ExtraMSG

Indeed. If you're looking for a companion, I'll use any excuse to go out to eat.

I actually rather like some tofu dishes. Actually, reading this thread I have realized for the first time in my life that I like pretty much everything in some form or another. I know this should be a good thing but for some reason it's making me a bit sad. I'm sure there's something out there for me to hate, I just haven't found it yet I actually didn't choose any flavors that I hate, like ketchup, beef liver, or grapefruit. I consider those my problem. But tofu, chicken breast, and supermarket cheddar, all things I can enjoy if used properly, are, in their nature, evil, I think. Tofu is just anti-flavor and anti-texture. Chicken breast is the food for those that don't like anything. It's the Wonderbread of meat/poultry. Supermarket cheddar is much the same. They are evil.

TOFU Chicken Breast Supermarket Cheddar If you're not with flavor, you're against flavor...

When I was in Mexico City, we ate at every regional Mexican restaurant that came recommended (none of the alta cocina places, though) and though there were some good ones, nothing as good as Cafe Azul. Like I said, though, I've never been to Oaxaca. But if Cafe Azul can make better moles than you can get in Mexico City, that's a big enough compliment. I think I need to make a goodbye dinner in their honor....

Aren't these the same as the people on Broadway, or have they moved? I tried the place on Broadway for lunch and the vegetables were so obviously frozen it really turned me off to them. They had this nice little patio (I think this used to be Laslow's) and they tried on presentation, but the flavors were really mediocre. Too many other Thai places to try that I haven't gone back. We're working on getting that outing to Sukothai in April, probably a Tuesday. I'll keep you informed.

I just had a Thai cooking class and we made tod mun pla. Yum. And definitely Atkin's friendly. Try these I found googling: http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Plains/3644/todmun.html

btw, there's a Zupan's, a local gourmet grocery chain, in Jantzen on the east side of I-5, that might be interesting to go to. They're not the best local gourmet grocery chain, that'd be New Seasons, but they're decent.

Isn't mineral oil a laxative?

Okay, to give you a sense of where you'll be then.... Jantzen Beach is on an island between the main part of the Columbia separating Washington and Oregon and NW Portland. You're along one of the two major interstates that run N-S and box in Portland, I-5. I-5 runs down through the middle of Portland along the Willamette River which separates East and West Portland, although the land area of West is much smaller than East. Downtown Portland is on the west side between the west hills (probably mountains by East Coast standards ) and the river. Close-In East Portland is the area just on the east side of the river for about 30 or so blocks. Over the hills is Beaverton and Intel and Nike and lots of suburbs. There isn't much north of you in downtown Vancouver, unfortunately (except a decent movie theatre). I used to work down there and it's all rather mediocre. Your best bet there would be Thai at Thai Orchid, which is decent, but nothing special. It's not a dive, though, rather pleasant inside. I guess next to the theater is a Rose's Deli, which is okay deli food, but probably not that great compared to what you're used to in NY. But I bet they have Kosher items. Something to especially keep in mind for lunches or quick dinners. In Jantzen Beach itself, the best bets are Stanford's, a mid-range steak and wood oven/grill type place, BJ's, a deepish dish pizza and pub grub place that brews its own beer, and Newport Bay, a seafood restaurant. All three are local or regional chains and decent for what they do. At least, I consider them all a definite step up from chains like Friday's, Olive Garden, and Applebee's. However, Jantzen is maybe 5 miles from downtown Portland and near-in east Portland. You could get anywhere in these two areas in about 10 minutes, probably. I think you'll be just missing the opening of the interstate Max line which would have allowed you to just take light rail from the Expo center one exit south of JB. But evening traffic will mostly be going the opposite direction you'll be going. And Portland traffic is nothing like NY traffic. One thing you'll find is a lot of our restaurants don't seat that many people, however. A lot of our better restaurants have less than 20 tables. You can look through the recommendations for Portland, almost everything is in your range that will have been suggested probably. You're probably don't want to wind your way to Sellwood or anything farther east than about NE or SE 30th. You also want to avoid Beaverton, Tigard, or Hillsboro, but you won't find to many recs for there. I would highly, highly recommend Wildwood. It's in NW Portland (just north of downtown), one of our areas with the most decent restaurants and lots of funky and interesting nicer shops. They are the gold standard for NW cuisine in Portland. Until recently, my second choice would have been Cafe Azul, but they're gone now (sob, sob). Otherwise, check out this list I recently made: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=34996 Good luck.

