana and Mucca Osteria are going to have to be good enough.

We will absolutely be returning and can't wait to go back.

Oh, and one more thing. Keep in mind a key piece of physics if you sit in the balcony as we did: heat rises. And that pizza oven? Super freaking hot. I was wearing a sweatshirt because it was cold outside and by the end of the meal I was sweating. Not good or bad, just something to keep in mind. If you wear something warm, make sure it's a layer and you can take it off. I wasn't comfortable with the shirt under my sweatshirt, so I just suffered.

Have to Mention

If you order a pizza and don't finish it, or take your leftovers to go, they will be boxed in this:

(Photo via Scott's Pizza Tours)

Apparently these boxes are made by a company in Italy and Via Tribunali buys them for their stores. Their logo is nowhere on the box (a sharp departure from any pizza place I'm familiar with), but it definitely is...memorable, isn't it?

Another Sad Goodbye: Ziba's Pitas

Wifey and I are big, big fans of Ziba's Pitas, a Bosnian foodcart in downtown Portland on 9th and Alder. Last week it was announced Ziba was retiring and had put the cart up for sale, which is sad for her fans all over the city (on the other hand, yay for retirement!).

She is continuing to work the cart until it sells and is even willing to teach someone all of her tricks and techniques if they want to make a go of following in her footsteps. (Believe me, I thought about it. Briefly. Then I saw the lunch rush.)

So what better way to say goodbye than by stuffing ourselves silly with Bosnian food?

We opted for two full plates, the first being the burek - meat filled pitas. It comes with a side salad of cucumbers and sour cream and  generous helping of ajvar - a relish made from red bell peppers, eggplant, garlic, and chili pepper (it has a kick). The ajvar is the perfect complement to the wonderfully seasoned meat.

We opted for a side of ustipaks too, which are soft, fluffy puffs of bread. They also come with ajvar and a side of cottage cheese.

Our second main course was very similar to the burek, but it's called zeljanica. Instead of a meat filling, it's a mixture of spinach, eggs, cottage cheese and sour cream.

All of it, as usual, was fantastic. The pitas are fried to a nice crunch and when topped with the ajvar the flavors are just amazing.

Happy retirement Ziba, but you will be sorely missed. Hopefully someone takes her up on her offer to teach them her food, but these are big shoes to fill.

A Last Dinner at Alba Osteria

Earlier this month we got some bad news: Alba Osteria, an Italian restaurant in Hillsdale, would be closing it's doors at the end of this year. Considering Alba is one of the top Italian places in Portland and one we've been to multiple times, we decided to give it a proper goodby - by spending money and stuffing our stomachs.

What better way to say goodbye to a favorite restaurant? Wifey and I decided we wouldn't do gifts this year, but instead we decided to pick out some restaurants. We each chose a new one and one we wanted to revisit - with the news Alba was closing, my revisit choice suddenly became very, very easy.

We didn't bring the camera this time - this was a meal to be simply enjoyed, savored. No cameras needed.

The little town of Hillsdale is just up the hill out of downtown Portland, and Alba resides just off the main road in a converted house (I think - it sure wasn't designed for a restaurant) along with a spa, a salon, and at the opposite end of the building Caffe Autogrille, run by the same owner as Alba.

I believe the first time we went to Alba was for one of our birthdays a long time ago. We had been a couple times since, always for special occasions, but probably not nearly as often as we really would prefer. With so many other options in Portland, it's hard for us to go back to a place. Not that we don't, just that we aren't as likely. So many new and enticing places open all the time, so much goodness to try...

When we arrived, perhaps the first customers of the night at 5:30pm to avoid the dinner rush, we were given freshly baked crostini, long and thin like a breadstick. Then came fresh bread and butter.

Dinner at Alba is at once all about the pasta and not only about the pasta. All of the pastas are made by hand at the restaurant and always a delight. We each ordered a first course and then shared: gnocchi in a leek and cream sauce, and agnolotti dal plin filled with ground pork, veal, and rabbit in a light butter sauce.

Both were magnificent.

