THE DINING REPORT – COPPIA

Wine With a Side of Martini

I’m not a big imbiber these days (preferring to spend excessive money on food rather than liquor) so I rarely visit bars, taverns, go on wine tours or to wine tastings or even to wine bars. Probably about seven years ago I was more into drinks and sips and such, and a friend and I stopped in to Vino Paradiso in the Pearl for a glass of wine and a small snack. At the time I remember thinking the space was pleasant, there was a decent selection of wine by the glass, and the snack was tasty. This being said, we waited FOREVER for service, even though there were few patrons, and the waiter was not particularly friendly. The upshot, with wine places bursting out at the seams, especially in the Pearl (remember, this was around 2005) why bother going back to a place that makes you feel unwanted?

Several months ago, I read on eater.com that the owner of Vino Paradiso, Timothy Nishimoto (who is also the male singer in Pink Martini) had decided he wanted to upgrade his space and start serving more serious food. I also remember reading, a bit later,  that he had decided to rename his rebooted establishment Coppia. Slightly after this, I forgot about the whole situation, because as I mentioned before, my previous experience with this business was not the most positive, and since he was a local celebrity, I’m sure my disinterest in his business would hardly be a crushing blow to his entire life.

On a scale of 1 to 10, I would rate myself about a 9, as far as keeping up with the new restaurants opening which are suitable for our group (the average food cart or pop up does not work for group dining due to size/kitchen capacity issues. They would be FUN though!) Anyway, Coppia fell off my radar, as it wasn’t exactly getting heavy publicity, and I was focusing on lots of other places soon to come. Recently, however, the A&E gave Coppia a relatively decent review, especially noting the pastas made in house, so I thought, hey, here’s a “new” place I can shove on the roster until all these other new places that I’ve been talking about actually open. I was still a bit uncertain about restaurant size, but Open Table happily gobbled up our reservation, so we were all set. Although we had experienced some nicer weather, it was as relatively cold May evening, and most of us were bundled up in sweaters and other heavy layers of clothing. As this is the heart of the Pearl, I was quite glad to find a parking space about a block and a half away, as it had earlier been raining quite hard.

 

THE DINING REPORT – RED ONION THAI

It Will Bring Tears Of Happiness To Your Eyeballs

I don’t really know what to say about our recent dinner at Red Onion Thai. We had a dinner there about two and a half years ago, and at that time I talked about the owner Aut “Dang” Boonyakamol’s previous Portland area restaurants, his tasteful décor, and his unusual specialty menu of Northern Thai dishes. This time out, four people repeated the Red Onion dinner, with three newbies and a special guest, many of us ordered the same things as last time, and while everyone was warned that this is a restaurant where it’s really easy to end up with too much food, we still all over-ordered and ended up with way too much to eat. David, in particular, once again got carried away, and seemingly could barely make it to his car after much over-indulgence (the soup with coconut milk gets you every time!) Once again the restaurant seemed decently busy, the food came rapidly and very hot, and everyone found almost every item delicious.

As far as the newbies, they are some of my recent well-treasured regulars, Tracy, Peter, and Cora. Poor Peter, a few times recently he has had to come directly from the operating theater (how dramatic) directly to the dinners, negotiating annoying North/South or SW traffic along the way, but we are happy that he still manages to join us, stress inducing though his journey might be, and feast on our evening of good eats. Sometimes I think we should go back to those earlier RR days when the dining times were a bit later, but I’ve learned over the years that when you have a group, 6:30 is much more manageable reservation-wise than 7:00 or after, and since our dinners commonly last between 2.5 – 3 hours, we still finish eating at a fashionably late time. Also, as people work on Fridays and the weekdays before,  they tend to start getting tired once 9:30 or so rolls around, other of us have babies that can only stand the “dining ordeal” for so long, and still other have chickens to put to bed, after they get home from the dinners (the dinees, not the chickens, they rarely get to go out for KFC.) So although it makes some people have to rush (sorry, rushees) at least for now, 6:30 remains the preferred dining hour. (Maybe 10 years from now, when we are all elderly, we’ll switch to a more acceptable dining hour like 4:30.)

