Sep 22
Enjoy the Aussie tchotchkes while you can. Outback Steakhouse has begun redesigning their look and appear to be going all haute Aborignal.
Check out a slideshow on Nation’s Restaurant News.
As long as they don’t class up my Bloomin’ Onion, I’m ok with this. Can’t you see them drizzling New Zealand black truffle oil all over the battered orb and charging a few more dollars?
I can’t decide if I should be cross-posting relevant missives for as long as I can keep up this two-blog charade. I don’t believe Carl’s Jr. is worth mentioning outside a chain-centric blog (especially since I wrote next to nothing about the food) but Burgerville is certainly worthy of Goodies First status.
I can’t pinpoint when Burgerville went from being a regular, albeit regional—they’re based in Vancouver, Washington—burger chain to the
revered sustainable/local/seasonal darling it is today. For many, like that bike-riding drive-thru woman who recently caused a flap, it’s the only fast food they’ll deign to eat.
I primarily remember it being where my dad and his fellow classic car enthusiasts would meet up and show off their tricked out autos in the parking lot. I guess because Burgerville has adopted a vague ‘50s décor and uses a jukebox on their sign?
But the food is really good and who can argue with using what’s fresh and when it’s gone it’s gone? I’m just bummed that we missed the Walla Walla onion rings by a few weeks. On my visit they were promoting poblano peppers, sweet potatoes and blackberries, as well as advertising upcoming apples and cranberries.
It was also worth noting that you can substitute a side salad for fries and bottled water is a combo option in addition to fountain beverages. As a soda-loather, this is appreciated. I’ve always been bothered by water costing more than soft drinks. I’ll take the fries, though.
I accidentally ordered a wimpy cheeseburger instead of one of the beefier varieties so I had to strain to try and detect all of those grass-fed, antibiotic and-hormone-free nuances shining through. Frankly, what made this burger so awesome was the combination of melted Tillamook cheddar and that sauce that I’d totally forgotten about. Plain mayonnaise scares the crap out of me but incorporated into condiments, the eggy richness transcends the fluffy white emulsion. They sell the spread in jars at the counter so I know I’m not alone in my love.
I prefer caramelly, chocolate, nutty flavors of ice cream over fruity varieties. I guess I’m just not crazy about fruit, though I do like berries, cherries and tropical stuff. The Northwest is teeming with berries like huckleberry, marionberry, boysenberry, olalaberry, not just regular black and rasp. This lavender shake ruled; sweet without straying into sickly territory.
After eating, we ordered two pepper bacon cheeseburgers for the road. I think the counter kid thought we were crazy.
The bread is from Franz, with whom I happen to have a personal beef with for a very legitimate reason.
Not too long before I moved to NYC, one of their delivery trucks crashed into my parked car and totaled it during an early a.m. rainstorm. (In a weird way, it kept me from going to court. Days before this incident I had been pulled over by cops and cited for driving without insurance. I was scheduled to go to court to prove I had gotten it but no more car solved that problem nicely.)
These Franz trucks haunted my entire week in Oregon. There was a Franz bakery outlet just a block from the Burgerville in Albany where we stopped on our way to Eugene. We ended up spending over $10 on non-Franz junk like pepperoni sticks, mini pecan pies and Annabelle
candy bars, Abba Zabba and Big Hunk, both non-existent on the East Coast (what, no Idaho Spud?) so we were entitled to two items from the sale rack. No one needs loaves of white bread on vacation but I grabbed a pack of hamburger buns just to be safe.
Burgerville * 2310 Santiam Hwy SE, Albany, OR
McDonald’s is the most hated brand in the UK [Scotsman]
McDonald’s was just ranked the sixth most valuable global brand [Interbrand]
Subway is poised to surpass the number of McDonald’s locations worldwide in the next few months. [Ad Age]
There’s nothing like a New York Times trend piece to make one feel surly and contrarian. Yesterday’s “Brooklyn’s Tide of Chains, Decidedly Local” did the trick for me.
“While New Yorkers have been nervously eyeing the encroaching tide of national chains, fearing the stores will wash away all things small and charming, a different retail species has taken root in this still-gentrifying quarter: the chain that is distinctly, even aggressively, local.”
