Updated Monday Afternoon: According to this article in The Mercury, Paige Williams has been canned from Portland Monthly. I’ve been wondering what was going on over there. Since well regarded former food writer then managing editor Camas Davis left, the quality of the food writing has gone downhill. The most recent issue was as thin as a wafer and the food writing abysmal. A review of Del Inti, the Peruvian restaurant on Alberta street, reads like it was written by a high school student. Another article featured Vitaly Paley with a recipe for, brace yourselves, Cedar Planked Salmon – not in an “irony” or “retro” tone. I felt like I was reading the Silver Palate Cookbook circa 1980. If that’s the best Paige could do, no wonder she’s gone.
Under the title of interesting niche website comes Sardine Society.com, the Society for the Appreciation of the Lowly Tinned Sardine. I love that someone takes such a simple idea and creates an entire blog around it.
Ten 01. My Restaurant of the Year. I went back last week, and had the full dinner experience to see how the new chef is doing. What the heck! Uninspired single-note dishes, two broken sauces… how could this stuff be coming from the kitchen? Ten 01 has already survived one episode of poor food quality, but my feeling is they won’t survive a second, so had better figure out what is going wrong. The new chef has big shoes to fill but size 6 feet. I know it’s early but…. two down arrows. Speaking of which, lots of new up/down/sideways arrows on the review list.
This from Cuisine Bonne Femme: I just wanted to remind everyone that when using a credit or debit card at a restaurant to be sure to check your receipts before you sign or leave them on the tables or with the cashiers. In the past two weeks, I’ve had two restaurants print my whole credit card number out on the receipts. When I pointed these out to the staff, they said they were unaware it is a problem.
Restaurants – please be mindful of this. It is is not only an easy way for thieves to gain access to your customers’ accounts, it is also illegal to print out anything but the last 5 digits of a credit or debit card. In 2003, the Federal Trade Commission passed the Fair and Accurate Credit Transaction Act (FACTA), which went into effect fully in 2006. According to the FTC, “Noncompliance could open a company up to an FTC law enforcement action, including civil penalties and injunctive relief. In addition, the law allows consumers to sue businesses that don’t comply and to collect damages and attorney’s fees.” Really, this one should be a no-brainer for restaurants and fairly easy to fix. So fix it.
Moving on: This from an email: “Just drove by the former Huddle Sports Bar and Killingsworth: officially now RIP. Sign on the marquee sign in front says, “Under New Ownership, opening soon” and there is a hanging sign that says the new name if Doucette’s Public House.”
Evan Zimmerman is leaving Teardop to run the bar at the new Simpatica restaurant, Lauralhurst Market. Evan was at PX in DC prior to joining Teardrop. He’s a good guy, and that he’s joining Simpatica says good things about that project. Troy MacLarty who has now left Lovely Hula Hands, will also be helping with the opening of Laurelhurst. They are building quite the powerhouse.
Useful, but wimpy: Some people find the bulk section in grocery stores a bit intimidating. A recent article in The Oregonian’s Food Day had an interesting piece on buying food in bulk. However, you can tell they’re worried about offending their precious grocery advertisers. They gutted the stories of any real price comparisons… because when they did find price differences, they don’t name the stores. They just write, “in one store…” Wimpy journalism that deprives the readers of the information they really need.
I can’t remember if I mentioned this before. Patrick Coleman over at the Portland Mercury says Nate Tilden of Clyde Common is looking to open another place – a full charcuterie. Is this the next big thing? Nice idea, but I wish they’d pay more attention to their current place, as the food is terribly inconsistent.
One of my favorite places, Little Red Bike Cafe is going through the long process of recovering from a broken water line. The entire restaurant was flooded, and they have closed until everything is dried out and repaired. Unfortunately, they are dealing with the usual morass of insurance and paperwork. You can send them some much needed support and read about the whole thing on their blog.
Good Food, a documentary about Pacific Northwest farmers and organizations and their efforts to develop a sustainable food systems is coming to Cinema 21 May 8th-14th. Many locals are featured, including Organic Valley, Country Natural Beef, New Seasons and Burgerville.
Speaking of Burgerville, their latest bit of PR gave me pause. It seems they are adding two “gourmet” seasonal food combinations to their menu each month, which features a locally produced ingredient. From their PR:
The introduction of seasonal, gourmet menu items began in February with the Yukon & White Bean Basil Burger vegetarian patty which was supplied by Chez Gourmet, a Wilsonville, Oregon-based company run by Marie Osmunson. A Rosemary Chicken Sandwich and Rosemary Shoestring Potatoes were available throughout the month of March and in April, are enjoying a Spinach Florentine Breakfast Pastry as well as a Spring Spinach and Chicken Salad (photos attached).
