Grüner - Portland, Oregon

"New Alpine Cuisine" - is that a "thing" yet? If it's not, maybe it should be.^[1]

With the meteoric rise of Noma to prominence among most lists of the world's greatest restaurants, there has been plenty of talk of the "New Nordic Cuisine." No doubt, the ultra-local and ultra-seasonal cooking at Noma is far more radical and ambitious than what's going on at Grüner, Chef Christopher Israel's restaurant in downtown Portland, Oregon. But Grüner makes a good argument that "Alpine Cuisine" deserves greater attention.

What Grüner calls "Alpine Cuisine" is the foods of a stretch of Europe including Germany, Austria, Hungary and Romania starting in the Alps, and meandering along the Danube River out to the Black Sea - an area which Chef Israel claims, with only some poetic license, bears a resemblance to the geography of the Pacific Northwest. This is fare that typically is more hearty than haute. While the food at Grüner is not exactly precious, and still retains the gutsiness of its inspiration, it is done with a skilled hand; it is not so much Alpine food "reinvented" as it is "refined."

The look of the restaurant is more bauhaus than bierhaus: black-stained wood and glass frame the exterior and interior, while bare maplewood tables lighten things up a bit. The menu is simlarly modern: it offers a selection of small "snacks" (many of which are also available on a bar menu at some very friendly happy hour prices), roughly a dozen options for appetizers and salads, with a shorter list of about a half-dozen entrées, all of which stay more or less faithful to the theme.

Dinner starts with a pretzel twist and some rough-textured seeded bread. Both had their charms, but the clear favorite was the pretzel - dense, chewy, crusty and salty (recipe here).

Both were welcome vehicles for this "snack" of liptauer cheese, a creamy, light-textured house-made product punched up with paprika, caraway, shallots and herbs, which was equally good on fresh crisp radishes and celery. Right here was evidence of how this cuisine paints with a different spice and herb palette than much of the rest of Europe, to great effect.

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Le Pigeon - Portland, Oregon

Portland has such prodigious natural bounty available to it that creating a fine meal need not be difficult work. With its proximity to both river and sea, there's abundant fresh seafood, and nearby farmlands supply excellent produce. Perhaps as a result, Portland has long been a good food town, but creativity has not generally been its calling card; who needs to be creative when you can so happily subsist like a bear on a regular diet of fresh wild salmon and berries?

When we last visited Portland five years ago, we saw some signs of change. The most interesting meals we had were on the then somewhat uncharted east side of the Willamette River, at ClarkLewis and Gotham Building Tavern, both run at the time by Chef Naomi Pomeroy. So I was intrigued to see during my trip research that Gabriel Rucker, now chef of Le Pigeon, was the sous chef at Gotham back when we had eaten there.

Since opening Le Pigeon, Rucker has been bestowed a Food & Wine "Best New Chefs" recognition in 2007, and the James Beard "Rising Star Chef of the Year Award" this past May. Along the way, Le Pigeon has developed a reputation for offal-centricity, though from our experience I think that characterization sort of misses the mark. I saw no more "variety meats" than I'd expect to see on any menu, though they did show up in some unexpected places.

Le Pigeon is an intimate space, maybe 40 seats all told, roughly ten of which line a bar in front of the open kitchen. Several others are situated at communal tables, including a long table angled tightly along the expansive front window where we were seated.^[1] The menu is also a fairly intimate affair, with a short selection of a half dozen appetizers and an equal number of entrées, plus a (seemingly incongruous) burger.

Rucker's creativity finds expression not so much in technique, which is largely classical, as in his mix-and-match approach to dish composition. "Eel, corn, watermelon, shiitake, cilantro" sounded like something you'd find in a mystery basket on a show like "Chopped." More bluntly, it sounded like a train wreck. It wasn't. Fresh-water eel is brought in live and slaughtered in-house, simply grilled, and the delicate but meaty flesh is paired with accompaniments that speak of the freshness of summer: sweet corn, even sweeter watermelon, lightly pickled mushrooms, a drizzle of bright cilantro vinaigrette.

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Want a Burger and a Shake with that Pork Bun?

