The Mango Lassie

Every time a relative came from New York to visit us in Portland while I was growing up, he or she would come bearing bagels. Occasionally, there would be a chocolate babka or rugelach from Zabar’s, but the bagels were the one standing request. My mom’s favorites were (and still are) the bagels my uncle, Second Breakfast, buys at The Garden in Greenpoint. The reason was simple: there were no decent bagels to be found in Portland. Instead, we had what I have dubbed “faygels”—puffy white bread formed into a bagel shape. When I moved to New York three years ago, I also took on the responsibility of bagel delivery. I would freeze a dozen bagels from Absolute Bagels on the Upper West Side, or once I moved to Brooklyn, from Bagel Hole or Terrace Bagels in Park Slope, and bring them to work with me, convincing the guys downstairs in the cafeteria to keep them in the freezer for me. Then I would stuff them into my already overloaded carry-on bag and stash them underneath the seat in front of me. Thanks to my short legs, I made a fairly adept bagel mule.

But about three years ago, the bagel-delivery responsibilities of the New York contingent began to diminish. That’s because Kettleman Bagel Company, which was founded in 2006, began to expand throughout the city. Jeffrey Wang, the owner, (and a non-Jewish Chinese dude) studied under bagel masters in New York for 17 years before opening up in the midst of the Portland bagel wasteland. It’s not that Kettleman’s dense, chewy boiled bagels, were the only game in town. Tastebud, a fantastic pizza place, in Southeast Portland started making the slightly sweeter Montreal-style bagels in its wood-fired oven. But those could only be purchased at the restaurant and in limited quantities at a farmer’s market or two. (They are now available at select locations of New Seasons Market.) Finally, a good bagel had become widely available. The Jews and gourmets of Portland rejoiced! First, a Kettleman location opened up near my sister Flava Flav’s apartment, so she was put in charge of picking them up and bringing them over to my parents’ house for brunch. Finally, Kettleman opened up a shop near my parents’ house earlier this year. It was what we had all been waiting for.

I came home to Portland for a quick visit on Thursday night. On Friday morning, Daddy Salmon went out to pick up some bagels from Kettleman. It was while I was digging into my tasty, though not-quite-as-good-as-New-York, everything bagel that I learned the bad news: Einstein Noah Restaurant Group, which owns its namesake brands as well as Manhattan Bagel, announced plans to buy Kettleman for an undisclosed sum at the end of November. Portland foodies erupted into outraged blog posts and Facebook tirades. Willamette Week, Portland’s alternative weekly, dubbed the controversy “BagelGate.” Confirming everyone’s worst suspicions, Einstein Noah stated in its press release that it “expects to rebrand all five locations into one of its other brands in the future.” In a rush to assuage distraught customers, Kettleman put out the word the following day that its recipe would remain the same, but it seems to me that the writing is on the wall. It is only a matter of time before Kettleman becomes Noah’s and starts serving what the Portland Mercury (another alt paper) called “squishy bread.”

The Mercury also named Kettleman the worst sellout in Portland history. While I respect the desire of Jeffrey Wang to take his profits and retire, I might have to agree. When Kettleman becomes yet another purveyor of faygels, Portland will be taking a major step back in its culinary trajectory. A decade’s worth of bagel progress will be lost to time. And, at least until another enterprising bagel maker opens up shop, my New York relatives and I will have to resume our cross-country bagel transport.

Kettleman Bagel Company
2235 SE 11th Ave.
Portland, OR 97201
503.238.8883
(and four other Portland locations)

Tastebud
3220 SE Milwaukie
Portland, OR 97202
503.234.0330

The culinary aspiration of the moment for the liberal elite of urban America seems to be finding ways to keep themselves (or should I say ourselves?) from feeling guilty about the ethical and environmental impact of eating hamburgers. My visit a few weeks ago to BareBurger, the new organic, grass-fed burger joint up the Slope from my house, lent weight to this theory. It was further confirmed just a few days ago in Portland when Flava Flav and her boyfriend Hot Dog took me to Little Big Burger, a minimalist spot boasting high-quality, local ingredients (including ketchup) and truffled-oiled fries. Are either of these new gourmet guilt-free burger joints worth the price or hype? These are the kinds of questions the Mango Lassie was born to answer.

