Eating our way through Portland

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:

The Country Cat (7937 SE Stark St.  Portland, OR 97215): 

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.  

We went to Mother’s on a Sunday morning and the place was absolutely packed.  They told us that the wait was about 45 minutes, but we found a spot at the bar after about 20.  I started with their famous Bloody Mary, and my husband had a Manmosa, which is the same as a mimosa, only super-sized.  

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.    

My husband ordered one of the daily specials, which was a Cajun Hash.  It had Andouille sausage, potatoes, and some kind of herby, mustard sauce.  It was served with two over easy eggs on the side.  The hash was good on its own, with a good amount of spice from the sausage and mustard, but once it was mixed with the runny egg yolk, the dish was delicious.

We thoroughly enjoyed our breakfast at Mother’s Bistro, and would highly recommend it to anyone heading to Portland.

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.

Tasty n Sons (3808 N. Williams, Portland, OR 97227):  

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.

 

Salt & Straw Ice Cream (2035 NE Alberta St., Portland, OR):

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.