11778 Fri Jul 18 01:08:27 -0700 2003 17 4 Pacific Northwest 0 19103 Just got back from my food trip to San Francisco. See the link for my (very long) report. A few things stood out in relation to Portland: 1) We don't have haute cuisine. Genoa is probably our closest now that Couvron is gone, but even they are much more rustic. Don't get me wrong. We have great food and very good prices. Excellent flavor/$ here, I think. But do we have any places pushing the craft? Certainly not at the level of The French Laundry. But even in comparison to Gary Danko's and Masa's I would say probably not. Dishes sound too similar between places like Wildwood, Bluehour, and Paley's. What we have, I think, are a bunch of Chez Panisses (except Chez Panisse makes a new menu every day and provides much better service with tremendously high quality ingredients). I think in some ways, Caprial's may have the most unique menus in town because of her willingness to fuse NW with Asian and Latin. We have an awesome variety of food, but do we have anyone truly impresses? 2) Our farmer's markets are pretty darned good. My friend from Dallas who came up here last year for a food trip was with me in SF. He actually liked the Portland Farmer's Market better than the Ferry Building Farmer's Market in SF. I think it's a wash. We have a little more variety in the produce, but fewer vendors in general, even selling produce, fewer cheesemakers, and fewer people selling fish. Between the Portland and Beaverton markets, though. We have a market community worth being proud of. 3) We don't have a produce store. I love Pastaworks and Porcini Produce. They always have fantastic produce, but it's a small selection. I like New Seasons, Zupan's, Whole Foods, and Nature's. Even Fred Meyer's has decent produce for a supermarket. But have you been to Berkeley Bowl? I've seen less variety in the airplane hangar sized Mercado Merced in Mexico City. And the quality was all excellent. Even the prices were good. If you go to the Bay Area this is a must see. There were so many things I'd never heard of. I felt like a kid in a candy store. 4) We don't have dim sum. It's not even worth calling what we do have dim sum. We have wanna-be dim sum. It looks like dim sum, it just doesn't taste near as good as what you can get in SF. Night and day. That said, even the great quality stuff in SF didn't light my fire. I'd prefer the dishes at Sungari. I wish I had gone to a place that had more than dim sum so I could have seen how Sungari stacks up. 5) SF has an awesome Chowhound community. They get together to eat at least once a week it sounded like. We ate with two Chowhounders at Gary Danko and it was extremely pleasant. I have to say, I'm jealous. Link: http://www.chowhound.com/topics/show/24956#98678 Fri Jul 18 01:08:27 -0700 2003 0 Nick 1 19106 Sounds like you had a great time in the Bay. As I go there a few times a year myself, I understand and agree but I think it's unfair to compare Portland to S.F./Yountville. It's apples and oranges. Why point out what we don't have by comparing us to cities that are exponentially larger and socioeconomically very different? I honestly don't think the French Laundry would survive at the same level here. I also disagree that there are no Portland restaurants "pushing the craft". I see dishes at Laslow's, Castagna, Joel Palmer, etc. that repeatedly evidence chefs thinking outside all the box. S.F. is undoubtedly a culinary city par excellence but for it's size and history, Portland is doing extremely well, including our produce, wine and bounty of excellent restaurants (unfortunately, I have to agree about the dim sum though). Given the advantages to living in the NW, I'll take Portland any day. Besides, S.F. is only a short plane ride away. Fri Jul 18 10:09:03 -0700 2003 19103 0 Hunter 1 19108 To be fair, the Berkeley Bowl is unique -- someone, somewhere has to be the best, and Berkeley Bowl is it, or damn close. And at that, it took a synergy of many different factors: access to a wide range of high quality produce at reasonable prices (because the East Bay is not only in the center of a region where you can grow almost anything, but also a major international shipping hub); a diverse population that both produces and demands a wide variety of produce; a critical mass of consumers who are willing to make special trips on a regular basis to buy produce; and a local core of Berkeley types who are passionate about produce -- this is the home of Alice Waters, after all. I don't get to the Bowl as often as I should, so I still occasionally get blown away all over again. I rarely go to the Bowl without seeing something I've never seen