FlavBlog

Portland, OR is a gem of the United States.  Located 2 hrs from the Oregon coast line and about an hour or more from mountains, the city is a young and vibrant place…especially for food, wine, and beer lovers like ourselves.  Earlier this summer, we took a trip down to Portland knowing that our typical “bi-annual” trip from Seattle is likely to cease once we move to St. Louis this fall (more on that in a future post).  Our trips to Portland would be overwhelming to some [see our last “PDX Food Rampage”, at our friend’s Dawn and Eric’s blog: WrightAngle], but they are simply fantastic adventures for the palette.  We drink and eat so much variety, experience such creativity, that we can’t stop going back.  And what’s more, PDX is much cheaper than its West Coast counterpart heavy weights like Seattle, San Fran, and LA.  Here we will attempt to summarize the highlights from our 3 day trip this past July, but it by no means will include all of our adventures.

Olympic Provisions | Our first stop in PDX was Olympic Provisions, which came recommended by our friends Eric and Kye.  Located in an industrial part of southeast PDX, Olympic Provisions is housed in a restored cereal mill.   The spot was created with intent to highlight European and North African styled charcuterie and to showcase local ingredients from farms and producers in the area.  We went for lunch and selected 2 dishes.

The first was the “tea sandwich”, made with a well seasoned paste of summer English peas, sprouts, red onions, and ricotta salata on fluffy white bread with no crust.  This was the perfect summer sandwich.  It reminded me of the deliciously light cucumber tea sandwiches my mother and our neighbors would often make for me when I lived in England.  We also ordered the charcuterie plate, which really highlights the masterful qualities of Olympic Provisions.  It came with a house made chorizo that was very true to the art of this sausage variety….robust spices, chewy texture, and beautiful color.  The charcuterie plate also came with house made sopresetta and pork pâté which were also well made and authentic.  We each had a Double Mountain Brewery, Kolsch alongside our lunch.  Olympic Provisions has a large selection, and one could really fill up on lunch or dinner here, but even for an afternoon snack, it is worth a short visit. Olympic Provision’s charcuturie is now becoming more widely available throughout PDX and can be purchased at select stores.

Olympic Provisions

107 Southeast Washington Street
Portland, OR 97214-2103
(503) 954-3663

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Seattle is a beer mecca, an absolutely outstanding city to sample the very best of America’s more recent explosion in craft beer.  For the past 6yrs we’ve been fortunate enough to experience and sample the Northwest’s finest IPAs, porters, stouts and sours, some of which you may have read about in this blog (beer).  This past week Robin and I explored beer, in an intense night-after-night adventure, through the vehicle of Seattle Beer Week 2010.  We tasted so many fabulous beers to write about each in detail here, but I will try to highlight the events, and the beers that we thought stood above the rest.

Chuckanut Beer Dinner at Delancey: Chuckanut is a brewery out of Bellingham Washington and they paired up with arguably Seattle’s best pizza joint Delancey, to bring forth a beer dinner to be remembered.  We shared the fun evening with  our friends Dawn and Eric (WrightAngle).  The dinner was hosted by Kevin Davey of Chuckanut, who described the philosophy, history, and beers from the brewery as the evening progressed.  Basically, the concept for most of the beers was that they are heavily inspired by the travels of the owners and brew master throughout Germany and Eastern Europe.  The beers we had that evening, with the exception of the Stout, were all in the classic German style brewed with German style yeasts, and local German hops.  The Kolsch and the Pilsner were both crisp and delicate, slightly fruity with a mild accent of hops.  The pairing of the Kolsch with Kumomoto oysters and beer-vinegar with shallots was my favorite pairing of the evening, although the Pils was the favorite beer.  All the dishes were well crafted and seasoned perfectly, especially the duck fat roasted potatoes.  The pizzas at Delancey are always the show stopper and we all agreed that the classic Brooklyn, essentially a margherita sans the basil, was the best, with its tangy sauce, beautiful texture, and well seasoned crust.  The final beers of the evening were the Helles, a Munich style beer with crisp finish and slightly sweeter aspect, the Stout which was toasted with hints of coffee and bitter cacao, and an Alt- or fruity German ale, with very malty character.  These beers were all great in their style, but their pairing with the pizza and soup didn’t seem come out as a strength.  In any case, the event was quite fun, and we were exposed to a series of delicious local Northwest brews outside of the tradition of local Northwest IPAs, porters, or stouts.

