Under the Table with Jen » Steak & BBQ

Podnah’s Pit BBQ

admin — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 01:47:38 +0000

Podnah’s may not much to look at, just a neat and narrow little two-window storefront with a couple of picnic tables outside and interior décor that’s as clean and sparse as a freshly devoured rib, but the simplistic down-home charm goes hand in hand with some of the city’s finest barbecued ribs, brisket, pulled pork, smoked trout, and yes—pecan pie. Don’t pass up the iceberg lettuce wedge, which wallows in a sea of house blue cheese dressing so beautifully tangy it borders on sour. It’s hard to say what the best day of the week to visit Podnah’s is—Tuesday is all day rib and draft happy hour, but on Saturday and Sunday breakfast is served, and until you’ve had Podnah’s eggs and brisket, you might have just thought breakfast meant overdone eggs and sad little wisps of bacon. And like me, you were so, so wrong.

Simpatica Dining Hall

admin — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 21:06:41 +0000

The only thing better than a really good steak is a really good steak that only costs $10. Good $10 steak is hard to find, so imagine my glee when I tucked into my Simpatica Dining Hall hangar steak at Sunday brunch the other day. The meat was impeccably seasoned and practically tender enough to cut with my fork, and the portion so ample for the price tag, I thought I might still be in bed dreaming. Served with a ratatouille teeming with farm fresh summer squash and tomatoes and two over easy eggs, it was the by far the best $10 I’ve spent since I bought my first bottle of vinho verde, which is high praise indeed.

Paley’s Place

admin — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 15:59:52 +0000

It should come as no surprise that this revered Northwest Portland den of all things divinely delicious should cook up a mean steak. On Saturday, while they last, you can tuck into one of Paley’s drool-inducing 40-Day Dry-Aged Highland Oak Ribeyes with sweet onion rings and creamed greens, although the $43 price tag designates this as a special occasion steak. Those seeking steak for two can order the formidable 180z Carman Ranch Grass-Fed Ribeye ($65), and those who have smaller appetites and easily scandalized pocketbooks can order the tender, beautifully grilled Highland Oak Farm Flat Iron steak, which comes accompanied by crispy pan-fried potatoes and seasonal vegetables, and can be ordered as a half portion for a quite reasonable $17. And, on a raw note, let me not forget Paley’s rich beyond belief steak tartare–American Kobe Beef finely chopped and served with all the traditional accompaniments.

Mississippi’s Delta BBQ

admin — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 22:10:35 +0000

Mississippi’s Delta BBQ owner and operator, Brian Rodgers, starts talking up a Southern storm as soon as you pause in front of his tiny downtown food cart, which is really more of a food wagon, perched inconspicuously beside a lumbering concrete parking garage and across from 24 Hour Fitness on SW 4th & Columbia. This supercute Southern boy (he looks like Josh Lucas from Sweet Home Alabama) told me how he dragged his big smoker all the way here from Mississippi, and how he slow cooks his beef brisket for 14 hours before slicing it into tender juicy ribbons, and how long it takes him to hand pull his juicy pork after roasting it for 10 hours. I order a small brisket sandwich and a small pork sandwich, which aren’t small at all–they’re the size of softballs when he’s done dousing them in sweet spicy homemade BBQ sauce and delicious homemade slaw that has a kick like a mule, and at $3 each, they’re an astonishing value. I ask him when he’s open. Monday through Friday, he drawls in his charming Southern accent, then adds that he won’t be open this Friday. “I’m outta wood,” he explains, “I gotta go cut down a cherry tree.” He seems puzzled when I howl with laughter. “No, really,” he tells me. “It’s the best wood.” I believe him, I explain, you just don’t hear too many people telling you about how they’ve got to chop down cherry trees when you’re ordering lunch downtown. I thank him, grab my sandwiches, and take off. Two blocks later, I realize I completely forgot to pay, so I run back. “It’s not the first time it’s happened,” he says, making change for my $20, “When I get to talkin.’”

Urban Farmer

admin — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 07:19:37 +0000

Portland’s newest luxury hotel, The Nines, is something to behold, an uber-stylish (depending on what you think is stylish) little slice of L.A. right here in Stumptown, perched atop Macy’s in the exquisite historical Meier & Frank building. Its innards have been both maligned and revered, and the atrium restaurant, Urban Farmer, which dubs itself “A Modern Steakhouse,” enjoys its share of press about staff turnover (high) and service (spotty). But with the exception of a run-in with a truly frightening grey gloop of a bean soup, I’ve found the food to be worth the eight-floor elevator ride and the near-constant repression of my eye-roll reflex when a carbon copy of The Hills cast walks by. Urban Farmers takes their steak seriously, offering a dozen cuts of steak in four categories–pasture-raised & grain-finished, corn-fed, grass-fed, and American Wagyu. Indecisive types can opt for the Steak Tasting Plate, three tender cuts of New York steak from three West Coast ranches. Pork, lamb, lobster and fish dishes round out the menu, and sides include creamed spinach gratin and orange and coriander roasted fennel. If your budget doesn’t allow for anything that’s been dry-aged for 21 or 42 days, go for happy hour–the food and drink specials are grand, and while there aren’t any steaks on the HH menu, you can get your Wagyu ground, in Urban Farmer’s popular beef slider.

