An Exploration of E 28th

I've known for a while that there is a wealth of amazingness on E 28th St.  I had only been to Ken's Artisan Pizza (amazing) and Esparza's (not my favorite food, but excellent margaritas if you get the better tequila).  In the past few weeks I've made this area a focus. 

First - Coalition Brewery, which is in the old Noble Rot location on Ankeny, just West of 28th.  I've yet to try the food, but the beer is awesome.  They brew most of the beer themselves, and the cream ale is super yummy.  The prices are great too.  I love beer bars, and when summer comes they'll be able to open the garage door and the whole place will feel like you're outside.  LOVE!

Second - Pambiche - where have you been all my life?  I love cuban food, and this place is great.  They have tons of great outdoor seating, which will be so great in the summer.  I started with the Sangria, it was different than a lot of Portland sangrias - it tasted like it had pureed fruit instead of the chunky fruit floating in the drink.  The flavor was excellent.  A second sangria was an easy decision.

Sangria

We also had the chicken corn empanada.  WOW - it's tough to make a bad empanada, but the flavor of this thing was so great.  I want one now.  My sweetheart had the Pescado con Coco (Red Snapper) - it wasn't our favorite, he definitely should have gone in the shrimp direction.

Pescado con Coco

 I got the Fricase de Pollo (Chicken in Tomato Sauce). It was super great.  I think next time I would get Pollo Criolo (Creole Chicken)  It's a more savory dish, where the one I got was sweeter.  I prefer savory chicken. 

Fricase de Pollo

All in all it was so great. I think we'll like it even more once we've tried more of their dishes and have some favorites.  Have you tried it?  What's your favorite?  The dessert case looked amazing, but after our meals there was just no room left.  Speaking of which, they also do wedding cakes - we are definitely considering it for our wedding later this year.  Yummm.

Third - Another Beer bar Migration, just across from Pambiche on Glisan.  The best part was their excellent patio.  We got sandwiches which were quite respectful for bar food.  The beer was also really good.  The people were friendly, and dogs were allowed outside.  There's nothing really significant about this place, except their amazing patio.  I can see us spending some good quality time at Migration come summer.  Hooray!

There are still a lot more places to try.  I'm headed to Bamboo Sushi for happy hour tomorrow, Navarre, Dove Vivi and Fonda Rosa will all come soon.  I love research!

NEW (to me) Breakfast Joint! YAY

I was lucky enough this past weekend to come across a new brunch jem.  Accanto on Belmont and about 28th.  I've actually been there before for Lunch (which was amazing), but didn't realize they had brunch until I saw it listed on one of @pdxfooddude 's polls.  Accanto is the more casual offshoot of Genoa, they share the same building.  Genoa serves $65 Prix fixe, Accanto is more al a carte, and much less expensive, and serves amazing food.  It's Italian Inspired, but if the only Italian you've only had is Olive Garden, you won't recognize it, and you need to go immediately and try it.

We got the Dungeness Crab Benedict (orange hint in the hollandaise - amazing), and the biscuits and gravy.  This is not your normal biscuits and gravy - it was incredible - can you say homemade sage and parmesan biscuit?  WOW - so good.

We also got the Bloody Mary - great horseradish flavor - not as good as Cricket Cafe, but still very good.  We told them we were going to split it, and they served it in two small glasses - love the thoughtfulness, and the fact that we got double the accoutrement (pickled veggies).

Last but not least, the coffee - WOW - they had some great coffee.  Even if I didn't LOVE LOVE the food, I would go back just for the coffee.  Loved it!

There were just two of us, but they seated us at one of the big tables in the back.  It was so great, we spread out and thumbed through some of their cool cookbooks and magazines that they have in built-ins in the back.

I love brunch - LOVE, and I'm excited to have a new go-to with Accanto!

Dreaming of Wings

If you haven't been to Pok Pok (or Whiskey Soda Lounge, or now the new Pok Pok Noi) and tried their 'Ike's Vietnamese Fish Sauce Wings' you are missing out.  They are available regular or spicy, and both are soooooo good. 

