Under the Table with Jen » Occasions

The Sugar Cube

admin — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 20:27:45 +0000

Once you get past the straightforward names (ie: Coffee and a Cookie, Beer.Cheese.Bacon), The Sugar Cube food cart owner and pastry chef extraordinaire Kir Jensen’s menu reads like something you’d find in a high-end restaurant, not surprising considering her dossier includes stints at Genoa, clarklewis, and the Ritz Carlton. The Coffee and a Cookie, for instance, is an inch or so of sinfully creamy coffee panna cotta in a squat Ball mason jar, topped by a soft dollop of whipped cream and whisper-delicate shavings of chocolate, and accompanied by a crisp gingersnap covered in a light crust of sugar that glitters like fresh snow after a big freeze ($6). The Beer.Cheese.Bacon–a small, round, and impossibly moist and rich Guinness and ginger stout cake topped by a scoop Fifty Licks Tahitian vanilla bean ice cream, praline bacon crunch, a light drizzle of bitter buckwheat honey, and snowy little shavings of white cheddar, rings in at a scant $7, and is served in a real glass jar on a delicate pink-flower lined china plate. In addition to the more elaborate desserts, Kir’s menu features an “Ultimate Brownie” topped with bittersweet chocolate ganache, fleur de sel, and a grassy green olive oil ($3.50), and hot drinkable deliciousness like the Hot Chocolate Malted ($5) with Ovaltine chocolate malt, whole milk, Venezuelan Maracaibo Creole milk chocolate, whipped cream and smoked Hawaiian salt, which you will want to pair with her cupcake of the week ($3-$3.50), whatever it is, because one of Kir’s magic sugarpowers is her ability to make unbelievably moist and flavorful cake, cake so good you cry a little bit when you eat it. And that’s what dessert is all about.

3 Stops For $30

admin — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 05:44:42 +0000

Rejoice, commitmentphobes and gourmet trekkers, because Belly, Lincoln, and Ned Ludd have joined forces to offer up 3 Stops For $30, a progressive prix fixe meal that lets you explore some of Northeast Portland’s favorite restaurants. Start at whichever restaurant you wish, and buy a $30 card that entitles you to a chef’s choice appetizer and the bartender’s choice of a drink from each of the three. Use your card all in one night, or if you decide you’re having too much fun to leave wherever you may be, carry on, and complete your route another time. The card is valued at around $45, but a progressive dinner you don’t have to clean up after traveling around all evening is priceless.

Tanuki

admin — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 05:22:03 +0000

There’s no shortage of flying sparks at this tiny Northwest Portland izakaya joint–both between the patrons amorously canoodling with each other in dark corners of the bar, and the patrons amorously canoodling with one of the city’s most intriguing menus. As intimate as a hobbit’s matchbox, as well lit as a catacomb, and as endlessly-enticing as that no-good-but-oh-so-addictive-ex of yours, Tanuki is a superb setting to spend an evening discussing whatever it is you talk about on a hot date, over some truly excellent sake and Japanese small plates that beg to be shared with someone you love/might love/wish you could but can’t stop loving. And since they don’t serve dessert, it’s the perfect excuse to head home for a sweet ending.

Metrovino

admin — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 21:51:45 +0000

Metrovino Executive Chef Gregory Denton makes the best seafood chowder in the universe. No really, he does. And using soup as a barometer of culinary excellence, you’ll not be surprised that Chef Denton’s beautiful chowder is just the beginning of a menu where nearly every dish is on the A-list. Add in the quietly opulent Pearl District setting, the gracious service, and the sure-to-impress wine list, which includes more than 80 wines by the glass, and you’ve got a surefire destination for any special occasion, whether you’re celebrating a milestone anniversary or your mother-in-law’s move to Greenland.