Ringside

admin — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 06:34:41 +0000

Perhaps Portland’s most all-around popular steakhouse, the esteemed Ringside is stodgy enough to please the steakhouse afficionado and friendly enough to please anyone else who might happen in, even if they are wearing khaki shorts and a slightly sweaty lavender t-shirt. Their late night happy hour is the great equalizer, the prices so outlandishly reasonable you’ll think you’ve been handed an old menu menu, like maybe the one from 1944, when Ringside opened. The $2.25 steak bites with creamy horseradish sauce are a meal in themselves, and the $2.25 prime rib sandwich won’t leave much room for the $2.25 1/3-lb burger or the $2.25 Caesar, the $2.25 Popcorn Shrimp, or the $2.25 Fried Oysters with Jalapeño Remoulade. If you’d rather not cram into the tiny, jovial bar to take advantage of these steak steals, Ringside’s offers their Supper Menu in the dining room before 5:45 pm or after 9pm–choose soup or salad and an entree of beef tenderloin, prime rib, halibut, pork loin chop, or line-caught wild salmon, for a mere $25.

El Gaucho

admin — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 06:02:52 +0000

El Gaucho is the quintessential highbrow steakhouse, complete with a masculinely elegant sunken dining room bordering the sizzling open kitchen, midnight blue walls, cushy booths, squint-inducing light levels, the smell of swank, and an eloquent server with a voice like James Earl Jones, who deftly handles the wide-eyed young couples getting ready to spend their future firstborn’s first college semester’s tuition on a proper steak dinner, the impassive regulars, and the boatloads of loud n’ slick suits that congregate in the bar. Sip a dirty martini while you look over the menu, order up a Dungeness crab cocktail or Oysters Rockefeller, the 12oz filet mignon or Australian lobster tail, a side of impossibly decadent lobster mashed potatoes or the Full Gaucho Baked potato–or heck, just forget the “or” and order the lot of it. For dessert even the most jaded of posh steakhouse diners can’t help but gasp when the Bananas Foster or Cherries Jubilee goes up in flame, temporarily blinding the entire squinting population of the dining room.

Park Kitchen

admin — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 21:16:26 +0000

The other day, I was suffering a crisis of unkemptness. I’d been writing for what felt like 10 years straight, and the cracks were beginning to show. I turned up to work with my hair a curly messy mass–no time to straighten, my toenail polish was as cracked and brittle as the Saharan desert floor, and I honestly couldn’t remember if I was wearing the same shirt I’d worn the day before. I should have skulked home and lunch and prettified, but I decided to embrace my manginess and treat myself to a hopefully inspiring touch of lunch luxury instead–my old favorite, the Park Kitchen Flank Steak Salad. I was immediately seated at a sidewalk table overlooking the lovely green North Park blocks by a gracious server who, even if she’d noticed my toenails, didn’t give them so much as a dubious glance. I ordered a refreshing housemade lemonade and without bothering to look at the menu, requested the flank steak salad. Minutes later, my dream lunch appeared–fat strips of impossibly flavorful flank steak tangled with greens, blue cheese, parsley, and sherried onions. Sigh. By the time I left, I was so rejuvenated that I took the afternoon off, bought a straight wig and a new shirt, then went home and painted my toenails and Swansea’s.

Laurelhurst Market

admin — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 18:13:14 +0000

Dad is notoriously spendthrift. He drives a battered taupe Ford Explorer circa 1990 with roughly 2 jillion miles on it, has a very sophisticated buying and trading scheme going on at his local used book store so he never actually has to spend any money on his beloved spy novels, and he isn’t allowed to gamble anymore when we go to Las Vegas because so much as a $10 nickel-slots loss sends him into a deep depression that even a Celine Dion concert can’t cure. But above all else, eating out is the greatest luxury in his book. If I had a dime for every pained look I get when I tell him about my culinary exploits, I could buy him a new Ford Explorer filled with Tom Clancy novels. Mom and Dad were in town the other day so I took them to Laurelhurst Market, since we were all in the mood for some meat. Really good meat, cooked by the Simpatica boys and Co., a group that surely knows what they’re doing in the meat arena. Dad watched us despairingly as we ordered the Steak and Salad–the cut of the day, pan-seared with salsa verde and a perfectly dressed salad of local field greens ($19), the Smoked Tri-Tip with a Bernaise sauce ($17), and the Flank Steak with Basil-Chili butter ($17). We all watched to see what he would order, and our eyebrows went up when he chose the Steak Tips, until we saw that they were $8 on the Hors d’ Ouevres list. Although we all relished our selections, Dad might have had the last laugh–he crowed about his plate of big juicy $8 steak tips all the way home and well into the evening, and I have to admit–they were a phenomenally luxurious cheap eat. Well done, Dad!