trillium

How good is the food? That is the most important question. The food is fine. It's a lettuce restaurant in all the good and bad ways. I went there once for lunch with a big group of people who wanted to go somewhere interesting but not intimidating. It worked well for them. regards, trillium

I hate authenticity arguments, but I can't help it... my vote would be no, Ben Pao is not "authentic". Their menu has inspired laughter and derision by the ethnic Chinese food hardliners in my circle. But in a way, it all depends on who you ask. If you asked someone from Hong Kong if Singaporean fried noodles was an "authentic" dish they'd probably say yes, but if you asked a Singaporean, they'd give you an emphatic no. All that being said, I think you can eat well there. regards, trillium

The thing that had the partner huffing and puffing (for the most part he hates it when CI does "Asian" stuff) is that they tested their soyas by putting them plain on rice!!! Yikes. I have a vague memory of La Choy winning something, but it wasn't the soya testing. regards, trillium edit:because I think faster then I type

Well, none of the "there is no way in hell I'm eating at that place" restaurants on the 25 list made Jim's list so we're up for any of them (but I'd like to know what the menus are, of course). I think my list of possibilities went something like Cafe Azul, Lucere (I'm a sucker for a great pastry chef), Paley's Place, and Wildwood. They're all places I haven't tried. Southpark isn't on the list because I've been there 3 times already and love it...I thought it was time to branch out. Castagna wasn't on the list because I have a hard time going to a restaurant named chestnut...don't ask me why, I just do. regards, trillium

This reminds me of a funny story... when we were in Chicago our upstairs neighbor came down and asked to borrow some soy sauce. The partner asked him what kind he wanted and our neighbor replied, you know, just soy sauce. The partner is a soya snob, he thinks you should have seperate soyas for seperate cuisines. We had in our cupboard at the time: Chinese light (Amoy Gold Label light is the only one I'll buy...it's great), Chinese dark (Pearl River or Amoy Gold label, it varies), Japanese light (can't remember...something in the $14 range from Yaohan), kecap manis (Indonesian thick soya), Thai mushroom (Golden Boy brand), and Thai light and dark (Dragonfly brand). Poor neighbor... regards, trillium

thanks for the link! I've been wondering which restaurants were on the list... perhaps we should follow in our northern compadres footsteps and arrange an outing? I guess it would take calling around to see what the 25 menu looks like. regards, trillium

I'd go with good seafood, it's easy to find in Portland, but I'm biased because I'm recovering from 8 years in Chicago where you only get good seafood if you pay, pay, pay. You'll find it on almost every menu you look at here. I'd say Portland is known for consuming lots of local (relatively, if you consider Alaska local) salmon, halibut, sand dabs, dungeness, oysters, chanterelles, lamb, beef, berries, and apples. I think Portland is best known for it's casual approach to eating and drinking, even at the fancier places you'll see jeans and gore-tex jackets, and it's plethora of breweries. There are many small restaurants and not a lot of 'destination' restaurants. I've heard good things about The Daily, which Neeley mentions. Higgins, Heathman, Fife, William's on 12th, Castagna, Wildwood, and Bluehour are all known for using local ingredients. I think the hippest is probably Bluehour... it's the one on the top of my list to try next. I must add that this part of the country is also known for fried chicken and jo-jos but then you'd be at a tavern, not a restaurant or brewery. I think in all honesty that's what my Singaporean born spouse likes the most of all about Portland. His idea of a great cultural experience is to go to a redneck bar and eat chicken and jo-jos and drink pints of beer and watch people play electronic gambling games. Hope this helps. regards, trillium

For more expensive pasta my favorite is Latini. I love how their textures just grabs at the sauce. For every day pasta... de Cecco...my grandfather would probably disown me if he found I used anything else. I really tried hard to like Trader Joe's pasta (both the "expensive" one and the cheapie one) but I just don't. Part of it has to do with the fact that we always pack a lunch from the preceding night's dinner and neither pastas reheat well at all. regards, trillium

