My Willamette Week Restaurant Reviews
Trout salad at Kir.
Kir's pickle plate.
(My three reviews that made it into the Willamette Week’s excellent Portland restaurant guide. Sorry, Giorgio’s, the editor and I decided you didn’t make the cut.)
Kir
This shabby-chic space feels like an old friend’s living room. In a flyspeck kitchen, chef-owner Amalie Roberts, the former wine director at Clyde Common, works her Mediterranean magic, assembling generous plates (a cornucopia of Manchego and cured meats, fragrant bowls of steamed mussels) for $10 or less. Sit at the Art Deco slab of bar and let bartender Russell Smith guide you. The chalkboard emphasizes affordable Old World vintages, particularly rosés. Or sip a cava-elderflower liqueur kir royale. Stunning late-summer surprises included a new pickle plate and large slabs of smoked trout beside a sunny salad of cherry tomatoes and haricots verts. Save room for the homey desserts, like the delicate plum hazelnut cake. Then find yourself becoming a regular here.
Kir flexes its muscles.
Order this: Mussels steamed with corona beans and chorizo.
Best deal: Charcuterie and cheese plate.
I’ll pass: Mixed olives, toasted pistachios (the least alluring of the snacks).
LAURA MCCANDLISH. 22 NE 7th Ave. 232-3063. kirwinebar.com Map
Happy hour pizettes pretty good deal during Fratelli's happy hours.
Fratelli
This cucina has staying power. After an 11-year, inconspicuous run in the Pearl, chef Paul Klitsie’s still at the helm. Fratelli’s Bar Dué boasts a happy hour offered not once but twice daily: first until 6 pm and again after 9 pm. Deals from the mesquite wood-fired oven include pizzas (though the green grape, olive and rosemary one lacked verve) and mix-and-match antipasti (pick the chicken-liver mousse and the better-than-hummus chickpea purée with arugula pesto). Among small plates, try the tangy, tender boar ribs; skip the porchetta sliders (all bun with little pork). The dinner menu trumpets local sources: grilled baby romaine with albacore tuna Caesar dressing, a Mountain Shadow Farms strip steak. How solid is Fratelli’s locavore street cred? Co-owner Tim Cuscaden even grows some of the produce himself, such as the beets braised with the black cod.
Order this: Braised boar ribs with balsamic glaze.
Best deal: $5 happy-hour pizzas and antipasti.
I’ll pass: Mixology (e.g., the Cello Drop) isn’t stellar. Consult the polished wine list instead.
LAURA MCCANDLISH. 1230 NW Hoyt St. 241-8800. www.fratellicucina.com Map
Clarklewis
Lunch and happy hour—that’s when to frequent the former capital of the fallen Ripe food empire. Sure, you’ll miss seafood starters (scallops with sweet corn and chanterelles), toothsome antipastos (arugula, burrata, yellow beans and grilled peaches) and heartier entrees (roasted pork shoulder with figs), but you can still sample a decent menu for a lot less cash. Try these sandwiches: peppery lamb bacon with grilled eggplant or in a BLT on the blue-plate special; roast chicken salad with Gruyère; an Italian grinder with olive dressing. Salads (watermelon with feta) seem less bold these days; most desserts don’t wow.
Order this: Any housemade pasta, like tagliatelle with lamb ragu. The smaller plate is ample.
Best deal: $6 happy-hour hamburger.
I’ll pass: Insipid soup and plain sorbet don’t beef up the lunch special. Get the sandwich alone instead.
LAURA MCCANDLISH. 1001 SE Water Ave. 235-2294. www.clarklewispdx.com Map
Cider and Ruth Reichl’s Pumpkin Tureen
In-the-pumpkin soup.
Here’s a simple, filling fall dinner recipe Ruth Reichl recently described on NPR’s Fresh Air. It was one of her staples during her Lower East Side bohemian days. We used a cute, white lumina pumpkin from our new favorite Matt-Cyn Farms in Corvallis, a whole wheat sourdough baguette, Irish swiss and cut down the creaminess down with chicken broth. And added sage. It’s a cheesy soup fortified with the soft pumpkin you scrape down the sides.
We chased it down with cider from a neighbor who generously pressed it for us again this year. I’d love to learn how. Apparently, folks spike their sweet apple cider here with quince.
Speaking of Reichl, I just received my first–and now last–issue of Gourmet. Will it become a collector’s item? I agree with their picks for best restaurants in Portland–Pok Pok and Le Pigeon–although the latter is a little too over-hyped and fois gras/bone marrow-loving for my taste.
Pork Pork
Restaurant-style pork chops with rosemary polenta and grilled quince.