Pok Pok is a great little restaurant on Division and 32nd.  They're pretty clever, if you're there after 7:00 there's almost always a wait, but if you put your name in you can wait at their sister bar across the street - the Whiskey Soda Lounge and they'll call you when your table's ready.  Both serve amazing Thai street food.  It's nothing like your corner Thai restaurant, it's much better, and having not been to Thailand I'm assuming much more authentic.  We decided to eat there on Tuesday because they participated in the "Dine for Japan" night. 

In addition to the wings (in their not so spicy form) we got a beef salad (Laap Khua Meuang) which was delicious and full of flavor.  It was mostly perfect slices of med rare beef with tons of flavorful herbs and spices.  They said it was spicy, but it wasn't too bad.  I'm pretty wimpy sometimes, and I handled it. 

We also got a glass noodle dish with shrimp and pork belly (Kung Op Wun Sen).  It was good, but the flavors were more subtle than the wings and the beef salad so it was sometimes hard to taste them since my palate was a tad overwhelmed by the huge bold flavors of the other dishes. 

We paired everything we had with beer which was perfect.  We'd tried cocktails in the past, but this is Thai street food and nothing goes with that better than a cold beer. 

I never leave Pok Pok without their Pok Pok Affogato, condensed milk ice cream (WHAT?  yes that's right - amazing), drowned in a shot of Vietnamese coffee and served with a Chinese doughnut.  That translates to YUMMMMM.  It's so good it's almost tough to handle.

Before we left my sweetheart decided he hadn't had enough of the wings and we got another order to go - spicy this time.  They were just as good at home as they were at the restaurant.  We decided it's not something we could eat daily, but maybe 3-4 times a week.  They're that good.  Go NOW - Pok Pok!

Dave's Bread is Killer

This morning I toasted up a slice of Dave's Killer Bread from a loaf that's been in my fridge for weeks.  I was afraid it would be dry and yucky, but it was as delicious as the day I bought the loaf.  If you haven't have Dave's Killer Bread, you need to (If you're outside of PDX it's ok, but in PDX if you haven't had it - where have you been?).

Good Seed - my favorite

Dave's Killer Bread is a local company, just outside of Portland.  Dave is a real guy who lived a life of crime.  He has since cleaned himself up and started a company that bakes awesome bread.  Much of the bread is 100% whole grain, all of it is organic and vegan.  They use local, healthy ingredients.  It's about $1 more expensive than some of the other breads, but so worth it.

They make a ton of flavors in both regular and light - the light is only 65 calories a slice. All the varieties have a good amount of fiber and protein from all the seeds and grains. Delicious and healthy, how great is that?

Portland friends, you can find it almost anywhere...Fred Meyers, New Seasons, Costco, Winco. 
Utah friends, you can find it at Costco and Winco.
Friends in SoCal in other places - you can order it from Dave himself - Click Here!

My favorite way to eat it is toasted with a little butter and dipped in an over easy egg yolk.  YUMMM!

Run, don't walk and get yourself some KILLER BREAD!

Oodles of Noodles

I went to Biwa last night for the first time.  I think I'm in love.  We were seated at the low bar which was excellent because we had a great view of the chefs doing their magic.  I started with a salted plum cocktail which was delish.  I think I like the one at Whiskey Soda Lounge more, but what's not to love about a salty cocktail. 

They're sort of known for their Ramen, my friend Jen got that, and she was nice enough to share with me, and I must say, you won't find this stuff 3/$1 at the grocery store.  I love the egg on top too – I love soup with eggs in it.

Ramen

I was excited because they have bi bim bop on the menu.  It’s one of my favorite dishes and takes me back to some good memories.  Their bi bim bop is awesome.  It’s a rice dish with grilled pork, kimchi, veggies and a fried egg on top. It was so good the waiter asked me if I did in fact try to eat the bowl and chopsticks.  If they were as good as the bi bim bop I would have!