before (turmeric is a rhizome -- who knew?). Thanks for reminding us of what a treasure we have. Fri Jul 18 13:53:26 -0700 2003 19103 0 Ruth Lafler 1 19110 Nick, thanks for an excellent commentary on Portland vs. SF cuisine and a great SF chowhound report that makes me want to go back (haven't been there in several years). The Berkeley Bowl market is especially appealing, do you know if it's seasonal? I agree with you that although Portland has a lot of great food, one thing that limits our city is the lack of variation in style among our many fine restaurants. For example, there are a whole group of Italian restaurants that seem to pass around similar recipes, or someone gets a new idea for a polenta or risotto and the others immediately do their version of it. Meanwhile, a truly good southern italian restaurant focusing on handmade pastas and great sauces is hard to come by. It's as though everyone is trying to fill the same niche. Even restaurants such as Higgins, Laslows, Paley's, Wildwood, and even the Heathman (my personal favorite) often have similar menus. And although we have several northwest-inspired french bistro-type places, we lack a really good French Country restaurant. Along this vein, has anyone tried the new River restaurant at the Avalon? A review in today's Portland Tribune makes it sound interesting. The question is: Will it be interesting enough? And just for curiosities' sake, what is your favorite Indian restaurant in Portland? Thanks again for your SF report. Fri Jul 18 15:58:08 -0700 2003 19103 0 Steph 2 19111 The Berkeley Bowl is not a farmers' market, it's a grocery store with an amazing produce section -- it actually grew out of a specialty produce market into a full-service store than now occupies a space that was formerly a Safeway. In addition to the produce, it also has an excellent fish counter with sushi-grade fish, a meat counter featuring Niman Ranch and organic and grassfed meats and poultry, an array of bulk foods, a prepared foods/deli area, plus all the usual shelf goods and dairy products, with the selection leaning toward "gourmet" and oraganic products. All at prices that are comparable with your local supermarket. The only reason more people don't shop there more often is that the parking lot is always a zoo and the check-out lines are long (despite the fact they have some of the best checkers I've ever seen). Link: http://www.berkeleybowl.com/ Fri Jul 18 16:08:07 -0700 2003 19110 0 Ruth Lafler 2 19114 As Ruth Lafler notes, Berkeley Bowl is not a farmer's market. Think Whole Foods or New Seasons, but up a couple notches. I think Portland actually has better variety, in many ways, than most cities, even ones larger. We have the regional/French stuff that you name. We have several Italian places that are as good as any of the other restaurants in town, plus Genoa. We have top end Mexican and Latin with Cafe Azul, Pambiche, Esparza's, and Oba. We have several excellent Thai places. We have Indian fine-dining (Plainfield's Mayur) plus several cheaper, but good, alternatives. We have a nice Chinese place, Sungari, and a great Korean place, Bewon. We have a growing number of good Vietnamese places (though the emphasis is still on Pho) including Pho Van, which I think surpasses the average place. We have good bbq with Yam Yam's being my favorite. We have some great taquerias with Iguana Feliz, Ochoa, and Salvador's. Lots of quality breakfast places. Growing number of wine bars. Several top steakhouses, including the local Ringside. I think we're better than average on mid-range places, *** Mobil type places, because we don't have any truly haute cuisine places like Chicago, NY, SF, and the like have. But I do agree that within cuisines sometimes the stuff either all starts to look eerily similar or it just isn't that interesting (and the menu doesn't change that much) even if it's really good for what it is. That's why I'm interested in returning to Caprial's. I think they feel like they're doing their own thing and doing it really well. Also, I was pretty excited about Lucere for a while. I thought their prices were awesome for the level of food and that they were breaking out of the typical NW dishes. (btw, I think Higgins often does stuff that sounds interesting, they just don't execute well and the stuff turns out mediocre.) I need to return to Lucere and see if the new chef has kept up the quality. If money is no object, I'd choose Plainfield's as best Indian. I haven't hit many Indian places in town for a while. There was one here in Vancouver near my house that I was really liking for a while, not great, but pretty good, but they went out of business. I used to go to