rick "5 star spicy" r.'s Profile

This is damn fine BBQ.  Their brisket sandwich was fantastic.  Smoky, tender, just enough pull to make it meaty, one of the finest chunks of brisket I've ever put into my mouth.   And I've hit up some pretty solid BBQ joints.  And the portion was ample.  Plenty of succulent brisket ringed pink and beautiful.

I can't say much about the cart, since they brought it to where my butt was planted next door in the Brooklyn Park Pub.  Very kind of them.  Cheers.

Wasabi doesn't know what it wants to be.  It's Japanese restaurant that introduced Korean BBQ and has Chinese food specials.  When I saw the sticky-looking sweet and sour shimp on the table next to us, I got a bad feeling about the place, but we stuck it out.  And the people raved about how delicious it was, and how massive the shrimps were.

So we got the appetizer plate, I got bulgogi pork, N ordered the short rib bento, and my grandmother got the sweet and sour shrimp.

None of it was particularly good.  It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't worth a return trip.  Actually, the sweet and sour shrimp was kinda terrible.  The shrimp pieces were not massive, or even large.  They were just covered in 1/3-inch thick batter and slathered with ridiculously sweet gooey yuck sauce.

I'm rounding up to three stars because it's the only game in town.  If this was in Portland or Seattle they'd struggle.  But then, they would probably also have more freedom to deliver a more focused menu.

I wish this pub was in my neighborhood.  It's a great, friendly spot, with an amazing whiskey selection and a thoughtful tap list.  The smallish pub has a nice, open feeling, and they are on good terms with the delicious BBQ cart next door.

They have something like 150 whiskeys available at any given time.  In addition to a lot of standards, they have rotating selection on the chalkboard with a bunch of stuff I've never heard of, and interesting versions of some of your standard, aged variants, ryes, blends, whatever.  Unfortunately for you and me, about half of the chalkboard bottles are only available to you after you've qualified for their whiskey club by consuming 30 different shots.  If only they knew.  I accept the challenge, and at this rate should be able to hit the select whiskeys by the end of 2014.

I don't recall the taps exactly, but IIRC there was a cider, something from Boulevard, and about 5 more in a range of styles.  I was a bit more focused on the distillations, I suppose.

The only real drawback to this neighborhood pub (other than its lack of proximity to my house) is the fryer.  Back in the days of the smoking free-for-all, the tarry clouds may have masked the greasy fumes, but those days are past, and you get a clear scent of the fries they're making.  It's not that bad, but having stood over a fryer before, I'm fairly sensitive to that greasy feeling.

I will definitely go back...I have 28 more tasters to get through before I'm a full-fledged citizen.

Great spot, friendly service, nice beer, interesting menu.  They have a nice set of northwest variety staples in their beer selection, like IPA, ESB, and some dark beers, as well as some fun experiments.  The apricot scotch bonnet featured last nice was pretty tasty.

Burnside's menu is a bit funky, and seemed to take it to a bit swankier of a level than the rest of the experience led to.  Not that a coney dog is all that swanky, but toss on Cinci chili and and a really nice homemade dog and it's somewhere between delicious, avant-garde, and ironic.  Nice.  

But I stared at the menu for a long time trying to pick out something that would be a good share item with my buddy, and I just couldn't do it.  So I gave him fries and some of my chili dog.  Take that fancy-pants!

That's not a complaint about the menu, I totally appreciate the effort, their goal of delivering quality ingredients, and the creativity.  Totally solid spot with a beer selection that delivers, in a nice location.

My buddy and I were looking for a place on the eastside to grab some easy food and a beer after the Timbers game and stumbled upon this gem.  I think I have a new favorite by-the-slice restaurant.

The pepperoni was great.  Sweet sauce, thin, firm crust with flavor, nicely toasted cheese.  Loved it.

The white was similarly good.  Garlicky cheesy salty goodness on a lovely crust.  It could have been just a bit gooier, but it was pretty dang nice.

The beer selection was a-okay, with TG, Amnesia, Oakshire, and others on tap, a nice range.

And they were open late enough to still be there when we needed them.

Hawthorne now has two of my favorite Chinese restaurants (look north to Alberta, one of you!) Fujin and and Lucky Strike.  Lucky Strike was awesome.  Interesting dishes, hella spicy, epic pepper love.

If you are sensitive to heat, this may not be the place for you.  They did not offer mild/medium/hot, it all just came out hot.

