EAT BEAT

Charcuterie Chic

Olympic Provisions NW opens, bringing rotisserie chicken and handcrafted charcuterie to the far reaches of Northwest Portland.

Posted by: Allison Jones on Apr 27, 2011 at 11:05AM 0 Comments

Leave it to Nate Tilden and Elias Cairo to figure out the secret ingredient for truly phenomenal charcuterie. In order to make the best sausages, rillettes, pates, cured hams, frankfurters, and bratwurst around, you need to set up shop in the shadow of a bridge. The Olympic Provisions team launched their newest spot near the Fremont overpasses on NW 16th and Thurman, staking their meaty claim in yet another industrial area of our fair city. The new space is both neighborhood cafe and USDA-certified meat-curing headquarters, and reflects the same DIY design ethos as the charcuterie empire’s flagship space in the Central Eastside Industrial District, but with a brighter, more intimate feel. Check out our photos of the new space, and pop in for lunch or dinner before the new location is overshadowed by the next inevitable expansion of Tilden’s empire.

Olympic Provisions NW – 1632 NW Thurman St. 503-894-8136. Open Monday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.

While Cairo works his magic in the 4000-square-foot production facility connected to the restaurant, the open kitchen will be headed by former Clyde Common sous Erin Williams.

The menu will feature the classic sandwiches and charcuterie that made OP a household name, along with rustic Italian dishes like polenta with spring veggies, fried egg, and “cheese broth” ($12), ribeye steak with grilled romaine, salsa verde, and grana padano ($19) and rotisserie chicken from the adorable red eBay-scrounged roaster (complete with schmaltz potatoes, $15).

Left: Pull up a chair at the well-lit counter, grab a charcuterie plate ($12) and a specialty cocktail like the Whiskey Ginger, with Buffalo Trace, ginger beer, and lime ($8). Right: You gotta love a restaurant that stocks sausages in the mise en place.

The walls of windows and skylights illuminate the white subway-tiled walls, polished-metal meat slicer, handcrafted wine displays, and piles of salami wrapped in butcher paper topping the glass deli case.

The custom-built wine wall (filled with choice selections from wine director Star Black) and the kitchen counter’s frame were hand-fused by Tilden and his father – talk about a labor of love.

Expect Olympic Provisions NW to keep the laid-back, comfortable vibe of the original, with lunch offerings like hot ham-and-brie sandwiches, porchetta sandwich on ciabatta, and OP’s signature frankfurters.

“If it gets any brighter,” Tilden exclaimed, squinting into the sunlight streaming through the restaurant’s windows, “we might need blinds.” When they show up, you can bet they’ll be handcrafted as well.

Add a Comment »

Tags: Portland Chefs, Restaurant Openings, Northwest Dining, Northwest Portland Dining, Openings, charcuterie, Opening Night

Happy Hour of the Week: Lucy’s Table

This stalwart Nob Hill eatery deserves a try—or yet another repeat visit.

Posted by: Anna Sachse on Apr 04, 2011 at 10:00AM 2 Comments

The remains of the Vegetable Risotto & Roasted Beet Salad. It was so good, I forgot to take a picture until I was done.

In a city where the citizens are willing to wait two-plus hours for a chance to dine on the latest charismatic comfort food, the fine-dining folks who’ve been doing a good job year after year tend to get short-shrift from the local media. In a meager effort to remedy these slights, we offer Lucy’s Table.

Perched on a bustling corner of NW 21st, this unassuming grande dame has been feeding Portlanders an eclectic mix of upscale cuisine for nearly 23 years. The dinner menu isn’t cheap (entrées range from $15 to $26), but the lunch menu is a bit of a hidden gem, with artful soups, salads, sandwiches, and a variety of house-made pastas and small entrées, all for $10 or less. The dishes are a swirl of Mediterranean and American favorites (think pork osso bucco sharing menu real estate with vegetarian meatloaf and mashed potatoes), and showcase regional ingredients. The wine menu is a lengthy study but reasonably priced (lots of $20s, $30s, and $40s), and is paired with the requisite creative cocktail list that riffs on old fashioned darlings like the gin fizz or sidecar.

When I popped in for Happy Hour last Friday, I was immediately struck by two things:

The first was the superb service I received from my waiter—he was extremely prompt, knowledgeable about the food, and polite without that cloying fakery that permeates nice restaurants.