As a resident of this “still-gentrifying quarter” I feel a renewed vigor in my love of national chains.
Originally on my list of Portland to-tries, I ultimately omitted Toro Bravo from my itinerary. I went Spanish on a recent visit to Philadelphia. Do I really need to try tapas, good as they may be, in every US city I visit?
The same could be said for Thai food, a cuisine I’m more particular about, maybe because it’s so messed up so much of the time. I’ll eat chorizo and gambas practically anywhere, no problem. I’m not taking chances on a weak, watery papaya salad that tastes of lime juice, sugar and nothing else, though. I already knew Pok Pok wasn’t going to serve soggy pad thai doused in peanut sauce. Chef-owner, Andy Ricker has been all over the glossies as well as the blogs (as a Gresham native, I couldn’t help noticing that Austin is from Sandy, Oregon). I imagine he knows what he's doing.
And it’s not even close to a secret. Add Pok Pok to the list of Portland restaurants that don’t take reservations for groups under six, engendering 45-minute-waits. I was on vacation and the food lived up to my expectations, so it didn’t kill me. But if I lived in the neighborhood I could see it being a frustrating Lucali-like tease. This photo was taken as I was leaving and the crowds had died down.
The most unusual part of the Pok Pok experience is that in their striving for authenticity, half of the seating is outdoors. The thing about outdoor dining in Thailand is that, um, it’s in the tropics and you’re eating fiery food under intense heat and humidity, all punishing and part of the experience. Portland is all fir trees, moss, slugs and dampness, more pot roast and potatoes in front of a fireplace. The incongruity of a frosty Singha and tongue-searing som tam in these temperate environs was jarring. I’ve often said that I would enjoy Southeast Asian street food more if the weather was kinder. I just didn’t picture it like this.
We took whatever we could get, as did the majority of the wiser Gore-Texed, polar-fleeced customers also waiting to dine. Who knows how long it would’ve taken for an indoor seat? On this sunless, late summer Sunday, the temperature was 60, if that, with intermittent bursts of rain. I was wearing short sleeves, a sweater and light jacket and was a touch chilled. In NYC they would’ve had heat lamps. Oregonians are hardier people.
Papaya salad with shrimp (I’m now wishing I’d tried it with the salted black crab) was the hottest thing on the table and I appreciated its intensity. Painfully spicy and tart, very much in a Northern Thai vein like most of the food here. This isn’t a restaurant for rich, coconut-heavy curries.
The Aviation is having a moment in Oregon. I spied it on the menu at Belly in Eugene, as well as here at Pok Pok where it didn’t make a whole lot of sense. I don’t recall either places using Crème de Violette. Instead, I chose the Asian take on a whisky sour using tamarind, lime, palm sugar.
Just looking at this iced plate of mustard greens makes me shiver. What normally might be a refreshing accompaniment to tart, peppery boar collar seemed unseasonably cooling on this particular evening. The bitter greens did pair well with the rich, tender meat.
We made these Vietnamese fish sauce wings for a Super Bowl party this year. Ours turned out pretty well but I had nothing to compare them to. Grilled over charcoal, these had great char and lots of caramelization. A funky sticky-sweet crust forms around the edges. They got cold really quickly, though.
The pork belly salad was a balancing relief from some of the spicier dishes. This had a fresh, crisp quality from the Chinese celery, cilantro and onion slivers.
I just read that Pok Pok is opening a bar across the street, rather than sending expectant patrons to Matchless as seemed to be the routine to keep the front patio clog-free. This might help matters. As to other Andy Ricker projects, I just couldn’t bring myself to stop by Ping because it replaced Hung Far Low, an Old Town icon (yes, I did note flyers advertising a benefit gig to restore the famous dilapidated sign). I spent so many nights nursing a whisky sour and sharing sesame chicken in the upstairs lounge. There's even a photo of me climbing up said stairs on inside sleeve of Casiotone For the Painfully Alone's, “Answering Machine Music.” I'm like a New Yorker who fled for the suburbs in the '70s and is all freaked out by the new face of The Bowery.