Empanada Boy and I went to BareBurger with my good friend Red Pepper and her fiancé, McIntosh Apple to bid them goodbye before their move to Evanston, Illinois. The restaurant is a chain in the making with a location in the Astoria neighborhood of Queens, two locations in Manhattan and another three opening in Astoria, Chelsea and the Upper East Side, respectively. The Park Slope location has only been open for about a month, and it has had lines out the door since day one. This company has obviously done its market research. We were told it would be a 45-minute wait to sit down, but it ended up only being about 25 minutes. The four of us sat at a high wooden table under a chandelier fashioned out of old spoons. We ordered a pitcher of the Belgian-style Hennepin Ale from Ommegang in Cooperstown, NY, one of the many local beers the restaurant offers on tap. We also got an order of the assorted pickles, which include spicy sriracha-habanero pickle chips, bread and butter pickle chips and garlic-dill pickle chips from Rick’s Picks, along with a zingy housemade coleslaw. In addition to being local, Rick’s Picks are tasty, though perhaps not as good as the ones I make myself. Still, I never say no to a pickle.

BareBurger offers 14 different six-ounce burgers ranging from the Classic with dill pickle relish and grilled onions ($8.45) to the Big Blue Bacon Burger ($11.95), topped with Danish blue cheese, sauteed mushrooms, grilled onions, applewood smoked bacon, lettuce and peppercorn steak sauce. The BareBurger Supreme ($10.95), pictured above, comes crowned with two onion rings. Each of these burgers can be ordered with patties made from beef, turkey, vegetables or portabella mushrooms. For an extra $1, the adventurous can order patties made from lamb, elk or bison. (EB, of course, had the bison.) Ostrich meat is available for market price. I have long held that the only good way to determine the quality of a burger joint is to try the basic burger without any fancy toppings—no cheese, meat or wild game. I ordered the Classic cooked medium-rare and served on a brioche bun. The grass-fed beef was tender and delicious (as it should be for that price), making this the best burger I’ve had in the neighborhood. The combo basket of French fries and onion rings we ordered to share were nicely crisped and came with a veritable refrigerator’s worth of condiments: curry ketchup, peppercorn steak sauce, spicy chipotle mayo and BareBurger special sauce. BareBurger was good, not because of the fancy toppings and menagerie of meat choices, but because the meat was of a high quality and properly cooked.

Little Big Burger is channeling a retro minimalist aesthetic popularized by California’s In-n-Out. The burgers are small (1/4 lb.) and simple. In fact, the menu consists of a mere six items: a hamburger, a cheeseburger, a veggie burger, fries, soda and floats. Now, it must be said that these burgers are not just any burgers. They are made with Cascade Natural Beef—pasture-raised, grain-finished beef, grown by local ranchers. And while the fries may look simple and basic, they are also not just any fries. They are laced with truffle oil!!! The question was whether any of these extra flourishes would result in notably better food.

Flava Flav and I got hamburgers, and Hot Dog got a cheeseburger with Swiss. The burgers are only $3.25, but they are closer in size to a slider than to BareBurger’s massive offerings. The bun was tasty, but I found the meat a little dry and overcooked. It crumbled in my mouth as I took a bite. Flav said she thought the patties had been better prepared on her previous visits. The fries were well made, although I only tasted the truffle oil during a few illusory bites. Truffle oil isn’t really made with truffles anyway, which makes it something of a gimmick to begin with.

One thing I definitely liked about Little Big Burger was the locally made condiments. There was a bright and tangy ketchup (“catsup” as the bottle calls it) and a “fry sauce,” a blend of mayonnaise and ketchup. Both are made by Camden’s, a line started by Portland chef Micah Camden, exclusively for the restaurant. I still pined for mustard, my favorite condiment, but these were distinctive and worthwhile. I originally thought Little Big Burger was a stand-alone spot. Upon further research, I learned that, like BareBurger, it is also a burgeoning chain. The restaurant has two locations in Portland, one opening in Eugene and another opening in Los Altos, California. Personally, I prefer the Vancouver, Washington-based regional chain Burgerville, which also uses Cascade Natural Beef and makes excellent milkshakes and sweet potato fries. But perhaps Little Big Burger will start to grow on me as it adopts the quality control necessary for a chain. Either way, I know I will again be shelling out the big bucks for BareBurger the next time I want to eat a lot of meat and maintain a relatively clear conscience.