The gnocchi at Alba are always so light and fluffy they seem to simply melt in your mouth like little fluffy pillows. Clouds on your tongue. The ones I made at home in the past - I've about given up on them with so many options out and about who do it way better than me - never get that lightness.

And the agnolotti? While tiny, they pack a serious amount of flavor, meaty goodness hand-wrapped with care. I could eat these for days.

But at $16 each, neither dish is cheap nor is it filling. Unless one has a very small appetite it's simply not enough. Then again, when I think about making the dough for the agnolotti, cutting them out, scooping out little mounds of meat, and then wrapping them up one at a time, I get it. Considering all of that $16 sounds like a good deal.

Quality costs money, right?

Our main course was a grilled pork loin on a bed of celery root mash and pickled cabbage, then drizzled with basalmic vinegar. Our waitress asked the kitchen to split the order in half (it comes as two pieces of pork - it wasn't cut in half specially for us) and it came on two separate plates, each nicely made up, and each with a serving of pork that was plenty. The mash had great flavor and while I don't normally go for pickled cabbage, when combined with a little mash and a piece of pork dipped in the puddled basalmic, that was a little taste of heaven. The pork was perfectly cooked, with a nice crust on the outside and cooked through with plenty of moisture.

While $16 may seem steep for a small dish of pasta, $19 for an entree big enough for us to split and still have a small amount of leftovers is a steal.

We weren't going to get dessert...but decided to look at the menu anyway, figuring it's probably our last visit so what the heck. And we ordered a apple crostata - basically a free-form apple pie - topped with a small scoop of ice cream. Oh my...oh my. So good. Baked to order, this dessert just had the perfect balance of apple, ice cream, and crust. We have a recipe at home we've been meaning to try - might have to finally do it, see if it's anywhere near as good.

For $8 it wasn't a bad deal - it fed both of us, satisfying our sweet tooth and ensuring we would leave the table stuffed.

In no uncertain terms I love this restaurant and it's sad the city of Portland's food lovers will lose it. The good news is the pasta Portlanders love so much will still be available at Caffe Autogrille - fresh to go - and reportedly will also be coming to local grocery stores.

If this is our last visit to Alba, we truly will miss you.

Japanese Curry at Kale'

If there is one Japanese dish that is quite loved in our household - among many that we love - it's Japanese-style curry. And as it so happens, there is a place in the Goose Hollow section of downtown Portland, near Civic Stadium (yes, I am going to keep calling it that), called Kale' (pronounced Kah-lay).

According to Kale's website curry was introduce to Japan from English visitors coming from their lands in India, and the Japanese then added their own twist on it to make it uniquely Japanese. If you have eaten both Japanese and Indian curries, you know the difference in flavor are quite pronounced, but in presentation and consistency they are very, very similar.

One interesting thing - at least to me, the guy with a degree in Japanese - is that while the name of the restaurant is Kale', the Katakana characters (seen below under the "e") read as "ka-rei." Katakana is the written language used for foreign words adopted into the Japanese language, and for "curry" Japanese kept the "r" sounds. My point is I don't know why there is an "l" in the Kale's name. But that is something only intriguing to someone who knows Japanese and has an interest in linguistics; it has nothing to do with the food.

From the outside Kale' looks like it used to be a dentist's office or home. Inside the dining area is quite homey. There are plenty of tables, and for a weekday lunch it wasn't busy at all. In fact, I believe we were the first customers of the day and only one other person arrived before we left. In the picture below the front door is to the left and to order, you cross through the dining room and to the right is another room where you make your order, pay, and pick up your food when it's ready. You also bus your own table in that same area.

In addition to the finite menu - the three types of curry being beef, original (without beef), and doria (more on that in a bit) - Kale' also serves Caffe Vita coffee and has an espresso bar, of which we did not try out.

We decided on the beef curry and the curry doria. The doria is curry - beef or not, up to you - covering a generous amount of rice which is then topped with cheese and baked for ten minutes to give it a crusty cheese topping, almost like a lasagna. Kale' also offers your choice of cheese - cheddar or mozzarella - or you can have half of each as we did.

