Clyde Common

Finally we made it to Clyde Common, one of the very best restaurants in Portland and one of the very Portland restaurants.

The main space on the first floor offers communal seating only. Upstairs is where you can find a few private tables. We were taking a friend from out of town there, so we went upstairs. That also gave us a view of the entire space including the open kitchen.

The menu is seasonal. But certain popular items stay on the menu for a long time. Someone had recommended "prosciutto wrapped trout" a few months back and it's available still. We got that, along with a pasta dish (tagliatelle with tomatoes, onion, basil and orange) and a duck dish.

the pasta to die for

The trout was amazing. It came with a sunny side egg on top and creamy chanterelle sauce. The fish is stuffed with some sort of green, parsley perhaps. It tasted as good as it looked. The prosciutto was crispy on the outside, contrasting the tender flesh of the fish. This whole thing could only be topped by the pasta dish our guest ordered. Don't let the simple description fool you. This tagliatelle packs so much flavor that I could not believe that there were only five ingredient in it. I would go back to Clyde Common any day just for the pasta.

The duck dish was good, but not overwhelmingly impressive like the other two.

I might have gotten ahead of myself a bit. Before all the entrees, we were served some house-made focaccia with olive oil. This is another thing that would keep me coming back. This place knows how to make carbs right. The two appetizers we got were pretty good. The simple tomato salad was better than the sweetbread.

Okay let's recap. Everything was at least good. More than half of the food we had tonight was amazing. I'm not sure I've ever said that about any other restaurant. The portion was only reasonable. What more could you ask?

Beast

We were so grateful when our friend Jodi sent us a gift card of a dinner for two at Beast restaurant.
Beast is one of those restaurants for very very special occasions. This award winning restaurant is both intimate and communal. They have only two seatings each night, 6pm and 8:45pm. There's no menu to pick from. You get a six-course prix-fixe dinner, wine pairing optional.

We reserved two seats on a Friday evening at 8:45pm. The 6pm group was still finishing up their meal, so we waited outside of its unassuming store front. Beast is located in the general Alberta art district, a rapidly gentrified, artsy and fun neighborhood.

Once the 6pm group has cleared out, the restaurant crew was busy setting up the space for us. It's a fairly intimate space with an open kitchen. The L-shaped dining area houses two big communal tables. You share tables with other people. Cross-party conversing is encouraged, but not required.

an intimate space with communal tables

We sat at the end of a table. People at our table were more reserved and kept to themselves, while the other table was bustling with chatters. After a long work week, we were okay with the low level of social interaction. I also had a great vantage point to see some of the actions in the kitchen, while Jose intently studying the menu for the night.

menu of the night

The dinner started promptly after everyone was seated. Jose chose to do wine pairing for his meal. So before each course, the server would introduce him to a different wine. The first course was a chilled tomato soup, perfect for a warm summer night.

Second course was a charcuterie plate with six different bite-size morsels. Our favorites were the "steak tartar & quail egg toast", "buff pastry with pork filling (not the actual name of course)" and "fois gras bon-bon". There was woos and ahhs from the table while sampling these tasty bits. Although I can't help but shaking my head at the serving size. I'm clearly not cut out for high-end dining.

The third course, which is the main course, was lamp chop with bing cherry reduction and prosciutto salad. I am typically not a fan of the gaminess of lamp meat. But these lamp chops didn't have that overwhelming gamy taste. It was cooked to perfection, medium. Eating it with a knife and fork is really not the most efficient if the goal was to get as much tasty meat off the bone as possible. In the presence of company, I had to refrain from picking it up with my hands. =) This was also perhaps the only course served with a red wine.

The main course was followed by a palate cleansing salad and a cheese course. Again look at the serving size of the cheese course. It's like feeding a cat. The brie cheese was particularly stinky. I liked the other two cheeses better, and thought the cardamom shortbread cookies were excellent.

cheese course with three tiny pieces of cheese

The last course, the dessert course, was a chocolate torte with crushed berries, lemon ice cream with cracked pepper tuille. Tuille is this thin crackling decorative thing that's big in pastry world these days. It certainly looks impressive. The chocolate cake was out of this world rich and yummy. What a great way to end an expensive meal, I thought. Coffee and tea was also served during the last course.

amazing chocolate torte with pretty lacy decor to end the meal

As we walked out of Beast at passed-midnight, we both agreed that it was wonderful food and we were glad that we tried it, and that we would never pay for it with our own money. The dinner itself was $136 for both of us. The wine pairing was additional $35 on top. And I know I'd be hungry in about hour.

