Country Cat Dinnerhouse
7937 SE Stark
Portland, OR 97215

Finally, jwa and I made it to the Country Cat on Sunday night. I know it’s been open for quite a while, but this is actually ahead of schedule for us. Typically, we seem to not get to a new place until it has been open for a year or two. (Okay, no one burst my bubble and tell me CC has been open for like the past three years..)

Going in, I kind of knew I would be having the skillet fried chicken. Specifically, the Cast Iron Skillet Fried Chicken, with a sweet cream biscuit & bacon braised collard greens. jwa went back and forth and finally decided on the Heritage Burger on a French onion bun with cheddar cheese, garlic mayonnaise & onion rings.

Mmmm! Okay, but I’m getting ahead of myself. We got there right around 5:15 and got a nice big booth by the open kitchen. jwa saw the pretzels and mustard written by the bar and ordered that first thing while we were still looking at the menu — he has a fondness for soft pretzels and mustard. I thought they were very good, even though I gave jwa about half of my pretzel. Even then, I knew I was saving myself for the chicken.

We each got salads (huge!) and then settled in for the entrees — the chicken and jwa’s burger. We traded bites and enjoyed our meal quite a bit. We will definitely be back. The chicken was boneless and crispy and completely non-greasy. The greens had a smokey and sweet taste to them and I fell in love with my biscuit.

Next, I want to try the Grilled Leg of Lamb on scalloped potatoes with parmesan bread crumbs. Or maybe the Red Wine Braised Strawberry Mountain Beef on sour cream mashed potatoes with chanterelles, & chestnuts. Huh, the Cornmeal Fried Dover Sole on a chopped vegetable salad with a chunky olive & caper sauce sounds good too. This may be difficult.

Oh, and I love the t-shirts. I want one. We ended the meal with some chocolate and coconut sorbet. I ate the macaroon while jwa was away from the table washing his hands. Too bad for him. Ma ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Afterwards, we went to Home Depot and bought lightbulbs and cleaning supplies. It was a good night.

***

Battle of the Toppers

We have two wedding cake toppers and I can’t decide which couple I like better. I think we will use them both at the wedding — one set as toppers and the other as something else you might need a small bride and groom for. Sure, I know we could do flowers on top of the cake but I want to do the little bride and groom cake toppers. I don’t know why — I just like them. Maybe it’s because everyone does flowers on their cakes now, maybe it’s because I just want little plastic people standing on our cake.

The first set is a bit big and they sit on the edge of a tier on the cake. They are a bit awkward and dorky looking. Perfect for us! You’ll notice that I have also outfitted the groom with some big glasses for that touch of realism. My only concern here is that they might be a bit big for our size cake and they might fall off and plop onto the floor and end up covered in frosting and floor fuzz. Certainly not the end of the world but something to think about.

Set number two is smaller and stands on the top of the cake. They are a bit more sophisticated in appearance. They are designed after a retro set and produced by Martha Stewart but they are new and made of resin (instead of actually vintage and made of lead paint and asbestos). The glasses look a little big here but I think that makes it just the right amount of awesome. Currently, both sets are on our fireplace mantle looking spiffy and prepared to duke it out. We’ll see which couple reigns supreme…

Kinda lazy tonight. Will just post pictures of today’s walk around Mt. Tabor.

Okay.

Colorful foliage!

Park bench, trees, and me!

Reservoir and downtown in the background

jwa walking…

Upper reservoir and Fallness

Nice!

Leaves and sky. Duh

Goodnight.

::snore::

Libby from the local nonprofit Growing Gardens emailed me today about an event at Sub Rosa next Wednesday, June 13th. The restaurant will be donating 50%(!) of all profits that evening to Growing Gardens. I’ve posted the press release in its entirety below.

So, if you’re hungry next week and in the mood to do some good, you know where to go for dinner. You get a tasty meal, Growing Gardens get some money to continue their mission and Portland families in need get vegetable gardens and the training to keep their gardens thriving — everybody wins!

SubRosa will donate 50 percent of profits to Growing Gardens - June 13th, 2007
PORTLAND, OR – June 6, 2007– Spend an “evening with an old friend who knows you better than anybody else” (Portland Mercury), and half the proceeds will benefit Growing Gardens. “I think it’s a shame that eating nutritiously is so expensive in our community,” says SubRosa’s owner, MaryAnn Archambalt.

“That’s why I’m dedicating this night to Growing Gardens. I believe deeply in its mission to teach low-income families and folks how to grow their own healthy food. Everyone deserves to eat well.”

About SubRosa
SubRosa specializes in thin-crust, hand-tossed pizza, pasta and seasonal salads in an airy corner dining room at 2601 SE Clinton St. Fans rave about the attentive staff, community feeling and generous, flavorful dinners and desserts. Hours are 5 to 9pm weekdays.