Delancey

1415 NW 70th St.

Seattle, WA 98117

Art of the Table open house with Pike Brewing and Dog Fish Head: We’ve been to beer events at Art of the Table before, which have been simply fantastic.  Dustin Ronspies and Matt Younts take their food and beer passions both very seriously, and they pair food nearly perfectly with beer.  Having access to the breadth of excellent choices from Dog Fish Head and Pike Brewery made leaving work early in the mid-afternoon really very worthwhile. First of all it was a great chance to meet and chat with several  players in the beer industry. We had the great opportunity to talk with Rose Ann and Charles Finkel, owners of Pike Brewing as well as Sam Castiglione of Dog Fish Head, and Matt Younts. It was a small group so we had the chance to ask questions and get the stories behind these 2 brewery’s excellent beers.  The event offered 6 small plates along with 3 beers from each brewery.  The highlights were as follows: The Midas Touch, a spiced beer (DogFish) brewed with a 2700 yr old recipe was Robin’s favorite (I also enjoyed it). Hard to describe, but the best I can do is- it is like drinking saffron infused honey with a hint of malty beer flavor. It was paired well with saffron caulifower, carmelized onion, and hummus flatbread.  We also enjoyed the 90 minute DogFish Head IPA, brewed by injecting hops into a closed kettle each minute for 90 minutes.  This IPA is perfectly balanced and well rounded, even the hop fearing folk are likely to enjoy it. It was paired with an Albacore Tuna Poke, Spicy Jicama, Nori, top on a fried wonton.

Pike Brewing brought forth their Double IPA, which first debuted last year during Seattle Beer week.  This beer has a more chewy hops flavor, a bit more heat, but still has nice malt balance in the finish.  It was paired with a shooter of cumin-corriander carrot soup, topped with cilantro-preserved Lemon-yogurt which contrasted the bitterness of the hops well.  We were told that Pike downtown has lots of great seasonals on tap including a dry wit beer, which sounded fabulous for this time of year.

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In Seattle there has been a lot of hype about pizza places the last several years,  and Portland also has  absolutely excellent options in Apizza Scholls and Ken’s Artisan Pizza. While we feel that many of these offerings are quite delicious, they all seem to lack something. It seems that no one place in the Northwest has the pizza that has it all but this isn’t to say, that there should be a place that can make a “perfect pizza”.  Some pizza joints have excellent crust, some creative toppings, or really tasty sauce.  And then, there is the debate about the different types of crust: thick, thin, pan, chewy, crunchy, slightly burned, or flaky.  In Capitol Hill, we tend to like Via Tribunali, especially for their delicious calzonne, which comes slightly charred on top, bubbled up, and packed full with goodies.  We really enjoy the salads a Tutta Bella, although we feel that the pizza doesn’t have the quite the same quality it had before they decided to franchise the place throughout Seattle.

A newer place, which has generated considerable buzz in the food world of Seattle is Delancey, over in Ballard [Rebekah Denn’s post here].  Delancey is fantastic!  It really lives up to the hype, but it is in my view a “gourmet pizza place.” What do I mean, by this…read on.  The toppings and the crust at Delancey are arguably the very best the city has to offer.  However, there seems to be some debate in this regard.  Some people in the Seattle blogosphere feel that Flying Squirrel Pizza in the Seward Park neighborhood can compete with Delancey for the best pizza in Seattle so we decided it was time to see what this Flying Squirrel pie was all about.

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