Ling

A poster on EG sent me a couple of bars of chocolate from Amano. Of the two, I especially liked the Ocumare bar. Anyway, this is the first chocolate I've been really excited to discover in the last while...it's a little fruity, a little smoky, and a little floral, with a long finish. Beautiful packaging as well.

Here's something that Henry invented when we were braising pork belly one day. Take a piece of pork belly (we do it Chinese red-cooked style, so the 1" x 2" pieces are braised for 4 hours in soy, rock sugar, stock, star anise, Chinese 5 spice, scallions, ginger, shao xing wine) and wrap it in 1/2 strip of Niman Ranch bacon. Skewer with toothpick. Then pan-fry. It's crispy and smoky on the outside, and salty/sweet, melting soft on the inside. So good.

My one and only meal for DOV was at Gastropod, as I was only visiting Vancouver for the day. Had the oysters with horseradish snow and Sauternes jelly--very nice, the "snow" was Paco-tized and not icy like granita. Tastiest item of the night. Also tried the foie gras bon bon--one sauce was maybe rhubarb/apple, and the other was pear, although I can't be certain as they are just guesses based on taste. It was OK. Way too much sauce with the amount of foie, and not too much complexity in the dish. The roast chicken was OK and the Israeli couscous with chorizo was not bad. The duck confit pasta was pretty good, and the kitchen sent out an extra little dish of duck confit when I asked them about their opinion about the process...(1 month age vs. 6 months). Desserts were pretty good as well--I enjoyed the toasted banana bread with cardamom ice-cream and the cheesecake. (We also got comped glasses of Sauternes with the dessert, if that makes a difference.) All in all, the service was really good--had a great time chatting with Paul (ex-C), had an awesome time at Fuel (pre-dinner drinks next door) and the food at Gastropod was not a bad deal for DOV. Food didn't blow me (or the bf) out of the water, but it was fine.

Ahhh...sounds heavenly!

Awesome meal, Daniel and Alicia! The plating looks really polished. How is the meat after smoking for so long, and then braising for 18 hours? Do you find a really big difference in such a long braise? The heat must be very low. How much liquid do you start off with? And I bet it was! Although how did you know it was delicious, Daniel, how did you know...are you cheating on your vegan diet already?

^I think most food companies want their products to seem healthier (lower cal, lower fat). I mean, it's not so appealing when they print out a label saying one serving is 800 calories, for example...even though I'm sure that's more in line with what most people consume for a meal!

I use just good salt and fresh ground pepper on really good meat, but on the hangar steak I ate tonight for example, I had it with shiso and avocado. Really delicious.

^Very cool, I'll be sure to check it out!

^That's really cool, Abra! BTW, you can find the butter-flavoured canola oil at Larry's in Queen Anne (now Metropolitan Market) though the last time I noticed it was a few months ago, and I haven't looked since.

I have the Lumiere book, the Feenie's book, and the Lumiere Tasting bar book. I've cooked out of all of them, but I know some of the recipes were adapted for the home cook. Vikram Vij just came out with a book recently, and that might be worth checking out. The recipes look promising. Karen Barnaby also has a few popular cookbooks out, and there's the La Regalade cookbook from the popular French bistro as well. The Karen Barnaby cookbooks are filled with everyday recipes, nothing fancy...but tasty.

Forgot to logout.

Your "non-purist" omelette sure looks good to me!

^How generous! How can I resist? We'll stop by after pizza on Friday. I'm looking at the menu right now and it looks great! ETA: We were originally planning on coming in early Feb., but we're going to have to postpone our trip by 2-3 weeks so I'll pull up this thread in Feb. Thanks!

The new Baguette Box in Fremont is now open. I think the menu is the same. There was an awesome roast suckling pig at the party last night...