Swagat for lunch all the time and liked Bombay Cricket Club for dinner. If Plainfield's would change their menu once in a while and get a little more inventive I'd go there once a month. As is, I've tried everything there that really interests me and if I'm going to go to a place to have something I've had before, it's usually a cheaper place. I cook for my wife every night, pretty much, unless we go out. There aren't many places in town that do much better. That's not arrogance. I have the advantage that I can take my time. So when I spend the money I'm usually looking for something to surprise me or to humble me. My best ability as a cook is combining flavors even if I've never eaten the item or don't like the item. So when a chef can make something where I think, I never would have thought of that, I'm impressed. It happens less and less in Portland. While what gets made is often great for what it is, what it is is too familiar. I'm working with the same ingredients. I've done it before. Fri Jul 18 17:19:07 -0700 2003 19110 0 Nick 3 19116 I agree with you on many points but I'm going to strongly disagree with your statements about Indian, Thai and Chinese. I'm not Portland bashing, I love living here, but we really are deprived in those three areas, especially Indian. At least we have pretty damn good Japanese and Vietnamese. The Indian restaurants that I've been to here suck (Swagat, Bombay Cricket Club and that one downtown I'm blanking on the name of), I know, it's harsh, but I think it's true. India is a huge and culinarily diverse country. We don't have a good representative of any region. What we have is muddled American-Indian. I haven't been to Plainfield's Mayur, but after trying the others I don't have the heart. I keep hoping there are some gems out there (c'mon...we have Intel!!) but haven't found any yet. I think this is the worst city for Indian food I've lived in. I'd love to be proven wrong. As for the Thai food, again, I don't think it's that great. If Typhoon is the closest it gets then we're in trouble. All of the neighborhood Thai places we've tried have been so disappointing we've nearly given up. Everything is too sweet, and doesn't have that lively hot/sour taste. Now we just stay home, grow our own holy, lemon and asian basil and stash the freezer full of kaffir limes, their leaves, galanga, tumeric and lemongrass. I'm seriously considering mailordering gkapi and dried shrimp because I can't find the former and the quality of the latter around here stinks. The Chinese food here is not as bad as some places but not as great as others. We have some good enough Cantonese/HK restaurants and I'm willing to give Sungari a try, but it seems like the menu isn't really as Sichuan as I'd like to see. Maybe they're including some safe stuff so they stay in business. Anyway, we could do better (regional variety and quality). I think Pascal Sauton is going to open a restaurant here in Portland...at least that's some gossip I vaguely remember hearing, so hopefully we haven't seen the last of him. I think it's funny that you like Caprial's food for the same reason I don't (fusiony Italian/Asian stuff) but you're right, at least they're doing their own thing. regards, trillium Fri Jul 18 18:46:52 -0700 2003 19114 0 trillium 4 19117 Sauton's restaurant should be opening up soon. It's going to be down on SW Market. They've been working on it for a few weeks now. Fri Jul 18 19:13:12 -0700 2003 19116 0 Hunter 4 19118 Trillium, Are there any Sichuan or Cantonese places you've found that you especially like? I agree that the Indian food is adequate but not as good as it should be. If you are looking for one that is a little more inventive, Shalimar out in Hillsboro at Orenco Station was fairly good and more inventive than the others I've been to here. I was recently very disappointed in a birthday meal at Bombay Cricket Club, everything was rather salty, (several people in our group noticed) and the only thing better than at Swagat was the rice. Shalimar has had some very good vegetarian dishes the times I've been there. Fri Jul 18 19:56:05 -0700 2003 19116 0 Steph 5 19132 Hi Steph, Sorry to be unhelpful, but there really aren't any Cantonese restaurants I'm super crazy about. I think that Om Seafood and Gold Garden are as good as you can do here, and they're not bad but you can sometimes get some stinkers at either place. I heard that Om has translated their specials menu into English, so that's good. No Sichuan to speak of. I think you have to go to Seattle for that! regards, trillium Mon Jul 21 14:46:29 -0700 2003 19118 0 trillium 6 19139 What do you think of Sungari and Fa Fa Gourmet for Szechuan? Tue