 

THE DINING REPORT-AVIARY

The Rise of the Phoenix and the Return of the Honking Loon

As many people who follow Portland dining know, Aviary opened on NE Alberta early in 2011, most noteworthy because it featured the vision of not one, but three, classically trained French chefs from NYC, Kat Whitehead, Jasper Shen, and Sarah Pliner. When they first opened, a few people mentioned that the portions were relatively small and the prices were somewhat high, something that always scares me away, since if I’m going to plunk down $40-$50 for a decent meal, I want to be pleasantly full at the end. Shortly after, however, people started to rave about the quality of the French/Asian fusion cuisine being produced at Aviary, Food Dude at Portland Food and Drink being incredibly enthusiastic about the items he tried, and the Oregonian also adding a very favorable review. I still wasn’t too sure about adding it to the roster though, because as I’ve said time and time again, fusion and experimental cooking techniques are not my favorites (and I am the restaurant-deciding despot!!!)

It was very hard not to feel bad, however, when some bozo with July 4th fireworks caused major fire damage to the roof of their nice new building, putting Aviary and at least one other popular new business out of commission for at least a month or two (which turned into five months.) This is the same scenario that put an end to Sel Gris, but perhaps because their building was nice and new, or perhaps had better ownership, a new and improved Aviary did finally reopen a few months ago, after much support from various Portland restaurants (who let Aviary host pop-up dinners in their eateries to keep themselves viable during their long closure.) The new Aviary not only has their original modernist space, but now has an interesting, light filled bar area and a small private dining area beyond that (which so far opens out onto a field of unruly grass, but I’m sure they’ll do something nice with it eventually.)

Anyway, I have plenty of French food lovers in this group, and I’ve been reading even more positive comments on Aviary since they reopened in December, so when Tracy asked if I would consider doing a dinner there, lacking any other firm plan for the next dinner up, Aviary became the latest spin of the Restaurant Roulette wheel. As good/bad timing would have it, I also contracted a virus and sinus infection during this general time frame, so as my appetite was slightly off, I didn’t worry too much whether the portions at Aviary would fill my usual insatiable appetite!

 

THE DINING REPORT – VIA TRIBUNALI

Now That’s Italian!

Early in 2011, Portland became all Francophiled, Little Bird, St. Jack, and Cocotte all bursting on the scene with great fanfare and popularity, different from the notable Portland French restaurants that came before them because they were reasonably affordable. Although we had a couple more French places come on the scene this year, the trend bursting forth at the end of 2011 appeared to be high end pizza, Via Tribunali and Oven and Shaker both opening their doors within a month of each other, both with wood fired ovens imported from Italy and small, authentic Italian pies (although Cathy Whim’s Oven & Shaker takes a more unconventional road with many of her toppings.)

When I heard about both places, I was really excited, as I’ve always wanted to bring quality pizza to our group, but never found the correct venue (although I’ve always wanted to try Lovely 50-50, they don’t do larger groups on the weekends.) In the beginning I wasn’t sure which of the two new places to select, so kept my ear to the ground and my eye to newsprint to see what people were saying about the two venues. Maybe because Oven & Shaker is in the Pearl and Via Tribunali is in Old Town, it seems like O&S originally was more talked about, and when I mention Via Tribunali, most people still don’t know what I’m referring to. As we had a great dinner at  Cathy Whim’s Nostrana, and a so-so dinner at 23Hoyt (Bruce Carey brought Via Tribunali to Portland) I originally gave O&S the advantage, as the space sounded fun and was supposed to have great cocktails, and Via Tribunali was an offshoot of a Seattle “chain.” Three people I know went to Oven & Shaker in the beginning though, and told me they didn’t really care for the pizza, so the advantage was back to VT, allegedly having wonderful pizza and packed since day one. Once I saw their extensive pizza menu, and learned they had a large communal table you could reserve any day of the week, off we headed to Via Tribunali (although we will probably still do Oven & Shaker some day, as they are supposed to have tasty things to eat besides just pizza.)

 

THE DINING REPORT, OBA!