DJK Korean BBQ

The best Korean and Japanese restaurants can be found just west of Portland in Beaverton, a Portland close suburb, also known as Nike/Intel town where most Nike and Intel employees live. Nike's campus is also in Beaverton.

Craving Korean BBQ, we planed a visit to DJK Korean BBQ in a stretch of small scale malls along Canyon street. The restaurant keeps the temperature on the cool side to compensate for the heat from all the BBQ burners. Each of the BBQ tables has an industrial hood mounted above to suck up steam and smoke.

There were three of us. We selected three things for the grill, prawns, Bolgogi (marinated beef) and thinly sliced beef tongue. To round up all the protein, we also got a Korean seafood pancake on the side. Like all Korean affairs, we would start the meal with complimentary small dishes of kimchi.

thinly sliced beef tongue

There was also lettuce leaves for wrapping up BBQ'ed meats, along with sauces for seasoning. The beef tongue was very good, tasted like really lean meat. Bolgogi was exceptionally tender and flavorful. The prawns are excellent as long as you don't over grill it. If we had stopped there, we would've all been pretty full. But don't forget we also ordered a Korean pancake. It's roughly 15" in diameter, and cut to 8 wedges. It's a flour batter mixed in with veggies and lots of seafood goodies like octopus and shrimps. So very yummy.

Korean pancake with golden crispy crust and tender inside

We talked out of DJK with full bellies and smelly hair and clothes.

Nando's Chicken

While researching for places to eat in Vancouver, I ran across this little fast food eatery, Nando's Chicken. I absolutely loved their website and thought we had to check it out when we are out there.

The story about Nando's started with the chili pepper, peri peri. They do chicken, as the name implies, and chicken only. Everything is flame-broiled. For people who are spice-challenged like me, Nando's has a mild lemon herb option.

It's supposely a "fast food" chain, but it's not like anything you expect. It's more of a casual eatery with a modern decor, clean and un-fussy.

We got a Variety Platter for two to share, which comes with two chicken skewers, four wings, two drumsticks and two breast pieces. Jose got the medium peri sauce on the side. The skewers, assuming it's breast meat, were juicy and tender. It's no ground-breaking food. But for chicken, they did pretty well for themselves. The wings and the breast pieces were nicely seasoned and never dry. There was a good deal of finger licking afterwards...

La Petite Provence

I have heard so much about La Petite Provence and their amazing pastries. Today we finally got to try it. We met up with Maya and Michael, a cute couple who's about to get married, at the Alberta location. There's also another one in the city on Division street.

The place is very French. But I heard that the Division one is more so. Before you walk in the restaurant, you'd be enticed by all the breads lining the rack by the window. Once inside, things get a little overwhelming. We got there a few minutes before 9am. The entire side of the restaurant is lined with display cases full of freshly made pastry, cakes, cookies and more.

The line hasn't started forming. It's rare for popular Portland brunch places to not have a long line by 9am. It might have something to do with the fact that Petite Provence opens at 7am on weekends. We were seated promptly. Most dishes comes with either a toast or a butter croissant. Somehow everyone at the table chose croissant. This place is known for their french style pastries. It's surprisingly light, crusty on the outside and amazingly soft on the inside. It's not overwhelmingly buttery (so it must be healthier, my brain is trying to justify it). Each croissant came with a small cup of berry jam. Not sure what kind of jam it was. But it took the croissant to another level.

The food came quickly. We had three egg dishes at the table. Jose order a smoke salmon hash topped with a egg. Maya and Michael both got fresh fruit on the side, while Jose and I went with heavier stuff. You start to care less once you're married. My La Petite Provence omelet was light but full of flavor. There's bacon, spinach and mushroom stuff inside the egg. The potato and butternut squash side was very nicely cooked as well. I had a couple bites of Jose's salmon hash and it was very well done.

La Petite Provence omelet

Salmon hash

We didn't eat anything ground breaking, except for maybe the croissant. Everything was well executed for what it is. Meeting friends for a pleasant brunch at a spacious Frenchy restaurant without having to wait for two hours makes for a great weekend.

Screen Door Restaurant

As far as all meals go, Portlanders seem to take breakfast/brunch the most serious. This town is not known for its night life because there isn't much of it. Most business closes around 9pm. People get up early on weekends to catch breakfast or brunch.

There are quite a few popular brunch places in town. Almost all of them have the characteristic long line coming out their door after 9am. Screen Door is no exception. In fact at Screen Door the line starts forming around 8:30am, while the restaurant doesn't open till 9am.

