Nuesta Cocina Mole Room Premieres, New Venture by Scott Dolich?

UPDATED WED PM

Purely Speculation… but I’m tired of passing up rumors and seeing them in the paper a few weeks later. So…

There is some interesting remodeling going on at a space on NW Flanders, just west of 9th. Across the park and over from Park Kitchen. Looks like it could be a restaurant.

The rumor mill tells me Scott Dolich, bad boy chef of Park Kitchen (ducking), has been planning a new restaurant across from PK. Hmm. I’ll go out on a limb here and say I think this is his new space. A request for confirmation has not been answered.

Did a bit of sleuthing today. Mr. Dolich leased 2400 square feet at 909 NW Flanders back in May. It is the General Automotive Building shown in this photo. In July, he leased 2,500 square feet of a 6,000 sq ft. building at 3002 NE Ainsworth, which was Ainsworth Drugs.  Scott says the Ainsworth rumor is due to a misprint on the Urban Works website).

I sure love the new street view on Google Maps!

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Speaking of press events, Nuestra Cocina premiered their “Mole Room” tonight. In a preview dinner for guests, including PFD, Chef Benjamin Gonzales served a sampling of Nuestra’s menu, including two different kinds of ceviche, fresh corn tortillas, simple chile rellenos with cheese, and several different kinds of moles. Sangrias (both a deep red, slightly spiced version, and a white wine pear version), wines, and beer rounded out the offerings. All showcased how nuanced and varied good Mexican food can be.The “Mole Room” is a private dining space tucked into the back of Nuestra’s main dining room, with an open kitchen, own small patio space and entrance. The room will be open for private parties, and soon will used for cooking classes.

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Waitrainer: a web-based training system for restaurants has debuted. The Portland based company has designed software that will make your staff into the brilliant employees you always wanted them to be (but didn’t bother to train them yourself). Huber’s and Cinetopia are using the system. The software includes:

• Beer Basics course & Test
• Red Wine Basics course & Test
• White Wine Basics course & Test
• Spirit Basics course & Test
• American Table Service Basics course & Test

I’ll withhold judgment until the next time I eat at Huber’s.

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The issue of loud music in restaurants was brought up by John Mariani in a recent story for Esquire. In an article titled “Turn Down That Goddamned Racket”, he rails against the ongoing trend of amping up the atmosphere by playing music. In Portland, this doesn’t seem to be as much of an issue as it used to be, but people have brought it up on the site.

And yet restaurants continue to pump in the “mood music,” which invariably comes in one of three varieties: Bass-heavy techno with names like “Eine kleine Schmetterlings-Hommage,” New Age guitar with titles like “Aspen at Midnight,” or classical strings (with a 95 percent chance you’ll hear Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” at some point). For a couple of years there you couldn’t eat dinner without having to listen to Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman belting out “Time to Say Goodbye.” Sadly, Ottmar Libert, Kenny G, The Gypsy Kings, and Nora Jones continue to intrude.

I’m with John on this one.

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Do you read the Art of Eating? If you are a true foodie, you should be. From Salon.com:

The Art of Eating is not a magazine for the easily distracted. If you want to read up on the trendiest new eateries in New York, the top 10 summer cocktails or a profile on the latest Food Network star, look elsewhere. Because if Bon Appétit is the food media’s Newsweek and Saveur is the Economist, then the Art of Eating is the New York Review of Books: sometimes impenetrable, often spellbinding, and never, ever reductive. Within the course of a typical article, it’s not unusual to move from a detailed discourse on culinary history to an apples-to-apples comparison of production methods to a chemical analysis of the specific compounds responsible for giving a particular type of food its unique flavor. The 2002 feature “Twelve Restaurants in Tokyo” not only explained where to get the tastiest okonomiyaki, but also how to best spend $750 on traditional haute cuisine, and why department store basements are a culinary anthropologist’s dream come true.

Even though it is $48 a year, I think the Art of Eating is well worth the cost, and looks good on the coffee table even if you don’t get through it.

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The Wall Street Journal interviewed some of us for an article called “The Price of a Four-Star Rating“. Portland Food and Drink must not have been interesting enough to quote, but a few other sites were:

How did Dine garner such favorable reviews? One thing that probably didn’t hurt: It fed many of the reviewers free. Last August, Dine spent about $1,500 on an event for members of Yelp, a Web site where consumers post reviews and rate restaurants. The nearly 100 members were treated to an open bar, duck roulade appetizers and red velvet cupcakes for dessert. As a bonus, they all received certificates for discounts on subsequent meals. The result: a torrent of favorable reviews on Yelp. Most reviewers mentioned that they attended a Yelp event, though few highlighted that the food and drink was free. “I think if I was picking up the tab I wouldn’t enjoy it as much,” says Leigh Kelsey, a 28-year-old Chicago file clerk at a law firm who attended the event and posted positive comments on Yelp.

Good reading, and something I’m thinking about quite a bit, as we are getting invited to lots of restaurant press events.