There are two Doubletrees I know of. One is near the convention center in the Lloyd Center area of Portland and one is in Jantzen Beach, much farther away from downtown. Which one you're staying at will determine a lot. Also, how close is close? Will you guys have cars at all? If not, at Jantzen Beach you're pretty much stuck with the immediate area. With Lloyd Center, you'll have the lightrail line, which is free in that area, to access most of downtown if you wish. Finally, how cheap is cheap. NY and PDX have quite different relative scales. It's almost impossible to find an entree over $25 in Portland. 90% of restaurants don't have entrees regularly over $20. I guess one more: how strict on the Kosher thing? You could certainly find dishes that were pork free and didn't mix milk with meat -- that sort of thing. But there are few places in Portland that are truly Kosher. PS For Portland, this is not short notice. Short notice is the same week.

I hope you're right... looks like that's the way things are going to go. Off to the supermarket now to by more beer . Thanks to all for the help -- if anyone else has any thoughts, please post 'em. J This is actually dangerous. While the heat dissipates, in my experience, it only lessens its effects on the mouth, imo. However, it can still have....internal ramifications. I've made this mistake eating way too much of an item that used to be spicy thinking it wouldn't affect me. Would have paid top dollar for that freezer TP the next day. The potato thing can work. Just don't eat that potato. Otherwise, coming up with options to dilute or balance the heat are great options. Personally, I like sour cream, cheese, crackers, and the like.

That's what I said. I still haven't made a trip to Oaxaca, but I've searched out regional Mexican restaurants that were known for their food whenever I've gone to Mexico, and Cafe Azul was always better. Cafe Azul was also better than Topolo or Frontera, imo, and better than other places I've been in Texas and California that serve regional Mexican. I think it's quite natural that an American restaurant really devoted to making great Mexican comfort foods could do a better job than Mexican restaurants. It'd be easier to find people willing to pay the money for better quality ingredients. Although, I have heard, eg, from Diana Kennedy herself, that restaurants aren't the best representative of Mexican cooking, that too often people go out to eat in Mexico not for their grandmother's food. And so, eg, Kennedy said she almost never ate out in Mexico but instead ate at people's houses. I've never had that luxury.

Well, it does seem that there may be some science behind some folk wisdom. It seems that phenolics that are present in certain herbs and such may suppress some of the bacterial action in the lower gut. (The situation is that the oligosaccharides in beans are not digested in the upper GI tract and arrive in the lower as ample fodder for the bacteria there to do their thing.) So, addition of epizote by the Mexicans may have some merit if epizote has a lot of phenolics. I don't know. There is a gathering opinion that if you eat a lot of beans, your bacterial population will adjust and all will be well. What has me intensely curious is the test protocol and equipment used to test those astronauts. Enquiring minds want to know. Well, one more dream crushed. Thanks, fifi. I like baking beans. Start them on the stovetop with whatever tastes good in the ol' Le Creuset -- bacon, spices, aromatics. Cover with water and toss in the oven for a few hours. Salting is unimportant in my experiments except for flavor. Soaking is just a pain in the butt that adds nothing -- rather cook them a little longer in the same pot.

No, Portlanders, if anything, are probably in line with the detractors as a population. People here in general like rustic, comfort foods. And even our best places fight against anything architectural or conceptual in their presentations. I'm familiar with that type of food, but I've just never heard the term used to describe it -- or at least not paid attention when it was. I got burnt out on the term in college when it was quite overused along with "postmodern".

My reaction is that that's despicable on both counts. Critics depending on getting their meal comped face conflict-of-interest problems in rewieving objectively, restaurants comping them to try to bribe the reviewers are engaging in corruption that ill serves the dining public, and publications not reimbursing heavy expenses that their employees are required to pay also really bothers me. Actually - the way I think it works in most of the US that isn't "really big city" is that the critics spend their own money - but the publications (newspapers and magazines) get advertising dollars from the restaurants and don't want to offend them. At least that's the way it works where I live. There is a magazine called "Jacksonville Magazine". A reader wrote in a while back that it had published a glowing review of a truly terrible restaurant. The magazine responded that what it had published wasn't really supposed to be a "review" . Robyn I know lots of papers that essentially ignore restaurants that don't deserve good reviews. Otherwise they just have recommended restaurants and review those. I think this is especially true in local magazines and tabloid/weeklies. Interestingly, our local weekly, the Willamette Week, which does a better job of dining coverage in Portland than the big daily, The Oregonian, not to long back gave a place a bad review and that restaurant ended up taking out several large ads in a row in the dining section of the paper attacking the reviewer's comments. btw, what is deconstructionism in food? I'm familiar with it in its origin, language theory and philosophy, and a little bit in art, but not really in food. Given its philosophical meaning, I'm not even sure what it would mean, except as a buzz word.

Katherine, this is probably just pre-packaged meats, though, like whole turkeys and individually packed tenderloins, isn't it? Most of the meat I buy at the supermarket are just slabs of whatever. I don't even think the individually frozen pieces of chicken breast I buy are brined. I'd be really surprised if most of the meat at the supermarket is pre-brined. But maybe we're just shopping at different supermarkets.

