Travel Dining Itineraries: Pacific Northwest Edition

I spend hours researching restaurants before I go on a vacation, heck, even a business trip. Then I tend to be shall we say negligent about writing about my travel dining experiences after the fact. Lest my hard work go completely unappreciated, I thought I'd start an occasional series in which I share with you the fruits of my labors.

To get things started, if you're heading to Washington or Oregon any time soon, here are the places that made the cut on our summer 2011 trip:

Seattle

• Quinn's - Hipster gastropub
• Anchovies and Olives - Italian influenced Pacific NW seafood
• Revel - Korean comfort food
• Emmer & Rye - Local, seasonal, yada yada yada

Portland

• Pok Pok and Whiskey Soda Lounge - The Thai place everyone is still talking about years later
• Food carts - we particularly liked Big Ass Sandwich
• Gruner - Germanic goodness
• Clyde Common - the epicenter of the hipster universe - think charcuterie and lots of skinny jeans at the Ace Hotel

Willamette Valley

• Thistle - tiny New American
• Nick's Italian - nothing fancy, but it's slim pickings in McMinnville. 

More to come from New Mexico, NYC, Bogota/Cartagena...

Portland Dining: Pok Pok and Whiskey Soda Lounge

A few years back Food & Wine did a piece on Andy Ricker's Pok Pok calling it one of America's best Thai restaurants. How could I not check that out? Turns out even though it's not the new kid in town any more, you still can't get a table, so even on a Sunday night we were faced with a 2.5 hour wait. Bananas right? The restaurants was technically supposed to close in less than 2.5 hours, so this did not bode well for us.

Fortunately Pok Pok's sister restaurant, Whiskey Soda Lounge, is just across the street and shares some of the same menu items minus the monster crowds. Not to be missed are Ike's Vietnamese Fish Sauce Wings. These pungent little babies pack some serious flavor. Sticky, salty and sweet, these aren't your daddy's buffalo wings!

I washed down all that fish saucy goodness with one of their famed drinking vinegar cocktails, the Apple Gin Rickey. According to their website, drinking vinegar have been around for ages and were in the past enjoyed for their medicinal benefits. Today they just make for a damn fine cocktail, with the tartness of the vinegar cutting the sweetness of the apple. You can buy your own here. We were tempted to try jelly beer, which is apparently a super cold beer slushy, but ultimately decided it sounded cooler than it was likely to taste. 

Apple Gin Rickey

Right about when I started getting full of wings, we actually got a table back at Pok Pok. I wasn't going to let a little thing like having a full meal keep me from trying the restaurant I came for! 

Maybe I was just tired and a little too full to still be eating, but nothing else quite lived up to the glory of the wings. The eggplant salad was quite different with a smokiness uncommon in American cooking but after a while it was too much of a good thing.

Yam Makheus Yao (Smoky Grilled Eggplant Salad)

They were out of the Kai Yaang, rotisserie game hen, which I'd heard was a must-try, so that was dismaying, but at 10:30 on a Sunday I was lucky I was getting anything. We tried a meat dish, too, but to be honest, I can't even remember what it was. Not that memorable I suppose!

Oh well, I guess I'll just had to head westward on an empty stomach again sometime so I can get the true Pok Pok experience. Until then, I'm excited to make some fish sauce wings at home - yum!

Turns out vinegar drinks are making a comeback - read more about it here. Now I'm thirsty!

Pok Pok

3226 SE Division Street
Portland, OR


Whiskey Soda Lounge

3226 SE Division Street

Portland, OR

Portland Dining: Big Ass Sandwich

We're back from our 10 day jaunt to Washington and Oregon! Lots to share, but I'll start with one of the best sandwiches I've ever had.

Every Saturday in Portland there's a huge street market complete with dancing hippies, knick knack vendors, and a wicked view of the river. After checking that out, we tracked down one of Portland's famous food carts, Big Ass Sandwich, at the corner of SW 3rd and Ash St. Not only does PDX have a ridiculous selection of carts, but they're also super easy to find. In fact, they don't strike me as all that mobile. Rather, they are parked in pods that have regular hours and consistent locations. Can you imagine how fab that would be for lunch time options? Sigh...

We, of course, had to have the eponymous sandwich, replete with slow cooked roast beef, ridiculously perfect french fries, and bechamel cheese sauce. Yep, it's a diet sandwich!

Oh lordy, was this sandwich good. True to form, it's gigantic, so we split it, and that was plenty. It's salty, and gooey, and meaty, and for goodness sake, there are fries on it, how can that be bad? Seriously, the fries are themselves truly top notch - just crispy enough and perfectly salted, and the addition of a bechamel cheese sauce is creamy perfection.

So I'm a fan, that's for sure. It's probably for the best for my personal longevity and waistline that I can no longer access a big ass sandwich, but if you happen to be in Portland, you must try it at least once (and you know if you are nearby, you could never stop at just once!)

Big-Ass Sandwiches
SW 3rd & Ash Street
Portland, OR