BareBurger
170 7th Ave.
Brooklyn, NY 11215
718.768.BARE

Little Big Burger
122 NW 10th Ave.
Portland, OR 97209
503.274.9008

In most ways, Passover is a great time to visit Portland. Empanada Boy and I get to have the seder with my family and visit his sister and her family. The one major downside is not being able to devote my usual time to sampling the new Portland restaurants on my list. This year, however, we arrived a few days before Passover, leaving space in the schedule for a few restaurant visits. We had a great dinner at Bar Avignon with EB’s family, including his parents, who were also visiting. On the Sunday before Passover, we celebrated Flava Flav’s birthday with a brunch at Simpatica Dining Hall, a locavore’s dream, housed in a simply furnished, softly-lit half-basement of a building in Southeast Portland that was once the grunge/alternative music venue La Luna.

Simpatica does catering and serves reservation-only prix fixe dinners on Fridays and Saturdays. On Sundays it serves a Northwest-inflected Southern-style brunch until 2 pm. On its website, Simpatica says it takes reservations for parties of eight or more, but they gave Flav a pretty hard time. She tried to make a reservation for 18 people at 10:30 am and was told 11:30 am. Later, the restaurant called back to make it 12:30 pm, and then it called a final time—mere days before the event—to change it to 1 pm. When we got there, we ended up having to wait for yet another 45 minutes. That part was pretty irksome, but we largely forgot our annoyance when the bloody Marys started to arrive. These were tall, spicy, thick drinks with a nice balance of alcohol to tomato juice. But the best part was the garnish, which consisted of beautiful homemade pickles— beet, olive, green bean, asparagus and carrot—on a skewer perched across the top of the glass. A few of Flav’s friends ordered garnishes without the drinks just to eat the pickles.

Feeling better with some pickles and alcohol in our stomachs, we waited for our meals to arrive. I ordered the hash with andouille sausage and ham hock (best to indulge all un-kosher urges before Passover arrives) made at the owners’ own charcuterie and butcher shop at the nearby Laurelhurst Market. Also in the hash were spinach, turnips, apples, fennel and caramelized onions. All came topped with two over-easy eggs. It was a hearty feast, juxtaposing spicy-fatty, smoky-fatty, earthy and sweet. Fried chicken and waffles with rhubarb syrup was the dish of choice for EB, Mango Mama and a number of others at the table. It was a bit more savory and complex than the traditional greasy fried chicken (good) and Bisquick waffle (too sweet) version of this dish we tried when we lived up in Harlem—an overall improvement, in my opinion. The chicken was succulent beneath its crispy skin, and that tangy sweet-sour rhubarb syrup kept the whole thing from tipping into bready overdrive.

Speaking of bready overdrive, the same potential danger was lurking for the pork schnitzel with polenta cake, which Flav ordered. The excellent buttery polenta and the pancetta, nettles, persillade and over-easy eggs that came with it were only able to cut this starchy effect to some degree. The dish still came out tasting a little on the heavy side— not that there were actually any dishes I would call light. The fried chicken with biscuits and country gravy, which another one of Flav’s friends ordered (but which I couldn’t reach my fork far enough down the table to sample) may have been the most egregiously weighty dish. But then, I am never a huge fan of gravy after the second or third bite. In general, the carb-heavy aspects of the menu—which also featured chicken-fried bison topped with country gravy—didn’t bother me as much as they might have because I knew Passover was just around the corner.

Indeed, the food was sufficiently delicious, despite it all, that I ate every last bite of my dish and a few bites off other peoples’ plates. Simpatica Dining Hall turned out to be just the right place to celebrate Flav’s birthday and also overdo it just enough to not mind being deprived of non-matzah grains for at least a few days.

Simpatica Dining Hall
828 SE Ash Street
Portland, OR 97214
503.235.1600

Empanada Boy and I were in Portland a few weeks ago for a brief visit. We arrived late and on separate planes (long story), but my sister, the lovely Flava Flav, was there to meet us (or a least me; we left a car there for EB because his plane arrived late). We stayed that night at her awesome new apartment in Southeast Portland. She slept on the couch so we could have the bed. When we got up the next morning, Flav informed us that she had nothing in the refrigerator. I opened it to verify, and it was indeed true. But not to worry: Flav lives around the corner from Meat Cheese Bread, a sandwich place that is all the rage in Portland gastronomic circles.