The owner, Makoto Yoshino, took our order. He's extremely friendly and is willing to explain any piece of the menu, which for a lot of people will be very helpful. Sadly, it really doesn't seem like Japanese curry is very common in restaurants (maybe I'm wrong, but I don't recall seeing it all the time, especially when compared with something like tonkatsu or gyoza, widely considered Japanese food staples).

He even said he'd bring the doria out to use, because it's very hot. So we made our order - both dishes were less than $15 - and went back out to the dining area to wait

The beef curry came out first. It may not look like a lot of meat, but that's because it had been simmering in the curry so long it literally had become part of it, rather than something in it. The depth of the flavors is fantastic, to me better than any I've ever had. We make curry somewhat often at home, but we typically used a base for the roux that comes in a box from Uwajimaya. That curry also has more of a yellow color, but this one was a vivid reddish-brown, indicative of the seasoning and multiple layers. Curry can sometimes be a little salty too, but this had great balance.

Then the doria came out. Neither of us really had any idea what to expect because the idea of cheese on our curry was quite a foreign one. I don't know if they do this in Japan - I know the one place we had curry in Osaka during our trip three years ago didn't - or if it's something to appeal to the American palate. Whatever the reason, we don't care, because it is damn good. Oh, and hot. Seriously. If you order this, be prepared to wait the 10 minutes for it to cook and then another 10-15 for it to cool so you don't burn your tongue. And don't touch the plate!

I will admit, it's not something spectacular to look at...

...but take our word for it - it's fantastic.

Our curry lunch at Kale' was one of the best we've had in a while. The flavors were fantastic, the service was great, and we will absolutely be going back.

And, before you leave, drop your business card in the box for a weekly drawing for a free meal. Yep, now we're definitely going back!

September Tasting/Drinking Notes

Pastrami on Rye - Reuben, pastrami - This food cart at the 4th and College pod near Portland State serves up a pretty damn good sandwich. People claimed it was the best in Portland and while I agree it's pretty good, I still give that edge to Kenny and Zuke's. I will say, though, that these were half the price and more of a single serving, so it really depends on what you want. I really liked the marbled rye bread they offer though.

Gladstone Pizza and Coffee - Mocha, sausage and pepperoni - We've been meaning to try this pizza place for a while because foodies kept claiming it was as good as any of our favorites, like Nostrana, Ken's, Apizza Scholls, Dove Vivi, and Lovely's Fifty-Fifty. Well, they were wrong. It's not that this pizza is bad. It's not. It's likely better than some of the middle tier places and I'd put it in the same category as Pizzicato, Hot Lips, and Pizza Schmizza. However, their prices - it was $24 - put them in the top tier category, so that's what they get measured against. And it's just not as good. I didn't hate it or anything, it's just not anything special. Neither was the mocha.

Chinatown Restaurant - normy gai, #5, pork shew my - Wifey and I split all of these dishes and we really liked them all. Next time we'll try some of the seafood they are supposedly known for. Normy gai is sweet rice with chicken, sausage, BBQ pork, bamboos shoots, and mushrooms all wrapped up in a lotus leaf and this was very, very good. The shew my literally melted in your mouth. The #5 dinner combo contained fried shrimp, pork chow mein, sweet and sour chicken, pork fried rice, and a spring roll. I have no complaints...though next time we probably won't get a combo. Sadly, they were out of baked BBQ pork baos. Our waitress offered steamed instead, but it's not the same. Next time.

Addy's Sandwiches - duck confit and cranberry, turkey and brie - I've been to Addy's before so the fact these were outstanding wasn't a surprise. I wanted to try the duck because that confit wasn't anything I've had before, but the flavors were excellent. The turkey and brie was likewise well balanced. And her bread...it's very, very good. Of course it is - it comes from Little T.

Ziba's Pitas - meat burek - Once again Ziba's burek was awesome. I keep getting recommendations to try the spinach one or the cheese one, but it's almost impossible for me to order anything else because this is so good. Perhaps next time. Maybe.

September was also our month to go back to places, apparently. In separate posts, all with pictures, we returned to:

The Country Cat | Biwa | Apizza Scholls | Screen Door

DRINK!