If you'd prefer company, you could always try to convince Portland gulleteers to show up and eat with you. But I don't think you'll get much attitude anywhere because you're a solo diner. I checked Ripe's available dates and they're booked full on the last thursday in march but not the first thursday in april. They do "family suppers". If you're interested, you can PM me or Jim Dixon for the contact email. Jim has posted a link to a NYT article that mentions them if you want more details. I'm not sure what you mean by unique, if you mean unique to the PNW only, I think it might be hard to defend any restaurant as that "unique". All qualifications aside, Higgins has a lovely bar area that includes actual seating at actual tables. It's in a seperate room from the more formal dining area. It's touted as one of the best restaurants in Portland to experience the whole locally grown foodstuffs thing (Heathman is another). I've been to Higgins (their bar area) and it was good, but I didn't think it was a place I'd go out of my way to eat at, but I wouldn't mind eating there again. Their pastry chef is fantastic, the best ice cream I've ever had and I eat and make a lot of ice cream. The problem for me is that I cook many of the same things and do a better job. I do like meeting friends for drinks there, though. I've been to Southpark a few times and really enjoyed their treatment of seafood, but I'm not sure if it would be unique enough for you. Typhoon is a restaurant that runs the whole Pac Rim Asian fusion thing, but if you like straight up Thai food you might not enjoy theirs. regards, trillium

Anything drizzled with hot lard can't be bad! Thanks for the tips, I'll be sure to check 'em out. Are there any foodstuffs I can and should bring back with me to the US? I'm secretly hoping to find really good homemade orange flower water and big, wild, salted capers, ohh and maybe some bottarga. regards, trillium

I'm going on a last minute trip to Sicily next week for my dad's bday. Any don't miss eating or food related spots I should know about? thanks, trillium

Your semi-rant made me laugh and I found it interesting too. I too have never had shrimp with lobster sauce and I'm not even sure what it is. Maybe it's time to add it to the list of things my partner is cooking...he calls it his Americanized Chinese food phase. There were all these dishes we kept hearing about that people think of as Chinese food but he never grew up eating nor has ate since leaving the nest some 20 years ago. So far he's made kung pao chicken (which if you do it the way they do it in classic cooking schools in China is surprisingly good) and Mongolian lamb..no wait, I made the Mongolian lamb... and he's threatening to make sweet and sour pork next just for fun. But some things I don't think you can say are not Chinese (like hot and sour or kung pao) just that they aren't classics from the region of cooking you're familiar with. For example, he's hokkien, with a paranakan stepmom, so it's not surprising that he didn't run into a lot of classic eastern or northern dishes in his formative food years. I had a Taiwanese boss for a while and once I made choy yuk bao (Cantonese style pork and cabbage steamed bao) and brought some in to him. He was so excited to see them and then his face just fell when he tasted them...he told me they weren't made the right way and he had to go out and get some he liked just to get over the disappointment...meanwhile other ethnic Chinese friends couldn't get enough. I have a colleague currently who told us her favorite way to stir fry cabbage...she's from the north and does it with dried chillies and black vinegar. I did it that way and really loved and then when the parnter tried to do it he automatically put ginger in because he couldn't fathom cabbage without ginger...when she smelled our lunch she told us it smelled funny... Another thing is that many dishes have the same name but are in no way related to how they're made in their birthplace and how they're made other places. My friend went to southern China and was really surprised by all the "sweet and sour pork" she saw people eating in little hole in the walls...of course, it was nothing at all like what gets sold by the same name in the restaurants she'd been to in LA. Then there are the familial biases that get introduced. The partner's grandmother didn't consider noodles a proper meal, so he'd have to sneak out for chow mein or chaw kway with his friends. Anyhow, we still have no idea who General Tso is and why he was so concerned with chicken. regards, trillium

But Provvista only sells wholesale, no? I thought they didn't sell to the "public". That bums me out. regards, trillium

