Under the Table with Jen » Family Meal

trans_Port Social Dining

admin — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 00:06:49 +0000

Underground supper clubs and pop-up restaurants are all the rage, and the chef known as Woggs (just Woggs) and his team–the equally mysterious Ms. Jaffo and The Cap’n–are stepping up to feed Portlanders’ thirst for secretive, exclusive dining. Calling their cuisine “modernist and local ingredient driven,” this threesome’s dinners will be held monthly, in different venues around town, with menus that might feature pickled butternut squash baskets filled with herbs, marrow and honeycomb, Lady apples with chestnut butter, living sprouts planted in bulgur and steamed in mushroom tea, lamb shank braised with persimmon and lemongrass, and yeast-pear clouds with quince and kombucha. If you want to be in the trans_port know, just email transportsocialdining@gmail.com to get on the mailing list.

Open Kitchen Series

admin — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 00:00:09 +0000

If you like to talk with your mouth full, investigate this educational and delicious dinner series held in the Abby’s Table kitchen—there is a new dining theme and chef each week, and diners are encouraged to connect with and learn more about the local chef and producers behind their meal. One week you might be dining with a local educator dishing up locally-sourced braised lamb while Fausse Piste Winery’s owner Jesse Skiles pours his ‘09 Viognier and ‘08 and ‘09 Syrahs and talks wine, another week Culinary Artistry sous chef Bree Rostan will show you how to break down a chicken and school you on the best ways to cook its bits and jibblies, then you’ll all wash your hands and enjoy a feast of chicken soup, braised chicken thighs, and seared chicken breasts. Educational and delicious, all in one.

Taste Unique

admin — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 23:48:17 +0000

As a general rule, Italians love food and plenty of company to eat it with, so it’s fitting that Taste Unique Chef Stefania Toscano throws big festive weekly dinner parties at her Southeast kitchen. Dinners are faithful to a theme–a Florentine Dinner might include a history lesson about Caterina dè Medicia’s role in establishing France’s modern food movement, and a recent culinary revisitation of Stefania and her husband/partner Lawrence McCormick’s first trip to Sicily featured tomato and Pecorino-stuffed ‘Nfigghiulata (say that three times fast in your best Italian accent), a traditional caponata, eggplant parmigiana, and pistachio-covered cannoli Siciliani. With prices ranging from $25-$30 and wine offered at $6 a glass, these dinners are a good time and a real steal.

Holocene Market Dinners

admin — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 23:42:22 +0000

This popular East side lounge and dance club is doing some intriguing things in their kitchen, like a Friday Apertivo Happy Hour where they serve up free appetizers and music alongside house cocktails and $5 glasses of cava. Once a month, Chef Jeremy Larter also cooks up hyper-seasonal themed multi-course market dinners, with optional wine and spirit pairings. Guests might be greeted with smoked goose rillettes and chestnut fritters, then gorge on beets with fig vinegar, Südtiroler speck with housemade pickles, pizzoccheri pasta with chanterelles and smoked trout, braised pork and pumpkin polenta, apple strudel with walnut ice cream and an Alpine cheese plate. I know, not exactly what you’re expecting to be served a dance club, right? To find out about dinners, you’ll need to be on Holocene’s mailing list–email dinners@holocene.org.

Feastworks

admin — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 23:22:13 +0000

Cute food-lovin’ couple Ashley Brown Bisagna and Ethan Bisagna know good food–between them, they’ve worked everywhere from Washington’s famed The Herbfarm to Portland heavies Clyde Common, Park Kitchen and Laurelhurst Market. In addition to their Feastworks catering company, which is devoted to “food that is beautifully simple and honest” (they can even hook you up with a whole pig roast), they host their FEAST dinner series–prix fixe multi-course meals that pair the Bisagnas’ cooking with the swillable fruits of a local winery or distiller.

