whippy

bewon is super good. but really, xmsg, you rather are baiting us with that title aren't you? "best" and "asian" both! i've seen bewon slow as well. acorn jelly may be too much for portland to swallow. for what it's worth, you can get their food delivered if you don't feel like dining out. they send along all the sides, too. i, like you, hate the way that good restaurants fall by the wayside sometimes. it's nice that you are championing (is this a word?) them. i wish you luck, but i'm not real hopeful. portland's restaurants succeed and fail for inscrutable reasons. unless it's a restaurant from the people who brought you stanford's etc, pacific coast i think? they are very good at creating successful restaurants.

i'd like to agree . i noticed almost nothing after eating delicious sweet paans, usually on a very full stomach. of course, i come from the land of quad espressos so my viewpoint is probably skewed. tobacco paan is another story. paan apparently has nothing on msg, by the way, which can cause

i enjoyed this website, too

nice site along with kachri and hing pieces, i can add fresh betel leaves to the list of things i can't find.

the smell of asafoetida is way too mixed up in my head with cooking and eating for me to dislike it. wish i could find some of the whole pieces. what brands are people using? i've got vandevi which is yellow and milder (ingredients: gum arabic, wheat, rice flour, asafoetida, turmeric) and l.g. which is gray-brown and richer (edible gum, wheat flour, asafoetida). looks like there are quite a few things in my asafoetida! whippy

i'd intended to be a good little reporter and try a couple of places i hadn't been to yet--and ended up back at curry leaf. made me happy. fresh naan, tasty chole (chickpeas), good coffee, fragrant sambhar. a carrot halwa that was very good and very sweet but, to me at least, a bit overspiced. made it over to abhiruchi for the lunch buffet (7.95). the buffet provides ample choices: tandoori chicken, naan, papadam, rotis, butter chicken, two kinds of rice, several vegetables, dals, keema (minced lamb) curry, stir fried cabbage, upma (savory farina), idlis, saag, chutneys, fruit, dessert, salad...... there was an opo (akin to summer squash) curry which you don't see everywhere, it was simple and nice. thumbs up on the upma, too, which was clean and tasty. they also offered a "pickle chutney" which was excellent. most everything else seemed mediocre--not bad--in one way or another. the butter chicken was blandish, the lentil fritter tough, the papadam bendable. i suspect the carrots in the dal came from cans, the gulab jamuns from mix. the greens with the thin dal struck me as sour and stinky. the remaining chutneys (coconut, green, tomato) were one-dimensional. would have to put it in the medium-low quality category. i don't think anybody's mentioned new delhi restaurant off of barbur. ate there about a month ago. don't have anything specific to report, just didn't seem memorable though. hit up 3 grocery stores i hadn't been to yet: india gate (frozen fish flown in from india!!!!! basic staples); bazaar (gloomy but well stocked); and india direct (clean and well stocked); india direct hosts chatpata chaat in back, super excited about going there soon , will post details. yours, whippy

what were some of the dishes you liked? tried to go once, but they were closed. i've noticed that their newspaper ads for the last couple of weeks claim service from delivereddish (that home delivery service), but when you go to delivereddish, no saffron. so i suspect some management issues. too bad about the chef. the place is still young, though, so maybe. . . the closest dosa to you, i believe, is at swagath on nw 21st. decent dosa, lifeless sambhar. also on the menu at abhiruchi in beaverton and curry leaf in bethany court. definitely let us all know what you find!

just a quick question about the recipe link. charmagaz aren't readily available in my hood. bought some online once, and was disappointed to receive seeds that tasted stale and rancid. while i tend to dislike substitutions, what do you think is the best substitution in the u.s. for this particular recipe? pine nuts? green pumpkin seeds? slivered almonds? i'd guess this isn't a big deal, just curious. thanks, whippy

one of my favorite cheap and easy desserts is panna cotta. cream thickened into a fancy pudding thickened with gelatin. course, that's italian. but i've been looking at a couple of China Grass recipes in Monisha Bharadwaj's book, and i've been wondering just how close the two are. basically, milk thickened with agar agar, some sugar, and flavorings like rose or cardamom. they look firmer than panna cottas. looks like a snap.