The second was that they were playing Mr. Bungle, an awesome disconnect with the largely well-heeled 50-something crowd dining in the tiny cocktail lounge area, all of whom seemed to be enjoying the music just fine.

With only six items, the Happy Hour menu itself is a tad limited, but the prices are right and every single thing is tasty.

The standouts:

1) A generous bowl of Macaroni and Cheese ($4) featuring large noodles cooked al dente and swathed in a rich, creamy, tangy sauce with a subtle splash of white truffle oil, only available during HH.

2) A pile of fall-off-the-bone Pomegranate Glazed Baby Back Ribs ($5), glistening with a zingy and subtly sweet citrusy glaze.

3) A crisp Roasted Beet Salad ($4), in which the crimson veg isn’t over-marinated to the point of being pickled; instead, it sits like a mound of vibrant jewels amidst pears, spinach, and a sprinkle of salty feta.

The Vegetable Risotto ($4; only available at HH) is also a treat—it manages to feel light but have a full, rich, oniony flavor that’s hard to accomplish without meat stock. The house-made Goat Cheese Ravioli ($3) swimming in a brown butter sauce flecked with pancetta is a decadent snack, but a tad doughy for my taste. And the final item—Lucy’s BBQ Burger ($6)—has good flavor, but the thin patty and whole wheat bun may be off-putting to local burger lovers.

The HH drink menu consists of three draft beers ($3), well drinks ($4), and house red, white, ros—, and sparkling ($4). I had a perfectly pleasant glass of Argentinean Malbec that was earthy and full of ripe fruit.

Lucy’s Table may not be new or terribly inventive, but she’s a solid reminder that sometimes restaurants stick around for good reason.

Happy Hours: Mon-Sat, 5-6pm

Address: 704 NW 21st Ave

Add a Comment »

Tags: Happy Hour, Northwest Portland Dining, American Cuisine, pasta

5 questions for: hot, young talent ALEX YODER

Olympic Provisions’ executive chef chats about cookbooks, trends, and choice places to eat.

Posted by: Anna Sachse on Mar 21, 2011 at 11:00AM 0 Comments

Alex Yoder was literally born to cook in Portland. Raised in a Northeast neighborhood by a family of cooks, he found his calling while working at Ashland’s venerable Chateaulin during college, but then returned to his hometown where he worked his way up from line cook to Café Castagna sous chef under then-executive chef Kevin Gibson, followed by a similar path at Clyde Common. In December, he followed in the footsteps of his former CC boss, Jason Barwikowski, taking the helm at Olympic Provisions.

Plopping down in a place that’s already notable—and replacing a chef with a known and respected reputation—may seem a little daunting. But so far this top spot transition has been pretty seamless, an all the more impressive feat because it comes at a time when the Eastside eatery is opening a new outpost (Olympic Provisions Northwest, scheduled for early-to-mid-April), launching an online store, and expanding their fresh and cured flesh line to include the likes of bacon, kielbasas, coppa, pancetta, and more.

Here, Yoder gives us a little insight into his own culinary style and makes us hungry.

1) We’re gonna start with a two-parter: A. In what ways are you making your mark on the Olympic Provisions menu? And, B. Can you give us an example of a perfect OP meal from start to finish?

The food I’m cooking is all about focus and big flavors, with just one or two highly flavorful components to each dish. An example would be our whole-roasted sardines with a mixed olive tapenade.

As for the perfect Olympic Provisions meal, it must start with a charcuterie plate. After that I would enjoy a toasted farro salad with mint and feta cheese, followed by squid sautéed with chorizo and corona beans—the squid is fresh and stays very tender… it’s really nice right now. As for what to drink with your meal, when I’m sampling a lot of different flavors, I don’t worry too much about pairing. My advice is to drink what you like. And for me, right now, that would be Barbera D’Alba.

2) Beginning in April, you’re going to start doing a special monthly menu that focuses on a particular region—can you give us a few highlights from the premiere performance?

The first region I’m going to feature in the series is Murcia in Southeastern Spain. This region is recognized throughout Europe for its pristine fruits, vegetables, and seafood. I am definitely going to make a cold shrimp and mussel salad with capers and Spanish olive oil. But the real highlight will be a dish called Arroz con Costra, which translates to “Rice with a Crust.” It’s a too-good-to-be-true sounding combination of rice, blood sausage, white sausage, and chicken, baked underneath a golden dome of fluffy whipped eggs.