Like the awesome sister she is, Flav let us make coffee at her place while she walked over and ordered us three breakfast sandwiches: the breakfast burrito (OK not technically a sandwich), the steak and egg sandwich and the smoked ham with Gruyere. When she got back to the apartment, Flav took out a cutting board, put them down on it and (after I snapped a shot) sliced them into thirds, rightly assuming that each of us would want to try a bit of all three.

The first creation we tried was the breakfast burrito. Something of a Mexican food snob, EB was skeptical of the entire concept. He probably envisioned a sad limp wrap like one that might be found at Taco Bell or Denny’s. Flav and I have fonder associations with breakfast burritos having regularly made our own for weekend breakfasts during middle and high school. The burrito from Meat Cheese Bread was quite good, most notably because of the presence of an excellent green chile salsa. (In my opinion, salsa is the key ingredient for this dish.) Apart from that, the burrito just had eggs, hash browns and cheddar cheese. The tortilla itself was tasty, having been slightly toasted to bring out the flavor. Even EB liked this dish.

Next in our three-course breakfast sandwich tasting menu was the steak and egg. This was made with flavorful, fatty flank steak, sliced thin, atop a house made roll. Blue cheese crumbles and a perfectly fried egg accompanied the meat. I found the rich meat and tangy cheese combination quite tasty but a bit too salty. My mouth was still coated in salt hours after eating it. That may have been aggravated (or primarily caused) by the smoked ham sandwich (pictured above), which was our final dish. The ham came with Gruyere and aioli on the same chewy house made roll. Flav added an egg for an extra $1. Again, the flavors were all there, particularly the garlickly aioli, the runny egg and smoked ham trifecta, but I found the meat too salty for comfort. This may be a result of the process of curing the meat, so there may be some inconsistency in the saltiness. Still, it made a perfectly good meal leave a bad taste in my mouth.

In short, I would give breakfast at Meat Cheese Bread another try, but I might play it safe on the salt front by ordering the breakfast burrito. And, of course, there’s the entire lengthy lunch menu— this restaurant’s real bread and butter (pun intended)— still waiting to be tried.

Meat Cheese Bread
1406 SE Stark
Portland, OR 97214
503.234.1700

Empanada Boy and I were in Portland for Passover the week before last. We had an amazing seder at my parents’ house, attended by a record 32 people, and complete with such delicacies as homemade gefilte fish (Auntie Pasti and Mushroom Maven’s handiwork), herbs from the garden for dipping in saltwater and just-laid hardboiled eggs. I made the main course—chicken with apricots and currants—and a side of roasted rosemary potatoes. The seder was fantastic, but even after putting on such a huge affair, Mango Mama still had all of us hanging around to feed. We ate at home a few other nights, but we also resorted to our Passover restaurant standby of Asian food. This only works if you are a Sephardic Jew (of Spanish or North African descent) and eat rice during Passover. Although we are technically Ashkenazic Jews (of Eastern European descent), I use the argument that I am distantly related to the great medieval Jewish scholar Maimonides, who was a Sephardic Jew if there ever was one. Having allowed ourselves that liberty, Mango Mama, Daddy Salmon, Cerealla, EB, Flava Flav, her boyfriend Mr. Market and I all decided to pay a visit the one-year-old multi-Asian restaurant Ping. By multi-Asian, I don’t mean Asian fusion, but rather a menu composed of individual dishes originating from countries like Thailand, Indonesia, China, and Malaysia.

The restaurant is inside the building that for many years housed the unfortunately titled Chinese restaurant Hung Far Low. Mango Mama remembers going there as a kid. The owners of Ping, who also own the awesome Asian street food destination Pok Pok, bought the building, giving it a beautiful, modern, but historically referential, makeover. The restaurant has been lauded by local and national media, from The Oregonian to Alan Richman in GQ. In general, I liked the food here, but perhaps because we couldn’t try any of the noodle dishes or buns, I found it significantly less exciting than Pok Pok. There were simply fewer bursts of flavor nirvana. The Yam Yai Salad of lettuce boiled egg, prawns, chicken, bean sprouts, pickled garlic and peanut dressing was disappointingly generic for all of its super-powerful ingredients. That said, there were definitely dishes worthy of mention. The fish-ball skewers, pictured above, were nicely browned so as to taste savory and not at all fishy. But even better were the chicken liver skewers— tremblingly tender pieces of perfectly cooked chicken liver, rubbed with cilantro root, pepper, garlic and sweet soy and accompanied by a spicy Isaan dipping sauce. We ate these with servings of sticky rice and Jasmine rice. Thinly sliced duck breast was well cooked but not memorable.