Park Kitchen

admin — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 01:36:22 +0000

Park Kitchen lovers, Chef Scott Dolich has a prix fixe menu that will get you so excited, you’ll forget all about that nasty bocce ball injury you sustained before dinner across the street. This special multi-course menu is Chef’s choice, meaning that the kitchen chooses what you’ll eat, the only confines being that one course per person is sweet. Here’s how it works–if you’ve got four people in your party, the kitchen sends out a total of 16 different dishes, a few at a time, over the course of the dinner–12 of which are savory, 4 sweet–served family-style, to be shared with the entire table. Each dish is different, each dish is prepared in Park Kitchen’s imitably delicious seasonal and local-centric manner. Dinner costs either $40 or $50 per person, depending on how much food you desire. I was told that the $40 dinner will leave you “still light on your feet but satiated,” while the $50 is “really generous, for hearty eaters.” And there you have it.

Simpatica Dining Hall

admin — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 01:18:11 +0000

Every Friday and Saturday evening, Simpatica Dining Hall hosts unforgettable communal prix fixe dinners that brilliantly showcase Pacific Northwest cuisine, much to the delight of those who are able to secure a reservation. The four-course menu reads like exactly the sort of gourmet lineup you’d rustle up with all beautiful food you bought at Farmer’s Market, if only you’d gone to culinary school instead of journalism/medical/cosmetology school. A sample menu might feature Moorish Cucumber Gazpacho with Grilled Rock Shrimp and Croutons, Fingerling Potato and Fennel Salad with Prosciutto, Seared Halibut on Basque Pepper Piperade with Saffron Aioli, and Fig Tart with Almond Ice Cream, all for the bargain price of $35, which comes with a free side of mandatory socialization.

Beast

admin — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 01:04:25 +0000

Two years later and still one of Portland’s hottest dining tickets, Beast is the premiere prix fixe menu in Portland, six fixed courses lovingly prepared by Chef Naomi Pomeroy and her sous chef Mika, in an open, intimate kitchen so close to your chair that you can feel the heat coming off the tomato & lobster bisque as it’s being plated (or is that bowled?). While the courses change weekly, the charcuterie plate remains constant, and it feels like Christmas every time it’s brought to the long communal table, each piece of the assortment a little gift to your palate—particularly the foie gras bon bon and chicken liver mousse with candied bacon. Whether you opt for the Steve’s Cheese plate or dessert–or both–determines your course count, and the price is $52 or $45 accordingly, which has to be the best prix fixe value in any US city, in my unscientific opinion. Unable to make it to dinner due to a debilitating case of nyctophobia? Beast’s four-course Sunday brunch, served at 10am and 12pm, is a modest $28 and reservations are recommended.

Tabla

admin — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 00:49:38 +0000

Tabla has one of the most well-known and well-loved prix fixe menus in the city, perhaps because it doesn’t confine you to the chef’s choice but lets you roam the entire menu to assemble your perfect supper. For $24, you choose one appetizer, pasta, and entree from each section, creating a customized menu that might include delicata squash flan, pork sugo tagliatelle and and rosemary marinated flank steak one night, and heirloom tomato and watermelon salad, mushroom and sherry agnolotti and pan-seared chinook salmon another. One warning, many of the items come with a supplement charge, which means you might end up paying upwards of $35 for your $24 meal–a conundrum, to be sure.

Bluehour

admin — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 00:23:02 +0000

The Pearl District’s trendy spendy fiefdom of chic Bluehour isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when one thinks of dining values, but their nightly prix fixe, or “prix de occasion” menu is an excellent way to breathe the same truffle-oil scented air as the beautiful and monied classes, with a three-course lineup that might include a local radicchio salad with chevre and a basil vinaigrette, linguine with manila clams, leeks and preserved lemon, and a raspberry parfait with hazelnut ice cream. The price tag? Just $25 per person, so you won’t even feel the least bit guilty ordering the $20 glass of Nicolas Feuillatte Brut. Or maybe just the $9.50 glass of Prosecco.

Bewon

admin — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 00:12:11 +0000

Bewon’s prix fixe menu, or Han Jung Shik, is not only one of the best prix fixe values around, but is a sublime introduction to Korean cuisine. A traditional Korean meal that includes your choice of a main dish and seven courses like Hobak-juk–a rice porridge made with three different pumpkins, and Japchae–delicately translucent stir fried sweet potato noodles tossed with fresh vegetables, each course positively sparks with exotic flavors and each dish is like an delightfully surprising little gift, for a mere $24.95.