Adding this section new this month. Apparently we (well, mostly me) drank a decent amount. Oops. Some of these may have been from August too.

MandaRossa Nero d'Avola (red) - We found this wine at Taste Unique. Nero d'Avola is apparently a grape specific to Italy and this wine tasted very mature. That's a good thing. A medium level of tannins with red fruit and a taste of licorice if you really search for it.

Sokol Blosser Evolution (white) - We had never tried a Sokol Blosser wine before, but had been meaning too. Then this wine ended up being used on an episode of Top Chef (by Angelo), so we decided to give it a try. It's excellent. In fact, this might be our favorite wine we have ever tried - so much so we went out and bought two more bottles. Very crisp, you get flavors of citrus and supposedly pear, but we both really pulled peach out of it. Excellent wine.

Sokol Blosser Meditrina (red) - We ended up buying this one because it right next to Evolution at the store. Shrug. It's okay, but we like it better cold, which goes against all wine people will tell you. Why? Cold we can pull out the berry notes, but as it warms up it gets more and more tannic, in my mind, and pretty soon all I can taste is leather and alcohol. That's not good.

Conundrum (white) - We came across this wine online while researching Evolution. Supposedly, the claim was, if you like Conundrum you would like Evolution. Well, we liked Evolution so we figured we might like this. It wasn't bad, but it's not something I'm going to go out of my way to find again (like we did this time, finally finding it at Barbur World Foods). The flavors were okay, but it just didn't have the fruit-forwardness of the Evolution. And it's more expensive.

Full Sail Brewery - Old Boardhead 2010 - I picked up the 2010 version because I thoroughly enjoyed the 2009 version. Unfortunately, 2009 enjoyment did not predict 2010 enjoyment. This year's version was way, way too hpppy for me. Will I try again in 2011? Maybe.

Goose Island Brewing - Matilda - I've just about given up on any beer with fruity notes in it - see the next entry - but this one was very well balanced. the citrus notes were just barely there, but there was enough of malt and yeast flavors to not allow it to be overpowering. I'll try more from them.

Dogfish Head Brewery - Festina Peche - Hands down this was one of the worst specialty beers I've had. All I could taste was peach. Of course, I bought it because it promised some peach, but the peach overpowered everything else in the bottle. It ended up tasting like peach juice with all the elements of cheap beer. This was my first Dogfish beer and I will try others, but I'm going to keep an eye on the fruit content.

Laurelwood Brewery - Espresso Stout - I really enjoy Laurelwood's Porter - which they need to get in bottles rather than just being on tap - so I thought this might be good. It uses Portland Roasting beans in the brewing process. The results were, well, a tad too strong for my tastes. The coffee flavors weren't robust and fresh - it tasted like bad coffee.

Great Divide Brewing - Smoked Baltic Porter - I wasn't entirely sure what to expect from this. I mean, I like porter generally but hadn't had a Baltic one before and wasn't sure what to make of the smoked malt idea. Turns out it's fantastic. Absolutely one of the best beers I've had in a while, and one I'll be buying more of. Also, I'll probably try others from Great Divide. As a side note, I picked this up at John's Marketplace in Multnomah Village. I had never been there before and heard they had tons of specialty beers - and yes they do. Belmont Station is pretty nice too, but that's an extra 10 miles further for me from this place. Definitely worth a stop if you like beer - or wine, actually. They have a ton of that too.

Climbing the Alps - Gruner

There isn't much in Portland like Gruner, an "alpine" restaurant on SW 12th and Alder in downtown Portland. It takes inspiration from the mountain nations of Europe, like Germany, Austria, Hungary, and Romania.

Predictably, the menu is a little bit different than most of what we've had before. As you can probably guess from the locales the dishes originate from, it's a meat and potatoes kind of place, but being in Portland and with an emphasis on sourcing locally, it has that influence as well.

When Gruner first opened many people really seemed to like it, but we couldn't necessarily get excited about the place. Plus, it was only open for dinner, which made it unlikely we'd be heading back into downtown after work. A couple months back Gruner made the decision to be open for lunch as well, with a highlight (for us anyway) being their burger was on the lunch menu. For dinner you have to sit at the bar to get the burger, and we aren't necessarily sit-at-the-bar people because we don't drink much or often.