Mr. Market is a vegetarian, so we ordered a couple meatless options for his benefit. As it turned out, the two vegetarian dishes were the best things we tasted that night. One was a simple skewer of roasted, grilled and halved red potatoes drizzled with a spicy mayonnaise. These were like French fries with a couple extra dimensions of intense flavor. The other vegetarian dish was one I never would have tried without Mr. Market’s inspiration because it was unappetizingly called a “carrot cake” on the menu. The quotes around the carrot cake were necessary because the dish was actually made with pieces of daikon radish cake, stir fried with eggs, bean sprouts and Kecap Manis, the Indonesian sweet soy sauce. As it turned out, this dish had it all— sweetness, earthiness, saltiness and umami. Here was a flash of those flavor epiphanies I’d had at Pok Pok.

We finished off the meal with an excellent ice cream sundae of sorts: three green scoops of pandanus (tropical plant with pineapple-shaped fruit) ice cream, coated in peanuts and chocolate and set atop a plate of sweet sticky rice. The cartoonish color, satisfying taste and utter lack of pretension in this dish helped me end my meal at Ping in excellent spirits. The food may not have blown me away this time, but it was good enough to prompt a return visit when the culinary restrictions of Passover aren’t in effect.

Ping
102 NW 4th Ave.
Portland, OR 97209
503.229.7464

Empanada Boy and I are up in Northern Wisconsin at his family’s lake house. It’s cold, and the snow has been falling almost nonstop since we arrived here last night. It all makes you feel like drinking warm beverages and curling up in front of the fire, but there’s one cold beverage you always have to make room for when you’re here, and that’s beer. Wisconsinites take their beer seriously. But then, so do Oregonians. The difference is that Oregon beer tends to be more craft-oriented and less mass-market than Midwest brews. This is evidenced by the small temples to the art of beer springing up in my home state everyday.

The last time we were in Portland, EB and I did a beer tasting with Flava Flav and Daddy Salmon at Hopworks Urban Brewery, a quintessentially Portland spot, decorated with bicycle parts hanging from the ceiling and the bar. When we were there, Hopworks was offering a great deal: 10 3-ounce pours of its proprietary brews for a mere $7.50. That’s just under two pints for about what one would cost you in New York. EB drank one whole sampler himself (obviously), but Flav and I shared and Daddy Salmon opted for a pint of IPA. Beers ranged from the Organic Hub Lager (5.1% alcohol by volume) to hoppy seasonal brews with more than 9% ABV and came on a tray lined with tasting notes. All were delicious and distinctive, but these are not weak, watery beers, and even the staunchest beer drinker cannot hope to get through a flight without some food to line the stomach.

Daddy Salmon, Flav and I shared a large pizza, one of the focal points of the Hopworks menu. We got the Gatherer topped with mushrooms, caramelized red onions, marinated artichoke hearts, roasted garlic, bell peppers and black olives. Unfortunately, the pizza sounded more delicious than it turned out to be. The crust was a little dry and lacked the chew of a wood-fired oven. Some of the toppings—olives, artichoke hearts—came from a can, and the mushrooms were basic buttons, not the more flavorful wild mushrooms that typically grow in Oregon. One noteworthy detail, however is that most of the ingredients are organic.

As soon as I saw EB’s burger, I realized I should have ordered that instead. It was huge and cooked to a perfect medium rare. Tillamook cheese melted on top and large French fry wedges came on the side. The standout burger made me wonder about the other sandwiches on the menu like the one made with Pilsner-cured sausage or the laden Hopworks Sub. I’ll probably try one of those the next time I’m feeling like drinking a whole lot of flavorful Oregon brews and need something substantial to line my stomach.