After dinner, I checked on the Space Room. And yep, the cocktails are still $3 a pop and they still have the creepy black-light murals of Haystack Rock and what I think is supposed to be Mount St. Helens being volcanic.
Pok Pok * 3226 SE Division St., Portland, OR
Did I love it? In theory. The experience was more exciting than the food.
Eating at Carl’s Jr. on a Portland vacation doesn’t make much sense but I like trying West Coast chains that are absent in NYC. Don’t worry, I also ate at Burgerville, the acceptably seasonal and local Northwest fast food chain, too. If I had more time I would’ve also popped into Jack in the Box and the strange new-to-me sit down restaurant, Claim Jumper.
The first thing I was reminded of while walking along the bus mall from our hotel to Carl’s Jr. a few blocks up the street was that Oregon may as well lose its Beaver State nickname and borrow from Oklahoma. I don’t know that there’s a more panhandley state in the nation. Oregonians who haven’t been to NYC don’t seem to realize that here it’s not normal to see someone sleeping on porches, in every doorway and to be asked for change every few feet. Last year I noticed a man asking for change on William St. near my office. He’s been there ever since and the only reason I notice him is because he’s the only pandhandler I’ve encountered in the Financial District. Ok, there’s also that tranny who begs at the Carroll St. F in the evenings but that works out to like one panhandler per neighborhood.
I was reading blog reviews about Clyde Common (which I just wrote about) and was struck by this comment, which you would never see on an NYC website:
"I will indeed try to visit. Unfortunately my last effort left me confronted with about 30 street people lying or sitting on the sidewalk around the entrance at noon. Not wanting to go through the beggars brigade with associated insults if I did not drop money, I left for more options in less confrontational climes."
Nice. But even more striking was that the entire Carl’s Jr. and neighboring streets had been taken over by cosplay kids. Apparently, an anime convention for youngsters (I saw maybe two chubby guys over 30 and there were a few over-21s because I heard an exchange, “I’m not drinking any $5 beers.” “No, this place isn’t expensive.” If I had any doubt I was back in Portland where a $5 beer might be considered luxurious) was in town and everyone had on their best rainbow tights, hooded cloaks, cat ears, turquoise wigs, plastic swords in tow. The thing is, no one appeared to be dressed as a particular character. I withhold judgment since I was once a bored, white, middle class, geeky teen living in the suburbs of this very second (third?) tier city. There are worse outlets for too much free time.
Most jarring of all (after noticing that the staff was entirely white, super polite, some middle aged, and that they bring the food to your table–I suppose that in minority-less cities, someone must staff service industry jobs) was that the eatery had completely run out of ketchup. What kind of fast food joint runs out of ketchup?! We were offered bbq sauce instead.
Knowing I would be eating a proper meal in a few hours, I shied away from the Six Dollar Burgers and chose the basic Famous Star with cheese. It was fine, nothing more. You can order your meals small, medium or large, meaning the size of your fries and drink. My respectable skin-on fries and Minute Maid lemonade were mediums.
Concentrating on the burger proved difficult because we had walked into the middle of what felt like a high school drama club field trip with a dash of non-dining tweekers going from table to table saying who knows what because I wouldn’t make eye contact since I know better than to engage spazzy strangers. As we were getting ready to leave, a young-ish tattooed bike messenger-y kid came over and asked if he could have the rest of our fries, the six or so stragglers that were covered with a used napkin. Uh, I guess.
On one hand, I hate waste, maybe it’s because I’m an Oregonian, I never throw out substantial food and always take home leftovers. Why shouldn’t someone eat remaining supersized portions getting tossed out? On the other hand, have some dignity, man. James enjoyed the novelty and went and found this guy and his comrades hanging out down the street and gave him the last quarter cup of his Coke Zero. “Thanks!” was the genuine reply.
I’m still torn on this practice because in Portland so many are destitute by choice. In fact, there’s an entire culture of scrounging at the Reed College cafeteria, a university that costs $39,440 per year.
