Where Have You Been?
I took a quick trip down to Portland for my birthday. While there are still a million places in my new neck of the woods I have yet to explore, Portland is the place I go back to again and again. My restaurant maps (saved lovingly by cuisine or meal, like “French”, “Laotian” and “Coffee Shops”) are ever-evolving and the list of “must go” places grows longer, which tells me that while the Portland food scene struggled along with the rest of the nation during the pandemic, they’re coming back strong. For every one local institution that shuttered in the past year (my heart is still broken over Yonder and Malka), there seems to be two new hot-spots popping up to take their place.
Being in the food industry is not for the faint of heart - regular folks are expected to don their super-hero capes and bang out memorable dining experiences while dealing with supply chain issues, soaring food prices, staff shortages, and people on yelp who leave two star reviews because they had to wait 5 minutes for water (you know who you are). I guess that’s why I make a big deal out of planning my travel when it comes to dining. Knowing what’s behind a chef’s decision to open a restaurant and understanding their vision sets me up for a really good time at their table.
This was a quick trip - I popped in to visit my aunt and uncle near Mulino, just south of Oregon City (which has its own little food renaissance going on - I’ll share my culinary map if you want it) Thursday morning, then stuffed the pups into the basement Airbnb I reserved in the northeast neighborhood of Roseway before running a comb through my hair and heading southwest along Sandy Blvd to Gado Gado.
With their mixed and diverse culinary backgrounds, owners Thomas and Mariah Pisha-Duffly want their menu to reflect what they like to eat, drawing inspiration from their travels in Southeast Asia. Gado Gado’s menu celebrates Thomas’ Chinese Indonesian heritage and the restaurant has been on my bucket list for years now.
Naturally, because there was just one of me, I ordered the Chef’s Choice Rice Table dining experience which gave me the opportunity to try a little taste of what I consider (humble opinion here) to be the best bites on their menu. I say “little taste” but that’s not entirely accurate. While the meal starts off with a dish of pickles and four aromatic sambals, followed by an amuse bouche of panipuri – a hollow, deep-fried, crisp flatbread filled with celery root, rutabaga, and pickled sea vegetable – their interpretation of the Dutch-Indonesian “Rijsttafel” feast quickly ramps up to larger portions of dishes like Grilled Banana Leaf Rockfish, Babi Kecap (sweet soy-braised pork), and Sumatran style beef rendang.
There was so much food, and all of it was jam-packed with flavor, but my favorite dish turned out to be a sleeper that crept up on me: the Blistered Heirloom Tomato Curry with coconut and aromatic garlic oil. I swiped at it first with a bit of flakey Roti Canai (Malaysian flatbread), then promptly swept all the other dishes aside and went after it quite lustily with my spoon.
There’s not one dish of that tasting menu I wouldn’t order again, but I’ve updated my death row meal to that tomato curry. Hands down the best dish I’ve had in a long time. I want it right now.
The image on the left is of a gorgeous dogwood tree at my friends Amy and Becca’s cute-as-a-button house in Portland.
One of things I love best about Portland are the never-ending opportunities to explore parks and picturesque neighborhoods, dogs in tow. After a small toe amputation, Gigi prefers her walkies riding in the stroller (yes, I’m one of those pet moms) but Marcello wouldn’t be caught dead in it, and he’s happy to walk alongside, rain or shine. If there’s a plant, shrub, or tree that can bloom, they’re blooming in Portland the first week of May. After an early-morning walk around Roseway, the pups and I headed west to Proud Mary Café on Alberta for a pour over coffee and ricotta hotcake with strawberries, horchata cream, tahini crumbles and raspberry lime syrup. If that sounds insanely delicious, it’s because it totally was.
Proud Mary cares about coffee. A lot. Working directly with coffee farmers, the Melbourne-based café opened its first US location in Portland in 2017. Melbourne is known as an elite, global coffee town and for following a vision similar to Pacific Northwest kitchens: working with local farms to serve incredible food. Settling on the hotcake for breakfast wasn’t easy (when you want one of everything on the menu) but it was the right choice.