Hopworks Urban Brewery
2944 SE Powell Blvd.
Portland, OR 97202
503.232.4677

If Thanksgiving didn’t offer enough opportunity for pigging out, my family decided to preface the big dinner with a lot of great eating. Empanada Boy had already been in Portland for a couple days before my arrival late Tuesday night. Before we all headed out to our beach house in Cannon Beach the next day, we went out to lunch at one of Portland’s many new hipster hangouts: Bunk Sandwiches. Present were Mango Mama, Flava Flav, Daddy Salmon, Empanada Boy, Flav’s friend Sunbutter and me.

As any good sandwich shop should, Bunk has made a name for itself because of its top-notch ingredients and winning, innovative, flavor combination. The line of about 20 people that stretched out onto the sidewalk was evidence enough that this place is more than a fad. Luckily for us, Sunbutter was already in the middle of the line. We snagged an outdoor table, warmed by the mild afternoon sunlight. There are only a few tables and a counter with stools inside the small, funky shop. One wall bears a blackboard with the menu. A lady at the counter took our orders while a man who looked like he took his sandwiches seriously assembled ours on the exposed cutting surface.

When the sandwiches started coming out to our table, sitting impressively atop plain brown butcher paper, next to a side of sea salt chips, I began to understand what this place was all about. Every sandwich we ordered was a work of art. My roast beef sandwich (top photo) was made with rare and juicy, hand-cut meat, sweet caramelized onions and tangy, tangy horseradish. EB and Sunbutter ordered the pork belly sandwich (pictured here), and it was just as unctuous as it sounds. The buttery meat was made even richer with the Gruyere and Russian dressing, but a bright heap of crunchy pickles kept things lively.

Mango Mama’s sandwich looked like a salad on a bun, with vibrant lettuce, hot peppers and tomatoes. But beneath the fresh greenery were layers of salami and another Italian cured meat, along with provolone picante. Daddy Salmon continued in the picante vein with a sandwich made from roasted poblano pepper and delightfully stretchy melted cheese. The crisp bread and the soft smoky pepper made a perfect bite.

Now that I think of it, the creation of the perfect bite could sum up Bunk’s mission. And I’m willing to come right out and say that it’s a mission at which Bunk resoundingly succeeds.

Bunk Sandwiches
621 SE Morrison St.
Portland, OR 97214
503.477.9515

I am writing to you, dear readers, for the first time as a married woman. Empanada Boy and I were married in a wonderful beach ceremony in Cannon Beach, Oregon on August 3. We then paraded through town behind members of the world-class Mama Digdown’s Brass Band to a reception at the Cannon Beach Chamber of Commerce. There was dancing, speeches and, of course, great food and drink. EB and I spent most of last week honeymooning in Victoria, B.C. (more to come on the food we ate there), but we had plenty of time to visit some Portland restaurants during the week before the big day. Top on my list was Kenny and Zuke’s Delicatessen, located in the relatively new and incredibly hip Ace Hotel.

My favorite restaurant in Portland used to be Ken’s Place, a small, casual spot on Hawthorne Ave. Chef Ken Gordon served home-style comfort food with highlights like stellar fried chicken and a warm calamari salad that I couldn’t help but order every time I came. The best part was that if you stayed late enough, Ken would come out and chat. He would opine about the best place to get certain delicacies and about the importance of providing diners with a pepper grinder on every table. Ken closed his place a few years ago to fulfill his dream of opening a New York-style delicatessen, exactly what Portland lacked. His dream was shared by Nick Zukin, a prominent Portland food blogger (extramsg.com). Together they started curing their own meats and baking their own rye bread and bagels. They baked rugelach and babka. They even brought in a bevy of small batch sodas (pictured here). The results are like nothing New York has seen— at least for a long time.

Empanada Boy, Daddy Salmon, Mango Mama and I spent a long time perusing the lengthy menu, trying to decide which combination of the impressive variety of meats to put onto our sandwiches. There was pastrami, corned beef, tongue, beef salami, even chopped liver. How would we decide? Then Mango Mama happened upon a great solution: we could order the Meat Sampler for four and get to try all of them! EB and Daddy Salmon decided to start things off with some borscht. It was wonderfully refreshing and packed with sweet beet flavor. EB was especially pleased to find crunchy apple slices among the chucks of beets floating on top. As good as the borscht was, though, I knew I needed to save my strength for what was to come. I was right. Thanks to my mom striking up a friendly conversation with Nick Zukin when we walked in the door, we were given a pile of pastrami so large, rich and fatty that it alone would have been enough for lunch. The pastrami was like none I’ve ever tried before. Its edge crackled with peppercorns; its luscious fat striped and marble through each tender, moist and salty slice. The corned beef was also delicious, coming apart in smaller crumbled chunks. Tongue was succulent and smooth, while salami was salty with a touch of spice. Chicken liver was appropriately decadent. This mound of meat came with house-made half-sour pickles, mustard and a gigantic platter of sliced rye bread. It was far more than the four of us could eat. We took about a third of it home in a box.

