Dave Knows Portland

Things to do in Portland on New Year’s Day

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After an acceptable sleeping-in period, besides watching bowl games, what else is there to do on New Year’s Day?

I know I’m not the only one who doesn’t give a rat’s ass about American Football.

Places to Go

The Burnside Powell’s Books (1005 W Burnside) is open 10am to 9pm. And unlike on Xmas day, all the other locations are open too.

samudraeatinghayThe Oregon Zoo is open every day except Xmas Day.

Most movie theaters and bowling alleys are open too.

Food and Drink

Though it’s customary for many bars and taverns to close on New Year’s Day to recover from one of their biggest days of the year, your odds of finding a place to get a pint or a brunch today are pretty good.

On the New Year’s Eve post at Portland Food and Drink, many of the restaurants mentioned also indicate whether they’re open on New Year’s Day.

PortlandBarFly.com maintains a comprehensive list of Bars open in Portland 365 days a year.

Transit

TriMet buses and MAX are running today on a Sunday schedule, the streetcar on the Saturday schedule.

Portland food and drink trends I’m unhappy about

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These don’t all qualify as trends, and they are not all Portland specific, but I need to get this off my chest.

Bacon for dessert

It’s just a bad, faddish idea. Soon it will go the way of 80s era yogurt and muffin shops and we’ll wonder what were they thinking?!

Overpriced fish and chips

gortonsMost places charge upwards of $13 for “fish” and chips the Gorton’s fisherman would be ashamed of. Kudos to Kells and Horse Brass for real fish and chips which they pegged at $9 for years, though they’ve both creeped up to around $10.

Bars with multiple taps dedicated to IPAs

I know I should count my blessings and appreciate the amazing selection of quality beers we have around here, but how about replacing one of the half dozen IPAs on tap with a porter, an amber, a farmhouse ale? There are lots of other beer styles to choose from!

Stumptown coffee

Sure they have excellent espresso; best Americanos in town. But their air-pot french press coffee sucks. In their defense the other day one of their employees was actually pleasant and friendly . . . I think. I can’t be certain because I couldn’t hear what she said over the absurdly loud disco music. [Ed: You kids get off my lawn!]. And don’t even get me started on the Clover-machine hissy fit.

Gourmet salt

Give me a break. Are wine, chocolate, coffee, and olive oils not enough for you to be snobby about?

Portland Hidden Gem: breakfast sandwich at Fehrenbacher Hof

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Behind the Goose Hollow Inn, about a quarter of the way up the steepish slope of SW 19th, one can find the best corned beef with reuben sauce breakfast sandwich in town, at the Fehrenbacher Hof Coffee House (1125 SW 19th).

Fehrenbacher Hof also makes available the typical assortment of pastries, and prepares above average espresso concoctions, but I’m talking about the breakfast sandwiches; You can also get it with veggie sausage or ham, in lieu of corned beef.

It’s cooked in some sort of salamander broiler or pizza oven; I’m not sure. But the delicious sandwiches come out toasty and hot with the cheese melted and crispy around the edges, kinda like a homemade Cheez-it. The reuben sauce (and in all likelihood the corned beef) is the same used in the planet-famous Goose Hollow Inn reubens; as I understand it the two businesses are both part of the Bud Clark empire.

Bonus apple slices!

Gourmet magazine fawns all over Portland

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Portland’s culinary scene is lauded in the November issue of Gourmet magazine.

Some of the chefs and restaurateurs interviewed for the article include Ten-01‘s Jack Yoss, Daniel Mondok of Sel Gris, Gabriel Rucker of Le Pigeon, and Beast‘s Naomi Pomeroy.

Most hail from elsewhere, coming to Portland for its communal spirit — and its ingredients, which flood in fresh each season from the bookend fecundities of the Willamette Valley and the Pacific Ocean. There’s a real sense that Portland today is to the culinary arts what Paris was to the visual arts a hundred years ago.

How’s that for a money quote? Portland today is to the culinary arts what Paris was to the visual arts a hundred years ago. Wow.

A few obvious trends are noted:

  • a love of meat, for instance, notably pig (every part of it): pork-belly starters, pickled pigs’ ears, and bacon everywhere, even candied in deserts
  • a kind of Euro-Pacific farm cooking . . . full-cream spoon breads, flaky brioches, lard piecrusts, gravy galore, and lots and lots of thick-crusted fried chicken
  • the burgeoning local spirits scene
  • passionate in-city purveyors, notably Ken’s Artisan Bakery and Steve’s Cheese

Each of the restaurants mentioned above is profiled, with shorter pieces on Screen Door, The Country Cat Dinnerhouse & Bar, Toro Bravo, Lovely Hula Hands, Pok Pok, and Lucier.  Blue Hour, the Heathman, Higgins, Paley’s Place, and Saucebox get a sidebar mention too.

The article is not online yet. I’m not sure what Gourmet’s schedule is for posting new articles from the magazine.

Portland’s Beast warrants one of Esquire’s “other awards”

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No Portland restaurants made it onto Esquire’s Best New Restaurants, 2008, but Beast (5425 NE 30th Ave) did garner one of the Other Awards:

MOST TOLERABLE EXAMPLE OF THE COMMUNAL-TABLE TREND.

In the regional seasonal utopia that is Portland, Oregon, the community table is exactly that: a way of gathering people for the purpose of sharing an experience. But it isn’t all peace, love, and understanding. From her open kitchen at Beast, chef Naomi Pomeroy keeps a hard line: two seatings for a six-course daily menu “based on what sounds great, right, and true”–in other words, whatever she wants to serve that night. Don’t even think about asking for substitutions.

In related news, Clyde Common‘s bar is recognized by Esquire as one of the Best Bars, but strangely they use a photo of Portland, Maine on the webpage.