ExtraMSG

This thread doesn't include my second visit, the visit with PortlandFood.org. My first visit was much worse than my second. You can find that here: http://www.portlandfood.org/modules.php?na...=viewtopic&t=17 I largely agreed with Jill-O's take. After two visits, one by myself, and one with a large enough group to get to try a lot of items, my thinking is that they're inconsistent. Sometimes their stuff works, sometimes it doesn't. Most often, though, the stuff is just mediocre. My problem is really with the stuff that doesn't work. That "braised" ham I had my first time was *bad*. If I want bad food, I can go to any of a million chains in the suburbs. And honestly, what I'd get would be better than that ham. If I'm going to call a restaurant good, it can't have *bad* dishes. Or it has to be a real rarity. I thought the potato terrine was bad as well. So are several of the vegetable dishes there, imo. It's not that I think the place isn't worth going to, it's just that I'd want to know what all the dishes were and taste test them first before I ordered. Also, I'm not a fan of the vibe or service. On both visits I felt like I was entering a clubhouse or a part of high school where I didn't know anyone. It just didn't feel friendly or inviting. I should add, though, given the choice, I would go to Tabla or Noble Rot before going to Navarre. And since all three are close, that'd be an easy thing to do.

Luckily, I keep a menu from just about everywhere I eat. It is the miang pla tu for $7. It's on the appetizer list. Never had it. Sounsd like you need to join our curry club, whippy. On PortlandFood.org, we're going to try to start organzing a regular lunch, and possibly dinner, crew to go to Indian, Thai, and Tibetan places. My current favs are: Cha Ba, Sukhothai, Arawan, Thai Little Home, Khun Pics, and either Lemongrass or Typhoon. Each of these last two has their advantages, and though clearly not trying to be too authentic, I think they make tasty stuff. There are so many places, though, and more popping up all the time. It's impossible to throw a rock and not be in eyesight of a Thai or Vietnamese restaurant in Portland right now. btw, the first few times I tried to find Khun Pic's I passed it right by. It's a tiny entryway, totally hidden. Reminds me of Chez Panisse, where if you weren't going out of your way to look for it, you'd never notice there's a restaurant there.

Thanks for the detailed report, Trillium. Glad you liked it. Too bad they're not doing the curries from scratch. When I asked, they said they did, but there could have been a language barrier or maybe it depends on the curry. There probably isn't much reason to do a red curry from scratch. (I do think green curries gain *a lot* when done from scratch, though.) I don't know authentic, but they seem to be a step above most places in PDX. There'a freshnes to what they do, also often an intensity and balance that many other places just don't quite have. btw, I might as well report on our PortlandFood.org outing while I'm thinking of it. Last week, nearly 20 of us piled into Sukhothai for a feast. You can see some pictures here: http://www.extramsg.com/modules.php?set_al...=view_album.php I tried to indicate which dishes weren't on the menu. I think everyone really enjoyed it. I think the proprieters of Sukhothai are from Chiang Mai and may be at least somewhat ethnically Laotian. But I don't know for sure. Anyway, we had over a dozen dishes, all family style, and there was actually food leftover which bottomless guts like myself kept picking at, causing me to have to unbutton a button on the drive home, I was so bloated. Several of the dishes were off-menu, and it figures, they were usually some of the best. eg, there was a young banana flour and chicken stew, not sure of the proper name, that was excellent, with a great balance of flavor and a lot of depth and high notes as well. I almost missed that dish and then was so happy when I found it and got to eat the rest of the plate of it. They made a Thai sausage of some sort, I believe pork, for us that was seriously excellent. It was served with chilies, cilantro, and, I believe, young ginger. I ate more than my share. Screw everyone else. I kept grabbing slices off the plate. There was a kow soi (sp?) -- a yellow curry with fried bean threads and other bits that was quite tasty. One of the better curries I've had anywhere, I'd say. Very good. I think it might have been the favorite of most people. I don't think it's on the menu, either. Oh, and a green mango salad with soft-shell (I think) crab that was excellent. Their som tum was tasty, but I liked this salad even more. Those were my favorites of the night and I think all of them are off-menu! Ugh! With all that food, our bill only came out to $18/person with tip, so we made it $20 even per person, which I thought was a good thing. They were so hospitable and did such a great job. Trillium, this might be a place to try on a slow night, like a Tuesday, and talk to the owners/chef and encourage them to authenticize your meal, maybe even just create something special for you.

And yet, we in Portland have 3 out of their 4 locations.