We were meeting our friends Lenka and Chris for brunch on a Saturday at 9am, wanting to check out this popular southern eatery. We got there a few minutes before 9am. There was already a 60-person line by the door. We missed the first seating and had to wait more, first outside in the cold for 30-40 min, then inside for another 30-40 min. They do have free coffee while you wait. By the time we were seated, everyone at the table was sufficiently starved to appreciate anything. But wait, you guessed, we had to wait another half an hour for our food to arrive.

Okay, so far it doesn't sound like a good experience, you'd say. We knew what we were getting into. Screen door's wait is well published on most review sites. But this was beyond what we had imagined. However when the food did arrive, most of the negative thoughts are out of the window. Every single dish was delicious.

Praline bacon - heaven that comes in strips

My veggie dish with eggs and biscuit; very delicious

I was good and ordered a veggie scramble topped with two eggs and a buttermilk biscuit on the side. I couldn't pass up the famous praline bacon that everyone was raving about. So I got one of those on the side as well. Jose got a chicken waffle dish, even though just the day before he swore to loose 15 pounds in four months. He's probably thinking about starting that after this meal. Lenka had the friend oyster benedict, while Chris got something like biscuit and gravy with friend chicken. The food tasted as good as it looked. My veggie scramble - not sure about the exact name as it's a special that day - was lightly coated with fresh basil pesto and very well cooked. The biscuit was nice and fluffy and had a good buttermilk tang. The eggs were cooked just right. When you break it with a fork, the yolk oozes out and coats whatever is underneath it.

Jose's chicken waffle

Chris' fried chicken biscuit and gravy

Lenka got the fried oyster benedict

The praline bacon was heavenly. It's very hard to stop eating it. It's bacon coated in syrup and chopped pecan. I was formulating plans on how to work off these calorie bombs afterwards, as I took another bite of the salty sweet treat.

So you'd ask whether it's worth the almost 2-hr wait, I'd say no. However I would try to get here at 8:30am to get in the first seating next time.

Frank's noodle house

Our friend Louisa recommended Frank's before moving away from Portland. I clearly remember how she described the place: awesome noodles, no ambiance. Continuing on my craving for carbs-loaded comfort food, we made our way to Frank's on a Friday evening.

The store front is uniquely Portland. It's a residential house off Broadway street. Not much outside the house suggests that it's a business, until you look for it. I say that it looks uniquely Portland because I don't remember seeing this much else where. Portland is known as a city where it's easy for people to start a small business. The culture is that more often than not, people would do it with the minimum start-up cost. So instead of paying to build up a commercial space, people often operate in an existing residential space. Looks like Frank decided to buy/rent this house in which to run his hand-made noodle business.

The feel inside the restaurant is even more homey. It's like being invited to someone's home for dinner. It's quite clean for a Chinese restaurant. =) Frank apparently loves his floor and goes to a great length protecting it.

As savvy diners, we consulted yelp and other restaurant review sites for what's good and what's not, and have learned that we should stick to what the name of the restaurant says. People come here for their hand-made noodles. Everything else they offer seems mediocre. Though their hand-made dumplings is supposedly another must-try. So we took the advice to heart and ordered two noodle dishes and a dumpling appetizer.

The dumplings are good, almost reminds of the ones they have in China. Somehow good dumplings are hard to find in the US. The noodles looked awesome, coated with thick sauce. The squid noodle was very well seasoned and a bit spicy for me. There are bits of squid tentacles here and there. Though I wish there was more. The handmade noodles are tougher than we expected. The flavor seemed to stay on the surface of the noodles, but not absorbed inside. The other noodle dish was noodle with black bean sauce, which is Jose's all time favorite noodle dish. Frank's rendition lacks the strong fermented black bean flavor. The sauce was thick, but there's no visible black beans in it. It was good, as we polished both dishes, but no where near as good as it could be.

hand-made noodles with squid, medium spicy

noodles with black bean sauce

On our way home, Jose said he wouldn't return to Franks. We both agreed that the dumplings were really nice. But we could make dumplings at home that are somewhat comparable. So I made a mental note to get supplies over the weekend for home made dumplings. See the next post.

Gruner PDX

Last night I took Jose out for his birthday, though his birthday is today. Friends had recommended Gruner, a restaurant that serves mostly northern European cuisine with Pacific Northwest influence. It's a very modern looking restaurant inside and out. There are quite a few restaurants like this through out Portland with clean modern lines and material combinations. We had a reservation, which turn out to be a good idea for 6:30pm on Saturday night.
I studied the menu online before hand and kinda knew what we wanted. We were both hungry so we ordered two appetizers and two entrees. One appetizer, beet and ricotta dumplings, was both attractive and tasty. The other one, swabian ravioli, was less good in comparison, but not bad.

