For the first time ever, I traveled out of town, with my
husband, for Thanksgiving. Usually, we
have a lot of family over to our place, and we prepare the Thanksgiving
meal. However, this year we decided to
travel to Lake Oswego, Oregon to visit my husband’s brother’s family who lives
there. Lake Oswego is a beautiful suburb
about 10 minutes south of Portland.
After enjoying a wonderful Thanksgiving, and spending a few days with
family, we decided to spend the end of our trip exploring the fantastic food
scene that Portland has to offer.
Before we left L.A., I did some “serious research” into some
of the must-visit, foodie places in Portland.
I read reviews on yelp, scoured the food blogs, and watched a lot of
food network. I took notes and gathered
a nice list of places that I wanted to try.
With our limited time, there were only so many places from my list that
we were able to get to, but we had some really great food. We only had two days in Portland, but I felt
like all we did was eat for those two glorious days! So, here are the highlights, as best as I can
remember, after I woke up from my food coma:
For our first dinner, we decided to check out The Country
Cat. This place has been featured on “Diners,
Drive-Ins & Dives”, on an episode entitled “Meat-Lover’s Paradise”, so we
were immediately intrigued. They serve brunch
and dinner daily. Everything at this
place is made from scratch, and they are big on the farm to table movement
which is quite popular around the Portland food scene. The place is owned by a husband and wife
culinary team, Adam and Jackie Sappington, and the eclectic menu highlights various
flavor profiles from Adam’s southern upbringing, balanced out by classic
Northwest styles.
We were pretty hungry when we arrived, so we each quickly
ordered starters while we examined the menu.
I have a new found respect for gourmet deviled eggs, so I ordered those,
and my husband has never met a soft pretzel he didn’t like, and these were
described on the menu as “soft and buttery”, so he couldn’t pass them up.
Now, the reason this place was on the “Meat-Lover’s Paradise”
episode, was because of chef Adam’s love for all things pork. He is known for his artful butchery, and he
purchases and carves a whole 160-pound heritage pig, on-site weekly, utilizing
everything available to create a pork lover’s dream menu. Perfectly punctuating
this unique aspect of the restaurant is the popular Whole Hog plate which features
a brined pork chop, crispy pork belly, and
braised pork shoulder, served over white
corn grits. My husband decided to order
the Whole Hog plate, and it was quite tasty.
I liked the braised shoulder meat, while he favored the pork belly with
all its fatty goodness.
I ordered the fried chicken with mashed potatoes and country
gravy. Fried chicken, when done right,
is one of my favorite comfort foods.
This chicken was done right, as it was nice and crispy on the outside,
and really juicy on the inside. It was one of the better fried chickens I’ve
had in a while.
Overall, we were quite satisfied with our meal at The
Country Cat, and could understand completely why it is so popular with the
people of Portlandia.
The next morning, our goal was to find one of the “pods” of
food carts which have become all the rage in Portland. There are a couple of locations in the heart
of the city that have dozens of these food carts to choose from. Well, we found the place, but were
disappointed to discover that most of the food carts are closed on
Sundays. Bummer! We looked to our trusty cell phones to find
another breakfast location. Luckily, we
figured out that we were only a few city blocks from the top breakfast place on
yelp, Mother’s Bistro & Bar, so this is where we headed.
Mother’s Bistro & Bar (212SW Stark Street in Portland, Oregon 97204):
The chef/owner of Mother’s Bistro & Bar
is Lisa Schroeder. Lisa was working in marketing, when she realized
there was no place that served the kind of food she would make if she had the
time. She concluded that what the world needed was a place which served “Mother
Food”—slow-cooked dishes, such as braises and stews, made with love. Lisa soon
gave up her business career and enrolled at The Culinary Institute of America. In 2000, chef Lisa opened Mother’s Bistro
& Bar in downtown Portland. Mother’s
Bistro claims to offer “refined versions
of traditional home-cooked dishes.” The
menu is full of made-from scratch, slow-cooked recipes, utilizing the best
available ingredients. Mother’s serves
breakfast, lunch, and dinner daily, and also has a full bar. Mother’s Bistro & Bar (212SW Stark Street in Portland, Oregon 97204):
The entire menu looked delicious, but I finally decided on the Eggs Benedict. The eggs were perfectly poached, and it had just the right amount of Canadian bacon for my liking. The Hollandaise was thicker than I like, and a little bit too lemony, but overall, it was a yummy dish.