For the Spinach Florentine Breakfast Sandwich, local and organic spinach comes from Stahlbush Island Farms, located in Corvallis, Oregon. Stahlbush Island Farms also provides Burgerville with its pumpkin sauce for its Fall seasonal items. The Spinach Salad is made from fresh, local and organic baby spinach from Spring Hill Farms in Albany, Oregon. The local Cranberries are from Meduri Farms, Dallas, Oregon and the Blue Cheese comes from Rogue River in Central Point, Oregon.”
I think it is very cool to live in a city where the local burger chain does stuff like this. They will supposedly have asparagus in May.
The city of Portland is pushing back on permits for sidewalk tables. A new proposal would cracking down on restaurants, to make sure there is enough room for people to get by.
The city staffer in charge of the sidewalk cafe proposal says the goal is to keep it moving forward through the budget process; Adams’ transportation director says the mayor is considering his options in the face of a budgetary crisis in which the transportation bureau in particular (which governs sidewalk issues) has been hammered by declining gas-tax revenues.
“What I can tell you is it’s something we are getting input on and something he will consider among (other) fees,” says Catherine Ciarlo, the transportation director in the mayor’s office. “What we are contemplating is very low compared with other cities in the U.S. — the starting fee is the fifth-lowest. Seattle’s is $551; ours is $155.”
The proposal also raises the cost of permits -
Current cost: $10 permit renewal annually
Future cost: $150 initial new application fee, plus $4.50 per linear-foot of cafe space occupied. Permit renewals would cost $75, plus $1.50 per linear-foot of cafe space.
You can read more information here.
There was a fire last week at Ken’s Artisan Bakery. Ken Forkish is grateful to firefighters for responding so quickly to put out the fire on top of his bread oven. They closed to two days to effect repairs and do extensive cleanup and airing out of the bakery. At this time they are back to normal.
Playboy Magazine has named Jeffrey Morganthaler of Clyde common as one of the top mixologists bartenders in the United States. Jefferey is a long term Oregonian, who recently moved from Eugene to take over the bar program from Kevin Ludwig at Clyde Common.
Several people have written to ask where Eric Bechard’s new place in McMinville will be located. It’s in the old Kame space. People were up in arms last week because there were some old wooden letters in the window that said “bistro”. They freaked out because they seem to think that people cannot differentiate between two businesses that have the word “Bistro” in their name. Whatever. Those world-weary letters had actually been in the window since Kame left the space a year ago. It is as if someone was cleaning up and found them in a corner and thought they might look nice in the window.
I remember reading that Burgerville is going to over lightly battered and fried asparagus, along with a sandwich that uses them….looking forward to that!
I might even try the asparagus—and I’m not a big fan of Burgerville’s. But they’d win me back if they ever brought back the parmesean portabello mushrooms (last seen some 9 years ago). THOSE were yummy!!!
I’m annoyed with Burgerville for two things these days: they eliminated huckleberry shakes a couple years ago and today they offer “fresh” strawberries. Fresh? Really? From whence? For a place that touts local fresh things, they sure love to abuse and devalue that word.
Their “fresh” food is sometimes mighty tepid by the time it gets to you. Plus for fast food (and they ARE) they’re REALLY expensive!!!
“fresh frozen” from Stahlbush Island Farms most likely.
cracking down on crowded sidewalk seating? oh no! there goes 50% of the seating at porque no on mississippi!
Bad link on the Foodday article – need to get the lead http out of it.
Oops.. .thanks!
For the city sidewalk inspectors, two words: Piazza Italia. Let me say it a little louder: PIAZZA ITALIA.
Blatant summertime sidewalk pigs. Clearance between the two rows (yes, two rows) of tables is negligible. If you didn’t know better, you’d think they own that sidewalk.
Regarding Ten-01: Chef’s been there a month. His staff has been cooking his new dinner menu for about two weeks–and already a double thumbs down? Ouch. That’s gotta set some kind of downgrade-speed record. FWIW, I’ve been once with the new menu. Found it a bit fussier than Jack Yoss’s, but didn’t think much beyond that. Well, I did think that I miss the Thai ribs and spicy almonds, but that’s about it.
–mcz
BLITZ in the PEARL gets my vote for bad sidewalk hogs. Or is it Deschutes? Maybe both.
PF Changs in the Pearl is pretty bad, too – their tables prevent one from walking under the awnings when it is raining (but they aren’t seating outside).
