Cured pork and Cocktails

I didn't think it could happen. Not to me. Maybe to other people, people with lesser stomachs and a poorly defined palate. Or to health nuts who weren't used to, you know, food. But not to me, not with my voracious appetite, my love of all kinds of food, my desire to eat the best possible food all the time. Surely I simply could not get tired of eating good, interesting, carefully prepared, rich food. And yet, here in Portland, even I hit a wall on Thursday. Not another charcuterie plate, cried my palate. Please, let's not split a number of fascinating smaller plates composed of surprising juxtapositions and unusual ingredients. I want someone to put a plate of simple food in front of me and let me eat it in peace. Or, even better, I want to cook a meal of something simple and good, and just eat that.

Of course, getting to this point has been a wonderful journey, and I'll do my best to recreate it step by wonderful step. We've been to a number -- a large number -- of really good places and eaten really good meals, not to mention gotten back in touch with friends we haven't seen in ages. Turns out the road to satiety is paved with cured pork and cocktails.

After our missed first step with Blue Hour, Jeremy and I journeyed out to Bar Mingo, the newer and more casual sibling of Caffe Mingo on NW 23rd. It's Italian, and most of the plates are small and shareable. They pride themselves on their homemade pasta, and it is a testimony to the greatness of the meal that the house made ravioli, delicious as it was, was the baseline of the meal, the stand up bass against which the rest of the dishes played and sang. We started with a brilliant braised squid bruschetta, cooked with red wine and butter. There was a grilled shrimp wrapped in pancetta on a citrus salad that, unlike most dishes, became more interesting the more one ate of it. The ravioli -- which I don't mean to damn with faint praise -- was creamy, herby, and with just the right amount of chewiness in the pasta. And finally, there were the lamb meatballs with mint and rosemary, meatballs so delicate that they seemed to transform into the essence of lamb in your mouth, meatballs so  light you wondered how they maintained ball shape through the cooking process. Man, those were good meatballs.

We went to our beloved Clyde Commons for a light, late meal, and they continue to be consistent and not to disappoint. I had a lovely ravioli stuffed with farmer's cheese and greens, served in a brown butter sauce and a delightful bowl of fresh, local vegetables lightly sauteed and dressed with just the right hint of acid. Jeremy had a lamb shank. There has been so much good food since then that neither one of us can remember anything about that lamb beyond "it was good," and "it made me slightly regret my ravioli." I returned to Clyde Commons a few days latter for their happy hour with my grad student, Kari, who was in town from Davis for her birthday. I had a fantastic bourbon drink, "bourbon renewal," and we split their small, happy hour charcuterie board -- just some salami, a boiled egg, some cornishons. Still, not a bad deal for five bucks. I like that place a lot.

Last Friday, we went to the rave reviewed Laurelhurst Market with Jeremy's first roommate in San Francisco, Tracy, who moved to Portland two years ago. The bartender there, a brilliant man named Evan, is a high school friend of hers, and made me a classic drink called an "airmail." It's a rum drink, and I never order rum drinks, but I am so very happy I put myself in Evan's hands. Rum, citrus, champagne, light, refreshing, yum. I have to say dinner, while good, was not spectacular. We had good torchon of foie gras, wholly underflavored steak tartare, and great french fries to start. I had a delicately refined salmon dish which kept the salmon the star (and did not over cook it). Tracy had harissa coated short ribs that were the hit of the table. Jeremy had pork ribs that were just okay -- a little dry -- but that came with a house-made hot link sausage that was redemptive. In Spokane, it would have been a great meal. Here, nothing special.

On Monday, we met up with my old friend Amy from my PSU days. She was always brilliantly sharp and funny, and we have had strangely parallel lives: our houses are the same style and era, our lives until recently revolved around ancient and beloved cats, and we both knit. And, we both love food, so we went to Gruner (as you can see, there is supposed to be an umlaut in there), which describes itself as serving "alpine cuisine." A good charcuterie board there, an endive and apple salad I found mostly tasteless, and then some spectacular entries. I had the lamb, which came with perfectly cooked chops and the most complex, house-made lamb sausage I have ever tasted. Jeremy had a duck schnitzel with, of all things, a rhubarb sauce (don't tell him -- I don't think he knew what the fruit was), and Amy had chicken and morel spaetzle (is there another missing umlaut? I'm not sure). She and I had opposite reactions to the spaetzle: she liked it more and more as she ate it. By my third taste (she nicely traded for some sausage), I was getting buttered out.

On Wednesday, we went to Ned Ludd with my longest running continuous friend, Christopher, and his boyfriend Rob. By this time, Jeremy's college roommate James had joined us (he and Jeremy are working on a computer project together). Of course, first we needed to stop by a local bar and have some cocktails. We ended up at Tear Drop, where the decor is an uncomfortable melange of down-homey wine bar, modern apothocary, and a little zen rock garden thrown in. But, the drinks were fine, especially my airmail (although not as good as Evan's) and Christopher's Tanqueray and tonic with housemade tonic. Then, on to the restaurant. The schtick at Ned Ludd, and I'm not sure how much of a shtick it is, is that they cook everything that is cooked on their wood stove. Great were the charcuterie plate (pictured at the top of this post), especially the porchetta and the rabbit liver pate, the shaved asparagus salad, and roasted new potatoes with basil aioli. Good was the pork belly and beans -- they managed to get a terrificly crispy crust on it without drying out the tender meat -- but I don't know how anyone could have eaten more than two bites without exploding. Also good was the porchetta, arugula and lentil salad, although the lentils added nothing to the plate. Problematic, at least for some of us, was the rabbit loin. The breading was on the soggy side, the salad was overdressed by far, and the rabbit had considerable chew -- maybe some untrimmed silver skin on the loin? And, I don't know. Rabbit. Fuzzy hopping bunnies. Since they still taste like weird chickens to me, do we really have to ruin their lives by turning them into food animals?

And that is how it happened. Faced with the question what to do for dinner with Tracy and James on Friday, I announced I wanted to eat in. And I made a meal with absolutely no pork at all. Really, I don't know what the world is coming too for me. But, I haven't even looked at a charcuterie board in four days, so hopefully I am on the mend.