Richard Hales, chef/owner of Sakaya Kitchen, was not in pole position when the Miami food truck trend started. But when he unveiled his Dim Ssam a Gogo truck about a year ago, it quickly rolled to among the front of the pack, mobilizing Sakaya's offerings with some street-friendly contemporary Asian dishes and expanding them with some truck-only items. A few months ago Hales added a second truck, initially dubbed, somewhat uninspiredly, the "Sakaya Kitchen" truck. With a menu that was mostly a short-form version of the regular restaurant menu, the second truck primarily enabled Sakaya to be in two places at once (three, if you count the brick-and-mortar location in Midtown).^[*]

Now that's all changed. Hales is rolling out not one, but two new trucks: the "Baketress" and "Burger Cheese Bun."

The "Baketress" will offer "a homey American dessert menu with an old southern soul," meaning soft-serve ice cream, fresh baked pies, made to order "hot now" doughnuts, handmade ice cream sandwiches, shakes and "re-created ice cream truck novelties." But while Hales has a sweet tooth, he doesn't claim to be a pastry chef. Instead he's bringing in some big guns to help: Vanessa Paz, formerly the pastry chef for Michelle Bernstein's restaurants. Those of you who were in attendance at our "Cobakayapaz" Cobaya dinner, when Chef Paz tried to kill us with more than a half-dozen gorgeous desserts (after seven savory courses from Chef Hales) will be anticipating good things.

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Oregon Trail

Next week we're off to Portland, Oregon and surrounds. We've been a couple times before, but the last visit was roughly five years ago and it will be interesting to see what's new. Many old stalwarts are still around, like Higgins, Paley's Place, and The Heathman. But a couple places that impressed the most when we were last there - ClarkLewis and Gotham Building Tavern - have undergone multiple changes. The former at least seems to maintain some of the spirit of the place I visited in 2006, but the latter is unrecognizable.

In digging back through the archives, my fuzzy memory was happily surprised to see a now-familiar name was associated with both ClarkLewis and Gotham back then - Naomi Pomeroy. Chef Pomeroy, who recently got some extended airtime on Top Chef Masters, now runs Beast, a fixed menu ("substitutions politely declined") affair that has gotten much critical acclaim. And the sous-chef at Gotham Tavern? Gabriel Rucker, now the chef at Le Pigeon and recently named the James Beard 2011 Rising Chef of the Year.

With the kids in tow, we'll not be doing Beast, but Le Pigeon is on the agenda. The rest of that agenda, as usual, is filled with many more places than there will be opportunities to dine, but the short list includes Pok Pok, Castagna,^[1] Clyde Common, Little Bird (Rucker's more casual sister restaurant), Grüner, Tasty n Sons, Ned Ludd, and St. Jack. Portland also has a vibrant food cart scene which I'm looking forward to exploring.

We'll also have a couple days on the Oregon Coast in Cannon Beach, and any suggestions for that area, as well as any and all Portland advice, are very much welcomed.

^[1]Though the kids' patience or lack thereof, and impending chef shuffles, may take it out of the mix.

Spiceonomics v.2011 (Part II)

With Miami Spice season starting on Monday, we've likewise begun our annual tradition here of looking for the most interesting, best value Spice menus local restaurants have put together. A few days ago we did South Beach. Here we'll do the Mainland.

Perhaps the most interesting Spice news to some is that Michael's Genuine Food & Drink, probably the most popular restaurant in town, is back on the list. I'd initially thought Michael's had never done Miami Spice. Chef Schwartz thought they'd skipped the past two years. Turns out it was actually three years, even though they did a Spice-like summer special in 2008 despite not being an official participant. Anyway, they're back, and there will be much rejoicing.

Remember the rules: don't seek out a Spice menu at a restaurant where a regular dinner costs the same thing; and don't settle for boring food. And again, I'm not listing complete menus here, just those choices that sounded most interesting to me (click the name of each restaurant and you'll go through to their Spice page, including the full menu).

There are a couple restaurants that I would have expected to make this list but didn't: DB Bistro Moderne, and Palme d'Or. Both are exactly the kind of places that usually make great Spice values: high end, high class restaurants where it's normally impossible to get out for anywhere close to $50 per person. But both seem to have really skimped on their Spice menus. DB Bistro's appetizers - soupe du jour, mixed green salad, or ceviche - are like a culinary Ambien. And of the entrées, three out of four aren't even what many people would consider a true dinner main course: pasta (spinach farfalle with ricotta and pancetta), salad (frisée aux lardons with duck ragout), or a tarte flambée (basically an Alsatian pizza).