3) We went ahead and labeled you a hot, young talent, thus we’d love to know what’s driving your culinary thinking right now?

The big thing exciting me right now is preserving. Oregon has amazing bounty for much of the year but it can get pretty lean in the winter. (By April I don’t even want to look at a sunchoke!) So, the challenge is to translate that bounty into great cooking and eating year-round. This goes beyond making pickles and jam. For examples, it means preserving peppers and tomatoes to use as ingredients all year as well. Preserving will be a major part of what the Olympic Provisions kitchen will be up to this spring and summer.

4) We hear you’re a fan of cookbooks—which ones are your current favorites?

I will always love the Zuni Café Cookbook by Judy Rogers because of her obsessive attention to detail. She trains her young cooks to taste stock every hour so as to track how its flavor evolves. Genius. I also adore Vegetarian Cooking For Everyone by Deborah Madison. Her vegetarian dishes honor tradition and never lack flavor, and she tells you how to cook a cardoon! Right now I am re-reading John Thorne’s Pot On The Fire—it’s not a cookbook, but it does include excellent recipes. Thorne is the most thoughtful food writer of all time as far as I’m concerned.

5) So, you grew up here in Portland—where did you love eating as a youngster, and where do you dine now when you actually have the time?

I grew up going to Nicholas, Pambiche, and Escape from New York Pizza, and when the grandparents visited, they would take me to the Ringside. I still go to all those places. These days, though, my favorite things to eat for lunch are duck soup at Good Taste Noodle House, and anything Kevin is cooking at Evoe. My favorite things for dinner are the whole steamed bass at Ocean City Seafood Restaurant, and mussels and fries at Laurelhurst Market. I grew up in Laurelhurst so perhaps I’m biased, but I think they’re cooking very well over there.

Add a Comment »

Tags: Southeast Dining, Interview, five questions, Northwest Portland Dining, charcuterie

Happy Hour of the Week: Temple Bar

Knob Hill’s Indish is reborn is a whiskey & classic cocktail lounge, with a budget-friendly (and worthy) Happy Hour menu to boot.

Posted by: Anna Sachse on Mar 16, 2011 at 08:55AM 1 Comments

The Temple Bar’s puréed mustard greens & house-made cornbread, with sautéed peppers ($4).

Have you ever had a real martini? I’m talking the pre-prohibition recipe that combines gin and vermouth, and is stirred (never shaken!) with a dash of bitters and a twist of lime. It’s a silky-smooth, slightly viscous concoction (shaking forms tiny ice crystals rather than the liquid velvet of stirring) where the botanical flavors of the gin and the herbaceous vermouth serve to make each other sing, almost like a refreshing alcoholic tea, and that harsh kick you get from the improperly prepared vodka version is nothing but an unpleasant memory. As my martini-loathing husband put it, “I could easily down six of these!”

We recently sampled this American icon—and received an awesome impromptu education about its history, bitters’ eventual fall from grace, and how what we now call a vodka “martini” was once referred to as a Kangeroo and only gained popularity during WWII—from Raj Sharma, owner of The Temple Bar (305 NW 21st Ave). Open for business about two weeks ago, this “new” watering hole is actually a speedy refashioning of Nob Hill’s urban-chic-take-on-the-traditional-Indian-restaurant, Indish.

“We really just tossed some things in different places and changed the focus,” Sharma told us, after explaining that his love (an understatement) for single malts and the beverages of yore inspired the transition.

The result is an airy, sexy whisky bar and classic cocktail lounge (think Indish’s low, cushy couches placed in intimate arrangements) with a more booze and pig-friendly menu and a heftier Happy Hour, available Tues-Sun, from 4-6pm. That HH menu includes at least seven cocktails ($5-$6), ranging from truly traditional renderings to inspired flights of fancy, such as a spicy-hot Whiskey Sin (whisky, cinnamon, fresh lime, and what I assume is chili) or the Chai Cocktail built with house-made chai. They also offer a selected single malt scotch of the day for $7.50, house wines ($5) and a range of beers ($3-$4.50).

I wondered how the Indian-inflected small plates menu would work with all of this, and the answer is surprisingly well—maybe it’s because the tasty nature of the food itself can stand alone, or maybe it’s just that it’s unique in a city where Northwest twists on Southern comfort food are taking over menus like the Nothing from The NeverEnding Story.

