Keep Portland Weird

I don't think that will be hard to do.

Bianca and I descended upon the land of eco-friendly fleece-wearing tattooed hipsters, quirky taxi drivers, the vegan homeless and the bearded last weekend hoping to eat a lot and stare at some trees.

Our first night out, we ended up at Bailey's Tavern in Downtown Portland which serves several varieties of local beer and has board games! Also, the beers are super cheap - $4.50 for a 20 oz and $2.50 for a 10 oz:

Bianca and I both ordered the peach hef, a popular local beer. Bianca asked the bartender in her best Valley girl accent if the prices were this cheap everywhere in Portland, prompting him to say yes while he silently judged us for shaving our legs and for wearing clothing probably made using sweatshop labor.

The next day, after taking a hike in Forest Park, we noshed on some food truck food for lunch.  Portland is infamous for its large variety of food trucks - many of them are clumped together in "pods" around the city.  We went to the food truck clump on SW Alder St. between 9th and 10th Aves, where approximately 25-30 trucks are lined up around a parking lot.

We were feeling carnivorous after an active morning and several of the delicious looking trucks were closed but we managed to get some solid bulgogi and ribs at an authentic Korean cart, a hefty meal for $6.

After, we washed down our meal down with a strawberry lassi from an Indian stand.  We continued sightseeing, napped and ended our day with a meal at Oba, a Latin American restaurant in the Pearl District, where everything we had, even the serrano chile-infused mojito, was delicious.

We ordered the salmon ceviche, the butternut squash enchiladas and the crispy coconut prawns to start.  The ceviche was interesting - salmon was definitely a change from typical ceviche and the orange and mango sauce it was served in was unique.  The crispy coconut prawns came with a jalapeno-citrus marmalade that was delicious and the butternut squash enchiladas were my favorite - the sweetness mixed with the tomato sauces were well balanced and unique as well.

As an entree to share, we ordered the 8 oz kobe beef steak topped with plaintains and bacon, served with a side of fresh vegetables, which was pretty much as tasty as it sounds.

Our final morning in Portland, we went to the ultimate food touristy spot - Voodoo Donuts.

Voodoo Donuts sells donuts that are unique and crazy and racy, with names and shapes that are not appropriate for my blog, and even offers marriage services.  Although they are no Bob's Donuts on Polk St, the toppings draw a huge crowd - we waited 45 minutes on a Sunday morning to get donuts.

Counterclockwise from the top: Captain Crunch Donut, a vegan cinnamon donut, a maple glazed donut with bacon on top (their famous donut) and a banana foster donut stuffed with bananas, peanut butter and chocolate.  They were all as sugary sweet and appetizing as they look, although the Captain Crunch cereal was slightly stale.

We couldn't finish the donuts, so after we took them and offered them to a homeless man, who promptly rejected them, claiming to be a "whole food-ist".  We finally convinced him to take the vegan donut.  It's people like him who will keep Portland weird.

Overall, here are my takeaways from Portland:
 - Being different is good
 - Free public transportation works
 - I will walk a long way to stand in a food truck line
 - Bob's Donuts is still the happiest place on earth

How to Eat on a Cruise

This past weekend, I took a Carnival cruise to Ensenada, Mexico with 11 other girls for a bachelorette party.  3 days and 3 nights of eating, drinking, and sleeping, and one Buddha belly later, here is what I have learned about cruising:

1. Take advantage of the 24 hour buffet and eat a full meal every few hours with snacks in between. 
Don't overload your plate the first time around.  The buffet will always be there.  Get a little of everything and then go back for what you enjoyed.  You need something to break up all that laying out on the pool deck during the "at-sea" days.

2. Sit down dinner: Order as many appetizers and entrees as you can.
In the event you are undecided between two dishes, order both.  If you've never had a rare steak, then order a rare steak and another entree as a backup.  Order the soup, the shrimp cocktail, and the melon and prosciutto salad to start. Order two desserts and a side of sorbet to finish.

3. Don't fill up on salad or fruit.
You can always get a salad in San Francisco for $11.  Save room for meats, fats and sugars.

4. Don't order anything that has the word "diet" in it.
We ordered the "diet orange cake" to share on top of our individual desserts, just to try it.  But we really could've just ordered an additional molten chocolate cake instead.  If you're goal is to "eat healthy" and "stay in shape", then you must have been sniffing white out when deciding to book the cruise.

5.  Don't exercise early in the morning, even if everyone else is.  
I did this after my cruise roommate and our 2 friends got up at 8 am to workout.  "You don't have to come" said my friend Paula in a soothing voice after waking me up and looking worriedly at my bloodshot eyes and tousled hair.  But I did anyways and I could've skipped it, slept in until 9, and met them for breakfast.