We really live, or at least eat, like kings here in Oregon. Grant us our one indulgence in these hard times, please. Thick cuts of pork twice in one weekend, oh my! We had milk-braised pork loin at a special quince-themed dinner at Big River Friday. Hard work researching an article. Perhaps that succulent meat prodded us to spring for bone-in loin chops from the Sweet Briar Farms stand at the Saturday market. Their smokey slab bacon was also to die for with pickled quince in Big River’s silky pumpkin soup.
Sam Sifton’s maple-glazed pork chops and rosemary polenta recipe also inspired the purchase. The man loves his meat. When will we be treated to his regular restaurant reviews? Here he recreates a popular Brooklyn bistro staple that was surprisingly easy to make at home. I didn’t go all out with the polenta, just boiled up the scant grains I had with some butter and rosemary. Didn’t have green apples but I’m swimming in quince and grilled in the maple pork juices, it was a tangy substitute. The chops were sweet and steak-like, with enough meat to feed us again tonight. The carmelized pecans and crystallized ginger made for an unfussy yet elegant garnish. There’s just nothing like open-range, acorn or hazelnut-foraging pork. Amy, we cooked it well (and that study was funded by industrial pork lobbyists).
So cute when they're young (at My Pharm in Monroe).
Yet so nasty months later.
I’m looking forward to a Slow Food Corvallis event later this fall, where we’ll taste-test a heritage breed alongside your supermarket Smithfield variety. The later will be hard to eat. The tasting will be at Gathering Together Farm, but the November date has apparently been pushed back because the Hampshire or Berkshire isn’t ready for slaughter yet. I’d love one as a pet!
The Death of Gourmet
The end is near. They couldn't even find a ripe quince for the "recipes for everything in season" September issue.
I’ve meant to blog about Gourmet magazine’s fate but can’t seem to manage posting more than once a week these days. Folks have a special fondness for it here in this food-loving state. And Gourmet loved Oregon back: see this recent feature on Portland Food Carts.
But I came late to the Gourmet table. I didn’t have the same heart attack/heartbreak other foodies did when the news of its demise broke. Yet it’s trumped-up website, rolled out by the magnetic (and tireless-that woman is always on the road) editor Ruth Reichl, drew me in this past year. Particularly Politics of the Plate columns. And their cookbook club reviews of new ones like Corey Schreiber’s Rustic Fruit Desserts. That’s where I got the apple-blackberry pie recipe. The website even encouraged me to subscribe for $12 a year. Wonder if I’ll ever get that first issue? But I can barely keep up with Bon Appetit. Two increasingly identical food pubs under one house is redundant, especially in these times. Why not keep the website though?
The September cover does now seem a harbinger of Gourmet’s imminent demise. Why would they put an unripe (green, still fuzz-covered) quince on the cover of an issue devoted to cooking with produce at its peak. Quinces don’t really come on ’til October. At least they got the favored quince preparation method right: poaching, in cardamom syrup, which really brings out the Caucus region fruit’s rosy fragrance and flavor.
These Oregon quinces are ripe. You can see-and especially smell-the difference.
Take the Tabbouleh, Corn Pudding-Stuffed Acorn Squash, and still Pesto a Plenty
Tabbouleh.
I haven’t blogged much lately or made much headway on the canning or cooking front. But at least I have an excuse. This week, I returned to the classroom, in a paid position, for the first time in six years. Not that that will stop me. Cooking is my release.
Too bad the end-of-harvest bounty now is staggering. I want to snatch it all up before it goes away for the long, gray winter. I didn’t know what I was missing last year. So I’ll recommend some simple recipes for what’s in season before it’s too late.
Still have tomatoes and cukes, not to mention mint and Italian parsley, still hanging on the in the garden? Make some tabbouleh. Don’t bother to skin or peel your tomatoes, especially if they are fresh from the vine. Mint and the parsley promote good breath and help you digest your meal. I used a recipe from the Cooking Jewish bible, a tome I had reviewed for The Baltimore Sun’s cookbook column.
Surprise nearly October garden-fresh (literally) cukes for the tabbouleh.
Malca’s Tabbouleh (Serves 4 to 6)
from Wendy Altman Cohen
1/2 cup fine bulgur
1/2 cup (packed) chopped flat-leaf parsley leaves
1 bunch ( 6 to 8 ) scallions, white and green parts, chopped
2 medium-size tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and cut into 1/4-inch dice
2 medium-size cucumbers, peeled, seeded, and cut into 1/4-inch dice
Juice of 1 lemon (about 3 tablespoons)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher (coarse) salt, or to taste
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, or to taste
1 tablespoon finely chopped mint leaves
1. Prepare the bulgur according to the package directions (see note). Fluff the grains with a fork and allow to cool completely.
2. Mix the bulgur with all the remaining ingredients in a large bowl. Toss well and allow to sit for 1 hour at room temperature before serving.