Can’t chew your meat? Just take $50 off!

The Pearl District is an odd sort of place. You would think that the new, trendy eateries would have the most luck there, but it’s some of those stalwarts from the beginning that seem to have the most luck hanging on, Oba!, Georgios, Piazza Italia, Paragon, PF Chang’s. Although Piazza Italia occasionally makes best of Portland lists, as it’s just so Italian, the rest of them, no accolades for years. Wouldn’t you think the Pearl would have to always have the best of everything? They did get the return of Trader Vic’s, which was an amazingly expensive remodeling project for that location, but as everyone knows, the food at TVs can be very hit or miss (so maybe it WILL survive.) Irving Street Kitchen had lots of buzz in its first year or so, but I haven’t heard too much about it lately, and our group gave it very mixed reviews when we visited there. Kin always gets great press, but that’s another place I haven’t heard any buzz about for months and months, but I assume it’s hanging on. Oven and Shaker seems to be drawing in the masses so far, but the menu is pretty one dimension for fine dining, mostly just pizza. Why doesn’t the Pearl attract and keep destination, fine dining restaurants? (Actually I just thought of one, Metrovino, but that’s far off the beaten track and has lost their highly acclaimed chef to his own restaurant.)

But back to Oba! As I’ve alluded to before, and mentioned back in 2007, when we had our last dinner here, I’ve always had a fond spot in my heart for Oba! (despite her somewhat fading reputation over the last 4-5 years.) It was one of the first restaurants in Portland that defined really cool, cutting edge, from its conversion from warehouse (garage?)  to gorgeous eatery space, to its Nuevo Latin menu, to the packed and crazy happy hour in the bar. In the beginning it was a bit on the more expensive side, but the food always lived up to the hype. During the middle years the prices hit a Pearl District stride, but the menu didn’t necessarily up the ante from a quality standpoint. Nowadays, Oba! is really expensive (I painfully laughed when in the three days between me deciding to do Oba! and sending out the RSVP a whole new website appeared, with higher prices!) but although many of the favorites are still really good, other items seem prepared with a lack of consistency, perhaps a bit surprising since Oba! has kept its chef, Scott Neumann, from day one.

There continue to be plenty of good things about Oba! worth mentioning, and it is a good place for a special occasion dinner if you have lots of bucks (a category that eliminates most of the people who actually attended this dinner.) When I made the reservation, they asked me if it was a special occasion, a question I get quite often if I’m asking for a table for 8 or more. I said that as it happened, one of the attendees was having a birthday (close enough, one day off.) When we arrived at the restaurant, one of the staff walked over and placed a card at our table that said “Happy Birthday.” Inside was a certificate for a free dessert. I know all kinds of places give you free desserts for your birthday (Andina gave me one a couple of birthday’s ago) but they usually don’t do it in such a classy manner, and it was a really nice touch, especially as the recipient was a big Latin dessert gobbler.

 

THE DINING REPORT – THE COUNTRY CAT

Youngest Member Ever Plays Restaurant Roulette!

THIS DINNER WAS JANUARY 20th, BUT I’VE BEEN CREATIVELY LAME.

It’s hard to know what to say about our evening at the Country Cat. In December of 2008 we had a dinner there, and as per usual, I blathered on about Montavilla, the restaurant itself, and chef Adam Sappington. Adam is famous for knowing his way around a pig, and when he competes in local famous chef cooking competitions, he more often than not wins them.

Back then I whined (and am still doing that) about the fact that although for 13 years I lived about seven blocks from here, at that time this area of SE Stark Street was an incredible wasteland, and while Ya Hala got going toward the end of my North Tabor residency, it wasn’t until the opening of the Country Cat that things really seemed to hum around here, and now the entire area between 76th and 82nd is nothing but cool shops, eateries, bakeries, bars, and even a second run theater (The Academy.) Where was all this great stuff (the Observatory, Tanuki, Pastry Girl etc.) when I wanted to eat out and had to drive five miles away for yummy eats? I must say gentrification only goes so far, however, gingerly step one block North of CC and you are still in the sleazy, tavern ridden, drug house and tenement apartment neighborhood I used to always ride my bike through to go up fancier Mt. Tabor. Better one really good commercial street than none though, although that tavern right next to the restaurant still draws that charming sort of patron who rides, screaming, on the hood area of moving vehicles (yes, Glenda and I did enjoy that spectacle, or at least try to avoid it.)