Since that burger was recently named #2 in Portland by Nick Zukin in Willamette Week, Wifey knew what she was ordering. So I just had to find something else on the lunch menu.

After perusing I decided on the Tarte Flambee, which contrary to the name did not come out on fire - disappointing. But what is it? It's an Alsatian pizza, with a creme fraiche white sauce, grilled onions, and a hefty helping of bacon. (Pictures were taken with our cell phones, so they may not be quite up to snuff - forgot the camera.)

I have to say, we didn't know what to expect, but it was excellent. I'd recommend this in a heartbeat.

The burger was a nice chunk of meat, very well seasoned. The bun was very solid, but still soft, and those pickled onions were fantastic. The fried smashed potatoes were also very good. That bacon was excellent.

We did have one beef (no pun intended). We ordered the burger "medium" after being told by default it would be medium-rare. We even asked the waitress for Gruner's definition of medium and though it met ours - slightly pink in the middle but mostly cooked.

That's not what we got. Instead, we got mostly pink with a thin layer of cooked outside. In fact, there was a red puddle under the burger when it was cut...that's rare in our book, nothing close to medium.

Could we have sent it back? Perhaps...that's just not something we do though, for whatever reason. Seems like they should be able to get it right the first time, being pros and all.

I will say we were the first customers of the day. We got there right when it opened for lunch at 11:30am, thinking it might be busy. By the time we left an hour later, there was one other customer. Maybe it's just me, but I'm thinking it may not be that cost-effective for them to be open for lunch, unless what we saw was a complete aberration. Did that factor into an undercooked burger? Was the grill not warm enough? I have no idea, but as Wifey and I agreed the cooks should be able to deal with that and adjust accordingly.

Again, both dishes tasted wonderful and we would probably go back, but I think we'd be a little more clear on the burger if we ordered that again.

Oh, and if you have a dog who wants to join you, there is outdoor seating with umbrellas and the waitress did tell us well-behaved canines were allowed.

Sushi CAN Be A Meal

I haven't always liked Japanese food. In fact, there was a time when I couldn't stand the thought of it. You know, all that crazy fishy stuff, raw and slimy, who wants to eat that? This is what I thought as I entered high school, before I underwent a gradual change in my tastes as people are wont to do as they mature. Well, that, and when you spend eight years studying the language and then marry into a Japanese family, you change. You learn about all the different kinds of things that make up another culture's meal, you try things you might not try otherwise, and you find out that when you open up your palette to this kind of discovery you actually like stuff.

Well, maybe not for everyone, but that's how it worked for me. A similar thing happened during the two months I lived in Italy and the week-long vacation we took to Huatulco in southern Mexico - you find out a culture's cuisine isn't defined by the likes of places named Panda Express, Olive Garden, and Taco Bell.

I suppose that bit of rambling is to say I know Japanese food and have a decent bit of experience in it (and ate a decent amount of different things during a trip to Japan as well). We're lucky enough here in Portland to have some very good Japanese restaurants like Syun in Hillsboro, Biwa in SE Portland, Yuzu in Beaverton, and a bunch of smaller mom and pop type places, almost all of which serve solid food.

Still, it seems many Americans think only of sushi when it comes to Japanese food and people talk about going out for sushi like they do getting a burger, which is funny to me since never once in all my years with the in-laws or in Japan has sushi ever been considered a meal. That very well could be just my experience - I'm open to that - but what I'm getting at is I just have never really considered plates of just sushi a meal. That's more like a snack. Or, at least, that's how I've always thought of it. It's kind of silly, really, to think that way, but I did.

However, as I sample more and more different kinds of sushi I'm starting to change my mind. Part of this also has to do with I seem to be eating less quantity of food as well, partly for my waistline and partly because that's just what needs to happen as you get older and spend 75% of your waking hours in front of a computer.

So the other day, we went out for sushi for lunch. Well, we didn't necessarily expressly decide to get just sushi, but we went to a place in Lake Oswego called Kurata, and we've been reading on various messageboards for awhile how fantastic their sushi was. Just so you know in advance, they are only open for lunch on Thursday and Friday.

