Author: Meg Cotner

Bridgetown Bites is edited and published by Meg Cotner in Portland, Oregon. She loves avocados, fresh produce, NA drinks, and cats.
Posted on

Four Things I Learned This Week (April 6)

I was out of town for a week, but I still learned some stuff about food in Portland! Here’s my list.

I’ve craved Hat Yai’s fried chicken, roti, and curry. While I was up on the Olympic Peninsula I kept thinking back to the meal I had at Hat Yai that was a plate of fried chicken, fried roti, and a rich bowl of curry. It’s an incredible flavor bomb of a meal—my favorite of 2018 so far.

I finally had a drink at Wilf’s. When I got back into town Wednesday night, I stopped in at Wilf’s, next to the Amtrak station. I didn’t know what to expect and was pleasantly surprised at the interior, which was moody in a kind of dark NYC lounge way. I sat at the bar and had a lovely cocktail—gin, St Germain, citrus, and champagne. I can see myself stopping in again, maybe to hear some live music next time.

Current lunch fave: Fleur de Lis’s Harvest Bowl. I’ve now had this twice and love it for lunch. It’s a base of farro topped with cubed roasted squash, roasted golden and red beets, red onion and kale. It comes with tahini dressing and a couple pieces of the bakery’s amazing rustic bread, and you can get it topped with chicken. Pro tip: add avocado to make it even better.

Excited about Kinn Kao’s happy hour. Andrea Damewood wrote a helpful article in the Merc about the happy hour at Kinn Kao, a  Northern Thai bar downstairs from Sweet Basil Thai restaurant on NE Broadway (not far from Bridgetown Bites HQ). I’d been to the space when it was still Sweet Basil, celebrating their 17th birthday party with them last October; that was shortly before they changed it over to the Kinn Kao name. The happy hour sounds super tasty and I plan to stop by soon.

 

Posted on

Four Things I Learned This Week (March 30)

I’m spending a little time outside of Portland this week and next, so first-hand experiential tidbits are halved this time around. Still, here are four things I learned this week about (mostly) Portland food:

Tempeh! When I was in Laughing Planet recently, I asked about their crazy delicious tempeh and how they cook it. I was told they bake it, a treatment I had never considered. It’s wonderfully savory, and perhaps what is essentially roasting helps draw out delicious flavors (I think they must use a marinade of some kind, too). Another thing I learned from the staff is that if you steam tempeh first, it makes it easier to work with. Brilliant! I plan to try this soon.

French press your nuts. And by nuts I mean those ground up nuts you use to make nut milk (yes, this all sounds vaguely dirty). In the recipe for strawberry almond milk over on 101 Cookbooks, Heidi recommends one way to extract the milk—by using a large French press coffee maker. I think that’s a really smart idea. When strawberries arrive at the Hollywood Farmers Market, I’ll be making some strawberry almond milk for sure.  P.S. Thanks to reader Lindsay Ingalls of Running With Tongs for alerting me to the availability of nut milk bags at People’s Co-op.

New brunch menu at Jackrabbit. After participating in the March For Our Lives + Rally last Saturday, I decided to have a solo brunch at Jackrabbit. The bartender told me that they had launched a new brunch menu that day. I enjoyed the Braised Pork Sugo—a base of soft polenta topped with pulled pork (rich, porky, and a bit sweet with vinegar notes), two poached eggs, and a dusting of grana. I think next time I’ll try the savory waffle. Jackrabbit is located at 830 SW 6th Avenue.

Eight restos just say not to straws. Over on Portland Food and Drink I learned that eight restaurants in Portland, members of the Independent Restaurant Concepts hospitality group, “will no longer be serving plastic straws as of Earth Day 2018.” This is great news! Conventional plastic straw are a negative on the environment, so they’ll be serving drinks with compostable straws (and sometimes no straws at all). Yet another step forward toward sustainability in our fair city.

Posted on

It’s National Spanish Paella Day Today in Portland

paella-can-font-portland-oregon
Photo credit: Can Font

Can I admit something? I kind of like these “National [pick your food] Day” holidays. Sure, they are not as serious as Passover or Easter—both coming up soon—but they are not as uncomfortable and awkward (for me, at least) as April Fool’s Day. They are about enjoying a particular dish or food, and that’s good by me. The reason I tell you this is that apparently today is Spanish Paella Day in the US, and I got a nice press release about it. It was so full of useful and interesting things for Portland diners and eaters, I thought I’d share the bulk of it here.

Continue reading “It’s National Spanish Paella Day Today in Portland”
Posted on

Four Things I Learned This Week (March 23)

Here are another four things I learned this week in Portland food.

Columbia River Brewing Co. is making their barbecue more of a hook. Several months ago (truthfully, it might be more) Columbia River Brewing Co. in the Hollywood District (1728 NE 40th Avenue) started putting out a sandwich board in front of their entrance listing a wide variety of barbecued meat options. I asked them about it early on and they said they got a smoker and were taking advantage of it. This past weekend I noticed they had a new sign up on the northeast corner of Sandy and 40th Avenue with the words “Craft Beer & BBQ.”

You can get a great latte at Blend Coffee Lounge. On Sunday I was wandering around the Overlook neighborhood (with the aim of seeing the western end of N Kilingsworth Street; spoiler: it overlooks—get it?—the railroad tracks and what looks like the ports) and stopped in to Blend Coffee Lounge (2710 N Killingsworth Street) They made a gorgeous latte that tasted smooth and rich, with plenty of depth. The lounge part is super cute and stylish. What a gem in NoPo!

Gawd, she’s talking about those vegan cheeses again. This time it’s about what I wasn’t able to find—I was in New Seasons on 33rd Street in Concordia and looked for the two brands of vegan cheeses I’ve enjoyed—Miyoko’s and Treeline—and neither were to be found! For me, they are at the highest level of taste. There was plenty of Daiya and Chao but these spreadable cheeses I mention above are many levels of deliciousness above them. For now, I’ll do my supermarket vegan cheese shopping at WholeFoods until New Seasons ups their game. Also, where the heck do you buy a nut milk bag in this town?

Toum is magic sauce. This week, on the advice of a friend, I had dinner at Nicholas Restaurant (3223 NE Broadway) and ordered some kebabs, which were served with toum. Toum is a garlic sauce from the Middle East made with garlic, salt, olive oil and lemon juice. I’d had it once before in Queens but it was quite spicy and harsh in a way I don’t like, but the toum I had this week was smooth, garlicky, savory and fairly addictive. I was sad to when I got to the end of it. Looking forward to eating it again (and trying it at other spots around town).