The Country Cat is one of those restaurants you enter, and it smells wonderful, like BBQ pork, and the space is modern and attractive, but friendly and casual (word of warning to the feeble bodied, though, which must include me, the elaborate wooden door weighs several hundred pounds and can be quite a chore to open.) Usually there are neighborhood families and friends inside, and children, so it was probably appropriate that Heidi and Julian brought their young un, Hank, to his first dinner, at the advanced age of 4 months. Yes, we have a new “youngest member ever in RR”, 4 months old! Glenda didn’t seem to approve of the hat Julian wore to the dinner, but did not complain about Hank’s headgear, so I think we are making progress!

 

The Dining Report – Mextiza

What do you mean, NORTH Killingsworth?

 

A long time ago (practically when people rode dinosaurs to college) when I was getting my degree at the University of Portland, I drove to school each day down Killingsworth to Willamette, basically from beginning to end, as I think it begins somewhere around 82nd, and ends close to “the bluff.” Back then, before the double-edged sword of inner NE gentifrication was even thought about, Killingsworth was not a particularly nice street, and sometimes there were rather scary looking things along the way, especially in the approximate area of the PCC Cascade campus. Mainly my plan was just to get to good old Willamette Blvd., and not really make any stops or look around a ton, and back then, there weren’t too many blossoming businesses to see, anyway. In more modern times, the only reason I had to go back and check out Killingsworth was when Roux opened, that nice New Orleans style restaurant that the owner lost interest in, and closed a few years back, finally reappearing with Violette, in the park across from Fox Tower (I’m never sure what that place is called, is it Director’s Park?) I liked Roux a lot, but the only thing I remember about its environs on Killingsworth was how quiet the street seemed there, very residential (And yes Michael, I think you are right, that Roux was a long way west, maybe around Jessup.)

Of course over the last few years, Killingsworth has exploded like all those other formerly “gritty” inner NE streets, Mississippi, Alberta, Williams. Now you’ve got New Seasons, Hot Lips, Cocotte, Beast, Yakuza, Autentica, and Podnah’s, all within a 20 block range. All of these businesses are on or around NE Killingsworth, which it turns out is not anywhere near N. Killingsworth, as I unfortunately learned at our last dinner, as did three of my co-diners. It turns out Mextiza is on N. Killingsworth (yes, just as the address actually said.) Of course I know the difference between NW and NE Portland, there’s that big river thingee in the middle to help me out. But it turns out I don’t know the difference between inner NE Portland and North Portland (by the way, there’s also SE and SW Portland, but is there a corresponding S. Portland? I think not.) Burnside, East and West, now there’s a street that makes it easy to figure out if you are North or South, but what exactly divides NE and N. Portland? Is it the freeway? Is it Interstate? (If so, wouldn’t Interstreet be more appropriate?)

 

THE DINING REPORT – Lucé

THE DINING REPORT – Lucé
Polpettes and Icy Toes

A few years ago, the Oregonian selected Navarre as Restaurant of the Year and I rejoiced, especially when even they admitted it was a weird choice, but that the food prevailed over all the quirky things there, ambiance, service, the size of the kitchen. Although they are barely open for lunch these days (maybe still Fridays and on the weekend?) I can think of no more interesting place to pop in for a leisurely lunch, eat a few of the intriguing small plates, finish with a delicious gut busting dessert, pay the reasonable tab, and feel like you just had lunch in some small village in the French countryside. The decor has always been incredibly basic, just blond wood chairs and tables (much seating is communal) a mirror with the specials written down, and a bunch of homemade preserves and imported specialties that you can buy lining the walls.

