Feed Me Portland!

Hey, a new year, maybe I will start blogging again. Now that the therapy is starting to kick in. Here is my favorite dish of 2011. “Peppery pork ball noodle soup” from SE Portland’s venerable (and ephemeral) Viet noodle joint HA&VL. Behold the deliciousness of the soup-that-is-Vietnamese-but-is-not-pho

Ever since my brother moved his wine shop, Vino, fro

Robb Walsh’s Oyster guide: Olympia’s are the morsels on the bottom row (http://www.citypages.com/2009-02-11/news/a-guide-to-oysters/). I am admittedly a food snob. Still, I can feast like a king on a tangy, umami-bomb of Vietnamese banh mi sandwich, a steal for about $4.25 each. Of course, you can cook simple,

Growing up in small-town Central Oregon had its advantages. Even in elementary schoo

You don’t see a restaurant in Portland that follows a format like San Francisco’s (Tenderloin/Civic Center) Hai Ky Mi Gai: a southern Chinese joint (that seems like it’s actually Vietnamese) specializing in dry and wet noodle soups. Or maybe you do and I’m just an ignorant slut. We stopped by one early weekday morni

My friend Maggie's husband is a great cook. Not only is he a master

Chocolate Treats from Baker and Spice Val

Our banh mi sandwich is featured in The Oregonian’s FOODday 100 Things We Love issue! There are some terrific places and ideas on the list, and we’re honored to be amongst them. Here’s what they said about our take on this classic Vietnamese sandwich: “Smash hit would succinctly describe

Earlier this month, Karla the Veganshizzle and I spent a few days up in Seattle basically drinking coffee, eating vegan food, walking around, and drinking even more coffee. Our first stop was Georgetown Liquor Co. Hands down, my favorite place to dine (and play NES with a microbrew or PBR in hand) in Seattle. And [...]

Bun Bo Hue Minh has no relation to Binh Minh, the venerable banh mi shop with locations in NE and SE Portland, or Pho Binh Minh, the erstwhile pho joint in Tigard with attitude problems. It’s all a bit confusing, but one thing the Vietnamese people are known for, along with degenerate gambling and screaming into ph

Diane Morgan,of Diane Morgan Cooks, has announced she will be on the Food Network Challenge: Thanksgiving Family Face-Off, which will air Sunday November 14th. She was one of three judges for the show. Andy Ricker has announced the five-year anniversary of Pok Pok. &#

As much as we all love ramen, there are other delicious noodle soups to be had in NYC. Consider Phở, the Vietnamese dish.

Butterfish Tartare, Yuzu Emulsion, Avocado, Tobiko. Photos b

I was in Los Angeles late last year, and had the pleasure to spend a night on the town with the lovely and the talented LA food blogging couple extraordinaire, Jeni of Oishii Eats and her husband Dylan of Eat Drink &

Here’s post number three for French Fridays with Dorie! I liked this soup a lot and think I’ll definitely make it again! Psssss

I dined for the first time at Pok Pok on Monday with Rusty and our old friend Caleb. Arriving at 7 pm, I was told that there would be a 30 minute wait and I was directed to the Whiskey Soda Lounge across the street to wait (which is owed by the same person that owns Pok Pok). 30 minutes turned into a little over an hour.

This post is my contribution to Cory Cartwright's 32 Days of Natural Wine, on his blog Saignée:Th

<A Vietnamese sandwich at Foster & Dobbs? Mais oui! For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure, the Banh Mi relfects Viet Nam’s colonization by the French—baguette, mayonnaise, and charcuterie—but wit

Thanh Thao Market, located on a strip of Northeast Sandy in the Rose City district, may not be Portland’s largest Vietnamese market or itR

Summer grilling season is upon us! Here’s to backyard grilling and bbq. Kai Yaang (Thai grilled chicken) 2 1/2 to 3 pounds various chicken parts, or a whole chicken, halved 8 or more minced garlic cloves 1 tablespoon ground white pepper As much minced lemongrass as you like.