We got the mapu tofu dish, which is soft tofu and pork in a rich soy base.  Amazing.  I'm a fan of the Mabo Ramen at Toshi's, a wonderful Beaverton Japanese restaurant.  I don't know or care what the relation is between the dishes, but they were similar but different, so close yet so far, and I'm in love.

Thinking it'd be a nice standby, we got the KungPao chicken.  The sweet and spicy ginger sauce was marvelous.  Love the rich flavors.  And it came with two scoops of peppers.  Lots of hots.

To top it off, we got the Dan Dan noodles.  Less spicy here.  But still plenty of flavor.

Like Bob S., N and I had been inspired to cruise out to the original location by a Don B. review, but never seemed to find it when it was open.  Happily it's somewhat closer to home, in the the old India Oven location, with better fallbacks than Wall Street Pizza.

Kudos also for working to use locally sourced, quality meats and vegetables.  Based on how long it took the food to come out (not really that long, but for Chinese, kind of) they make it to order with care.

Looking forward to trying some of the more exotic dishes next time.

Stumbled out of the chill into this place fresh off the airplane with some colleagues.  I wasn't really sure what to expect.  Decent reviews, a strange city, kinda fancy looking for my Portland casual diner motif.

We got the calamari appetizer to start.  It was delicious.  If there was a flaw, it could have been a bit crisper.  But that would have just slowed me from shoving more of it into my face.  It was golden, tangy, and tender.  They also snuck in some battered and fried banana peppers to go with it.  And they were delectable.  Not hot, they added a nice complexity to the dish.

For dinner I got the scallops.  They were served with a goat cheese spaetzle topped with winter squash and watercress, with a red wine reduction on the side that added a rich sweetness to the perfectly prepared scallops that I just wanted to savor, halfway through I found that I'd been preserving them too mucn and my supply of spaetzle was diminishing.  My bad.  But it was easily solved by eating more of the scallops.  All of the flavors blended wonderfully.  The squash was great, back home I'm sure a similar restaurant would've gone with wild mushrooms, but the squash melded nicely and didn't take too much focus from the other elements, almost forming a sauce and a dressing for the greens on top.

First off, I'm not a huge fan of the Widmer beers one finds in stores.  I'm a huge proponent of using the Hef as a gateway micro, but I rarely (never) pickup a 6-pack or order a pint unless they've cornered the taps.

But that doesn't matter here, because they're often pouring something fun and interesting.  This is the heart of the Widmer empire.  A lively bar with a great happy hour, good food, and interesting twists.

The people are pretty friendly.  They're open to children visiting, supplying crayons and a kid's menu to color on.  With a word search that has backwards diagonal words in it.  Tricky!

They have a tasty burger for $5 during happy hour.  Unfortunately, they only serve it well-done.  Ding!  Oh, well, it's a good $5 burger.  Along with friends and baby and beer, I'd say success.

Sorry, there are already tons of reviews for Providence, and it's already a business here, but the maternity ward is what I want to rave about, and I don't want it to get lost in the shuffle.

I spent four days in this place.  That's a long time.  The food was surprisingly acceptable, but I did make forays out into the world for tacos, and friends brought pizza and thai food and more (beer...) so we were pretty well taken care of.  

The nurses were friendly.  Even to me, and believe me, the maternity ward is not about me.  For the most part it's about the mom.  She's the patient.  There's lots of attention given to baby as well.  And when you're tired in the middle of the night, they're nice enough to give a few-hour reprieve.

You check-in, and they stick you in one room, and hopefully you deliver there.  Then they move you to a recovery room that is almost the same, except there's no bagels in the freezer.  We weren't quite that lucky and after labor spanning four nurses shifts and many different efforts we had to go into surgery for the C.  The staff was a great balance of professional and friendly.  I even got to hangout in the operation room and hold Roxy after she was checked out.  They answered my geek questions happily.  They counted everything that went in, and everything that came out.

We'd done childbirth class through Providence as well, and had a great experience.  And the before and after doctors are both part of the program.  So far all has been great.

A great taqueria deep in SE, I had the carnitas and the pastor.  Both were very good, but fell just shy of great.

The carnitas we the slow-simmered variety, and were served with a bit of verde salsa and the usual condiments.  The luscious hunks of pork were tasty, but slightly chewy.  I would not let that hold you back.

The pastor was good, a nice red chili color, but not standouts.  Again, if I wasn't such a whiny butt they would be awesome, I just found the pork wasn't as flavorful as I'd like, mostly lacking the sweetness of pineapple.

The horchata was your standard mix, it tasted fine.

Definitely worth a return visit.