7.  Don't expect the food to be good. 
It's about quantity, not quality.  The cook-to-order Mongolian noodle station was actually decent, but part of that was the 45 minute line.  Even the chocolate fondue bar was underwhelming.  But it doesn't matter - when else can you order an entire menu for dinner or eat pizza at 8 in the morning?

8.  When in Ensenada, eat like a local.
While our friends went to Papas and Beer to drink and do unmentionable things, Marcie, Evelyn and I ventured out of town for some authentic tacos.  A taxi driver had told us where to find the fish tacos that made Ensenada famous, and after about a 13 block walk, we came across a street with several carts, serving fish and shrimp tacos, (Avenue Esbinoza, in case you find yourself there)

The fish was fried to order in large vats of oil:

Toppings of fresh vegetables, limes and spicy salsas were on the side for a DIY taco.

Tada! Amazing taco.  Definitely worth the 13 block walk and the entire $1 cost.

We were fortunate enough to arrive at one taco stand when a new batch of salsa was being made.  Turns out the salsa was comprised of an entire blender of peppers with a few garlic cloves thrown in on top.  We were like, SO authentic.

After washing down the tacos with Fantas from the local supermercado, we headed back to town and then to the cruise, ready to fill our stomachs with more.

Do We Look Like We're on a Date?

It apparently appeared that way as the waiter at Tajine, a Moroccan restaurant on Polk Street, set down our Chicken Bastilla appetizer in front of us with a large heart shape drawn on top in cinnamon dust.  My friend Bianca, in town for work for the week, had a confused look on her face, and the awkward couple next to us stared at our plate and then stared at us for a while.  

That was just the beginning of a sequence of strange events to come, in which the wait staff repeatedly and aggressively tried to take our plates away before we were finished with them, the kitchen staff stacked and put away all the tables and chairs surrounding our table, leaving us in isolation in the middle of dinner, and the wierd couple next to us quietly munched on their food while eavesdropping on our conversation.

Regardless, the meal was delicious.  The Chicken Bastilla appetizer had come highly recommended and was well done. Bastilla is like a pie, with a flaky crust, filled with savory meats and dusted with powdered sugar.  The crust is made of "warka", which is like phyllo dough but thinner and made in a different way. Ours was made with a mixture of ground chicken, crushed almonds and egg, but the dish is historically made with pigeon; pigeon bastilla is the national dish of Morocco.

(picture of my bastilla leftovers the next day)








For entrees, I ordered the merguez (a type of lamb sausage) kabab plate and Bianca ordered the lamb kabab plate.  Both came with lots of rice, zaalouk (a cooked egglant salad), shalada (a Moroccan style salad with tomatoes and cucumbers) and bread.

It was pretty much as delicious as it looked - the meat was tender and the salads were full of flavor and complemented the meats well.  The strange couple next to us broke their silent stares to comment that they didn't think we would finish all the food on the table, and they were wrong - we cleared our plates.

Overall, great Moroccan meal and only 3 blocks from my apartment.  The place was also packed which is always a good sign.  Bianca will have nightmares about the weird couple for the next week or so, but another than that, success!

Restaurant:	Tajine Moroccan Restaurant
Location:	1653 Polk Street, SF, CA
Items ordered:	Chicken Bastilla; Merguez Kabab Plate; Lamb Kabob Plate
Pricing:	$10-$30
Grades:	Taste: A-; Cleanliness: A-; Service: B

Pictures of the Remains

At Santana Row this weekend, I took about five thousand pictures of my almost-bride friend, Frances Sun, as she tried on her wedding dress and Joyce and I learned how to help her put it on.  But all the white taffeta and invisible mini-buttons and small, tricky strings that are impossible to find seemed to muddle my brain because I forgot to take pictures of our delicious dinner after, only remembering when the food was almost gone.  Hopefully pictures of empty plates will do justice to our meal at Village California Bistro & Wine Bar.  But first, a picture of the beautiful setting:

We went family style, ordering a halibut ceviche, the seafood risotto and one order of the "Sunset 3 course dinner" for $29, which included the seasonal soup, Twice Cooked Cubano pork, and a peach cobbler dessert.

