Food+Drink

Best Places for Scrumptious Pizzas

Best Places for Scrumptious Pizzas

written by Jen Stevenson HEY NEIGHBOR A popular newcomer on the Eugene pizza scene, chef-owner Calen Willis’s cute bungalow-bound pizza shop near the university turns out 12-inch, hand-tossed, wood-fired pies ranging from a classic margherita to the pancetta, pepperoni and housemade fennel sausage-topped Carnero. Start with wood-roasted asparagus or a crisp fennel, grapefruit, parsley and pickled onion salad, try something off the craft cocktail list, or take your pint of Oakshire stout outside to the heated and covered outdoor porch. 1621 E 19TH AVE. EUGENE www.facebook.com/heyneighborpizza   MONTESACRO PINSERIA Okay, so Roman-born pinsa isn’t technically pizza, but they’re very close cousins. Made with a blend of rice, soy and wheat flours imported from Rome, this lively Pearl District pinseria’s light, chewy flatbread is layered with everything from broccolini to burrata to bottarga before being blistered to perfection in the oven. Pair the smoked buffalo mozzarella and ’nduja-topped Infernetto with a…

Portland Dining Month – Cider-glazed salmon

Portland Dining Month – Cider-glazed salmon

written by Jen Stevenson THIS YEAR, PORTLAND DINING MONTH celebrates ten tasty years of uniting the city’s best restaurants with intrepid eaters who love a good meal and a deal. From March 1 through 31, diners can devour special $33 three-course menus at more than 100 participating restaurants, from tried-and-true favorites like Aviary and Little Bird Bistro to buzzed-about newbies like Delores and Bullard. Whether your culinary companion’s a staunch meat eater, one of those admirable souls still sticking to their kale-related New Year’s resolutions, or somewhere in between, there’s a menu to match. Pore over the entire list at www.travelportland.com. To sweeten the pot de crème, your prix fixe dining spree comes with a side of philanthropy—for every reservation made through the OpenTable link on Travel Portland’s website, a donation will be made to the Oregon Food Bank.   EN ROUTE When you reach Florence, a lovely little former…

Smallwares

written by Jen Stevenson To the great delight of fans left devastated by the 2016 closure of chef Johanna Ware’s “inauthentic Asian” restaurant, and only somewhat mollified by her ensuing counter-service spinoff (Wares) inside Sandy Boulevard’s The Zipper food court, Smallwares has risen again in the former Chalino space on NE Fremont Street—with the same signature red shelves and fish-sauce-splashed fried kale and candied bacon, plus a few new culinary twists. As usual, Ware’s menu pulls no flavor punches—try the Dungeness crab and pickled pear salad in Korean chili dressing, hanger steak with curried tomato jam over smoky braised greens, and seared scallops with yuzu brown butter and chickpea miso purée. Oyster lovers, get in on the daily dollar happy hour bivalves doused in fish sauce vinaigrette. Brunchers, arrive at the stroke of 10 a.m. for a hangover-banishing kimchi juice-spiked Bloody Mary, loco moco smothered in togarashi gravy, and buttery…

Home Grown Chef: The Spice of Life

written by Thor Erickson | photography by Charlotte Dupont My wife’s brother-in-law is a great cook. He has no formal training in the culinary arts, yet Kelley is one of the best cooks I know. Not only does he have the right instincts for flavor and texture, he practices great technique, has a mind for weight and volume conversion, and keeps a seriously clean kitchen. I know that his upbringing as the second youngest son of six kids in 1960s, pre-Disney-World Orlando played into this. When he was not horrifying his mother by repairing motorcycles in the living room while blasting Lynyrd Skynyrd, he was helping her make supper. A decade ago, well after Kelley had moved to Tigard, he gave me a Christmas present—a quart-sized Mason jar of what his homemade label declared “Three Jackass Rub.” He and a couple of neighborhood buddies had made the spice blend, primarily…