That's essentially what my churro dough is. I don't know that there's any substantive difference, although most choux recipes I've seen are more eggy, which I don't personally like.

I think you need to practice your zen.

I think it's more important for the judges to be enthusiastic about food than be familiar with it, and they should let them and encourage them to describe why they like or don't like it. Anyone else notice that there was very little negative said? You usually get one or two comments from the panel on ICJ saying why it didn't work or whatever. I'd be interested to hear what the producers say to the panel before and during the show. I hope they encourage them to be honest and really say what they think and expound on why they feel that way. (Of course, then the editors have to leave it in.)

For Mexican "authenticity", corn oil or lard, too, possibly. btw, I made them at my dad's house the other night with my 4 year old niece "helping". I did them in olive oil (that's all they had) and because I didn't have a thermometer and the lower smoke point, they browned way quicker. The result wasn't as good because by the time they were very brown they weren't quite as crispy on the outside. Glad they worked for you!

I really do wish they would break out the scoring, especially if some judges are choosing the "challenger". It'd make it feel like it wasn't a route. I'm hoping Puck gets beat. I think it would look very suspicious if Morimoto loses two battles in a row. Afterall, he's a lot more familiar with the one hour format than Puck is. Batali, at least, has his half-hour show where he cooks and talks like a Tasmanian devil, plus he's working with his own chefs. Flay has done the show twice before. Puck, though....I don't get the sense he seriously cooks much in his restaurants anymore, plus he has a leisurely show, and he's never competed in the format.

I think you're confusing the roles, here. The floor reporter isn't meant to truly know anything. The ICJ floor reporter is even more "clueless" than the ICA one. AB's job (and the producer on the headset talking to AB) are the people supposed to know something. In fact, in ICJ there are many more "clueless" people talking during the battle -- the play-by-play announcer, the panel, the reporters. In some ways, I think ICA may be trying too hard to let us know what everything is and what's going on.

I actually wanted to try the Sakai and Flay dishes much more than the Batali and Morimoto dishes.

Mags, I agree with you except here. On the old show, Sakai often used luxury ingredients to excess. I can remember him using foie gras, truffles, and caviar all on the same show, maybe on the same dish.

I agree with you, but I will say that the floor guy seemed to be a lot more active than in the first battle. I thought that AB and the Floor Guy did a much better job in the second episode. That'd be interesting if it was actually the first episode filmed. The judges still were rather useless. Occasionally they say something interesting, but I also get the feeling that the editors need to let them speak a little more. The editors treat them like sources for pull-out quotes for a movie commercial: "It's greeeeat!" -- J Peterman, actor with really cool voice. Let them give a full description of why they like it. I swear they cut them off in mid sentence a couple times. I also think it would be nice if they added some intros to the chefs and ingredients in post. That's a nice thing about ICJ. I wanted to know more about those trout, eg. Tell me what makes spiny lobster special. Etc.