I expected Kurata to be busy on a Friday for lunch, but it sure was not. We showed up a little before noon and there were only two other customers. It's a small place so it only holds about 12-15 people total at any one time, but it didn't get more than half full the entire time we were there.

The menu has plenty of options, but after pouring over it we decided sushi sounded really good, and that's what they are known for, so why not?

We decided on a couple different things. We ordered a combination plate of tempura (shrimp, potato, onion, zucchini, and Japanese squash) that came with a California roll, salad, and miso soup, and then we also ordered an Alaskan roll with salmon and crab, a Philadelphia roll with cream cheese and smoked salmon, and a hamachi with a simple piece of tuna.

So yes, mostly sushi. And honestly, this was a boatload of food. The waitress kind of gave me an eye when I ordered the third sushi dish, like was I really going to eat all of that? Of course not - that's why there is a cooler in the car (we carry it everywhere, for leftovers). At the time I didn't realize how much I was ordering, but oh well.

The tempura was some of the lightest I've ever tasted, but it was still very flavorful with a good crunch. All of the vegetables were perfectly cooked, which I haven't always been able to say about other places we have been. The California roll was very well done and all of the ingredients were obviously very fresh - which, for me, is a key with sushi. Especially since I can get the same thing homemade on occasion.

Rice is also a key with sushi, and this was some of the best around town I've had.

The Alaskan and Philly rolls were eight, half-dollar-size pieces each. The salmon and crab (real crab, not that fake crap you get at a lot of places) in the Alaskan roll were a good combination, but I will say the crab was the dominant flavor (not that it's a bad thing at all). The Philly roll consisted of smoked salmon, cucumber, and, of course, cream cheese. Some places go crazy with the cream cheese, which is just weird to me. This one was delightlyfully restrained, allowing the freshness of the cucumber and the smokiness of the salmon to really shine in parallel instead of being snuffed by the Philly.

The tuna on the hamachi roll was excellent. The meat was tender, melt-in-your-mouth good. This dish had two rolls on it, with generous helpings of fish. My only complaint with this was a the wasabi - placed between the fish and the rice - was a bit too much for my tastebuds. Of course, I will also admit to not liking wasabi much at all, so it doesn't take a lot to be too much for me.

We loved our lunch, and we brought home plenty to nibble on the next day. Absolutely we will be going back for dinner sometime...and apparently I can make a meal out of just sushi - a very, very good meal.

This and That - While Loving Air Conditioning

Funny - I just got an email from a friend who lives in the Phoenix area, telling me he feels sorry for me. Why? Because the Northwest is getting hit by heat the likes that has never been recorded. Oh, and he'd like me to note it's supposed to be 114 in his fair town today.

And he feels sorry for Portland?!

Well, there is no other way to put - it sucks in Portland right now.

Monday was 103 - broke the record for that date.

Monday's overnight low was 74 - broke the all-time record for any date.

Tuesday was 106 - broke the record for that date (was "only" 101).

Tuesday night's overnight low was projected to be 75 - yep, another record. (Apparently it only got to 71...oh well.)

Today (Wed) was originally projected to be 108, but has dropped to 107. 107 would break the record for the date, but 108 would be the hottest Portland temperature ever recorded. (The actual temp only reached 106 - how sad! I have to deal with this hell and we don't even get an all-time record for it?! Hell, 107 was the day's record, so we hit 106 and got nothing but misery...)

If current models hold true Portland will be over 90 degrees through Monday or Tuesday, which would be a string of nine or 10 straight days. Only once in recorded history has Portland had a string of eight such days.

And in other news, it was 126 in my attic yesterday. I think that's a record - though I might have to update that this evening based on today's heat.

I think it's safe to say I'm happy the air conditioning was fixed last week. Even though it is functioning perfectly now, it's just too damn hot. I was getting worried when my downstairs was 78 last evening (instead of the set temp of 74), but the cold air was blowing. It's just too damn hot outside for the air conditioner to keep up. Thankfully once the sun went down the temperature inside the house started to decrease as well. At 9pm last night it was 87 upstairs in the office. Fun times.