Prices range from $2 for a bowl of flavorful (if perhaps a bit unpleasantly wet with lime) spiced peanuts, to a $7 pulled pork sandwich topped with a tamarind barbeque sauce. A hearty lamb wrap ($6) on a light, chewy flatbread with mint chutney is a great twist on fill-you-up pub fare, as is the sweet-salt combo of the chickpea-battered bacon bites.

But the numerous vegetarian options are the real standouts here. A hot, flaky, melt-in-your-mouth biscuit ($5) filled with thick hunks of caramelized paneer and surrounded by a creamy, spicy tomato sauce and herb chutney inspires hogging more than your fair share. The same can be said for two cornbread dishes (both $4). The base itself is light, earthy, egg-y, and carefully crisped on the outside. One dish is topped with salty, buttery, creamy mustard greens, balanced with the sweet tang of sautéed peppers. The other is atop a rich lentil stew flecked with red beans and alive with ginger and umami flavor. Delicious.

It’s a Happy Hour menu that easily inspires a return visit. Although the chance to chat with Sharma is reason enough.

Add a Comment »

Tags: Happy Hour, Cocktails, Whiskey, Northwest Portland Dining, Indian Cuisine

P Town’s Top Three Cheese Plates

It was a fattening job, but someone had to do it—we ferreted out three of the city’s most swoon-worthy cheese plates for your sampling pleasure. You’re welcome.

Posted by: Anna Sachse on Feb 23, 2011 at 09:00AM 4 Comments

Steve’s Cheese Bar: Cow, Goat, Sheep

View Slideshow » Illustration:

Steve’s Cheese Bar: Cow, Goat, Sheep

View Slideshow » Illustration:

The Sapphire Hotel: (from top) Raw Cow, Raw Goat, Brie

View Slideshow » Illustration:

Bar Mingo: Cow, Sheep, Goat

Stick me on a desert island and the one food I’d probably request is cheese. From a simple slice of deli provolone to a nutty manchego to a rank roquefort, I love cheese. I’ll even admit that I used to melt Tillamook cheddar on my leftover pad thai when I was a teen.

Lucky for me, I now live in a town that is almost as fromage-obsessed as I am—delectable examples dot pizza and pasta, are shaved over salads, and find themselves smeared on sandwiches, but the purest presentation, of course, is the hallowed cheese plate.

Portland may offer a plethora of these smelly, salty, creamy, dreamy plated trios, but here, dear readers, I have narrowed them down to my top three. My selection process was far from scientific and I won’t even pretend that I’ve partaken of every cheese plate in town, so I happily invite folks to comment and tell me why I am wrong.

Cheese Bar (6031 SE Belmont St)

It’s a spare space at the base of Mt. Tabor, but proprietor Steve Jones is the man about town for just plain tasty American artisan cheese—and just about every other cheese on the planet, too.

On my recent foray, the ever-changing Cheese Plate (high marks for range and portion size; wish there were more condiments and the crostini weren’t razor sharp; $9) included Curio Bay Pecorino (a sheep cheese from New Zealand), Tomme des Bois Noirs (a raw goat from southern France), and Schmidhauser Le Cousin, a slab of raw cow produced by one cousin in Switzerland and aged by another in France. This last cheese was Steve’s “favorite cheese in the case” that day, and I could see why—it’s a harder cheese, but with a creamy mouth-feel and tons of rich, almost buttery umami flavor followed by a slight kick. The pecorino was also delicious—firm texture, almost crystal-y, but not at all dry, with a salty, uber-mild flavor. The dense, herbaceous goat, which was almost gelatinous or spongy in texture, had a slight bitter tang reminiscent of olive juice, and paired well with the pear chutney, as the sweet spice balanced the muskiness.

Bonus: an extensive selection of boutique beers and food-friendly wines, and a short menu, including awesome sandwiches like the raclette mixed with potatoes, mashed, and spread on wheat levain, covered with crisp cornichons, and grilled to gooey, tangy perfection ($5).

The Sapphire Hotel (5008 SE Hawthorne Blvd)

Supposedly a former place of business for ladies of the night, this warm, dark den now peddles a near-perfect Cheese Platter, which, at $15, is worth every penny.