Nick Zukin, who later took EB, Mango Mama and me on a tour of the kitchen, insisted that we try some dessert. Immensely full as we were, we couldn’t decide between the honey almond cake and the cheesecake. (I would never normally order cheesecake, but Zukin said it was the best dessert on the menu.) We ordered both, and both were phenomenal. The almond cake was moist with honey and full of toasty flavor. I could have eaten more despite my increasing fullness. Much to our surprise, the cheesecake was indeed excellent. It was far lighter and more mousse-like than the dense, heavy versions served at places like Junior’s in Brooklyn. The bottom crust was also flavorful and soft enough to eat, unlike the cardboard slab graham cracker crusts that line most cheesecakes.

I can truthfully say that our meal at Kenny and Zuke’s was one of the best I’ve had in my life. As our kitchen tour confirmed, every element at this restaurant is carefully tested, researched and planned before being served to customers. Meat is cured according to a traditional, yet precisely formulated method. Pickles are carefully barreled and stored. And bagels are made to meet a gold standard of toothsomeness. Ken Gordon and Nick Zukin are not only purists when it comes to representing the genre, they are also perfectionists. And the result is near heavenly.

Kenny and Zuke’s Delicatessen
1038 SW Stark St.
Portland, OR 97205
503.222.DELI (3354)

If you’re not Jewish, you may have heard your friends complaining last week. And if you are, you were probably the complainer. I’m not talking about the normal whining about having to give up bread and other leavened products during Passover and eat only hard, dry matzo. The complaints I’m talking about came from people who couldn’t find enough matzo to eat. That’s right, this year there was a matzo shortage. I know this from experience and from an article in the New York Times. Mango Mama wisely stocked up with a full case the day after our 30-person seder consumed her first case. But when Empanada Boy and I came back to Chicago last week, we needed some of our own. We tried three grocery stores— Jewel (the major supermarket chain), our favorite Mexican/ Greek grocery and Treasure Island. Desperate, I called Whole Foods. The guy told me they had matzo. When I got there, I found about six boxes left. My choices: organic or whole wheat. Typical. I bought both. Both tasted more like cardboard than normal matzo.

Now I’ll segue to my real topic: a matzo shortage only highlights the need for more restaurants like Portland’s Pok Pok. I went there with Daddy Salmon, Mango Mama and Flava Flav on my last night in Portland. It was Passover, and we wracked our brains to come up with a restaurant that would fit our Reform dietary standards. (We usually eat rice like Sephardic Jews and don’t bother with restrictions on corn oil or soy lecithin, etc.) Pok Pok, which specializes in Thai and other Southeast Asian street food, was a perfect fit. We even saw some other Jewish friends leaving as we arrived! Nearly all the critics (including me) agree that this restaurant is fantastic, serving exceptionally flavorful food like the delicious sour and spicy fish soup with evaporated milk, galangal and lemongrass, pictured here. Pok Pok was The Oregonian’s Restaurant of the Year in 2007. There was a wait for a table, but that gave Flav and me a chance to sample some of the drinks. She had a tasty hot toddy (not technically kosher for Passover) because she was feeling sick. I had a plum drinking vinegar— a kind of sweet-sour drink made by mixing flavored vinegar with soda water. It tasted too much like a Jolly Rancher to me, but it was worth a try.

We were hungry when we finally sat down. Mango Mama knew she wanted to order Pok Pok’s specialty, the Kai Yaang, a charcoal roasted game hen stuffed with lemongrass, garlic, pepper and cilantro and served with a spicy sweet and sour dipping sauce. This bird is so incredibly infused with flavor that you just want to tear it apart the second it hits the plate. The skin is perfectly crispy, and the combination of the seasonings on the meat and in the sauce makes for some blissful moments. We also tried the soup above and another chicken dish (called one of the best dishes of the year by Food and Wine) of wings marinated in fish sauce and palm sugar. These were also crackly and redolent of the pungent fish sauce, but I found them a little too sweet.