^Doesn't Whiskey Soda Lounge serves drinks? <cut-and-pasted from another board> I'm going to add Sahagun chocolates to my list, and DePaula chocolates too. (I've always thought they looked good in John's avatar on EG!) I'll cross off St. Honore and go to Pearl and Ken's for the pastries. We have two dinners in Portland, one on Friday (probably Apizza Scholls) and one on Saturday (probably clarklewis). The reason why we're leaning towards clarklewis is because my bf has a friend who works in the kitchen, and would like a chance to say hi. Sunday brunch at Simpatica is out as we're only in town Friday and Saturday. This is a pretty casual, short trip...I have heard such good things about the food in Portland that I'm really excited! So I just checked online and Le Pigeon is open for weekend brunch! Has anyone been? I'm thinking either brunch there, or Podnah's. I don't know much about Portland BBQ, only that Vancouver BBQ is not all that great, and ditto Seattle BBQ. I guess the deciding factor will be whether either of these places take reservations. ETA: Forgot about Voodoo donuts! I'm not such a fan of the crazy toppings--I like the plain, glazed donuts at Seattle's Top Pots. How are the plain (or sour cream) donuts at Voodoo?

Yes, that's what he said. I'd think this might be approximated at home by keeping a constantly-replenished pan of simmering water in the oven. ← I tried this yesterday and was punished with non-crackling skin. On the other hand, the meat was moist. ← We tried the pork butt again (in a miso brine). We braised it in miso, covered, in the oven for 4 hours at 200 degrees, then dumped the miso soup, and smeared it with the sugar/miso/chopped chilli. Roasted at 200 degrees for the next 4 hours. Much moister than the pork butts we did 2 weeks ago.

I wanted to try LOW but I think it's more likely that we will be in town Friday and Saturday, so we'll probably miss it. Lunch at Podnah's sounds great, then we'll hit up a bakery and wait outside Apizza Scholls before the doors open. (BTW, that clam pie on No Reservations looked amazing! )

Hi everyone, we're planning on a short trip down to Portland (2 days, 1 night) in early February. I read through ExtraMSG's awesome site, and also got a few ideas from this forum... Here's what I'm considering: -Park Kitchen -clarklewis -Ken's Artisan Bakery -St. Honore -Pix Patisserie -Apizza Scholls -Andina We both love BBQ and I seem to recall there being some good BBQ in Portland (though I could be mistaken). Any other suggestions to add to the list? Which places on the list do you locals really enjoy, and which would you pass on?

We have the Rover's book and the Tom Douglas book up on the bookshelf somewhere, but I don't think we've cooked out of them... I can recommend the Macrina cookbook, though. Simple, easy, and tasty recipes. I especially like the chocolate sour cherry pound cake and the buttermilk biscuits. I made the ham and romano cheese biscuits as well this week (with a few mods--lots of black pepper and herbs), and they were proclaimed a hit at a brunch potluck. (I personally much prefer the plain buttermilk biscuits, though.) Lots of brunchy items in the last section of the book too, so it's not strictly a cookie and cake book.

Yeah, I make a blue cheese bacon dip to serve with homemade roquefort crackers sometimes...it's just blue cheese, creme fraiche, bit of cayenne and red pepper, bacon (crisped and chopped up), and a bit of whatever herbs I have in the fridge. Very good!

There's also the stilton cheesecake on Epicurious that's pretty well-known...I love it. I usually use some ground pecans in the crust as well.

^Thanks everyone, we were really lucky to be guests that night at the underground dinner!

Porcella has awesome cured meats, and you can also sample them in the charcuterie platter. They have classic French bistro dishes like coq au vin, beef bourguinon, and duck confit, etc. Their sandwiches are good, as are their truffled gaufrette fries. I also love their duck rillettes and pork rillettes.

It's my humble opinion that you're one of the most talented cooks in the Dinner thread, Bruce. So good to see you doing a blog! I have the Fuschia Dunlop book as well, but we haven't done too much cooking out of it. I've done the 'yu xiang rou si' dish (fish fragrant pork slivers) and had to do quite a few modifications to the sauce to make it taste right, but it was really good in the end. Which are some of your favourite recipes from that book?

Wow, make your own--it's dead simple!