Jul 22 02:45:36 -0700 2003 19132 0 Nick 4 19122 Suck? Come on, that's a bit harsh. I'd love to have a southern Indian place here in town. But most people (unfortunately, often) actually prefer the Westernized dishes you find in places like Bombay CC and Swagat. When I was going through my Indian cooking phase I learned that most of them seem to be British inventions, things like Chicken Tikka Masala have actually migrated from Britain *to* India. btw, have you been to Plainfield's Mayur? Spendy, but the quality of the ingredients is better. Still rather Westernized in style. Thai food in the US in general is rather sweet. Some places are insanely sweet, like Arawan. But frankly they do it for a reason: Americans like it that way. It's still good, though. btw, what are your gold standards for Thai and Indian? Don't say "homemade" because that can't count. You gotta compare apples to apples, I think. Best Thai I ever had was at Arun's in Chicago. **** fixed price dinner, like Genoa for Thai. Best Indian was Sizzle India in Chicago, a little dive that did southern Indian food that rocked. I had one of the best vegetarian dishes I've ever eaten there. I hope Sauton took his pastry chef with him. The pastries at Lucere were always *fabulous*. Bing cherry fritters, mmmmmm. btw, it's 4 am and I just got back from picking up some ingredients I was missing. I'm making Thai for 40 people tomorrow (well, today, actually). I think I originally planned to wake up an hour from now and start cooking. Ugh. Sat Jul 19 07:05:18 -0700 2003 19116 0 Nick 5 19131 I thought saying it sucked was being nice :-) I didn't use words like appalling, not if it was the last restaurant on earth, etc. As for most Indian dishes being British inventions, I hope I misunderstood you. Perhaps many of restaurant dishes in the US are, but there is an enormous and varied world of Indian cookery that the Brits had nothing whatsoever to do with (thank heaven!). It would be hard to pick one gold standard Indian restaurant even in the US, Indian cuisine is too diverse. Even southern food can be divided up (Andharan, Maharashtran, Tamil etc). I was spoiled in Chicago. Sizzle India for Andharan was good, true, but so was Dehli Darbar for Pakastani cabbie food (or Shan or Baba's or etc), JK Kabob house for well, kabobs, Woodlands, Sher-a-Punjab, Dasprakash, Madras Palace, Arya Bhavan, India House, Zaiqa and others all had excellent food at one time or another. Restaurants on Devon could go downhill fast, but there was always another place or two or three that had fantastic food. And it was always better then I could cook at home. I've had better Indian food in Copenhagan then I've had here! All it means is that we'll just have to get really good at making it ourselves. For Thai food I'm happy to settle for just the proper use of green peppercorns in curries, stuff that isn't too sweet and has enough fire. None of them ever come close to what we cook at home. There used to be a great place in the Mission district in SF, and one in Berkeley (had Thai dancing even) don't remember the names. In Chicago I like Always Thai (she worked at Arun's before starting her own place), Thai Aree, Oparts and Sunday brunch at PS Bangkok oh yeah.. and Thai Pastry. Oh well. There's lots to love about Portland. For me, Thai and Indian aren't part of it. How did your dinner go? regards, trillium Mon Jul 21 14:43:01 -0700 2003 19122 0 trillium 6 19138 That's what I meant. I meant "what we generally call Indian" or "what the 'Indian' restaurants we normally go to serve" -- that sort of thing. It's like saying that Mexican Restaurant serves Mexican food. Well, not what most Americans call Mexican restaurants and not what most Mexicans think of when they think of their native cuisine. I also think it's a mistake, somewhat, to compare the two. I personally like true Mexican better than Mexican-American, Tex-Mex, Fresh-Mex, or whatever you want to call it. But I'm in the minority in the US. I think you'd find the same with most Thai dishes, too. If they were made for an experienced Thai palate that many, if not most, Americans would have a problem with them. Same with Indian. Chowhounds are usually an exception, not the rule. That's why I think it's a) unfair to compare what are essentially two different cuisines, and b) unfair to judge them based on something they are not, rather than for what they are. I have a couple Chowhound friends who are quite the opposite and actually argue with me that Mexican-American food is clearly an improvement over authentic Mexican and the same for the English version of Indian. eg, they like how British/American curries are nearly always pureed. The