About Growing Gardens
We plant seeds for good food and healthy people by making sure low-income people have the knowledge and resources they need to grow organic vegetables at home, improving nutrition, creating food security and deepening self-reliance. We organize hundreds of volunteers to build organic, raised bed vegetable gardens in backyards, front yards, side yards and even on balconies. We support low income households for three years with seeds, plants, classes, and mentors. Our Youth Grow after school garden clubs grow the next generation of veggie eaters and growers! Through Learn & Grow workshops and work parties, we teach gardeners all about growing, preparing and preserving healthful food while respecting the health of the environment. Through this work, community members meet over the backyard garden, through volunteering, by attending classes, and through sharing extra produce.

For more information, visit Growing Gardens.

Like last night, I chose to watch 30 Rock (Liz Lemon!*) instead of doing a Super Foods Friday post. So, instead of that, enjoy some pictures I took at Whiskey Soda Lounge a month or so ago and never got around to posting about.

Grilled prawns — they were HUGE! The whiskey and soy marinated ribs are in the background, waiting to be devoured.

jwa’s Bloody Mary

My drink — the vodka plum collins.

Tom Saep Neua — Hot and sour Isaan style Cascade Natural beef soup (with a little coconut rice in it) it was really, really good.

Pok Pok Affogato — Condensed milk ice cream with Vietnamese coffee and a Chinese fried donut. Enough said.

* I find jwa’s TV-crush on Liz Lemon very comforting — 1. she’s fictional, 2. she’s at least 35, 3. she wears glasses and 4. she’s funny. Hooray!

I had no idea that it was supposed to snow today, Neither, apparently, did Trimet. It started out as a nice walk in the snow at 7:20 AM, down to the bus stop at 34th & Hawthorne.

Once there, I only had to wait about 5 minutes before a bus came. It was packed but I got a spot right in the front, standing just a hair behind the yellow line. Good for me but bad for everyone at stops past 30th, as we had no room and he didn’t make any other stops.

Once we hit Madison though, it was all backup and no bus lane. So, I decided to get off at Grand and walk the rest of the way into work. So did a lot of other people. I even beat the bus across the bridge by walking it.

Got to work at 8:20 so it took me about 60 minutes. It usually takes 30 minutes so not too bad.

Another bridge picture.

View from my office window.

Around 11:10 I decide to go out and forage for lunch, walk around and take a few pics.

Snow covered octopus outside Greek Cusina.

Snow outside Tabor Cafe where I grabbed some lunch

Art-y snow pic back by office, across the street from Mother’s.

The awesomeness of the Schnitzelwich — more on that tomorrow.

Get back to work and find out we all get to leave at noon. Yay! Eat half of lovely schnitzelwich and tasty sobe green tea and check the Trimet page for bus tracking. It said there was a Hawthorne bus due at the corner of SW 2nd and Alder in 10 minutes. I’m somewhat skeptical, though, as it had said this for the last hour. Got my stuff and started out anyway.

When I get there, it’s chaos. There’s 25 or so people standing about and a Trimet dude trying to help people with the new bus stops downtown. I asked him if the transit tracker was lying when it says there was a 14 coming in 10 minutes. Two ladies waiting for the 15 laughed. They had been waiting for the Belmont bus already at this stop for 1 1/2 hours. They had not seen a 14 come by in all that time. In fact, no buses had been by at all. I start walking home.

Called jwa and informed him of my new (and improved?) transit plans. He said he’d leave the house now (he had a full, work-from-home snow day), and that we’d meet on Hawthorne and walk back home together. How sweet.

Looking back at downtown.

We met up around SE 18th and stopped in Starbucks so that my legs could warm up, as they were frozen by this point. Got a green tea latte, defrosted a bit and headed back out. Further up Hawthorne, around 25th, a bus has wiped out and was blocking the right, east-bound lane. Now it just sat there, deserted, stuck and forlorn.

Boo.

We got home around 1:30 and now I am going to curl up on the couch with a book, Tim Powers, Three Days to Never, which I highly recommend.

Hmmmm, wonder if tomorrow will be a snow day too?

Iorio
912 SE Hawthorne Blvd.
Portland, OR 97214
(503) 445-4716

I pass this restaurant pretty much every day (unless I catch the Division bus instead of the Hawthorne one) on my way home from work. It always looks so cozy and inviting. Bright red walls, soft lights and lately — a big Christmas tree in the middle of the restaurant, as well as two white-light decorated tress guarding the doorway.

