Picture this scene: I’m sitting in a long, narrow dining room with windows at one end, a kitchen at the other, and tables lined up tidily in between. Two cute boys sit at an adjacent table, and there’s a pile of pork spareribs on the table in front of me. I look at the boys. […]
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Cat Class, Cat Style
Raising the Bar at the Country Cat Dinner House
Insofar as 82nd Avenue is regarded as a dining destination, it’s because of the many Asian restaurants and markets found up and down the strip. The area is not exactly known for high-end cuisine, and it certainly feels removed from the trend toward local, sustainable, and organic that has swamped Portland’s larger restaurant scene. Where […]
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Fish Story
Pearl Sushi Really Is “This Big!”
There’s something about fish—and the phenomenon extends to sushi—that prompts people to tell wildly exaggerated stories. For example, I once ate whale sashimi freshly cut from the belly of Moby Dick, just seconds after Jesus Christ himself—history’s most overrated fisherman—plucked Herman Melville’s elusive protein blimp fresh from the Pacific Ocean. Honestly. Okay, so not all […]
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Ain’t Love Grand
Pho Green Papaya Soups up Southeast
In restaurants there is a great divide: the places where you eat once, twice, or maybe four times a year; and then the spots you visit like great friends, once, twice, or even three times a week. And unless you’re living off a Nike salary or a trust fund, your frequented restaurants are always cheap, […]
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Much Ado About Ramen
Biwa’s Little Slice of Japan
Ramen is a staple in Japan (though it originated in China); recipes vary from region to region and are often closely guarded secrets. While many Americans are familiar only with the Top version, there is in fact a complex and varied ramen-verse out there, full of aromatic broths and flavorful variations. When I asked Biwa’s […]
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Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em
A Smoker’s Guide to Portland
A couple months ago we ran an article about non-smoking bars, refuges for those of us desperate to protect our precious pink lungs from the carcinogenic evils of the world. Well, turns out some people like their lungs black and tarry. Different strokes, right? So smokers, this one’s for you: Here are a handful of […]
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God’s Favorite Chile
Encanto’s New Mexican Obsession
For reasons too boring to recount, I’ve made many trips to New Mexico. Therefore those familiar with New Mexican cuisine will have no trouble understanding my unhealthy obsession with the green chile—a large, flavorful variety grown and roasted in the southern part of the state. When this particular chile—whose rich earthiness ranges in heat from […]
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We’re a Happy Vegan Family
First Friday Suppers at Junior’s
The worst part of being vegan—and this includes the frantic label reading and putting up with the omnipresent inane jokes from friends—is family meals. Easter, Christmas, and the ultimate carnivore tryptophan-fest: Thanksgiving. Sure, you can pretend that boxed Tofurky is just as splendid as your grandmother’s third-generational turkey recipe, but it’s just not the same. […]
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Hungry Tiger Also
Reinventing the Dive
The Hungry Tiger was a dive bar on E Burnside, and a lot of heavy drinkers were dismayed when it shut down a few months ago. The Hungry Tiger Too is a bar and restaurant on SE 12th, opened recently by the same owners. Now, I don’t know what the food was like at the […]
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Taste of Mediocrity
Mexi-can’t at Taste of Mexico
I told my boyfriend that I was going to dinner at Taste of Mexico, and he started laughing. Ditto, a male coworker. At first I thought it was the idea of finding decent Mexican food on NW 21st that struck them as ludicrous, but… seriously, is there a porno with that title? While the name […]
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Veni, Vidi, Victory
Nitpicking at Victory Wine Bar
Once home to Laughing Horse Books, the corner of SE 36th and Division has recently been converted to Victory, a stylish, brown-hued wine bar—and if customers are less likely to discuss revolutionary politics here than they were at Laughing Horse, the Victory finds its own progressive place in Portland’s ongoing hipster haute-food revolution. Where once […]
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Variations on a Theme
Tasteful Gimmicks at North 45
Like most thinking people, I dislike theme restaurants. There are occasional, well-executed exceptions, but for the most part, themes usually signify nothing more than the restaurant hoping to distract you from the food. (I don’t buy the “themes are fun” argument. Eating = fun. Drinking = fun. My server wearing a jerkin = embarrassing for […]