I'm blowing the max AC in my car on the way to work. At 7am. That's insane.

My mother-in-law is staying with us through this heat wave because her house doesn't have air conditioning. She went home to water some plants last evening and her thermostat registered 88 - on the lower floor of the house.

Yep, it's a scorcher. In the words of the weatherman: "This will be the kind of heat wave you tell your grandkids about."

Well, I won't be telling MY grandkids...I think you need kids for that to happen, if I remember correctly. I could be the old guy telling someone else's random kids at the park...but that probably has no good outcome. Plus, what kids care about weather anyway?!

There is one good thing about being stuck at home because walking outside - even to the car - has me dripping sweat off the end of my nose, and that's getting caught up on my favorite kind of pursuits. That's right, the sedentary kind!

What I'm Reading: Just finished up Bill Bryson's The Mother Tongue. While to most people a history of the English language and how it got that way doesn't seem that exciting, it was actually really interesting to find out how words came to be, and how they morphed over the years. Plus, Bryson can make just about anything interesting, and he can make the normally interesting hilarious. If you have never read him before, check out A Walk in the Woods or The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid. Or any of his other books - you can't go wrong.

Next up is Anthony Bourdain's A Cook's Tour - based around his first television series on The Food Network. Two chapters in and I'm loving, just like all his other books. Interestingly enough, I never saw this show but it apparently has no life at all on DVD, possibly because of how much he disparages the Food Network. No Reservations - one of the best shows on TV - is all over the place, but not A Cook's Tour. If you like Bourdain's show you must read Kitchen Confidential.

Oh, and after that, who knows? I have some newer books I'm on the waitlist for at the library, plus the 50 or so of my own books I haven't read yet.

What I'm Watching: We watched Revolutionary Road on Blu-Ray last week, with Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslett. It was a pretty well done movie - the acting was good - but I just didn't find the story all that enthralling. Horribly depressing yes, and I can see the pathos in the characters, but that doesn't mean the story is automatically a must-watch. The movie we watched before that was The Reader, a movie that was acted just as well but the story was more compelling. Yes, apparently it was a Kate Winslett phase.

Netflix has since sent us The Watchmen, but we haven't carved out 3+ hours to watch it yet.

On TV we are watching the aformentioned No Reservations and America's Got Talent, plus Mental and Better Off Ted. Superstars - lame but oddly compelling - and the Terrell Owens Show are being grabbed by the DVR as well.

Maybe by the end of the summer we'll get to some of the HBO shows we have on DVD...The Wire? Entourage? The Sopranos? Have Season 1 of all of them (and Season 2 of The Wire), we just haven't gotten to them yet.

Maybe I need to take a vacation to catch up. :)

We also tried a couple of food places last weekend, neither of which merit their own post. We drove west out Baseline Road towards Hillsboro from a place we stop at regularly - more on the Mutt at some later date - and found a coffee place called Insomnia and a pizza place called La Bella Vita.

Insomnia was fine - got a mocha, my staple - but nothing special. They serve Sleepy Monk Coffee, which can be found in Cannon Beach, OR, and they do a decent job of it - it's just not special enough for me to go out of my way for it. Also, we picked up a cookie as well, one of the fresh baked goods they carry (from a local place whose name escapes me now). It was, well, not that great. Wifey can do a better job with her eyes closed.

At La Bella Vita we picked up a personal sized BBQ chicken pizza. It was mid afternoon on a hot day, but it was also completely dead. I mean completely - as in no one else in the place. I think our purchase barely justified paying the two employees working for the time it took our pizza to cook. If you click on the link you can see users on Yelp loved the place, but we weren't that sold. The crust was good - nice taste, good thickness - but it wasn't better than Pizza Schmizza, another local chain. The toppings were solid, but it wasn't as good as Pizzicato. Both of those places are closer to my house, so you can see where I'm going with this. Plus, neither of those places get better than three stars our of five for me, so that must mean La Bella Vita gets a max of two.