Beet and ricotta dumplings; so soft and tasty

The entrees are very impressive. The choucroute garnie - bratwurst, saucisson, cider braised pork belly, house-cured pork tenderloin, sauerkraut, sweet mustard with yukon gold potatoes. It's a lot of meat. Pork tenderloin was cooked just right. The pork belly was very well seasoned and tender. The mustard that came on the side was strong but finished on a sweet note. So very good. But not as good as my entree, buckwheat spätzle with braised rabbit, shiitake & black trumpet mushrooms. This spätzle is insanely good. It's much smaller portion compared to the other dish. But every bite in this dish counts. The rabbit meat is sweet, the buckwheat spätzle was nicely textured and full of flavor. I wish I knew how to make this dish. =)

Brats, pork and more pork

spätzle with rabbit and mushroom

The check poking out from inside a book, though I don't know if they expect you to read the book while waiting for them to pick up the card, or the significance of the book selection. Either way it's a very Portland thing to do.

Last night with J&L

Our dear friends J&L are on their way to Toronto for the next chapter of their life. Since we started looking into the possibility of moving to Portland, J&L have been a constant source of all things Portland. We are both very sad to see them go, but excited for them at the same time.
On their last night here in town, we went out with them for dinner and a drink. We discovered yet another cool place we'd go back in the years to come, a Mexican taqueria "Por Que No". All tacos are $0.50 off on Tuesdays. It's a tiny but crowded place.

J&L

The food is on the spicy side for me, but then again it's Mexican food. The tacos are delicious. I ordered 3 tacos, one shrimp, one calamari and one breaded cod. My nose was running like a leaky faucet while eating the calamari taco. That's why my body reacts to spicy food. But it's so good that I couldn't stop eating it. The shrimp was very good too. Cod on the other hand was overly salty. The food reminded me of a Mexican place in Chicago called De Cero, but with different ambiance.

After tacos we stopped by Thirsty Lions to meet their friends. There was also a song-writing contest going on at the bar. It was the finale. J&L's friend Sean was competing as one of the final seven.

Sean performing his songs at Thirsty Lions.

 We left shortly after Sean performed. But we made sure to cast our vote for Sean before we left. It was so fun hanging out with the two and their friends. We wish they could stay, but we know there are a lot more excitement north of the border. We will miss you both.

Cupcake Jones

I did it. I finally found a cupcake place I liked in Portland. Cupcake Jones
I am a big cupcake fan and have high standards when it comes to these mini packages of goodness. I have been to a couple other cupcake shops since we got here. The overall impression is that they are sweet, overly so, though not as much as the ones we had in Chicago. I just want a cupcake with moist cake and rich icing that doesn't make you want to drink a whole bottle of water after a bite. Cupcake Jones has what I'm looking for.
We ordered one Raspberry truffle cake to share. It's chocolate cake filled with raspberry chocolate ganache, topped with raspberry buttercream icing. It was PERFECT. I wish I didn't have to share it with Jose. We sat on the bench in their tiny store and devoured the cake. I then turned to Jose and said "I don't want to leave here"

The small display case at cupcake Jones

It's only about 8 blocks away from our apartment. They have daily special flavors. I will have to hit the gym on my way there and workout hard to deserve one cupcake a day from cupcake Jones. But it's totally worth it.

Portland food carts

One thing I really love about Portland is the food carts. There are clusters of food carts all over the city, mostly in parking lots. It's the ultimate cheap comfort food. But it's no less gourmet. Here's a photo of the cluster on 5th and Stark. What it doesn't capture is the irresistible aroma of a mix of all the food there.

We were looking forward to trying out "Built to Grill", an Italian food cart serves mostly pasta dishes. It's widely loved by many people in Portland. But we found out it wasn't open today when we got there. So we walked over to Tabor, a Czech food cart a few blocks away. I have eaten at Tabor once before. But we wanted to try a couple different things today.

We got the Schnitzelwich and Bohemian Goulash, and watched the owner prepare the food in his little kitchen.

Schnitzelwich: Breaded pork loin in a Ciabatta roll with lettuce, paprika spread, sautéed onion and horseradish

Bohemian Goulash: pork stew served with traditional dumplings

The Goulash was very aromatic with fennel seeds and fresh herbs. Perfect for a snowy day like today. The horseradish adds a strong kick to the breaded pork loin in schitzelwich. The texture was just perfect.
Everything is under $7 at Tabor.