You can and should complain to the city about this. It’s a handicapped access issue. I know they are cracking down on Greek Cusina for that (among 150 other infractions!)
regarding complaining about not being able to walk under PFCHANGS awnings due to their tables… you do realize that PFChangs.. um .. OWNS the awnings on its property right? Complain if you must about not having reasonable access to sidewalk but not being able to be as a non customer under the awning that the business owns in the first place???!
qv. the sidewalk area, including the air rights, UNDER awnings are OWNED and under the jurisdiction of the City – they are considered public-rights-of way not private ownership. PF Changs doesn’t own the sidewalk area. In addition, the City has some very clear and very specific laws concerning sidewalk usage and food businesses.
So, please by all means, if someone feels access is restricted and PF Chang’s or any other establishment is breaking the law, do complain to the City. It’s an issue of safety, as well as handicapped access. It’s also rude to block the sidewalk. It’s especially rude to see people with wheelchairs not able to get down the sidewalk because some restaurant is breaking the law.
Here’s how to complain: Contact Street Systems Management
Phone (503) 823-7002 Option 5
Fax: (503) 279-3968
E-mail: sidewalkcafe@pdxtrans.org
There appears to some confusion so I’ll make it easy. Here’s the City’s sidewalk cafe permit code summary. Sidewalk Cafés are covered in section 17.25 of City Code. It’s also available here online: http://www.portlandonline.com/Transportation/index.cfm?a=82681&c=38718
“A sidewalk café is defined as a permitted area within the public right-of-way consisting of tables and chairs where patrons may be served food and/or beverages from an adjacent café or restaurant. The permit fee is $10 per calendar year. Sidewalk cafes typically consist of tables and chairs arranged in a single row on the sidewalk. City Code states that it is unlawful for any person to operate a sidewalk café on any public street or sidewalk within the City of Portland without first obtaining a valid permit from the City Engineer. The area to be considered must:
* Be directly adjacent to a café or restaurant
* Have 10-12 foot sidewalk width or greater
* Provide a clear pedestrian passageway of at least 6 feet (8 feet on the bus mall and high pedestrian areas )
The sidewalk café operator shall:
* Ensure that the sidewalk café does not interfere with pedestrians or limits their free and unobstructed passage
* Keep the area around the café clean
* Remove tables, planters, fences, chairs, carpet, etc. from the public sidewalk area at night and when not in use
* Provide trash containers for use by café patrons if throw-away utensils, cups, and plates, etc. are used.
Bonne Femme
I was responding to the person complaining not about sidewalk obstruction but that the tables & chairs of PF Changs kept her from walking under the awning. NOT the sidewalk. Under the awning. The awning owned by PF Changs, presumably meant for their customers, not as an umbrella substitute.
Here is the quote I was responding to “PF Changs in the Pearl is pretty bad, too – their tables prevent one from walking under the awnings when it is raining”
Not “their tables prevent people from walking on the sidewalks”. Assuming they have a valid permit they have every right to put THEIR chairs under THEIR awnings even if it does prevent non customers from using it as a bus shelter. The rules you put forth have nothing to do with the complaint I was addressing.
That is all.
As to the sidewalk and all the “airspace” being public domain. Once the permit is issues, and if the business is in full compliance the space the permit has been issued for becomes a part of the business while the business is operating.
For example… I’m looking right at you folk who think its ok to plop down on a business’ sidewalk seating and eat take out food you got elsewhere. It really just IS NOT.
Of course the city owns the sidewalk — and the business has to pay for it. The business pays for it to be built. If the city tells them there needs to be a tree there, the business has to pay for it to be put in, pay for it to be maintained, pay for it to be replaced if it dies or if someone destroys it. If someone slips and falls on ice, the business gets sued. Just another case of a business not getting the full rights to something it has the full responsibilities for. If there are shared rights, shouldn’t there be shared responsibilities, ie, everyone vis a vis the city pays for it? Adding insult to injury, the city is raising the rates they charge for restaurants to use the sidewalk they pay for but don’t own.
Bonne Femme.. did your response to my statement disappear? It was here a few hours ago?!
So let me get this straight. If I remember correctly, you went 6 times to decide if Ten01 is/was your ROY, but only once(after less than a month under the new chef’s helm) to decide that it deserves 2 down arrows!?
Such haste makes it hard to give any subsequent “reviews” much weight.
Perhaps I should let the Food Dude answer this, but I’ll take a crack at it. Correct me if I’m wrong about any of this, FD.
CO, the arrows are indicative of FD’s most recent informal visit to that restaurant prior to writing the official review. Two down-arrows does not mean the restaurant is a “two-thumbs down” establishment. It only means that his most recent visit was considerably worse than the previous. That’s all. If he goes back again and the food is amazing, I’m sure you’ll see that upward arrow next to Ten01′s name.
Thank you Adam, you are exactly right. They indicate whether I think the restaurant has gotten better or worse since I did my review. Just indicators, and they may swing like a weather vane depending on what I find in subsequent visits.