That would have probably been enough food if we hadn’t been so swept up in trying more things. We went back to another old favorite, the Green Papaya Pok Pok, a spicy, fish-saucy salad made of shredded green papaya, tomatoes, long beans, chilies and peanuts. It has everything bright and bold you can think of, and the earthy, salty peanuts balance it out. We ate it with sticky rice. The final dish was a catfish marinated in turmeric and sour sticky rice. It sat on a bed of vermicelli (rice noodles, so kosher) with peanut, mints and other greens. The mint was wildly flavorful, but the catfish was disappointing. It was a lot milder than it sounded and couldn’t stand up to the other dishes on the table.

In any other context, I’m sure I would have like that catfish better. But the thing I love most about Pok Pok is the boldness of its flavors. This is not shy food! This food makes a statement, and it makes your mouth sing! And so we came away feeling sated and refreshed. Pok Pok’s fare ain’t no matzo, but it was kosher enough for me.

Pok Pok
3226 SE Division St.
Portland, OR 97202
503.232.1387

Portland’s food scene has been experiencing a renaissance in recent years, with new local-seasonal, ethnic-regional spots opening to great local and national fanfare. Every self-professed foodie I meet counts Portland among her top destinations. New York Times wine critic, Eric Asimov, even devoted an article last year to the culinary courses being charted here. Empanada Boy and I squeezed in a few restaurant visits before (and even during) Passover while we were there this past week. But it was troubling to read reports in The Oregonian (Sunday, April 20) and Willamette Week (Wednesday, March 19) that cited economic trouble ahead for Portland’s restaurants due to a combination of higher food costs, cash-strapped customers and Oregon’s $7.95 minimum wage.

The worry is that the economic downturn might nip the city’s developing food scene in the bud. The problems are serious, but I don’t think the situation is dire. Portland seems to have escaped some of the economic problems of other cities. The real estate market has softened slightly, but the city is such a desirable place to live that it’s been relatively unscathed. Similarly, worthy restaurants will survive because Portlanders and foodies from all around will keep coming. And there is one sector of Portland’s signature foodie scene that will continue to grow despite the economy: the food carts.

In nearly every urban neighborhood, there are at least a few of these vans and little portable shacks-turned gourmet kitchens. An enterprising Portland writer has even devoted a blog to them. According to The Oregonian, it costs between $200 and $500 to get the permits and equipment to start one of these operations. The lunch crowd is reliable, and the margins are good. Food carts are most numerous within a few downtown blocks where they are churning out everything from paninis, to pierogies, to tamales and bento boxes. One of my favorites is India Chaat House on the corner of 12th and Alder. It’s one of the most established carts, and I’d place it among the city’s best Indian restaurants. The meal pictured here, consisting of rice, naan, a rich cauliflower curry, delicious savory lentils and a beautifully spiced chickpea dish, is enormous enough for two, and as the daily lunch special, sold for a meager $5.50.

Mango Mama works a block away from India Chaat House and likes to go there when she hasn’t brought a lunch. She also frequents the tiny taqueria next door (pictured here), which has a great selection of fresh, homemade taco fillings. The block encompassed by 9th and Alder is perhaps the most notable food cart center. Carts with home-roasted espresso (Spella Caffe) sits next to gyros stands and yakisoba vendors. It was there at Snow White House that I first tasted crepes. I remember telling Mango Mama how much I loved them. I have since eaten crepes on the streets of Montmarte in Paris and have become pretty good at making them at home, but those food cart crepes will always be my first.

The cart scene makes Portland unique. L.A. has its taco trucks, and New York has its hot dog and gyros stands, but neither can offer the quality and variety all within walking distance of the area where most people work. Similarly, Chicago has great ethnic food, including some top-notch taquerias, but I have never seen a single food cart anywhere. Perhaps they fear the winter cold, or maybe the city has an ordinance against them. Whatever the reason, their absence is noticeable. These are great little businesses that improve everyone’s quality of life— even when the economy takes a turn for the worse.

India Chaat House
804 SW 12th Ave.
Portland, OR 97205
503.241.7944