Palme d'Or may not be quite so lacking in value, but doesn't exactly seem drawn up to inspire much interest either: first course options are a "mix beet root carpaccio" with endive and goat cheese, or a  "braised beef terrine;" mains are lemon sole filet with leek confit or beef tenderloin with risotto. Very pedestrian, and not a very well-designed menu (if you're only offering two choices each for appetizers and entrées, does it make sense for one of the options in each category to be a beef dish?).

I have no doubt the food at both of these places will be well-executed, but neither is putting out a very compelling Miami Spice menu. One other menu I found amusing: Loulou Le Petit Bistro. They're pretty vague about what they're serving: appetizers are "soup of the day or appetizer of the day or organic mix green salad," entrées are an equally vague "catch of the day or special of the day or vegan lasagna." They've actually got a lot more to say about what they're not serving than what they are serving: "Loulou 'Le petit Bistro' will not serve Chilean Sea Bass, Shark, North Atlantic Swordfish, Marlin Sail Fish or Wild Bluefin Tuna in support of the Oceania Project NRDC and Seaweb's educational effort to speed the recovery of these endangered and threatened species." So maybe you can figure out what's on the Spice menu by process of elimination.

Without further ado...

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Spiceonomics v.2011 (Part I)

It's that season again: Miami Spice season. For the next two months, diners go hunting for $35 dinner bargains, restaurateurs squeeze every bit of fat out of their food costs, line cooks go quietly crazy cranking out the same three items over and over again, and servers look forward to the generosity of their penny-pinching customers. Ah, what fun.

We've been over this before here, but to quickly reiterate my rules for navigating Miami Spice season: (1) there's no reason to bother with restaurants where a $35 menu is not a meaningful discount from their regular prices (though, of course, go to them if you like them; just don't do so because they're offering a Miami Spice menu); (2) the infamous chicken breast/farmed salmon/churrasco (or substitute short rib) "trifecta" is usually a tell; and (3) look for food that actually interests you. If a restaurant doesn't excite you the other 11 months of the year, it is unlikely there's going to be something really inspiring on their Spice menu.

As I've done the past couple years, here is a list of some places that look like they may be worth a visit based on the menus they've posted. Again, I'm not necessarily even listing all the choices on their menus, just putting together a meal I might eat. Note as well that I've not tried any of these yet, menus may change, there's still plenty of places you can get a good meal for $35 that don't do Miami Spice, and you might just have a more satisfying meal if you simply go to a nice restaurant and order what you like. Having said that, let's start with South Beach (the restaurant name links to their Miami Spice page so you can gander each restaurant's entire Spice menu if you wish):

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Cobaya 17 - Dinner at Market 17, Fort Lauderdale

It's always interesting to me to see the different approaches chefs take to putting on one of our Cobaya dinners. Some treat the group as true guinea pigs (that is what it means, after all), trying out dishes that may or may not end up on a restaurant menu one day in order to gauge the group's reaction.^[1] Others see it as an opportunity to do something different from their usual routine. When we approached Market 17 in Fort Lauderdale to put on a dinner, they clearly gave it some thought. The restaurant, opened less than a year ago, embodies the current farm-to-table ethos and the menu usually features ingredients from close to home. But for our dinner, Chef Daniel Ramos purposefully set out to expand his horizons, which eventually turned itself into a seven-course dinner where each course focused on a different continent. Our menu for the evening started in Asia, then wound its way though South America, Australia, Africa, Europe and North America before ending up in Antarctica (and yes, that was a challenge):

It was an ambitious plan, and I was impressed both by the thought that went into it and the results on the plate. (To see all my pictures from the dinner, go to this Cobaya 17 flickr set).

Asia

prawn with shrimp and pork dumpling, lemongrass prawn head broth, accompaniments of traditional ingredients

Charles Smith Kung Fu Girl Riesling, Washington State 2009

This starter featured shrimp in three different forms - a simple seared prawn, a dumpling filled with minced shrimp and pork, and a potent lemongrass-infused prawn head broth infused with a spicy/sour kick reminiscent of a Thai tom yum soup. It was presented with the broth in a separate decanter, and small bundles of accompaniments - fresh herbs, finely julienned radish, green onions, shiitake mushrooms, carrots, herb-inflected rice - to assemble D.I.Y. style immediately before eating. Bright, fresh flavors and a fun, interactive presentation. Riesling is a classic companion with Asian foods and the juicy, tangy Washington State "Kung Fu Girl" worked well here.

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