Note: If you buy your bulgur loose from a bin, here are the cooking instructions: Combine the bulgur with 1 1/2 cups water and 1/2 teaspoon salt in a medium-size saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat, cover the pan, and simmer until tender and the water is completely absorbed, 20 to 25 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and let it stand for 10 minutes. Then fluff the grains with a fork and allow the bulgur to cool completely.
—From Cooking Jewish by Judy Bart Kancigor
I also recommend this “Roasted Corn Pudding in Acorn Squash” dish. Next time, I would ratchet up the pudding’s flavor by tossing in chunks of salty country aged ham. And this week’s NPR Kitchen Window sings of the carnal pleasures of corn pudding. It really is revelatory. I didn’t grate or blend the kernels I sliced off the cob. Would that bring out their sweetness? I did make a salty-sweet corn and oyster pudding two years back while reviewing the Bake Until Bubbly cookbook, also for Then Sun. It was pretty sublime.
Corn Pudding in a Squash Bowl.
Roasted tail-end of a zucchini, candy-sweet.
Luscious Liver Pate and Banh Mih
Chicken liver pate.
Scrapped the black gills of the portabellos for the banh mi.
This is the story of how the random ingredients I assembled beforehand transformed themselves into a marvelous sandwich tonight. A luscious chicken liver pate and a pickled daikon (white radish)-carrot salad were the condiments I piled onto banh mi Vietnamese-style baguette sandwiches. What serendipity to glance upon Ivy Manning’s “Mushroom Banh Mi” recipe in this week’s FOODday section of The Oregonian. It just so happens I had made up some of her daikon salad (from her Farm to Table cookbook) last week.
Then there was the pate I made up for my parents, with velvety, foie gras-like livers from Kookoolan Farms. When defrosted, they were as good as fresh. It didn’t hurt that we amped up the recipe with chanterelles and leeks from the garden instead.
So I corrupted Ivy’s vegetarian sandwich, spreading pate on the baguette under the ‘shrooms. But that’s the way we like to eat: with meat as a condiment. Thomas Jefferson would be proud.
Luscious livers.
Bahn Mi with Mark Bittman's Soba Salad (go easy on the mirin in the dressing).
Herbaceous and fragrant, this syncretic sandwich is sweeping the Pacific Northwest and country-at-large. We love our little Baguette cafe here. And wild, hybrid versions of banh mi have surfaced in Washington and New York. But making your own isn’t difficult. It’s a great way to pay homage to two great culinary traditions, Vietamese and French. This is one edible positive to emerge from the scourge of colonialism.
Apple Blackberry (and Quince) Pie, from Rustic Fruit Desserts
Apple Blackberry (and Quince) Pie
Local quinces, including ones that are apparently edible raw.
This is a brilliant pie because it bridges the seasons, melding tart, jammy berries with crisp, fragrant apples. I also added quince slices to the mix, because the astringent fruit gains a wonderful rosey pear-like flavor when cooked with sugar. I’d never come across quinces before moving here to the Pacific Northwest, where we even haven them growing on the neighbor’s tree down the road. The USDA genebank here in Corvallis is home to North America’s perhaps most diverse quince collection.
Making and rolling out your own pie crust is always a patshkie, but at least this all-butter recipe made four discs, so we had two leftover to freeze. We also didn’t dock the dough (prick it with a fork) before pouring in the filling. The crust was flakey and delicious but not quite crisp enough. Maybe pre-bake it a bit first? This pie crust tutorial video helps you beef up your technique.
Fresh out of the oven.
The pie recipe comes from Rustic Fruit Desserts, published by Portland chef Cory Schreiber and Julie Richardson of the Baker & Spice Bakery there. Cory recommended the recipe when he came on our KBOO Food Show Wednesday. For our School Lunch Special, Schreiber also spoke about the challenges of his work as farm-to-school coordinator for the Oregon Department of Agriculture.
April’s at Nye Beach in Newport
Duck breast with currants at April's.
I’ve realized there was a glaring omission in my review of where to eat in Newport, on the Oregon coast. Somehow I managed to overlook foodie favorite April’s at Nye Beach. But then I realized why: the restaurant shutters each January and that’s when I did my dining for the reviews. So this week I finally had a chance to eat at April’s.
While not paradigm-shifting in the vein of Portland’s most inventive spots, April’s is a reliable, elegant and warm restaurant. The servers are gracious and the food is local and good. Pacific Northwest seafood is well-represented on the contemporary Italian menu, which also features ultra-local produce from the chef-owner’s garden in nearby Toledo. My duck breast was succulent and the salmon panzanella was a fresh and unusual presentation.