I talked jwa into trying this place Saturday night and I’m very glad I did. We had a great two hour dinner and a very nice time. The meal started with a couple of complimentary snacks — bread with a squash dip and a small plate of marinated garbanzo beans with a balsamic drizzle and shaved Parmesan. Both were fabulous!

The meal itself was a hard choice. However, I have a rule that whenever calamari is on a menu we have to have it. At Iorio this meant calamari with a cornmeal crust and accompanied with a herbed aioli and Serrano chile oil. I really liked it. The calamari was tender and the breading not too heavy and the dipping sauces were especially good.

After much debate and a small debacle where I accidentally burned a hole in my menu with the table’s candle. Oops. jwa was very amused, though. Anyway, where was I? Oh yes. Our meal decisions. Well, we went back and forth a bit on whether we could order the same thing and came to the conclusion that in this one instance it was okay. So, we both got the Chef’s tasting Menu — 4 courses for $30.

First Course
House smoked local salmon Caesar salad

Second Course
Handmade gnocchi with arugula oil and baby Gorgonzola

Third Course
Grilled baby quail with root vegetable pave and braised greens with cider glaze

or
Pan seared ling cod with chestnut butter and root vegetable pave (we both got the quail — it was all little and cute)

Dessert
Pots au chocolate

It was dee-licious. We decided to get the wine pairings for $7 more each, which included a glass of pinot grigio with the salad and gnocchi and a chianti with the quail. They were good wine pairings, but I ended up getting an extra glass of white wine as I ran out of my first glass during the calamari. Oops. Next time, I think we will just get a full bottle of something.

With our pots au chocolate, jwa had coffee (illy) and I had a coffee nudge (illy + Kahlua and Bailey’s). The meal ended with another complimentary item — cookies* (I know the kind has a specific name but it escapes me at the moment), as well as the check.

All in all, it was a very good meal and I think we’ll definitely be going back again.

Iorio gets three holiday lights out of four holiday lights.

* Interesting fact: if you have a bite of one of the leftover Iorio check cookies and a drink of Bridgeport Ebenezer Ale — the combination in your mouth tastes like roast turkey. Fascinating.

I was asked in the comments section the other day about Portland area cooking classes and I half-assedly recounted seeing something about this one — but I couldn’t remember where I had seen it. And I wrote, “you should call Pastaworks and ask about it…”.

Today, I got this in my email, courtesy of the Pastaworks e-newsletter that I get every so often. Thus endeth the mystery of where I had seen the class mentioned. And uh, apparently, don’t call them and ask about it.

Here’s the info from the email:

Cooking with Navarre’s John Taboada from The Silver Spoon cookbook
John’s idea is to explain what does and doesn’t work for the home cook when working with cookbook recipes. Food will be prepared using the Pastaworks’ pantry, and appropriate wines will accompany the recipes and food.

Contact John directly (taboadajohn@gmail.com) to sign up for the class. Please do not call or email Pastaworks regarding this class.

What: Cooking from The Silver Spoon with John Taboada
Where: Pastaworks on Hawthorne, 3735 SE Hawthorne
When: Tuesday, December 12th, 7PM
How much: $40

John will divulge how you will be able to receive a discount on your purchase from Powell’s if you wish to purchase The Silver Spoon at the class.

Wild Abandon
2411 SE Belmont
Portland, OR 97214
(503) 232-4458

Traditionally, we walk to Bread and Ink for Valentine’s Dinner, have a bottle of wine, food and walk home. That’s what we did last year and for the last three years. This year, I was in the mood for a change.

I’ve been wanting to try Wild Abandon quite some time and Valentine’s Day seemed like a good night to do so. Yeah, I know — is a holiday when everyone else is trying to go out to dinner really the best opportunity to try someplace new?

The atmosphere was funky and dark. I’m not sure if they made it extra dark for the holiday or of it’s usually that way. I’m not complaining — I’m just saying it was dark but cozy and romantic. Our timing was right on (of course we had a reservation), as we got one of the velvety booths along the wall. Fun!

They had a special menu for Valentine’s Day which included a few appetizers (including a goat cheese tart), salads, and some pasta dishes, salmon with red beans and rice, chicken marsala and prime rib.

I really, really wanted the goat cheese appetizer but we were good, both starting with a simple, mixed green salad. I got a lemon basil vinaigrette and jwa got the blue cheese. Now, let me say right now that, overall, I was a bit disappointed with the food. But, I loved-loved-loved the lemon basil vinaigrette. That right there is enough of a reason to give Wild Abandon another shot. We also got some bread and hummus with our salads, which was quite nice.

Our dinners consisted of the chicken marsala for jwa and the salmon with red beans and rice for me. Overall, I’m just not sure the salmon went well with the red beans and rice — it was an intriguing idea but I don’t think it quite worked. Perhaps if the salmon had been seasoned more or spiced up a bit it would have come together, but as it was, I couldn’t help but think I was eating red beans and rice with some salmon someone stuck on top as an afterthought. Alas, I think perhaps one of the pasta dishes would have been the way to go.