Bi Bim Bop

Their prices were pretty good – about $10 each for the dishes we got, $8 for cocktails.  You can add a lot of extras and I can see that pushing the price up quite a bit.  They do have a great happy hour, a lot of stuff is about half price, so I’ll definitely be back for that.

While we were there we started talking about other great places and Frank’s Noodle House came up.  Today I was inspired and headed over there for some handmade noodles.  On Yelp people were raving over how great the noodles and the dumplings were so I got both.  The dumplings were AMAZING.  I’ve never had dumplings that great.  The noodles were good, I should have gotten them spicier.  I got the beef noodles, and the pork is mentioned over and over on Yelp so I’m thinking I need to head back and try again.  Warning - I still have a lot of garlic on my breath - beware!

Dine for Japan

The Portland restaurant community is stepping up. On Tuesday, March 29th the following restaurants will be donating a portion of their sales to Mercy Corps to help survivors of this month's catastropic earthquake in Japan - what a great reason to go to dinner.  Where shall we choose?  Maybe drinks at Beaker and Flask , dinner at Observatory?  Yumminess and helping a good cause...love it!

23hoyt
Apizza Scholls
Ate-Oh-Ate
Aviary
Bar Avignon
Beaker and Flask
BEAST
Biwa
Bluehour
Broder
Bunk Bar
Bunk Sandwiches
Castagna Cafe
Central
clarklewis
Clyde Common
Country Cat
del Inti
Dick’s Kitchen
DOC
Fratelli
Gilt Club
Gruner
Jade Teahouse
Kenny and Zuke’s
Ken’s Artisan Bakery
Ken’s Artisan pizza
Laurlehurst Market
Laughing Planet Cafe
Lincoln
Little Big Burger
Little Bird
Meat Cheese Bread
Masu
Mee Sen
Miho
Navarre
Nostrana
Olympic Provisions
Park Kitchen
Podnah’s Pit Barbeque
Pok Pok
Por Que No
Produce Row
Sapphire Hotel
Saucebox
Savoy
Spirit of ‘77
Stumptown Coffee’ all locations
Tanuki
Tasty and Sons
The Observatory
Toro Bravo
Vita Cafe
Whiskey Soda Lounge
Yoko’s
Zilla

The Most Important Meal of the Day - Top 5

Hi - welcome to my adventures in being a foodie in Portland.  One of the best parts of this city is the amazing food and drinks you can get all within a couple minutes of your house.  It's incredible.  I love trying out new places and I welcome recommendations.  I'll also share some gems that I've found.

To lay the foundation I'll share my top 5 favorite brunch places.  A lot of research has gone into this (I wish all homework was this yummy), I hope it helps with your foodie adventures too:

1. Cricket Cafe - hands down my favorite!  They have awesome food, great coffee, and the best Bloody Mary in Portland.  I recommend the Lumberjack breakfast, with gravy....but what's not great when you add gravy?  Did I mention their Bloody Marys?  I wish it was morning now. 
2. Sapphire Hotel - it's not just for cocktails people.  Although their breakfast cocktails are amazing. Bottomless mimosas, Bloody Marys garnished with steak, and my newest find, their "elixir", it saved my life after a particularly fun night.
3. Tasty n Sons - what a great concept, breakfast Tapas! Yummy interesting dishes with fried eggs on top, bacon wrapped dates, our favorite was the Polenta & Sausage Ragu with mozzarella & fried egg.  The folks behind Toro Bravo pulled out all the stops with this one.
4. Pine State Biscuits - don't be afraid of the line, it moves pretty quick and it's worth it.  These are some amazing biscuits.  Bonus, excellent coffee and fried green tomatoes, yummy!
5. Jam on Hawthorne - this is becoming a new favorite - they post their specials on facebook so you won't miss out on amazing things like bacon gravy with pepper biscuits - yummmmm!

Let me know if I missed any, or what you think of these.  I welcome recommendations.  I'm always game to try out new places, especially for brunch.  Do share...