Barkeeper's Friend with a gentle scrubber, the kind made to not scratch....works great on stainless steel and as a bonus works well on copper and brass too. regards, trillium

I've bought them in Chicago, so they do make it to the US. I haven't found them yet in Portland though (but I have a kilo of fresh kaffir limes in the fridge so I'm happy). I've had ok results using the ones frozen from Thailand. They do turn black but they weren't that mushy and were better then the canned ones. regards, trillium

Just mailorder from chocosphere...it's not that bad for shipping and their prices are pretty decent. The Cluizel 99% ("contains a very small amount of sugar, orange blossom and spice")is going into a chocolate orange ancho bundt cake tomorrow... regards, trillium

They really are a last resort when it comes to Asian groceries besides Japanese and for Japanese I would rather go to Anzen here in Portland, instead of the 'burbs. Their markup makes me crazy.... what we really need is a Ranch 99!!! There's one in Kent now, so maybe Portland will get its turn soon. regards, trillium

Well, the last post disappeared into the ether, so here it goes again. Dang kway (dong kwai) is angelica in English, but I don't know the translations of the other herbs, sorry. Bah kut teh is a Straits Chinese tonic soup that is much loved by the Hokkien population in SE asia. It's originally a breakfast dish. If you feel like it, you can hunt down the packets for this soup (sometimes labelled chik ku teh to make with chicken) which will give you the Chinese characters for the herbs, which helps if you go to an herb shop. We get them made for us at a shop in Singapore, sometimes the Cantonese guys in shops in SF won't make them up because they think ching bo leung is better. My partner, who hails from Singapore and has strongly held opinions about food, thinks that the type that tastes only of star anise and black pepper is the cheap (ie bad) version that skips the herbs and roots that the soup is know for. (Don't ask about his opinion on Chris "the hairdresser" Yeo..hee hee). I'm sure the soup you will make will be very tasty. Just for fun I've included the recipe that we use, which tends to emphasize the taste of the herb/roots, which is a more old school method. Bak Kut Teh 625 g pork spareribs (1 1/3 lb) marinated in 1/2 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper 1/2 teaspoon salt for at least 1 hr 3 T lard 1 T palm sugar 2 bashed cloves of garlic 1 teaspoon preserved soya bean, smooshed (the ones yellowish brown in color, Yeo's is a good brand) 10 star anise 5 cm (2 inch) cinnomon stick 2 piece dried Mandarin orange peel (chun pei) 1T black pepper corns 6 gan cao 2 luo han gao 75 g (~1/4 lb) dang xin 40 g (1 1/2 oz) dang kway 40 g (1 1/2 oz) chuan kang 20 - 25 g (~1 oz) sheng di 3/4 c light soya 1/2 c dark soya (mushroom is nice) Heat a pan until hot, add 2 T of lard and fry the spareribs until well browned. Put in the soup pot. Clean out the pan and add the rest of the lard and sugar. Fry, stirring often, until sugar is caramelized (you could skip this step if you want). Add the soya beans and garlic and stir fry for until the garlic is fragrant. Add back the spareribs and coat them. Put it all back in the soup pot. Add the spices, roots and soya sauces. If you like, you can put the spices in a piece of cheesecloth to be removed when serving. Cook until tender, about 2 hrs. Serve with steamed jasmine rice, chrysanthemum leaves, sliced yu char kway and pu-erh teh served kung-fu style. regards, trillium

No, no...the _south_ Asian groceries and restaurants are dismal (that means Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi etc.). There are plenty of south east (Vietnamese, Thai, some Malay stuff) and east asian (Chinese) grocery stores. The south east asian restaurants we've tried have been no worse then Seattle, the Vietnamese might even be better, we have not run into any Malay, Singaporean or Indonesion places and you can find the same plethora of yuppie fusion Thai restaurants here that you find in Seattle. I think Typhoon has an outpost in Seattle as well as two places here. East asian restaurants we've tried (mainly a couple of Hong Kong style seafood places) have been just ok, but that's how we feel about the ones in Seattle as well. Sorry for the confusion. The farmer's market starts every year in late April, early May. I guess I don't think of the year starting until the farmer's market does. There are plenty of independently owned cafes in most every neighborhood, but there are lots of Starbucks too. regards, trillium