Carl’s Jr. * 508 SW Taylor St., Portland, OR
It goes without saying that Jay Leno is not on in my home during prime time or any time. (I did try to watch about four-minutes-worth last night and caught a predictably non-funny parody of that girl who threw back the baseball her dad caught during a game between unknown teams because I follow sports even less closely than late night talk shows.)
But I wish I had been watching Conan last night because there was a delightful chain restaurant-heavy interview with Megan Fox. She knows an awful lot about Sizzler and had this to say about one of my weaknesses, the Cheddar Bay Biscuit: “The cheese biscuits at Red Lobster. Yes! They deserve applause.”
I’m clapping as I type. I’m also imagining a "Kokomo"-style ode to Cheddar Bay. “That’s where we want to play, way down to Cheddar Bay.” I mean, if Jimmy Buffet can sing about a cheeseburger.
Even one of my favorite Malaysian food experts, Rasa Malaysia, has strayed from her traditional Southeast Asian-focused mission to publish a recipe replicating these soft, cheddary gems.
Did I love it? Not immensely. Either I’ve matured or the never-special menu has slipped into sub par territory. After a few margaritas you might not care, though.
I’ve always thought of Mezcal’s as a guilty pleasure but on my last visit I just felt kind of guilty. It’s getting harder and harder to justify mediocre Ameri-Mex with Calexico and Oaxaca now also in the neighborhood.
Gooey, melted cheese on flour tortillas has its place. I’m a sucker for Tacos Nuevo Mexico’s “gringa” quesadilla. But this chorizo quesadilla was a sad specimen. The corn tortillas weren’t very pliable and the cheese didn’t even keep the sides adhered to one another, meanwhile the thing was topped with what tasted like thin Hunt’s tomato sauce, not even canned enchilada sauce, which would’ve also been kind of sad.
The mole seafood enchiladas were fine for what they were. Of course, this wasn’t a sauce painstakingly ground from 25 ingredients but this sweetish mole-lite is a bit more interesting than the taco+burrito+chimichanga combo platters that many diners favor.
I noticed that they have removed their outdoor seating (they do have a back garden, which is where everyone except us were sitting on this particular balmy evening. I prefer indoor dining, though it ended up not mattering since the front floor-to-ceiling windows were all open and I was harassed by tiny mosquitoes anyway) now that Buttermilk Channel has set up theirs on the corner. I don’t know that one has to do with the other, but I would feel less ostentatious dining in front of Mezcal’s on this still mildly ratty (by Carroll Gardens’s standards only) stretch of Court Street than eating my New American fried chicken and waffles alfresco. Frankly, my favorite thing in that immediate area is the greasy crab rangoon at Wing Hua.
Mezcal’s * 522 Court St., Brooklyn, NY
The Japanese have an opinion on everything, it seems. I particularly like the translated surveys about food on What Japan Thinks. Two recent ones tackled very important topics.
First, do they approve of oddly shaped vegetables? Yes they do! 32.5% have already bought them and 25.5% really want to buy them. It appears that they mean malformed vegetables due to poor weather and not those Buddha-shaped pears or heart-like watermelons (ok, those are fruit, whatever).
Secondly, curry-eating habits. Neither Indian nor Thai, they are referring to that sweetish British-influenced style of curry favored in Japan. A majority of respondents, 43.8%, eat curry at home two-three times per month. And shockingly, the most popular occasion for Japanese to make curry at home is “When I want to eat curry” at 69.5%. Only 4.5% make it when they want to build up stamina. The leading brand is Kokumaro Curry, winning nearly a quarter of the votes at 22.4%.
Urgh, I broke down and bought a smartphone (not an iPhone—out of principle I bought something else, anything else, the My Touch—before I saw Whoopi Goldberg in the ad, I swear). That would mean nothing to anyone else but I’m one of those freaks who resisted owning a cell phone at all until late 2007. Crossing over to the other side was tough, and frankly, I never even use my phone (in July I only used 8 minutes and 15 texts).
And the thing that got me? Being able to customize the shell. I like putting photos on things, what can I say?
And despite declaring the banh mi over earlier this year, I couldn’t resist using said sandwich’s cross section from the New York Times’s sandwich piece (please don’t turn me into the copyright police). It’s really more abstract unless you know what you’re looking at.
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