Like many establishments in town, the cheese itself comes from none other than Steve Jones. Sapphire offers five—you get to pick three. I selected the creamy, earthy French brie (served warm and drizzled with an addictive balsamic reduction), Fairview Farm “Carried Away” (a firm, sour, and slightly sweet raw goat from Dallas, Oregon), and Rockhill Creamery Belvedere Tomme, a firm, salty, pungent, and ripe raw cow from Richmond, Utah. They were all tremendous on their own, but the real magic of this platter is the perfectly toasted bread and exploring the way the cheeses interact with the cornucopia of accompaniments—purple grapes, pear, granny smith, dried black figs, candied walnuts, and a bulb of roasted garlic. The buttery brie is elevated by the sour-sweet grapes, the goat is enhanced by the tart apple and mellowed by the garlic, and the flavor of the raw cow is exaggerated by the sweet pear and figs.

Bonus: Amazing service from a battery of friendly, knowledgeable hipster chicks who lack pretension of any kind.

Bar Mingo (807 NW 21st Ave)

I crave this Cheese Plate ($8) for three reasons: the unnamed cast of characters always includes one cow, one sheep, and one goat; it comes with two slices of a divine pressed-fig “salami;” and the cow always gets a drizzle of wildflower honey.

Alas, on my recent visit the cow was a French triple cream that was denser, darker, and muskier than it has been in the past. When the triple cream is a sweet, white, liquid delight, it positively sings with the honey; but in this case it fell a little flat. However, the salty, mild, smooth, almost creamy sheep pecorino was the perfect dance partner for the fig, and the soft Humboldt Fog goat was (no surprise here) the best on the plate. Always a goodie, this rich, sweet, earthy treat fills your mouth like a fine wine and pairs well with the fig, turning it into something new, almost like a caramel-y dessert.

Bonus: They offer Happy Hour every day from 4-6pm—try the cheese plate for five bucks.

Honorable Mention: Liberty Glass (938 North Cook St). It’s unlikely you’ll find a plate more rustic—and you’ll (tomato) relish every bite!

Add a Comment »

Tags: Southeast Dining, Northwest Portland Dining, Cheese, The Best

Happy Hour of the Week: Gilt Club

The HH menu at this relaxed-glam Old Town cocktail den needs a little shaking, or maybe just a stir.

Posted by: Anna Sachse on Feb 21, 2011 at 10:30AM 0 Comments

The Happy Hour “angry deviled eggs” ($2).

Basing my judgment of the book solely upon its cover, I was a fan of the Gilt Club (306 NW Broadway) from the first time I entered its Grenache-and-gold-hued throwback-swank innards. I liked that there was lots of high-backed, crimson-cushioned seating, I liked the crowd (no body shots, here!), and I liked the eclectic music, played at a respectable level that didn’t require shrieking at one’s companions. In fact, it had me at plentiful parking.

That said, it’s been quite a while since I paid this Old Town lounge a visit—not since chef Chris Carriker came on board. In recent months, the Gilt Club has guest starred on Meat & Potatoes and Portlandia, and Carriker will be cooking at the James Beard House in March. I’d also heard word that the Happy Hour (M-F, 5-6:30pm) has proven popular with the Pearl District crowd, so I decided it was time to quell my GC dry spell.

My verdict: A+ for the space, style, service, and prices (everything is $5 or less, including 12 items on the regular menu); B- for execution.

For starters, the online HH menu that had gotten me all hot-and-bothered didn’t match the actual menu. This is no big deal in-and-of itself, but the actual menu simply wasn’t as good—less options and no house-made “Cracker Jacks”—foie popcorn and glazed peanuts drizzled with caramel. The gist of the actual menu appeared to be gourmet takes on HH classics ($4 turkey wings, $3 breaded and fried pig tails, $2 warmed hazelnuts), which, again, isn’t a bad thing at all; however, with a few exceptions, the finger fare itself was ho-hum.

The popcorn shrimp ($4) with warm butter, for example, had a great presentation piled on actual popcorn, but it was overly-breaded and the popcorn seemed stale. The radicchio salad ($3) was doused in a tasty, rich, garlicky dressing, but it came with a cured meat that wasn’t on the menu and the croutons were reminiscent of Marie Callender’s. And the burger ($5)—the hockey-puck quarter-pound patty was dwarfed by a giant bun, and the bland meat was further lost among the intense flavors of blue cheese and Dijon.

On the positive side, the French fries ($3) are pretty much perfect, and this is no faint praise, as I am not typically a fry fan. Thin, crispy, and salty, you can actually taste the potato itself—I never even considered sullying them with aioli or ketchup, and I couldn’t stop shoving them in my mouth. Another highlight was the angry deviled eggs ($2). The yolks are mixed with crème fraiche and chilis, which yields a fabulously creamy, subtly tangy, gently spicy bite of delight. The HH wine, a Côtes du Rhône ($5; they give you whatever they happen to have a lot of), was also lovely, and the extensive regular cocktail menu, broken up into signature, vintage, savory/herbal, winter, and sweeter options, reads like booze porn.