Hmmm. The people I know who have opinions about it think that lo mein should be made with fresh egg noodles that are thin and about 1/4 inch wide (like wonton mein but wider). Thicker ones without egg for chow mein...so I guess it varies. regards, trillium

The smallest guys also get deep fried and mixed into sambals or chilli sauces. Here's what I know: if the dried fish is still somewhat moist it gets used as a flavoring agent much like dried shrimps or scallops, like in fried rice, sa po dishes, steamed meat cakes, etc. (think Hakka food) and if it's bone dry it gets used to make stock. If it's dried and put up in oil it gets eaten warmed up with rice...some versions can include some pickled onions or shallots and chopped chillies added on top. I am so jealous you can go some where to pick and choose what sort of fish you want, usually we just settle for the highest quality snapper fillet from Malaysia. regards, trillium

Chow mein literally means fried noodle, no? Lo mein is tossed. You can usually get both in the same restaurant. As you can imagine, I got really confused when I moved east from SF...but then I'd never heard of chop suey either. How did something fried end up being called lo? regards, trillium

What I get out of conversations about Fong Chong presently is that if you're really desperate for dim sum and can't drive to Vancouver or SF then it'll do. If not, skip it. I was born and bred in the PNW (most of it in the very town col klink referred to as the boonies) with a 5 year break in eastern washington (hello wheat fields)...think of me as a prodigal daughter returning after a 12 year sojourn of college, grad school and a post-doc....so....we need the rain (neener neener)! regards, trillium (I'm with you on the smilies...I have them turned off for egullet, which along with not liking French food all the much makes me feel like a real rebel here)

Portland has great bread. Ken's Artisan Bakery makes the best bread in Portland, in my not so humble opinion, but lots of people like Pearl too. We also have great grocery stores...right now at my neighborhood New Seasons I can buy organic Seville oranges and kaffir limes...whoopee...for many things I like them better then Whole Foods, though we do make a trip to WF about every other month. I like buying shellfish from the Asian fish markets, Om or ABC are good...but they don't carry oysters. For East Asian groceries we like An Dong (more stuff from Hong Kong) and Pacific Supermarket (more SE Asian stuff) and as a last resort Uwajimaya. We keep meaning to check out Anzen too. So far the South Asian (both restaurant or groceries) scene is pretty dismal, but I hear I need to venture further out in the 'burbs. Haven't found a good latino supermercado yet either, but we haven't been trying that hard. The one thing I really miss is a decent place to buy Italian groceries. So far we've resorted to mail order from AG Ferrari. The farmer's market downtown is really great, it starts in late April next year. We're still enjoying the organic grass finished, dry aged beef from River Run Farm and the lamb from ?can't remember that we stocked the freezer with. The other thing to look out for is the wonderful beans (coco blanc, borlotti, flagolet, etc.) from Avery Farms. Boxer Northwest is a good restaurant supply company that also sells to the public. They have great prices on silpats and metro shelving. This is enough to get you started, right? I'm sure others will pitch in with restaurant stuff, to tell you the truth, we haven't had that many meals at upscale places that really knocked our socks off (Oregon Pho is a different story!). I did really enjoy all three times I ate at Southpark. regards, trillium

Jim, Why do you like Fong Chong so much? I've heard how much it stinks from two different gwailos I trust and non of the southern Chinese I know like it. I've had so much yucky dim sum in Seattle that I haven't even bothered to go there...is there something I don't know? regards, trillium ps We need the rain...and there were lots of rainbows this weekend...how could that suck?