My wife and I said screw the diets, Hawaii can suffer our fat, white, cheesy asses, we're going out, and we did so at clarklewis this evening. First of all, the big question: is it the best restaurant in Portland? No. However, in the same way Noble Rot received its honor from the Willamette Week, I can understand the honor for clarklewis. It's representative of a trend and style that deserves honor, and it's leading the way in that style in Portland. I'll make some of the same caveats that the Oregonian did. It is certainly noisy. The unfinished, industrial nature of the space has nothing to dampen the noise, not to mention the occasional train. The chairs are terrible. If you have back problems, bring your own. Really. My ass hasn't been so sore since I did six hours of miserable horseback riding in Wyoming. Not only are the seats uncomfortable, but they're too small for any real food lover's behind. However, the food is good, the menu is good, and the format is good. Because you can order almost any item in small, large, or family size portions, my wife and I tried 3 starters, a pasta, 3 entrees, and 2 desserts. A mountain of food that came out to $75. They also offer a fixed price option (chef's choice) of 3 to 4 courses for $30. For starters, we ordered the peasant salad ($6), crostone ($7), and soup ($3). For pasta, we chose the whole wheat ($8). For entrees, we had the swordfish ($11), beef ($12), and the squab ($13). Finally, for desserts, selected the chocolate tart ($8) and the panna cotta ($6). The peasant salad was a mix of chicories, house cured pancetta, and walnuts, with a balsamic vinaigrette. The house cured pancetta was quite tasty. I kept eating the pieces alone to try to identify the interesting subtle flavor. It was almost anisey. I think the walnuts might have been slightly candied. It was also topped with cheese shavings, probably a parmesan. The crostone was a crispy piece of bread topped with asparagus and a runny poached egg with sage brown butter and balsamic. It also had a little grated cheese, I think. Very good. The richness of the egg was a perfect compliment to the asparagus, salty cheese, and balsamic. The soup was good, too, though possibly the only thing under-salted (most things might have been a little over-salted since I actually thought they were about right). It was a puree of carrot, garnished with mint and prosecco, possibly a reduction, possibly as part of the puree itself, adding a little tanginess. Simple, but good. The whole wheat pasta came in the form of pappardelle dressed in truffled pork sugo. I have mixed feelings about this dish, though you should note that I'm not often a big fan of pasta. To me it's a side. But this was tasty, I just don't know that the sauce had much depth. It had a nice truffly flavor and porkiness, but it didn't have a very rounded flavor and was a bit salty. However, I felt like finishing it, it just was a bit too pastaroni-ish, ultimately. That's a bit unfair since the pasta is obviously much better quality house-made stuff -- and it had truffle flavor. But the flavors weren't rounded and it was salty. The swordfish was amazingly juicy. Can you brine swordfish? It came grilled topped with a "sicilian preserved blood orange salsa". I didn't notice the orange too much, but the salsa was quite good with golden raisins and pine nuts and a tanginess. It also came with a grilled scallion. A truly small portion, maybe 3 ozs at most with a very small side, but it was quite good. The beef was on the edge of being fabulous. With just a little more depth in the sauce, I think it would have been. As it was, it was still very good with a strong beefy piece of braised, tender meat in a rich porcini-red wine sauce. On the side were some tasty dark sauteed or braised greens. The best dish of the night was the squab. It was well seasoned and "hearth roasted", with a nice, crispy skin. The sauce was what put this over the top and made it fabulous. It came with dried mission figs in some sort of rich, tangy (the menu says aged balsamic) sauce. It pleasantly excited all parts of the tongue. I kept scooping up forkful after forkful of the stuff, and dipping in the little leg bones and sucking off the sauce. Mmm. This was also a pretty small portion with almost no side, especially at $13. The desserts were the only strongly disappointing thing about the meal. To have a claim at the truly best restaurant in Portland, I think they have to work on the pastry menu. The chocolate tart was quite bitter with a dagoba chocolate ganache and orange caramel sauce and hazelnuts. The menu said candied hazelnuts, but I think they were just roasted. There was very little orange sauce. And without the hazelnuts being candied there wasn't anything to balance the tart, the chocolate of which was left rather unsweetened. The texture of the tart was excellent. But the flavors weren't balanced and the portion was quite small, just a small slice with some whipped cream on top. The panna cotta was slightly better. Lemon-flavored, the custard came with a pine nut biscotti on the side and a tangy sauce. It was decent, again quite small, but decent. Custards aren't my favorite desserts, but I've had enough panna cottas at places like French Laundry to know a good one when I taste one. The was decent, but certainly not even close to the realm of the best I've had. The desserts are very simple, which is fine. But I think it's very important to balance flavors and textures, especially with simple desserts. There's a restaurant-within-a-restaurant in Dallas, Lola's Tasting Room which does this to perfection. You can read my report of a visit there here (which includes a panna cotta that was fantastic): http://www.chowhound.com/southwest/boards/...sages/7440.html Overall, a very good addition to Portland. There is a clear style here, like a small plates Chez Panisse or Oliveto, with no loss of Portland character, including thrift-store clad staff. In fact, I'm not sure if it was a result of the Oregonian article, but it was quite an interesting juxtaposition of the thrift-store clad, long-hair male staff, short-hair women staff in an industrial, unfinished room in contrast to the button-up plaid, long-sleeve shirted men and sweater around the neck women with big rocks in beamers as patrons. I wore shorts. Give it a try. I'll be interested to hear what everyone thinks. Just bring a butt donut.

Thanks. If any of you come up with improvements or variations or inventions, you should definitely post them!

I think it's good that AB added judgments about the food. They always did on ICJ. It adds character. btw, didn't Sakai do a custard? I thought it was something they might have added in post from AB.

I think it's some out-of-the-box system used by several other newspapers as well. Whatever it is, it certainly does suck. Compare it to the Portland Tribune's, which certainly has less traffic, but is quite speedy.

It's also possible that the floor guy is looking across from the other side of the stadium and can only say, "Sakai is putting something, I'm not sure what, into the a pot right now." Whereas AB has a closeup on the monitor and can say, "That's daikon". Or whatever.