thanks for your thoughts, sleepy d. your post is really appreciated down here. i think you're absolutely right with the idea that it's going to take a lot more than an influx of tech workers to get uniformly good indian restaurants in PNW. i guess that's just sort of a hopeful thought, that more indians in portland means more demanding customers at indian restaurants. as tech workers come i think some of their family may come as well, and the population slowly grows. i vaguely remember a time in pdx when there were only maybe two indian joints in the whole city. i think we may be up to somewhere around 20, so progess is being made, if over time. i'm not enough of a sociologist, though, to do anymore than speculate wildly and my thinking may be totally fallacious. what was the name of the defunct queen anne failure? i'd be interested to look for press on the place. sad. that sort of thing makes me shiver, too. i hope there's more middle ground to be explored. Plainfields Mayur prices: starters papadums and paranthas start at 2.95 and meat samosas top out at 6.75 entrees moong dal dumplings in gravy start at 14.95 and top out at 27.95 for the lamb i'm not sure how to characterize the prices really and truly, cuz different people do eat differently for sure. for my own pocketbook this is upper mid-level to expensive dining. though it definitely is possible that two people could probably eat frugally (2 cheaper entrees, one expensive starter, a couple of non-alcoholic drinks and tip) for around $48, not including dessert. i think they have a tandoor upstairs behind glass. if you go back, maybe you could ask to sit upstairs and report back? naan is traditionally cooked in tandoors. they serve the naan with all the entrees. i would want to see fresh dough being pressed to the inside of the oven over the course of the evening, as meals are served. to me at least, good naan is tender with a thin crispy, but not dried out, crust. however, their version may just be a traditional variation on naan of which i'm unaware. yours, whippy

i think the national recognition PM has gotten may really only be deserved for their wine list, which is long and very expensive, at least by my humble standards. but i think you're right, it's sort of teetering around the edge of what i was trying to get at by "high profile." so i went back--in fact just got back from--a meal there to think a little more about the place. the decor is nice enough, with really nifty silverware and platters to showcase the table and complement the linens. crystal lamps shimmer on the walls and from the ceiling. these nice touches fight with the late seventies era track lighting, the unflattering paint, carpet and stemware. the walls are stuffed with traditional statuary. seems sort of dated to me, statuary. the server was graceful under tremendous pressure. unfortunately, there was tremendous pressure. we were seriously debating if a couple of employees had failed to show up for shifts to account for the total lack of staff. we sat downstairs, and counted about 9 tables being waited on by a single individual with no backup whatsoever--seating, watering, serving, taking orders, bussing, presenting wine, running checks, pouring wine. ask your server friends about their work-related dreams; this was one of them. i'm completely forgiving of this in a cheap joint, and can certainly forgive this at a midlevel joint having an off day. but PM serves $27 entrees and sports thousand dollar bottles of wine. i believe they should be able to shell out minimum wage for a wee bit of extra help. we shelled out sixty five bucks for a 1998 alsatian riesling. (which is a splurge for us.) think this was probably our favorite part of the meal. it was cool to see the wines being stored at fifty eight degrees in the cellar (and fun to sit next to the cellar itself) and then have it chilled a bit before service. but we're not super winey, so i don't know. started off with dahi wadas and bhel salad. the wadas (fried lentil dumplings) were simple and nice, served in a straightforward yogurt sauce. good, but no wow. i thought the bhel salad was going to be a bhel puri, but in fact it really was a "bhel salad." the crisp rice puffs were tossed with chopped raw spinach, i guess in an attempt to westernize it. didn't work for me at all, didn't seem like something i'd ever eat in india, but much more importantly, it was over dressed with a dry mint dressing (didn't seem like what i think of as a chutney) which gave the whole thing a strong smell of an old cupboard. i've worked a bit with dried mint, and when it's off balance as it was here, it gives a pronounced musty, fusty smell. yuk. lobster and lamb came next. there was a great quantity of lobster in a sauce of differently cooked onions and tomatoes. the sauce was bland, maybe so as not to smother the lobster's flavor. the lamb was served with a dainty coin of wild mushrooms on a minted saag. the lamb itself was bland, the sauce was nice but nothing special, and i have different ideas about what a wild mushroom is (especially right now, very high quality morels are probably at the lowest prices of the year). the rice served on the side was excellent, fluffy, nicely seasoned. i wish i could get rice like that in more places. also, the coconut chutney was very good. they were making it with fresh coconut so the flavor was really earthy and fresh. i've never eaten naans like these before, i liked that they were finished with a brushing of ghee, but otherwise they reminded me more of pita bread. the edges of the bread were brittle and dry. wanted to try their falooda, a mixture of ice cream and noodles (which i ate once in india and basically didn't like there) but our server was hopelessly trapped trying to wait on too many tables. if i had gotten this food from a six dollar buffet (assuming ingredients like lamb rack and lobster could be served at a six dollar buffet) i wouldn't have been impressed. with the exception of the rice. in some ways, i think PM has a touch of "old restaurant disease." in the course of its history, ingredients have reached american shores not available at its inception, service has diversified in many restaurants, standards for decor have changed, menus have become more focused etc etc. PM seems to be doing the same thing it has always done. the place was packed. so it probably doesn't have anything to worry about. as we were leaving, i asked my dinner companion why they thought the place was so busy when we had generally disliked everything. her response was something like this: sometimes the package sells the food. i really really want indian restaurants in pdx to start operating at a higher level than this. anyway, i'll be off to abhiruchi dawat et al soon. yours, whippy