Since the portions were so big at Mother’s, and since we didn’t eat breakfast until around 11:00, we held off on any more meals until dinner. For dinner, all my pre-trip research led us to a spot called Le Pigeon.
Le Pigeon (738 E Burnside St., Portland,OR 97214):
Le Pigeon serves up adventurous, French-inspired food, by Portland
rockstar chef, Gabriel Rucker. The
entire restaurant is made up of a large open kitchen, about seven communal
tables, and a chef’s counter where you can watch all the action happening in
the kitchen. It is fairly dark inside,
so my photos do not do the food justice, but trust me, it was all quite beautiful.
Chef Rucker takes classic French techniques, along with
eclectic Northwest ingredients, and transforms them into carefully executed, and
creative dishes. He recently received
the James Beard Foundation’s Rising Star Chef of the Year Award which goes to
show that he is definitely doing something right.
Le Pigeon is only open for dinner, and the seasonal menu
changes on a regular basis. Guests have the option of ordering starters
and entrees al la carte, or in the alternative, they can do either a five
course or a seven course tasting menu.
Since so many of the items on the menu looked amazing, we decided to go
all out and try the seven course feast.
Our first starter course was a Nantucket Bay Scallop
Ceviche, with papaya habanero sorbet, cucumber, tomatillo, and trout eggs. The scallop was super fresh, and by setting
it on top of the sorbet, it stayed quite chilled and was very refreshing. It had a nice citrus flavor, with a hint of
heat from both the habanero and the tomatillo.
It was a great way to start off our meal.
The next course was Smoked Duck Breast, with yams, cranberry
vinaigrette, oyster mushrooms, and a parsnip cream. The duck was cooked perfectly. Because of the cranberry vinaigrette and the
yams, the whole dish had a very Thanksgiving-ish flavor profile, which I
loved.
For our third dish, we had Ricotta Cavatelli with a suckling
pig ragu and sage hazelnut gremolata.
The cavatelli was a house-made pasta, with ridges around the outside of
it. This pasta was perfect because the
ridges really helped the rich ragu stick to the outside of the pasta. The ragu had a deep, intense flavor. The gremolata, which is basically a condiment
made of herbs, gave the dish some added texture.
Next came our first entrée course which was called Chicken
Royale. The dish consisted of a couple of small,
perfectly cooked pieces of chicken which were accompanied by little pieces of
lobster, foie gras, and shaved truffle. The
dish was incredibly decadent with all of those rich ingredients.
The second entrée course was Grilled Venison with bone
marrow pumpkin pie, onion chutney, and a brussel slaw. The venison was tasty on its own, but
with a bite of the bone marrow pumpkin pie, it was definitely kicked up a notch. Truth be told, I felt that one of the only
missteps of the entire meal was serving a cold slaw on top of the warm venison. But overall, another unique and enjoyable
dish.
We were served not one, but two separate desserts. First was one of Chef Rucker’s signature
dishes, a profiterole with fois gras ice cream. This ice cream was silky and luxurious.
Finally, the second dessert was another seasonal offering of
gingerbread cake. The cake was light and
moist, and came with some fresh whipped cream on the side. The cake had just the right amount of
spiciness, without being too overwhelmed by the ginger.
It was an excellent way to end a wonderful
meal. We left Le Pigeon stuffed, but
very satisfied.