Oregon Truffle Festival

written by Jen Stevenson | photos by Kathryn Elsesser The holidays may be but a mulled-wine-muted memory, but Christmas is just beginning for Oregon truffle lovers, as a diverse group of local and international farmers, chefs, mycologists, vintners, dog trainers and the truffle-obsessed gather in Eugene and Yamhill Valley for winter’s much-anticipated annual Oregon Truffle Festival. Spanning two fungi-filled weekends in January and February, the fourteen-year-old festival is ripe (literally) with opportunities to celebrate and sample Oregon’s black and white gold. Score tickets to the decadent six-course Grand Truffle Dinner featuring acclaimed Portland chefs Greg and Gabi Denton (Bistro Agnes, Ox) and Gregory Gourdet (Departure), learn about the latest advances in truffle science from the world’s leading experts during the two-day Truffle Growers’ Forum, follow along with professional four-legged foragers during an authentic Willamette Valley wine country truffle hunt before sitting down to a lavish luncheon, or sniff, sample and…

Beerlandia: Oregon Brews Traveler

written by Jeremy Storton My foot begins to tap anxiously and I keep looking at my watch. I don’t look at the time, but the date. This is how my beer wanderlust begins. Many of us need to take occasional breaks from the humdrum of our lives, or discover some perspective that will improve it. Perhaps we seek adventure or need to affirm what we have is still pretty good. Nonetheless, the road calls and distant lands beckon. This is the premise for wine-tasting weekends or unspoken trips to Vegas. For me, the thirst for good beer experiences is unquenchable. My wife and children are often my companions as I drag them to another brewery for lunch. They wait patiently while I gab with another brewer about process, flavors and beer culture blah-de-blah. They are good sports and usually get a glass of wine or ice cream, respectively, out of…

Little Bean offers a revolutionary dairy-free alternative

written by Michelle DeVona Restaurateur Micah Camden has done it again. Best known as co-founder of Blue Star Donuts, Little Big Burger and Boxer Ramen, he’s also behind Super Deluxe, a drive-thru burger joint that has had fast food zealots smitten since it opened this year. Despite all this, Camden’s latest project, Little Bean—a chickpea ice cream company—may be his wildest yet. As he neared 40 years old, Camden realized he couldn’t eat the way he did in his younger days, especially when it came to dairy and gluten. “I’ve always had an aversion to soy because of the Monsanto stigma. When I started going down the rabbit hole of what a dairy replacement could be or should be, I was able to find out that the genetic properties of a soybean was almost identical to that of a chickpea. And I thought to myself, this is the bean.” Curious…

Dining At Casa Zoraya

We are taking a look at Casa Zoraya, perfect Peruvian food classics written by Jen Stevenson | photos by Gwen Holle Buried in a trafficy, nondescript block of North Lombard just east of the interstate, this unexpected slice of Lima life is drawing Portland diners both curious and already besotted with its perfect Pisco sours, vibrant ceviches, and rich, robust Peruvian comfort food classics. Helmed by namesake and Andina alum Zoraya Zambrano, whose family originally emigrated from Calca, a town in Peru’s Sacred Valley of the Incas, and her children, Gloria and Gary Marmanillo (Andina, Paiche, Can Font, DOC), the color-splashed restaurant’s menu is short and sweet, no more than a dozen dishes melding local produce with traditional Peruvian ingredients like ají chile, lucuma fruit and choclo, a chewy, starchy, large-kerneled Andean corn. The beautifully executed—and plated—fare ranges from prismatic shrimp causas to an ultra-savory lomo saltado to chunks of…

Best Places for Cold Weather Comfort Food

Comfort food destinations KACHKA Portland food lovers waited with bated herring breath for beloved Siberian pelmeni purveyors Bonnie and Israel Morales to open their second, larger location, just up the way from their SE Grand Avenue firstborn (now renamed Kachinka). James Beard Award-nominated chef Bonnie Morales pulls from her Belarusian heritage to dish up fan favorites like Baltic Sprat Buterbrodi, Rabbit in a Clay Pot, and Herring “Under a Fur Coat,” while a new Russian-style mangal grill allows for a slew of charcoal-fired skewers—try the Azeri-style sturgeon, lamb lyulya and whole baby eggplant. The vodka menu remains reliably robust, but the new Kachka also boasts a wine cellar and a strong Eastern-European-centric bottle list. 960 SE 11TH AVE. PORTLAND www.kachkapdx.com SUGARPINE DRIVE-IN Those long hot summer nights of sipping frosé on the patio may be but a happy memory, but this charming Troutdale drive-in, opened in July by chef-owners Emily…