The place was packed with dinner diners by the time we were done, so I wonder if, perhaps, the HH menu simply hasn’t been a priority, or maybe I just ventured in on an unsteady day. I hope so. I’d really like the Gilt Club to be the kind of book I want to read, not simply look at the pictures.

Add a Comment »

Tags: Happy Hour, Cocktails, Pearl District Dining, Northwest Portland Dining

Chef Q & A: Chris Carriker

The Gilt Club’s executive chef waxes dietetic about the Food Network’s visit to the glitzy edge-of-the-Pearl District lounge.

Posted by: Anna Sachse on Oct 27, 2010 at 08:30AM 0 Comments

Chef Chris Carriker’s carnivorous cuisine reigns supreme on cable this Friday

Be sure to get your TGIF drinking done early this week so that you can slip on your sweat pants, settle in on the couch, and watch the Gilt Club’s executive chef Chris Carriker put Portland on the meaty map in a new Food Network series, Meat & Potatoes. Hosted by chef and self-proclaimed meat nerd Rahm Fama (apparently he grew up cattle ranching), the show stampedes around the country looking for the choicest cuts and the top eateries to find fleshy fare. The upcoming episode is titled “Midnight Meat” and makes stops in Los Angeles and New York, as well as P(ork) Town, to satisfy hearty late-night cravings.

Located at 306 Northwest Broadway, the Gilt Club serves up fancy cocktails featuring house-infused liquors and their full dinner menu from 5 p.m. to 2 a.m., Monday through Saturday. That’s right—instead of Taco Bell, you could be closing out the night with a Le Gilt Royale—10 oz of Painted Hills ground beef with peppered bacon, Vella jack cheese, and foie gras aioli, served with pork rinds.

Here, Carriker is kind enough to chat with us about meat, TV, and his experience with both.

1) Can you give us an amuse-bouche about what we can expect to see in your Meat & Potatoes appearance?

First we show Rahm Fama our house-made pork rinds. Then we move on to a dish we call Quail in a Jar, which is quail slow-cooked in a jar with vegetables and a meat glaze, and served on bacon-liver toast. Finally, we share our bresaola-rubbed beef shoulder tender served with grilled asparagus, bordelaise, and bone marrow.

2) What was it like filming with the meat MC himself—do you feel like you learned anything from him?

Did I learn anything… Well, to be blunt—No. But he was a very lovely host who knew how intrusive the filming process can be, especially in a small kitchen like the one we have at The Gilt Club. He kept trying to speed up the process and had a good sense of humor while doing it. For me, however, filming was stressful. Sure, it was fun and games for the first couple of hours, but then I had to get ready for a Friday night and the filming process kept dragging on. Of course, after all was said and done, I had fun and I would do it again.

3) What are the key carnivore-friendly items on your menu that we should be eating right now?

Sooooooo much to choose from…hmmm…. I would say start with the roasted bone marrow with parsley salad. Then, the bison carpaccio with pickled chanterelles. Next have the braised rabbit with chestnut crêpes, house-made ricotta, and coastal huckleberries. And to finish, either have the foie gras with honeycomb, or the bone marrow doughnuts with house preserves. I mean, I just gave you a menu starting in bone marrow and ending in bone marrow—how could that go wrong?

4) Since joining The Gilt Club in June, 2009, what do you think you’ve brought to the table?

I’ve been trying to bring a different approach to the food than the one that had been there previously. My goal is to make the food match the quality of the drinks and also the name—I always felt that The Gilt Club should have food that is “Gilt-y” i.e. “guilty.” The menu should have some dishes that are over the top… rich and decadent… You know—something that would make the Romans proud. But at the same time keep things accessible.

5) What’s your favorite food porn program right now?

I guess it would be No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain. Why? Because of his attitude and the show’s straightforward approach. Plus, he does it without all the fake lip-smacking noises and orgasmic moans with every bite that are common in other food programs. Other than that, when I get off work I have a hard time watching other people cook.

Add a Comment »

Tags: Portland Chefs, five questions, Hometown Pride, Pearl District Dining, Northwest Portland Dining