For fine dining in Newport, there is also the more cosmopolitan Saffron Salmon and perhaps more affordable Panache. Most days, we’d prefer Cafe Mundo‘s earthier, more informal scene. Of course when Dungeness crab is in season, that’s the way to go, the less adorned the presentation, the better.
Lovely Local Lamb and Figs
Getting intimate with the rack.
Dan’s uncle and aunt, our yenta (not in the busybody sense), came all the way from New York to visit, so I wanted to make a special meal.
Eggplant Parmesan? Fresh fish? But then I stumbled upon new Bon Appetit recipe for Lamb Chops with Fresh Herbs and Roasted Figs. That’s what I would make. But calling these lamb chops is a bit misleading. It’s rack of lamb cut into chops. Not the most recession-friendly recipe. But luckily I found an affordable local source of lamb just down the road. I even biked to their store to procure it. Nice rack. Had to crack a little joke as I took the 3-lbs. of meat (and mostly rib bones) from the freezer.
Blushing beauties: Kadota figs.
The hardest part of the recipe was timing the cooking of the lamb right and carving the chops. All you do is rub the rack with herbs and garlic, add some salt and pepper, brown, roast then roast the succulent halved Kadota figs in the lamb fat. I especially love such plain-looking green figs with their resplendent blush interiors. In Siddhartha, when Herman Hesse compares “her mouth to a fig split in two“: that’s a description that’s stayed with me. Don’t you just love Google Books?
To whet our appetites, we noshed on local cheeses (including the end of an addictive Rogue Creamery Rosemary Cheddar) with hazelnut sourdough bread from the farmers’ market. They sampled my pickles; the kosher dills were a hit, maybe even better than Ben’s? What better compliment could a girl get. The asparagus and okra pickles didn’t go over as well.
Rounding out the meal was Julia’s always reliable, amenable whole grain salad. I threw blanched green beans from our garden and roasted local Italian peppers into it. I recommend making it with Trader Joe’s Harvest Grains Blend (Israeli couscous, orzo, split garbanzo beans and red quinoa). I think that’s the Trader Joe’s item I most miss. I always pick some up when I’m in Portland. It’s supposed to be coming to Corvallis. Of course, they’ll probably discontinue carrying this product by then.
The meal.
Julia's whole grains.
Pick a Pepper (Chiles, too)
Local peppers galore: polbanos, anaheims, sweet Italian reds.
This time of year, what you see at the market dictates what food you will prepare. At closing time Saturday, for the first time I noticed a vendor selling nothing but peppers. Deep green poblanos. Fiery anaheims. Bright red and yellow Italian (long and skinnier but just as sweet as bell) peppers. It was a pepper farmer from Coburg I hadn’t seen there before. To woo us, the stand fresh-roasted the peppers right there on the grill.
But I took them home to do myself. Some right on the gas burner, some under the broiler. Until they blister and turn black, then into a paper bag to steam for 10 minutes before slipping off the skins. It’s hard to get the timing just right. But better to overdue it slightly, to get that smokey roasted flavor, if you don’t mind them falling apart.
And fall apart they did as I tried to stuff the poblanos for Chiles Rellenos. Mark Bittman inspired the stuffing: grated Monterey Jack cheese, mixed with some fresh sweet corn and pumpkin seeds. Bittman also gave good tips for the batter: whip egg whites until stiff, then add flour and some beer to keep it airy. Ours didn’t quite have the right consistency because my husband is still learning how to separate the egg whites from the yolk. (Never-mind, I’ll just do it myself). But it was less eggy/omelette-like than the Rellenos my father, who worked in a Mexican restaurant throughout college, always makes.
Tomatillos simmering into salsa verde.
His Mexican recipes are some of the most treasured in our family, as if that were our ancestry (oh wait: we do have Mexican cousins, stemming from the forty years my explorer-archaeologist-adventurer-cultural pirate great-great grandfather spent there). Most beloved is Dad’s famous Salsa Verde (green sauce). Here’s the recipe:
1 large onion
1 can green chiles (or roast your own anaheims or poblanos, of course)
1 jalapeno
2 cups chicken stock
1 lb. tomatillos
sour cream, salt, pepper, garlic, Mexican oregano, oil, cilantro is optional.
Saute the onions until translucent. Add all the other remaining ingredients except the sour cream. Simmer for 45 minutes. Puree with an immersion blender or in a blender blender. Add sour cream to taste and blend til smooth.
And it freezes well to boot. I spooned the sauce over Chiles Rellenos but it is also excellent with camerones: just take steamed shrimp and place them atop a bed of Mexican rice and lettuce and top with the hot salsa verde.
A naked chile relleno, baked instead of battered or fried.
Which roasting method do you use? Gas-burner, broiler or grill?
BaltimOregon to Maine 