Well - what do you reckon the number of meals/percentage ought to be? I don't know about this particular restaurant - but if I'm spending $100-200 for 2 on dinner (without liquor) - don't you think I ought to have a very high percentage chance of getting a really good meal? Like close to 100%? Everyone says "anyplace can have an off night". But if I'm the person who's out 200 bucks - that doesn't give me much consolation. I expect consistency in restaurants (particularly in those that charge a lot of money for the privilege of dining with them). Perhaps journalists dining with OPM can afford to eat a half dozen times in an expensive restaurant to determine if they will get one decent meal. As far as I'm concerned - if I spend 200 bucks and it sucks - that restaurant is out of the game. I would like a show of hands here. Who has spent more than $100 of his/her own money on a meal for 2 that sucked - and then returned to the same place 1 or more times to make sure that his/her initial impression of the place was correct. Robyn A good friend of mine that I go on food trips with occasionally recently returned to Gary Danko despite having had dissatisfactory service there on our trip. He even returned on his honeymoon because he had heard so many good things he wanted to give them another chance. The second visit was much better. One thing to consider is that a lot of quality restaurants will really feel ashamed if have a bad experience. If you tell them, they'll often try to make it up to you, comping you stuff, or even a whole other meal. The very top restaurants try very hard to make sure that every diner comes away pleased. But it is definitely true that every place has an off night. I've experienced it with places that are the favorite restaurant of people whose opinions I respect. Hell, I've sat at the same table with people who loved their meal, while I despised mine, but it wasn't that they couldn't recognize a bad meal, it was just that either I got unlucky or they got lucky (eg, dishes that matched the palate, etc). Look through reports on places like The French Laundry, Charlie Trotter's, and Le Bernadin and I'm sure you'll find plenty of legitimate complaints.

My reaction is that that's despicable on both counts. Critics depending on getting their meal comped face conflict-of-interest problems in rewieving objectively, restaurants comping them to try to bribe the reviewers are engaging in corruption that ill serves the dining public, and publications not reimbursing heavy expenses that their employees are required to pay also really bothers me. Would you say the same about book, music, and movie reviewers? I think that's pretty much the norm there from my experience with newspapers and magazines. It really is about the integrity of the reviewer.

alanamoana and jaz both had excellent suggetions. Three more: * Don't base your tasting judgments on hot food. It's much easier to taste lukewarm foods. * Take a drink of water to clear your palate before tasting. I think the mouth gets used to flavors and so this is generally good suggestion for tasting. * Give the salt a minute or so to dissolve into a sauce or whatever before tasting for salt.

It has to do with the space/time continuum thing... That's what happens when the site is temporally out of order. Clever.

As I've said elsewhere, Cafe Azul is the only Mexican restaurant that I've been to in the US that's better than what I've eaten in Mexico. Archibald kicks Bayless' ass.

Well, there are certainly some good options in the bay area, and a lot more of them than here. There has been a steady improvement, in my view, over the last few years in Portland. I think a lot of the newer places, like Cha Ba, Sukhothai, Tom Yum, E-San, and Arawan are more in line with what you get in SF and LA. I still don't know what truly authentic Thai tastes like. I'm waiting for Trillium to say the wonderful words: "Okay, I've found this Thai restaurant..." From what duckduck has said, we might get an opportunity for the folks at Sukhothai to make us a special off-menu meal of real, true, authentic Thai food, they stuff they're eating in the kitchen while we're eating our Westernized stuff in the dining room. If that happens, Trillium, I expect you to go, even if I have to pay.

http://www.oregonlive.com/search/index.ssf...oregonian?aldpl Only thing sadder than their demise is that I didn't even hear about it in time to get a last meal.

That's Khun Pic's, and yes, they take a while. Edit to add: I'm a little suspicious of people who are critical of Portland Thai restaurants. I can understand if people don't like it because of its lack of authenticity, but that's an issue more with them than the food (and it's not like Portland Thai is monolithic). But I don't think, eg, that Seattle is clearly any better for Thai food after having eaten at many of their most liked restaurants (still not Noodle Boat, however). I've eaten at well-respected Thai places in SF, Berkeley, and LA and don't see a big difference, either. Of course, it depends on what you're looking for. If you're used to some place in Thai Town in LA and then you go to Typhoon, you might be disappointed because the styles are so different.

Just to note AB's reasoning on choosing a fryer: 1) You want one with the element in the oil to eliminate the "middle man" and heat the oil directly (also safer because you don't have a hot pan and hot oil 2) You want a large capacity so you can have good recovery times and do larger batches 3) You want a higher max temp since when you add items to the oil you don't want the temp dropping below 350 making your fried foods greasy 4) Digital controls are nice