lunch went fine except that I didn't get everything done on time and had to limit the dishes. Basically, I just ran out of burners. Thai food is so much better made fresh that I didn't want to do much ahead of time. btw, mostly what I did was make up dishes using Thai flavors and combining them with other stuff I had or looked good at the store. I don't like recipes. I use my many cookbooks for ideas, rather. Yes, I did make my curry pastes from scratch, though I primarily used a cuisinart. Here's what I made: Appetizers Watermelon Slices: Topped with shredded candied ginger and mint Lettuce Cups: Chinese bacon sautéed with red onions and okra with spicy red and plum sauces wrapped in butter lettuce leaf and topped with bean sprouts and taro chips Banana Cups: Banana cups filled with sautee of crispy tofu, red, yellow, orange, and green bell peppers, snow peas and cashews in tangy Thai sauce garnished with Thai basil Entrees Double Pine-Apple Yellow Curry: Sauteed grannysmith apples, pinenuts, and pineapple with butternut squash, and red, yellow, and orange bell peppers in yellow curry Green Curry with Beef: Seared flank steak with Thai spices with asparagus, green, yellow, and red bell peppers in green curry. Dessert Mango Puff Pastry: Puff pastry filled with ginger-curry mango puree, toasted coconut, and chopped candied almonds served with choice of ice cream: green tea and Guittard chocolate chunk, coconut with shaved toasted coconut, or ginger with candied ginger chunks. What Thai and Indian cookbooks do you use? The only decent Indian cookbook I have is Sahni's Classic Indian Cooking. I have several Thai books, including Sodsook's "True Thai", Thompson's "Thai Food", and Bhumichitr's "Vatch's Thai Street Food". I'd be very interested to pick your brain some time. Tue Jul 22 02:44:01 -0700 2003 19131 0 Nick 7 19143 I think good Thai cookbooks are easier to come by then Indian ones, at least in my experience. This could be influenced by the fact that I live with a Singaporean, so I'm a lot more familiar with several of the ingredients then I am with Indian foodstuffs. I also rely a lot of the advice and cooking lessons of friends. From a cooking standpoint, I'm lucky to work in a profession where I interact with a lot of people from south and east asia. "True Thai" is a good place to start, but it is pretty westernized. For Thai books you can't beat the ones by Kasma Loha-unchit, both It Rains Fishes and Dancing Shrimp. I think her flexibility and advice about adapting western supplies but keeping Thai tastes would really appeal to you. She has some great exercises in learning to balance flavors and has a lot of experience teaching westerners. Her lovely husband Michael Babcock, is an American and does a lot of recipe testing so if you do choose to follow the recipes you're going to eat something great. I also like Thai Home Cooking by Robert Carmack (an aussie) and Sompon Nabnian (the Chaing Mai cooking school teacher). The pictures are very inspiring and there are plenty of non-Northern dishes represented, which I like. The last book I've recently fallen in love with is David Thompson's Thai Food. It's pretty hardcore, with no bothering about suggesting ginger for galanga or zest for kaffir lime leaves and I love it for that reason. There are tons of complicated recipes in there (he got to go through palace cooking records) as well as street food stuff. For Tamil food I really like Cook and See by S.Meenakshi Ammal. The book has been in print for about 40 years and is a classic. It's a little intimidating though, because a lot of ingredients are given in Tamil or Hindi. My Tamil translator and sambhar cooking teacher isn't near by anymore, so I'm looking for more beginner style books to get me more familiar with the cuisine. I've recently checked a book out of the library, Healthy South Indian Cooking, that looks really good. I'm going to cook a few things out of it if it ever cools off and if they're good, I'll buy a copy for myself. I've been wanting to by Dakshin by Chandra Padmanabhan and I keep forgetting. I also have a nice south Indian/Singaporean cookbook I really like (lots of sea food) but I can't remember the name of it. I haven't found a great book for Northern or Pakastani stuff, so I might just give up and buy one of Jaffrey's all encompassing books like a Taste of India. That usually gets the thumbs up from south asians I know. As for comparisons, I think it's a good thing to compare what we call Indian food to what is Indian food. Same goes for what gets called American food. I would be really sad if a foreigner thought the McDonald's or Denny's represented American food because there