Except that what you say here doesn’t convey the same idea as what Adam says. He says that they’re only indicative how your last meal was compared with your review. You say that they indicate whether the place has gotten better or worse. But a meal is not a restaurant or necessarily indicative of how a place is doing.
The arrows suggest a trend. I think that’s how most people would read them. However, one meal is not a trend. May be correct, but it’s really not enough info. And I would guess that you’re less likely to return to a place (Ten 01 may be an exception here as you’re likely to re-review it) that does get down arrows, meaning that your one meal causing a place to get two down arrows may sit there for a while mis-directing people.
Ok, I’m still without a computer and doing this from my iPhone as well as dealing with the flu, so bare with me here. All I meant about Teardrop was that I’ve heard from multiple sources that an owner there pissed off someone from a newspaper. He’s also alienated lots of the bartenders in town, hence, some backlash. I never said it wasn’t as good as it has ever been; I go there on a regular basis.
I had B-Ville’s Rosemary Chicken sandwich and it was pretty good. I have to mention though, that I wrote them complaining about their usual chicken sandwich – which is awful – and they wrote back thanking me for my input about their salads.
My office is in an inconvenient location to food, and it’s great to have the B-ville option and their commitment to sustainable packaging helps me feel better about eating fast food. Seriously, their three bin set-up should be everywhere by now.
hope you get better soon. we love your site. we tell everyome we meet at wine tastings & food evebts.
thanx for your vigilence & candor. have you been to cafe 401(brownlow’s), yet?
Food journalism in Portland is at an all-time low. Mix and the Oregonian have been all over it for the past few months. Willamette Week is ameteur toilet paper without relevance, and Portland Monthly hasn’t been worth reading for a few months. Why don’t editors see the need in consistent food coverage written by people who actually know something about food? This is a food town. It’s important.
Thank God for this site. It really is our ear to the ground.
Because most people who really know food are lousy writers, and those who aren’t are expensive. No one in town, not Portland Monthly, Willamette Week, The Merc or the Oregonian, has much of a freelance budget right now. All newspapers are dependent on ad sales for income, and ad sales nationwide are in the toilet. They aren’t skinny or using cheap writers because they’re lazy—there’s just not enough money. Restaurant reviews are really, really expensive. You want better food writing? Either buy some ads or start pitching stories (but don’t expect to get paid very well).
BS.
Willamette Week just put out a really useful guide to food shopping, more comprehensive than anything else I’ve seen on ethnic markets and the like, including the hinterlands that often get overlooked. They’ve also started using a blogger, SauceSupreme, to cover hidden gems such as, most recently, Thanh Son Tofu.
Patrick Coleman over at the Mercury has been on top of things, emphasizing places that should be covered but aren’t always, like, most recently, Taste of Jakarta. And he’s blogging, too, keep things more “relevant”.
The Oregonian has been doing their job as a daily to cover the big stuff, but they’re also doing a much better job than I ever remember them doing covering the rest as well, using their Platter and Cheap Eats to cover all kinds of places and keep people informed of comings and goings.
I can remember not even 5 years ago when I never learned anything from the papers. That’s when sites like this and PortlandFood.org and Extramsg.com were most relevant. Sure, the papers get a lot of leads and information off the interweb now, but they also learned a lot from what we were doing.
Meanwhile, FD is putting out less than one review a month. The rest are snippets of news, half or more available elsewhere first, sometimes even linked to the sources you’re saying aren’t relevant.
If people don’t give the mainstream media sources their due for what they do right, they may just resign themselves to putting out minimal effort that will get them the same negative response.
qv, gotcha. Thanks for clarification, that wasn’t clear in your response.
qv, I’m still seeing my two responses to you. These thread chains are confusing for me…
yeah was weird… I saw you responded.. then had to go…then came back to read it and it wasn’t where it was before. FD explainedit to me. Thamks!
Moved many of the Ten 01 comments over to that thread.
I was the waiter at a Burgerville wine/beer/food pairing a few months ago.
It was as odd as it sounds, only more so.
I only work the good ones.
Piazza Italia “used” to be one of my favorite places, but one night five of us went there, the meals were average at best, and the service “cheeky.” It was so bad I wrote the restaurant a letter telling them what had happened. Not so much as a peep from them after they received the letter. Thus, they are off my list of places to go. And all they needed to do was simply respond with an apology or explanation. The art of customer service simply doesn’t go through all businesses.
The last time I went to Piazza Italia was February and it was fantastic! I also “love that place”! They are not perfect and their customer service can be a bit lax (perhaps in the European style of uber-relaxed dining), but they are still one of my faves for a nice authentic style Italian meal.