We started with the seasonal soup, a creamy corn soup with plenty of spices, topped with a medley of garnishes.  It was warm and full-bodied and delicious to sop up with the sides of bread.  Along with the soup, we ate a halibut ceviche with thick, generous pieces of halibut, The ceviche wasn't too amazing - I like mine with lots more acidic juices and more spices, but the purple potato chips, that accompanied the ceviche, stole the show.  The crispy, salty purple potato chips prompted Fran to ask if we thought the chips came from potatoes that were actually purple.

The question was too loaded for Joyce and I to respond to at the time, and Frances probably cared more about the fact that purple potatoes would go well with her purple wedding colors and our purple bridesmaids dresses.  But to answer Fran's question, the purple potato chips did in fact come from purple potatoes.  Purple potatoes have a dry, starchy and nutty flavor, are believed to have originated in Peru, and are high in antioxidants - similar to berries and pomegranates.  Hopefully, they will appear on Fran's wedding menu :)

Next, we shared the seafood risotto and the Cubano pork.  The pork was great - it was tender and aggressively spiced with sweet potato hash and pickled vegetables complementing it.  The risotto was my favorite - it was creamy, smooth, and cheesy, and you can never go wrong with mussels, clams and a variety of fish thrown in.  I somehow managed to take a picture before every morsel was eaten:

We ended with peach cobbler dessert - the peaches were plump and juicy and the cobbler crust was sweet and crunchy.  Every bite was warm and complemented by thick peach juices and the cobbler bits were buttery and chewy.  The scoop of ice cream on top provided a welcome, contrasting coolness.  It was refreshing and evocative and left us serene and stuffed and Joyce may have drifted into temporary unconsciousness afterwards.  Have I described the dessert well enough?  Hopefully so, because this is all you'll get in the way of a picture:

Bangers and Mash and Little Beers

So, the other day, Kevin Fisher finally agreed to hang out with me after I told him he could be in my blog. Yay!

We went to Jasper's Corner Tap and Kitchen on the corner of Taylor and O'Farrell (formerly the location of Ponzu), which just opened a week ago.  The restaurant serves upscale pub food, (a "gastropub") and a variety of cocktails and beers from around the world. I had sort of forgotten to make a reservation, and the website didn't have any availability, but when we got there, they were able to seat us immediately.  The decor was great - plenty of space, simply decorated and was packed without seeming too crowded.  There are a total of 137 seats in the restaurant, including the bar, a lounge area and two communal tables.

We decided to forgo the cocktail list, aptly named "The Beverage Book" at 16 pages and started with a couple of beers.  I got the Barney Flats Oatmeal Stout, which was great - it tasted like a Guinness but was much smoother - and Kevin got an ale.

The waitress brought them over in these glasses and explained that the restaurant gave smaller pours because the beers had a higher alcohol content and they wanted the clientele to be able to enjoy multiple drinks.  Which basically was her way of telling us we were getting ripped off.  KF of course told her he wouldn't mind a bigger glass of beer and he would still be able to enjoy multiple drinks and then she fake laughed and walked away.

While recovering from the $7 mini-beer slap in the face we'd just been blown, we enjoyed the following appetizers: berkshire pork ribs with a scallion citrus rub and a salted warm soft pretzel with a side of smoked gouda and cheddar fondue. The fondue was incredible - it was warm and viscous without being too sharp and cheesy, and its mellow flavor complemented the soft pretzel well.  The riblettes were my favorite of the entire meal: the meat fell off the bone and the scallion citrus rub was tangy and zesty.

After appetizers, Kevin ordered another beer, hoping to get in at least a full pint of beer for the night and we settled in for the entrees: fish & chips and bangers & mash.  The fish & chips were decent - the fish was tender and crispy (made with a polenta crust) and came with a tart dipping sauce.  The bangers and mash were pretty amazing: spicy pork and beef sausage with an onion sauce, mashed potatoes with chives mixed in, and peas and fancy mini carrots.  The sausage had a surprising kick and the assertive taste was balanced by the smoothness and richness of the potato puree.

Overall, it was a pleasant dining experience - I would go back.  Jasper's fulfilled my expectations of an "upscale" gastropub, particularly when we received the check. (Kevin started crying when he saw it and then remembered he wasn't on a KPMG salary anymore)  Although the meal fell on the pricey side, any place that can bring me back to memories of being a 20-year old study abroad college student in a seedy London pub on a foggy night gets my approval.

Restaurant:	Jasper's Corner Tap & Kitchen
Location:	401 Taylor Street, SF, CA
Items ordered:	Berkshire Pork Ribs, Soft Pretzel with Fondue, Fish & Chips, Bangers & Mash, Barney Flats Oatmeal Stout
Pricing:	$10-$30
Grades:	Taste: A; Cleanliness: A-; Service: B+