is so much better stuff out there. If comparisons that didn't happen in other cuisines like say, Chinese, we'd still be only eating chop suey and those cruncy noodles out of a can or for Italian we'd still be pouring tons of tomato sauce and meatballs over maccaroni and think that was all there was to Italian food. This would be a shame because we'd miss out on a lot of good stuff. I'm not saying the adaptions are bad but just that thinking that's all there are is very, very limiting and dismissive. regards, trillium Tue Jul 22 14:50:56 -0700 2003 19138 0 trillium 1 19119 Nick, it was a formidable accomplishment, yet in many ways you barely scratched the surface of the Bay Area. For example, you could have spent a week devoted to each of your gustatory holy grails. And after loosening the belt a few notches, you would have then written a tome for the ages. Seriously, as other Bay Area expats have written, it is an apples and oranges situation. The diversity of SF creates an overwhelming choice of food and produce not seen in many other parts of the country. Portland is good. I think it is certainly better than when I moved here. Too bad you don't appreciate the subtleties of Chinese food. I've often wondered how Sungari would rate if it were in SF....... Fri Jul 18 21:11:40 -0700 2003 19103 0 grumpy 2 19121 I wish I did, but I just don't. I like a narrow set of Chinese dishes, really. Even when I go to Thai food, the more Chinese a dish is, such as stir fries, the less I like it. I also don't like bland items much, so steamed buns just don't do it for me. I need things to reach such a temperature that they begin to caramelize. That's where the flavor is. I can tell good stuff from bad stuff -- even good stuff from mediocre stuff maybe -- it just doesn't excite me. I, essentially, like spicy meat dishes and that's about it for Chinese. (As in, would go out of my way for; I liked all the stuff I got at Yank Sing I just wouldn't choose it over good stuff from other cuisines.) Sat Jul 19 03:24:45 -0700 2003 19119 0 Nick 1 19123 Wonderful trip notes, Nick! I see you hit quite a few of the heavy hitters on the scene. As a restaurant critic and food writer for seven years in SF, I was impressed with both your selections and observations. Of all the "big boys" you visited, however, I will always feel most inspired by Chez Panisse. Other restaurants have the capacity to astound you with the high wire acts of haute cuisine, but without fail, CP has always humbled me with the perfection of its ingredients. It takes an incredible self-confidence to allow technique (while flawless) to take a back seat to raw ingredients and allow various foodstuffs to shine simply but masterfully. Take apricots in season. At The French Laundry (or some of the other places)perhaps they would be incorporated into a wonderfully whimsical dessert, an intricately made concoction, like perhaps even "apricots three ways" (all the vogue to show off various technique in foods both savory and sweet)--perhaps an apricot sorbet, an apricot cake and an apricot tarragon cookie. Impressive and delicious, but the crew at Chez Panisse might just sit and look at this basket of luscious flesh toned apricots (a delicate wallflower who bruises easily but charming with its fleshy colors and heady perfume) and decide to pay tribute to it by ensconsing it in a simple puff pastry robe with but a dollop of creme fraiche to balance its sweetness. I guess the question that is begged to be asked is--why do we go to restaurants? To be challenged, titillated and energized by the plethora of possibilities (intellectually/creatively) or to be fed more simply (nostalgia and/or a deeper, more emotional sense of being nourished)? The answer is for some one, for many others the latter, and the rest of us a little of both... On a last note, I am thrilled you too have seemingly come under the charms of Berkeley Bowl. If you recall, I posed a question to Portland chowhounds as to where you could find great produce; I was obviously in the throes of painful BB withdrawal. Living in SF for 15 years, I was able to go there every week and in my opinion, forget Niagara and the Pyramids--this should be on any self-respecting persons list of Seven (or is it 9?) Wonders of the World... Next time, I hope that your trip to SF will enable you to hit more of the budget finds there--wow is there a lot for you there! In the meantime, I am enjoying your opinions (and those of other savvy chowhounds). Yes, it is hard to compare the two, but from what I have seen so far, Portland is a wonderful chowtown--and let me tell you, infinitely more livable... Sat Jul 19 08:39:06 -0700 2003 19103 0 sarah