I agree, Chris. Some people had complaints about Brown, but I thought he added excitement to it. I don't know how much of that was filler and how much was live, but he seemed to be on top of things and constantly correcting the guy on the floor. I think we need someone with a more distinct voice than the guy on the floor and he should probably bug the chefs a bit more like they did on the old show. I do think an audience might be helpful. It's weird that when they come out there's no applause. I just wouldn't want the audience of Americans we got in Japan when Flay went. They were a little too rowdy. We need a good golf crowd that yells "You're the man" every once in a while, but isn't constantly heckling or holding up "John 3:16" signs and painting their face. I think a woman sidekick to Alton that also has a nice balance of knowledge and humor would be a good fit. Or maybe just getting the panelists involved and asking questions here and there and acting all surprised when the chefs do something or other. That way there's a little more emotion. People complained about Alton "waiting for someone else to speak", but I actually thought it came across frantic, like he was having a tough time getting in everything there was to say. He commented way more than on the ICJ, where people generally are giggling and joking about something when Ohta breaks in: "Fukui-san!" It can use some tweaking, but it's light years ahead of the USA version, which was all flash and faux drama, without the substance. This one has substance and drama (the unveiling of those flopping trout, the fact that PETA is probably pissed at watching Flay throw one around and then dispatch its head with a cleaver, was fun). It just needs a little more time to come into its own and be tweaked a little, I think. If you saw the very early ICJs, they're a little raw here and there, too. Most shows are (few TV shows, even ones with huge popularity, like Seinfeld and The Simpsons, start out great from the beginning). I think the one thing I would do immediately, if I were the producer, would be to spend some time with the panel training them to speak descriptively about food. It's always tough, especially when trying to say good things about food. But it's very important and ICJ was always good at that, even if it came across hokey on first viewing.

btw, people ripped on Flay's presentations versus Sakai's. They tied in the scoring on presentation. I actually liked Flay's more. Flay's were more bold presentations, using the cast iron skillet, coconut and dried spices, and the whole fried trout. Maybe they just translated to TV better. Except for the trout ice cream, I didn't think Sakai was pushing the envelope. I really thought they about tied there, too. Besides, the trout ice cream obviously wasn't something the panel enjoyed. Even Sakai knew it was primarily weird, judging from his jokes. Originality for originality's sake isn't necessarily a good thing. It should be in the service of flavor. And originality for its own sake will almost never please an American palate. We're a pragmatic country. We like things to work, not just be cool, in general. (I think that's a good thing.) As for taste, who knows unless you were there. The ice cream alone could have cost Sakai the two points. I, too, would like to see it broken out by person. Who doesn't love to look back at ICJ and say, "oh, that bitch Kishi is making the difference for the iron chef, again..."? I agree with Chris about the home court advantage. I don't think the foreign palate proved itself any more adventurous on ICJ. eg, when they went to France, the French judges voted straight down the line for the French chefs and the Japanese judges voted straight down the line for the Japanese chefs. That's part of what made it so impressive when people from the west won in Kitchen Stadium. (And, a bit off-topic, but what's this BS about Americans thinking stuff slathered is haute? The standard in the US is probably towards too much simplicity and just letting the ingredients speak for themselves. Are you saying that the Chinese and French, eg, like their haute foods less slathered?)

She lost me, and all credibility, right here.

i was amazed. although, i think he's playing dumb. a little too dumb for, say, *us*, but dumb nonetheless. they definitely need a giggling girl. I'm surprised you didn't mention the producer-lady in the "making of". A culinary hottie.

Um, did you guys ever watch the original? Baseball players, fortune tellers, actresses, sumos.... The reason the Japanese palates looked more exotic is because we're looking from the outside in at their ingredients. To them, corn is exotic. There were a lot of western cooks that lost because they didn't meet the palates of the locals. The local iron chefs should have an advantage. They're the home team. Ya bunch of pissy bastards.

Sandy, here's a link to Jim Dixon's post on clarklewis: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showto...7&hl=clarklewis Here's the Willamette Week's review: http://www.wweek.com/story.php?story=4870 Here's the Tribune's: http://www.portlandtribune.com/archview.cgi?id=22926

I haven't been in there as much lately, but there used to always be an attractive somewhat voluptuous part-time pastry chef working the counter that I had seen so many times she just gave me the nod. So I've certainly been there. What's bad, too, is that I always feel obligated to at least buy something small if I've spent hours bugging them. So it always costs me money to hang out. To keep this on topic: churros rock.