And yes, you should get a taste of what comes out of the home oven - we actually made pizza on Monday, and it was roughly a hundred times better with homemade crust, high quality meats and cheeses, and fresh veggies.

So if you happen to be driving by and need pizza or coffee these two places aren't terrible, but there is little reason to make a special trip.

I Need to Learn Spanish

I'm not one of those people who laments the fact everyone doesn't speak English anymore. I mean, considering I was a foreign language major in college in one language and traveled abroad for a second, that wouldn't exactly make much sense, would it?

I have always resisted the need to learn Spanish though, even though living where I do it's the one language that would actually make every day life easier on various occasions. In high school I avoided it because it was common and everyone else did it - so I chose the one language my school offered that was not only uncommon but also came with it's own writing system (Japanese). Lucky me.

Then when college came and I added another one (Italian) to my repertoire, I chose to go with a language of one of my Heinz 57 lineages rather than a common one. Plus, college had about 100 to choose from - again, why choose Spanish?! If at the time I was to rank my available choices Spanish probably wouldn't have cracked my top 25.

All that is slowly changing for me though. It's becoming more and more apparent that knowing Spanish would be quite helpful. We went to Mexico two years ago for our anniversary - a wonderful place south of Acapulco called Huatulco (wah-tool-ko), in the state of Oaxaca (wah-hah-kah) - not knowing much Spanish at all. We were assured we'd be fine. And we were, relatively, but knowing the language of everyone who lives there probably would have been handy.

So what's the point of all this? Well, in Portland we have these fantastic things called foodcarts where street food gets sold all over. Apparently it's a pretty unique thing to have all of these - Seattle is just getting into it - and the ones closest to me happen to be taco carts. We wanted something different the other day so we decided to check them out for dinner.

We tried two on the corner of 185th and TV Highway. One is called Ely's and the other is called Mexico Lindo. They are in the same parking lot, so we decided we'd get three tacos at each one - of the exact same kinds - and do a taste test.

We went to Ely's first and got a chicken taco, a steak taco, and a marinated pork taco. The English here was pretty limited, but we managed to get our point across and after a short wait - and $3 - got our three tacos.

Then we walked across the lot to Mexico Lindo and I was pretty sure I ordered the same thing, but it ended up only being $2.50. And we only got two tacos. I honestly have no idea what happened, but it became 100% obvious to me that knowing enough Spanish to order my food would probably be beneficial.

I mean, Spanish isn't a difficult language to learn. Having studied Italian and French in the past the conjugations and verb patterns are similar, so for me it's really a matter of vocabulary and understanding the pronounciations. I should also note it would be better for me to learn Mexican Spanish rather than Spain's Spanish. And yes, they are different. Not so different they can't understand each other, but different enough - like American English and British English.

Funny story: I studied Italian at L'Universita di Perugia per Stranieri (the University of Perugia for Foreigners) for a summer in the town of Perugia, a little NE of Rome, and as part of the schooling met people from all over the world. I was asked, in Italian, by someone from German(before they knew I was American) what language was my native tongue. I told them English and they asked me were I was from. When I told them the United States, they answered, "Oh, you speak American, not English." I was a little surprised at that because at the time it wasn't really clear to me what the difference were, but since then I have learned they are vast and I completely understand the comment. Still, it's funny to think about.

So anyway, I should learn Spanish. At least that would ensure I get the right food I order at a Mexican food place where they don't speak much English. Hey, I have My Spanish Coach for the Nintendo DS...gotta start somewhere, right?

As for the tacos - since I know you are dying to find out - all five of them were excellent. Yep, we split each one. If I had to pick I would recommend the marinated pork taco from Ely's and the steak taco from Mexico Lindo, but for the price and the yumminess level, you can't go wrong with any of them at either place.

The corn tortillas were excellent also - and I'm not a big fan of them normally, regardless of the fact they are healthier for me or not. These fresh ones I could eat all day long. And a note - the tacos aren't that big. If you wanted to get full I'd recommend three or four for a dinner, maybe more depending on your appetite.

This was our first exposure in a long time to the foodcarts, even though there are so many in Portland. I'm thinking there are going to be a few days of foodcart crawls in our future...