i once got a paan at an indian festival association party up at the zoo. it wasn't like fresh, juicy paan you get in india, but it was still nice. i don't know much at all about the art of paan making (and my only experience with tobacco paan was really something best not spoken of), but at least some ingredients are available at sriders, and certainly online. patelbrothersusa, mahabazaar, namaste might be places to start looking? i have the feeling that the fresh leaf is going to be the hardest to come by. have you ever rolled your own? i've never even looked for "recipes." but, that does suddenly seem tempting..... go, xmsg! you seem well positioned with portlandfoodorg to bring something together. over on the india forum, there's a lot of dynamic discussion about bringing indian cuisine/restaurants up to the level of, say, chinese or mexican in america in terms of popularity. i think that getting more dialogue between eager customers, such as ourselves, and portland's indian restaurateurs is a step in the right direction. (monica, on the washington d.c. forum, has put together some events that look really great.) we've got high profile mexican, se asian, peruvian, chinese etc. etc in portland. it's time for high profile indian, a joint like amma or indique. i'll settle for just about anything, really. i'm disheartened that only 4 of us seem to be participating in this discussion! c'mon, let's hear from more people, especially if you grew up, lived or travelled in india. yours, whippy

i don't think there's too much to worry about. the only snack they serve that requires any understanding is the pani puri, which they've always helpfully explained to me. you just poke a hole in the thin side of the crisp, fill with the potatoe mix and fill with the liquid. eat in a single bite. interestingly, i've never seen any indian clients there, but i tend to call ahead so i can grab my food and run. i ate there only once, and while a friend just gave me a negative report, i feel i should go back. it's been so long that i don't remember what i ate, just that none of it seemed like anything to justify the prices. (seventeen bucks for okra curry? neither their food nor service seemed to justify that for me. even it was loaded with expensive ghee or saffron, the price still wouldn't add up for me.) the atmosphere seemed sort of clunky/stodgy. i'm not enough of a wine buff to comment on their list. i used to eat at the beaverton joint a lot when it first opened. it was terrific, their sambhar was bursting with flavor, the dosai were fragrant and a little sour, idlis were yummy, reminded me of good restaurant food in india (and just like here, there's plenty of bad). didn't bother too much with their n. indian offerings, since the s. indian was so tasty. then, the chutneys started getting blander and the masala dosas became tepid. last time i had lunch at the bvtn location (a couple years ago) i was thinking, 'what happened?' haven't made it to orenco yet. abhiruchi and saffron are both on my list (saffron's only open a total of 16 hours a week, i believe. wonder how that works.) really, my references? Totally Suspect. i want the things from an indian restaurant in portland that i want from any restaurant in portland, comfort, service, flavor, etc. etc. i want to taste fresh vegetables, see fresh herbs, smell great aromas, enjoy tender roasted or braised meats, get some rice that isn't a sticky lump. i dunno, i guess i think good indian food in portland works something like this for me: does it remind me of something i might have eaten in india, and more importantly, is it delicious? that's all i'm after. pretty subjective. if you're interested in more informed/complex perspectives than mine, i strongly suggest heading over to the india forum (there's no portland stuff, sadly.) maybe next time i'm at an indian joint here, i'll scribble down www.egullet.com and leave it with a big tip. see if we can't get more discussion.