(See, it’s very dark)

jwa enjoyed his chicken but thought it was maybe a bit greasy. It came with some mashed potatoes, which he loved, but a butter sauce on the side he thought was way too rich.

The evening ended with creme brulee and sorbet, along with a glass of port that we split.

The service was good. I was a bit worried that they might try to push us through as quickly as possible but that wasn’t the case. We had 6:00 reservations, we were seated promptly and didn’t leave until about 7:40. So, that, as well as the vinaigrette, makes me want to give Wild Abandon another chance on a different night.

The Recap:
True, I was a bit let down by the food (I had very high expectations) but had a nice meal all the same, as I was eating and talking with someone I love. But, you know, at $98 (with a bottle of wine), the food should have been as enjoyable as the dining companion.

On a slightly related note, Fusion (on Division) seems to be gone. Wah! Does anyone know if they are gone for good? This makes me so very sad. I loved that place. I bring that up because Fusion had all the funkiness and candlelit ambiance of Wild Abandon but with much better food, imho.

For now, Wild Abandon gets 2.5 wine bottles out of 4.

Pok Pok Thai
3226 SE Division
Portland, OR 97202
503-232-1387

The other day I read Food Dude’s enticing review of Pok Pok Thai (read it if you haven’t yet — you will want to stop there for dinner on the way home, trust me) and seriously could not wait to try this place. It all sounded so good! We live about five blocks away, how perfect! It seriously took all of my willpower not to blow off the pork loin roast I was going to make Saturday and not go to Pok Pok right then and there.

But, we managed to make it to last night (only because they are not open Sunday) and got take out. We both had the pok pok special — 1/2 a roast hen, dipping sauce, sticky rice and papaya salad — and for the first ten minutes all we did is eat and proclaim to each other just how tasty it was.

me: oh my god, this is so good.
jwa: this *is* really good.

(few minutes of eating pass)

jwa: wow.
mlb: I know. The skin is….wow. I love the skin.
jwa: Yeah and it’s all so interesting tasting. So…good. And spicy! Mmmmmm….

(more happy eating)

mlb: Oh, we should do this again soon.
jwa: I think so. Now I am going to steal the rest of your Thai ice tea with lime. Mahahahahahaha! *slurp* *slurp*

Yes, I really liked it all very much, although, I thought the papaya pok pok was a little too spicy for me but I’m just like that. jwa, however, loved it all. Next time, I will either try the Muu Sateh (pork loin with peanut sauce) the Khao Soi Kai (chickeny, coconuty, noodley soup) or hell, maybe I’ll just get a whole bird and sticky rice for myself. Because that, was seriously good.

I think we will be back quite a bit.

Plus, it’s also fun to say “pok pok.”

And, since I like grading with little food images so much, our Pok Pok dining experience definitely gets three limes out of four!

Last weekend, I experimented with these lemony biscuits. I added some chopped, fresh rosemary as I had cut a bunch of it from the front bush while taking pictures for the blog redesign. So, I figured I should start using some of the rosemary I detached from out front!

Lemon & Rosemary Biscuits:
2 cups AP flour
1tbsp baking powder
2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup shortening or butter
2/3 cup milk
1 tsp lemon zest
1 tsp fresh, chopped rosemary

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. In a bowl stir together the flour, baking powder, sugar, cream of tartar, rosemary, lemon zest and salt. Cut in shortening or butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Make a well in the center; add milk all at once and combine until dough just comes together.

On a lightly floured surface, knead dough gently 10-12 times. Roll out to about 1/2 an inch thickness. Cut with a circular biscuit cutter (about 2 1/2 inch diameter). Dip cutter in flour between cuts if dough is sticking.

Transfer to a baking sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes until golden. Serve warm.

Christopher Kimball at Powell’s

Last night, with a lot of other people, I made my way to Powell’s Books for Cooks & Gardeners to see Christopher Kimball of America’s Test Kitchen and Cook’s Illustrated Magazine. It was really packed. I got there around 6:20 and managed to get a seat about midway back.

He was pretty funny — answering questions after a brief introduction with e-mails he had recently received:

“Do I have to cook a potato before I mash it?”

::beat::

“No.”

He took about 15 audience questions then the book signing began. I opted not to get a book so snuck out right after the talk. Bonus: They had some Cook’s Country and Cook’s Illustrated back issues up front for free. Score!

I think what I like most about CK and Alton Brown and other geeky, science food types is — the science approach, yes — but also the kind of snarky sarcasm that they employ.