I’ve been going to this place for nearly eight years, back when it was Pho Oregon “West” (despite being only a mile from the ot

Broccolini with Crispy Poached Egg from Metrovino

The weather is getting warm and it's time to start grilling. Who doesn't love to grill?Lots of people don't, I would say. And if you will permit me what I hope is a rare moment of holier-than-thou snarkiness, I'll tell you what I mean. Most people enjoy pressing the button that ignites the propane gas as it flow

I hadn’t been to HA&VL on a Saturday for some time, so I was due for a visit. Saturday’s feature is “Bun Moc Ha

Torta Ahogada from 7 Estrellas Forced to choose, I would rather eat the rest of my days in the subur

Bun Bo Hue Minh's fabulous $7 bowl of bun rieu Willamette

Jade Patisserie and Teahouse is a charming, family-run establishment located on that equally charming strip of 13th Avenue in Sellwood that boasts antique shops and other things white people like.

You think I've been starving and haven't had anything worth writing about? Think again. The real reason is I've been so busy eating that my hands have been covered with bacon fat and butter and my fingers keep slipping off the keyboard! Well, my hands are freshly scrubbed, I've put down the pork belly, and it's time to shar

Since it’s winter and the time where many humans are afflicted with “the sickness”, I thought I’d share my favorite form of chick

Phnom Penh Noodle Soup

I found myself with a day off on a recent Thursday. I considered this a capricious stroke of serendipity (even if it was Thanksgiving, which happens on Thursday every year as long as I can remember), because this day is when the warm and generous family that run SE Portland’s HA & VL feature their incredible &#

So we went last night to the Blazer game. It wasn't a great game -- I think the Timberwolves would have a hard time throwing the ball in the Atlantic Ocean, though they were scrappy under the basket on defense, swarming around the Blazers like a bunch of gnats. Anyway, the Blazers won, after which we and the oth

Street food: Is it what’s next?. (WaPo) Doing street food better is the goal of the CIA’s 12th Worlds of Flavor conference. More than 700 corporate chefs, restaurateurs and writers are here to lear

I like game hens. They are like chickens, except in diminutively exact scale. You can eat an entire game hen at one sitting and not feel like a glutton. So I eat two. One thing that worries: are “game hens” simply baby chickens prematurely slaughtered on a factory farm? Is this a moral quandary for whi

This is the story of how the random ingredients I assembled beforehand transformed themselves into a marvelous sandwich tonight. A luscious chicken liver pate and a pickled daikon (white radish)-carrot salad were the condiments I piled onto banh mi Vietnamese-style baguette sandwiches. What serendipity to glance upon Ivy Ma

Hong Phat market is hidden on the east of NE Sandy, just north of NE Prescott, where Prescott hits NE99th. “Kinda near the airport” is how I would describe it to people, but to this point nobody has asked.

Time to be straight forward. Here's some stuff, that happened recently, that I deem great:Tomato Season. I ate a tricolor pint of cherry and grape tomatoes for lunch the other day.The Wednesday downtown farmers market. Mere

Who knew when my brother opened his wine shop in S

With the local press and food bloggers all aflutter (and rightfully so) with the homemade goodness that rotates daily at nearby HA&VL, it can be easy to overlook the deliciousness that is served up every day (and night) at Ngoc Han Bún Bò Huế.

Yo! I've moved to a new domain:getsconedpdx.comIt has pages of information, in addition to normal posts! Oh my gosh!Please update your bookmarks.jess scon

Phở Nguyễn nestles in a large strip mall anchored by a Fred Meyer on Beaverton Hillsdale Highway at the point Portland segues into Beaverton proper. It’s a pretty standard Vietnamese pho joint, with a numbered men

As much of the year is spent in a cold dreary mist, it's perfectly understandable that pho has found a root hold here in the Pacific Northwest. It's cheap, flavorful, and easy to customize, not to mention ubiquitous. But there are other Vietnamese noodles out there, and it's a testament to Portland that they'r

There is a debate among foodistas over the authenticity of Portland's pho, the long-simmer

I found this recipe both delicious and frustrating. The flavor was very good and the meat eventually turned out great, but I made a recipe error early on and from there, nothing seemed to work as it was supposed to. Ma

It happened right in the middle of slurping a steaming bowl of noodle soup. Not that I couldn't have b