yeah, good topic here. i think i've written a bit about this somewhere, but the state of indian restaurant cooking in pdx is depressing. i often find myself working up the nerve to "try again" to find somewhere decent, and just becoming sad in the middle of my meal that the food is so dismal--and--so accepted by portland's customers. i can only hope that the tech economy on the westside continues to attract a larger population of indians, wondering if such a groundswell would underpin more quality indian cooking. i'm not sure the greater portland area has any idea how exciting, varied and delicious indian cuisine can be when well executed. especially if they've only eaten at our current offerings. i agree with everything you've said, xmsg, but would like to suggest that while curry leaf is the best i've eaten here, it's still imho just a "good" place, and far from excellent or great. i was glad to find a drumstick (a pod veggie) in the sambhar, enjoy most of the varied flavors, wish the layered salad didn't host a soggy mass of sev (crisp noodles), and find the gulab jamun (a dense dessert) much too pungent with spice for my own taste. but still, the only place in portland i find myself drawn to. the chaat house cart downtown on 13th has some appeal, too. it's cheap and the portions are large, but that doesn't totally do it for me. i would argue that the chaat half of the menu is where they excel, with a fine chana bhatura, and tasty aloo tikkis and golgappas. not incredible chaats, but good ones. i don't really care for the food i've had from the entree portion of the menu--but i wonder if that's just because they're cooking a regional style i don't really like? don't you live in the couv, xmsg? i was pleasantly surprised to find that namaste on the corner of fourth at 117th had some good offerings! after curry leaf, it's where i would go back to. they did a nice punjabi dumpling curry. there's also a good grocer down the street, and when i was there the owner indicated plans to start serving counter snacks. i'm all about that. to save the group a little trouble, please avoid india grill on burnside altogether. really crappy meats, tinned tomato flavors, dense and chewy chapatis. i personally think bombay cricket club on hawthorne is ridiculous, to me at least. packed with customers i don't know why. i remember being repeatedly served a naan after repeatedly trying to get a parantha. nobody could tell me why. they serve a lot of second rate "mango juice" margaritas, maybe everybody is so drunk they can't taste their food. i'm sure that sounds rude, sorry in advance. most of my opinions are based on about a year of travel in india, which isn't a lot know! i'd love to hear more opinions especially from people who grew up or lived in india or traveled there a lot!!! in addition, i'm excited about the growth in indian grocery stores in pdx lately. a sign of good things to come, i hope. used to be, there was sriders and that was it. now, next to mama uwajamiya we've got a spot just a few blocks away, and there's india 4 u on hawthorne (who may also start preparing snacks) and that place up in the couv. gone are the days when we had to substitute split yellow peas for most dals, bay leaves for curry leaves, maple syrup for jaggery, etc. etc.

i became interested in kachri after reading more about delhi food. seems like a rare ingredient, even dried, to come by in my whereabouts. latin seems to be cucumis pubescens. which is funny. since it's a member of the melon genus, i wonder if the description of kachri as a melon is taxonomical in nature? anybody seen the dried stuff in the u.s.?

man, i am SO going to open a restaurant based on a "dress it yerself" approach. u order your salad, then the server presents the table with a stainless mixing bowl filled with romaine/iceberg/mesclun/microgreens and u are invited to "dress it yerself." the server tosses the romaine/iceberg/mesclun/microgreens with the dressing poured at the customer's discretion, and serves the result. a salad BOTH properly tossed AND dressed to the customer's liking. i'm gonna be a billionaire. see ya later, suckers.

if u like to garden, it may be worth giving these folks a shot. under misc. vegetables. looks like a cool place. somehow i can't quite picture a drumstick tree in my living room, tho. whippy

i like eating good food anywhere. on the street or in a fancy restaurant. how much does the atmosphere matter?

perhaps like olive oil, though, the younger and fresher generation is generally more intense.

ammini i use parachute brand, sold here, and it seems pretty aromatic. comes via mumbai. perhaps like olive oil, though, the younger and fresher oil is generally more intense. whippy

an old pair of nylons. if you can imagine.

both julie sahni and malvi doshi go to pains to explain that onions grown in india have less moisture than onions grown in america. they advise ways to treat the american onion differently.

this is neelam batra's recipe from "1,000 indian recipes." she soaks and extracts the pulp from 2 ounces of a tamarind block in one cup of water first, then a second time in another cup of water. in a blender, blend: another cup or less of water, 4 slices of ginger the thickness of american quarters 1-3 green chilis 2 tablespoons fresh mint leaves 2 tablespoons lime or lemon juice .5 to 1 teaspoon salt 1-2 tablespoons sugar mix that with the previous tamarind water, then toast and mix in: 1.5 teaspoons ground cumin .25 teaspoons red chili powder 1/8 teaspoon hing 1 teaspoon ground black salt she lets that chill for a couple hours, then mixes in another tablspoon of minced mint leaves. those are the proportions and ingredients, but i assembled it differently than she did. her book also includes a shorter recipe.

i know the olive garden is so obvious. but i had a sort of breakthrough there. for some reason, mid meal, i suddenly became fixated on the fact that all the chairs had casters on them. i pushed a little back and forth, the wheels rolled smoothly. energized by the absurdity of the place, i saw myself zooming wildly about the restaurant on my zippy chair, upsetting platters of goo and setting breadsticks aflight. i didn't drink enough "chianti" to really follow through, but i had a great time with my worst meal.

don't want to go too far off topic, but episure thanks for that! i'm glad to find some creative drinking going on. so far, the only resources i've found on cocktails from the indian pantry are tulleeho.com, which mongo mentioned, and s. basu's book, which is still in the mail. too bad, there's a lot of good stuff in the cabinet with which to make really delicious drinks.