Being on my own Thursday night and Friday morning, I wasn’t hanging out long at Gado Gado or Proud Mary Café, but I felt welcome to. Just one more thing I love about Portland - it’s full of neighborhood eateries where friends and family meet up and spend quality time over an amazing meal and good conversation.
Case in Point: I met my good friends Amy and Becca Green at Ken’s Artisan Pizza Friday evening for dinner. Ken’s doesn’t take reservations, so if you plan on going on a Friday night, be prepared to wait awhile for your table. Easy to do when you’re catching up with good friends and you’re sipping on a nice glass of wine while you wait. We met outside of Ken’s at 6:30 and I was walking back to my car two blocks down just before 10 p.m. Back home on the farm we’re all in bed before 9. Not that I’m not enjoying my time on the farm, but I could do Portland in a heartbeat.
For now, I’ll have to settle with monthly visitation.
Sidebar: Why It’s Been So Long …
To the three or four people who read this blog (lol) you may have noticed I don’t write as much as I used to. I also don’t cook, take photos of my food, or share what I’m cooking and shooting on social media much anymore either. There is a reason for this, which I’ll share a little bit about, but it is something I hope to remedy.
I was recently revisiting the cookbook My Kitchen Year by one of my favorite lovers of food and cooking, Ruth Reichel, and she shared that whenever she’s “confused, lonely, or frightened” she heads to the kitchen. She did this specifically when the food magazine Gourmet shuttered and her role as editor and chief for ten years suddenly came to an end. While I voluntarily left my previous role as a content manager for Gary Yamamoto Custom Baits, I did not expect it would take me a year and four months to land my next job. Looking for work was a full-time job in and of itself - one that came with hardcore research, a butt-load of self-affirmation exercises, and weekly rejection. At one point I remember asking myself, like Jerry Seinfeld’s mom, “How could anybody not like me?” as I was repeatedly told “While we were impressed with your qualifications, we have determined that other candidates more closely fit the job’s requirements.” The first 20 times this happens sucks, but after 100+ job applications, it really started to take a toll on my psyche. Working in an environment that required me to wear a lot of hats meant I had a “little” experience in a lot of things, but I didn’t consider myself a master of any of them, and this was coming back to bite me in the buttocks.
I’ve been employed at my current job for almost as long as I was out of work, but I’m just beginning to understand that the experience left me a bit … well, depressed. It’s still “not cool” to talk about mental illness, depression, or anxiety, which is sad, but I’m going to talk about it anyway because it’s part of my experience and the stigma pisses me off. I experienced a rough patch and it left me emotionally bankrupt (not to mention financially teetering). While I was looking for work, it somehow felt wrong for me to be spending time in the kitchen (doing the things that brought me joy) when I could be spending that time applying for five more jobs. If I used that time to apply myself more, I’d get where I needed to be quicker. I can’t say whether or not that turned out to be true, but I do know it was detrimental to my emotional well being. Big time.
And it wasn’t that I felt bad that I couldn’t be in the kitchen doing what I loved, I completely stopped wanting to do those things that I had once found so satisfying. That, friends, is a sign of depression. I don’t think I realized it until just the other day when I picked up Ruth’s book and the subtitle “136 Recipes That Saved My Life” smacked me upside the head. When her life was falling apart, she went to her safe space. She went back to the things that fed and nourished her in more than just a physical sense. When my world started falling apart, I did what I always do. I punished myself.
We could do a deep dive here, but I think I’ve exposed quite enough of my tender underbelly and you probably have a life to get back to (and hopefully a chicken roasting in the oven that needs checking on). Just know that I’ve said all this as a way to explain why I went away for a bit and how I’m trying to come back.
The first weekend in May, in Portland, was a great start. And this weekend I’ve got pizza dough resting on the table, ready for its official baptism by fire in my new Ooni pizza oven (thank you, family!). I’ve popped some rhubarb compote fresh from the garden in the fridge to rest until I can add it to a spoon cake, along with a quart of preserved meyer lemons for the oodles and oodles of salads Jen and I will be having in just another week or two to keep the garden from overflowing.
It might be a bit too early to crow, “I’m back, baby!” but I really, really want to be.
Until next time, eat something yummy and tell me about it.
Sausage and mushroom pie with red onion and chive blossoms
