On Friday night we finally got around to checking out the Uber Kegs on Aurora. I’ve been suggesting we stop by on our way out of PCC for a few months now. Strange location but very cool place. Its like a mini-Brouwser’s Cafe. Small place, large beer list.
Before hand we grabbed desert at Oliver’s Twist up on Phinney. Cute place, nice beer list. Fairly small, small plates menu.
Spent my last weekend Portland while Sherry is still in school. Met up with my friend John at Amnesia Brewing for some beer while the girls studied. Then Sherry and I caught an early show of Blades of Glory. If you think men getting hit in the crotch is funny (and sometimes it is) then this is the movie for you. Afterwards we had a late dinner at Andina. We stuck to the small plates menu (Cebiche, Chorizo, Causa filled with smoked trout.) Washed it down with a bottle of ‘01 Lorinon Reserva and glass of port for desert.
John’s Le Pigeon post (below) doesn’t mention our other open-kitchen dining experience on Saturday: Lunch at Amnesia Brewing Co. on Portland’s rapidly gentrifying North Mississippi Avenue. We noticed they were open for lunch when we checked out Mississippi Pizza a couple weeks ago, and decided to swing by for a little al fresco lunch on a rainy afternoon under their giant parking lot-sized tent. The menu is limited by what can be cooked on the big charcoal grill in a corner of the outdoor seating area — burgers and sausages (both veggie and meaty). John chowed down on a Hungarian sausage, while I tried a Tofurky beer brat. The food was all right, but really, it was about sitting outside sipping an IPA (unfiltered and not unlike a less-sweet Mac and Jack’s). The outdoor seating area is huge, like a few other memorable patios in Portland – there just aren’t comparable chances to sit outside in Seattle. Portland’s luxury of expansive patio seating seems to be a product of so many converted warehouses with parking lots being converted into bars and restaurants — and the parking areas have been transformed into outdoor seating. I’ll take a patio over a parking lot any day.
On Saturday night Sherry and I took a break from our usual dining out location in Portland to try something a little more French. The chef from Le Pigeon made the list of Food & Wine’s Best New Chefs along with the chef from Seattle’s Sitka & Spruce. We passed on the headliner squab but our food was still excellent. That stretch of Burnside has come a long way from when we first visited Portland and dined at “The Farm.” Since then a hip hotel, a club, and a few restaurants have all opened up within a few blocks.
From this week “The Pour” on the Beer Advocate:
“Before the Internet, computer nerds felt on the outside but now they’re accepted,” Todd said. “I think beer geeks are the same way. We’ll look back 10 years from now and remember what it was like.”
All we have todo is wait…
I’m not one for the Obituaries page usually but this piece caught my attention.
Mr. Eames called himself a beer anthropologist, a role that allowed him to expound on subjects like what he put forward as the world’s oldest beer advertisement, dating to roughly 4000 B.C.
In it a Mesopotamian stone tablet depicted a headless woman with enormous breasts holding goblets of beer in each hand. The tagline, at least in his interpretation, was: “Drink Elba, the beer with the heart of a lion.”
We had a snow filled Saturday at Stevens Pass Nordic area. We climbed the nordic trails all the way up to the chairlift on the back side of Stevens downhill ski area. It was snowing pretty much the whole time and we found ourselves in the middle of a Biathlon. After getting back to Seattle we took our hunger to Via Tribunali. The atmosphere and pies were good. I would say we still prefer Tutta Bella even if it has high chairs. Afterwards we strolled up Broadway to Coco La Ti Da for some very hip deserts.
… they’re in Bellevue. The Stranger finally got hip to the Udupi Palace at Crossroads in Bellevue and made the trek over the water for some South Indian dosa action. Not so much a restaurant review as a fawning ode to the dosa:
My masala dosa was crispy and airy and buttery; I kept eating long after I was full. The spiced potatoes inside seemed like they’d been cooked for days (a good thing) and the overall combination of flavors delighted me. “You’re looking rather pleased with yourself,” my wife said, and I grinned. Dosas make me happy.
Dosas make me happy, too. (Although I don’t understand why its taken The Stranger four years to realize dosas are just a short drive away.) Like writer Chris McCann, I too searched Seattle a dosa fix when I first moved to the area, not realizing how lucky I was to have relatively easy access to the Udupi Palace on Devon in Chicago … until the Crossroads location opened. Sure, it’s in Bellevue. Yes, it’s in a mall. But dosas! Just reading about them made me want one …