The next morning we headed into yet another Portland
neighborhood to a local favorite called Tasty n Sons. I first heard about Tasty n Sons on another
T.V. show called “Unique Eats” which airs on the Cooking Channel. The show was profiling places in Portland,
and after watching the segment on Tasty n Sons, my mouth was watering, and I
told my husband that we had to go visit this place on our trip.
After all of the rich food and wine pairings at Le Pigeon
the night before, I decided that a nice, spicy Bloody Mary sounded like a great
way to start off breakfast. The Bloody
Mary was delicious, and it had a whole smorgasbord full of garnishes including
the traditional celery, but also a pickled carrot, beet, mushroom, and an
olive.
I started my meal off with the “breakfast board” which
included a soft-boiled egg, house-made beef jerky, chicken liver mousse, bacon,
crusty bread, beets, apple slices, and labna, which is a strained yogurt. The
board arrived and we dove right in as everything on it looked fantastic. It was a perfect breakfast charcuterie board.
Along with the breakfast board, my husband ordered a dish
from the “smaller plates” part of the menu, which was potatoes with an over
easy egg and aioli. The potatoes were
diced and fried, but they were then covered in a spicy sauce which made them a
little soggy. The eggs were perfectly
cooked, and the still-runny egg yolks were great when mixed with the potatoes.
Now, our two starters could have easily been our entire
meal. However, I really came for a dish
that was featured on the “Unique Eats” episode, which was the steak and eggs,
served in a cast-iron skillet, on top of a cornmeal cake, with jalapeno
butter. The dish had three large pieces
of steak, which was perfectly cooked, alongside of some cheesy, creamy
scrambled eggs. The steak and eggs were
laid on top of a cornmeal cake, which tasted like corn bread with a bit more
crispiness. To top it all off, there was
a giant slab of jalapeno butter in the middle of the plate, which could be used
to spread on the pieces of steak, or just melted on to the cornmeal cake.
We couldn’t come close to finishing everything, as we had
clearly ordered way too much. However,
everything we had at Tasty n Sons was creative, unique, and most importantly,
very tasty. This was definitely a place
I would recommend, and would most likely return to on our next trip to
Portland.
The last place we hit on our culinary exploration of
Portland was the Salt & Straw ice cream shop. They call Salt & Straw a “farm to cone”
ice cream shop. This is because all of
the ice cream here is all hand-made in small batches, using only the best local,
sustainable, and organic ingredients Oregon has to offer. Their ice cream is made with 17%
butterfat, which makes it some of the silkiest and creamiest
ice cream you’ll ever taste.
Another thing that makes Salt & Straw so unique is the
crazy, gourmet flavor combinations they come up with, which constantly change
with the seasons. Some examples are: “The Elvis”, which is banana pudding ice
cream, with marionberry jam, along with homemade peanut butter cookie dough and
pralined bacon; “Pear with Blue Cheese”,
which is a pear ice cream with aged crumbles of blue cheese mixed throughout; “Honey
Balsamic Stawberry with Cracked Pepper”;
“Coffee and Bourbon”; and “Spiked Egg Nog.”
Our very favorite flavor at Salt & Straw is their Sea
Salt Ice Cream with a Caramel Ribbon.
The actual ice cream is flavored with sea salt, and not overly
sweet. The caramel is home-made and
abundant throughout. It is absolutely,
hands-down, the best ice cream I’ve ever had!
I also gave the olive oil ice cream a chance, which sounds like it would
be bad, but was actually rich and decadent, and quite enjoyable. The Salt & Straw has the ability to turn
non-traditional ice cream foods into magical ice cream flavors. This
is definitely a must-try place for anyone headed to Portland.
Overall, we had a great time on our Portland food adventure. Everywhere we went the food was creative, unique, and full of flavor. It's clear to see why Portland t is now being called the foodie capital of the Northwest. From coffee shops, to artisan bakeries, to craft breweries, to James Beard Award winning chefs and restaurants, Portland has something to offer for all tastes and budgets. It is definitely a very food-centric city, and a great place to explore.