din din Supper Club

admin — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 23:01:52 +0000

Chef Courtney Sproule’s fantastic dining adventures warm the belly and soul, as she pairs her unique menus with equally unique wines and venues. A self-taught cook who caters and teaches cooking classes at Robert Reynolds’ Chef Studio, Courtney might start the dinner with sparkling Vouvray and deep-fried mussels on the rooftop of a Southeast gallery, then usher the group to whimsically-decorated communal tables, where plates of grilled oysters and chanterelles served over tender slabs of Yukon Gold potatoes in a pool of rich porcini vermouth sauce magically appear, followed by bowls of clams with fresh capellini, pancetta and tomato sorrel salsa verde. Din din venues vary with the menu, so you may find yourself dining in the beautiful back gardens of Artemesia nursery with movies being projected on the garden walls, or supping next to Chef Robert Reynolds’ French robin’s egg blue stove in the intimate Chefs Studio space.

Abby’s Table

admin — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 22:45:31 +0000

Every Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday evening, Chef Abby Fammartino of Abby’s Table takes a break from crafting her line of gluten, dairy, soy and refined sugar-free sauces and prepares four-course family-style dinners inspired by her international travels and passion for all-natural, organic and allergy-free foods. The menu might include crisp coconut scallion fritters in a drizzle of spicy persimmon dipping sauce, fresh celery tossed with slivers of fennel, Asian pear and Viridian Farms ficoide glacial (ice plant), hunks of creamy roasted black cod in a sake reduction, and forbidden rice pudding. Served at long tables in her inner Southeast kitchen, dinners are BYOB and Abby suggests suitable wine pairings to match her weekly menu.

Tastebud

admin — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 06:11:13 +0000

Tastebud Farm’s dining room, on SE Milwaukie near the Aladdin Theatre, is small, stiffly elegant and filled with fresh flowers, sort of like my grandmother’s parlor except without the crimson velvet sofa. To save space, tables are communal but if you’re not a fan of supping with others and the restaurant isn’t full, socialization isn’t mandatory. If the weather is cooperating, request one of the round tables on the pretty garden patio outside—complete with flourishing flora and fauna and a burbling fountain. The simple menu features a few seasonal salads and fresh off the fire specials, but the real stars are the pizzas. Chewy, slightly tangy crust with beautiful bubble blisters and just the right amount of char, you can choose your own adornments or you can order one of the pizzas on the menu, combinations include more traditional arrangements like sausage, fennel, tomato, mozzarella, as well as pizzas that reflect the season, like the summery zucchini, ricotta, parmesan, and arugula pizza.

Beast

admin — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 06:00:23 +0000

Intensely driven, food-obsessed, self-taught chef Naomi Pomeroy has been captivating Portland food lovers for nearly a decade now, first with her Ripe empire (Family Supper, Clarklewis and Gotham Building Tavern), and now with Beast, a most excellent value for your communal dining buck. One of Portland’s hottest dining tickets, Beast has been lauded by the likes of Esquire, Gourmet, Food & Wine Magazine, and the James Beard Foundation. Each course on Naomi’s locally-sourced, lovingly prepared $68 six-course prix fixe menu—which changes every Wednesday—is created in Beast’s intimate open kitchen, mere feet away from the two long wooden tables that comprise the entirety of the diminutive restaurant’s seating.

Le Pigeon

admin — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 04:56:42 +0000

At Le Pigeon, one of Portland’s foremost “communal dining” experiences, you’ll be seated at one of the three long wooden tables that comprise the restaurant’s seating, which puts you in very close quarters with your neighbors, so be sure to bring your Tic Tacs, and maybe a bottle of wine to share. Chef Gabriel Rucker cooks up his own version of French fare both classical and with a twist, turning out dishes like his ultra-satisfying signature Beef Cheek Bourguignon, Poussin with shell beans, corn, and chanterelles, and Squash Lasagna with basil and mozzarella. If communal tables make you claustrophobic, sit up at the “Chef’s Counter,” aka the bar, which puts you so close to the little open kitchen you can almost touch the flock of pigeons tattooed on Gabriel’s forearm, and feel the flame as the Scallops with Radish and Seafood Butter are being seared.