Owner John Taboda has a new venture now, about 8 blocks down Burnside from Navarre, and at least as far as the restaurant, it’s not much larger or fancier than Navarre (although the checkerboard floor is eye-catching.) The new place is called Luce. I mention the size of the restaurant because Luce is actually two spaces, the restaurant/cafe space and an event space right next door. Luce, the eatery, only seats 20, so I’m guessing the event space is larger, unless it caters to really small events. Luce does have a large fancy kitchen though, opposed to Navarre’s galley/postage stamp sized food preparation area, so maybe that’s why Navarre’s long time chef didn’t mind going  Italian. (Navarre has always seemed to me a French, Spanish, Italian combo.) Another strong presence at Luce is John Taboda’s wife, Giovanna, who also helms the extra fancy Italian boutique, Una, also on 28th like Navarre. My guess, from her name, is that Giovanna is Italian, and perhaps much of the authenticity at Luce comes from her (although Mr. Taboda certainly know his way around various European cuisines.)

 

THE DINING REPORT – THE WOODSMAN TAVERN

THE DINING REPORT – THE WOODSMAN TAVERN
PICKLEBACKS, WRECKED PALATES, AND THE MIRACULOUS CROUTON

This is 100 for me. No, not my 100th birthday, although often I feel that way. This is my 100th Restaurant Roulette dinner review on this blog, at least according to WordPress. Can you believe I’ve made it through at least 100 dinners with a bunch of people who were almost all strangers at their first group dinner, and that some actually come back again and again to dine with the likes of me? (Don’t worry, I know it’s mainly because most of the  food is really good.) And to think, the blog didn’t become a struggle until about 50 reviews in (which is why I laugh when people get mad at me and send comments implying I live to do nothing but blog my life away. I would gladly sit back and send in an random snippy comments while they labor away at the keyboard for hours trying to be occasionally funny, or at least informative. Oh, and there’s also that fun part where I spend half of each dinner taking photos!) I do love the dinners though, and visiting all the new restaurants, and hanging out with my dining buddies, both familiar and brand new, and I think the blog is a bonus for potential and current members. So onward I solider, and readily I eat, all in the name of group dining fun. I don’t know if we’ll make it to 200, as that would end up being over 10 years of Restaurant Roulette, but anyone who wants to hang in with me as long as possible, we’ll give it our best shot. After all, I still have my first member, he was at the Woodsman dinner, and while we don’t see him that often, he does still seem to have a good time when he joins us.

Okay, that was a weird experience. I’m sitting here at 8:00 in the evening, writing this, and my doorbell rings. I turn on my porch light, and there’s a Penske Rental Truck outside delivering my UPS package. Has anyone else gotten UPS packages at 8:00 PM in a rental truck? It’s hard to know if this is a seasonal overflow thing (on December 1st?) or if their truck just broke down, but do you remember those old timey days when your mail came six days a week, probably before 4:00 PM, and you didn’t see UPS drivers doing deliveries at 8:00 at night?

Wasn’t that just fascinating? Please remember, I live a very tiny life.

 

THE DINING REPORT – LAURO KITCHEN

THE DINING REPORT – LAURO KITCHEN
Hey, What’s Not To Like?

There are some restaurants you like from the moment they open, or at least from the first time you go there, and each time you return there it’s like visiting an old friend. Often you makes lots of “new friends” in the interim, but you still wonder what’s going on with this “special friend,” how they are faring, and if much has changed with them.

Portland has way too many good restaurants, and this being the case, you often don’t get a chance to return to places you really like, because there’s just so much to select from. Lauro was one of the first, really good (but still modestly priced) neighborhood places that got going a couple of years before Portland’s incredible food explosion. In the beginning, they were always packed, and with no reservations, getting in could be rough, especially if there were quite a few of you. They ditched that no reservation policy a few years ago though, luckily for groups like ours, and Heidi and Julian, who became Lauro fans in the last year or so, occasionally stroll over for a meal and have no trouble getting in. On the recent Friday night we were there, it seemed like they were doing quite well, but with every passing month seeing more openings of good food places on Division, who knows what the future holds for Lauro. My guess is, as it’s a fine neighborhood eatery with an intriguing but comfortable menu, and a good bargain as well, that Lauro will continue on for some years.