Last Adventure in Portland Till December: Dim Sum at HK Cafe

Hello All! As I write this blog, I am gleefully sitting at PDX! My study abroad journey finally begins today as I will reside in the beautiful city of Florence, Italy. While I will miss the  hipsters, greenery and dining of Portland, I cannot wait to live a simple European lifestyle and did I mention the great food yet? There will be numerous trips to day markets, bakeries, patisseries, trattorias, ristorantes, etc. I hope to keep as up to date with this blog as possible. I needed to post one more entry about one of my last dining outings in Portland before I begin blogging about European dining.

This dining excursion happened to be at HK Café, in SE Portland. I had been craving dim sum for ages, and after watching Andrew Zimmerman’s Bizarre Food on the Travel Network, where he journeyed off to China, I knew I couldn’t leave Portland without eating dim sum. I have been telling everyone with ears these last few weeks about my obsession with dim sum, but nobody seems to really know what it is. Dim Sum is a style of Chinese food, and while it originated as a small snack, most people generally eat it for brunch in modern times. Consisting of a variety of sweet and savory dumplings, steamed dishes, and other bite-sized goodies, dim sum is served in a very unique manner. Dim sum dishes are generally pushed around on steam carts by servers who go around the restaurant offering the dishes of the day to the customers, and mark orders on a card at each customer’s table as their tab for the meal. Each dish is quite small, and normally served as three or four pieces in one dish. It is fun to order in family style, sharing dishes among all members of the dining party. This way, everyone can enjoy and try a wide variety of food. Complimentary tea is always served during dim sum, so it will typically be one of the first things the server will offer customers.

As a foodie who is a lover of Asian foods, bite-sized snacking, samples and an assortment of tastes in my meals, I’m an instant fan of dim sum. Here is a play-by-play of some of the dishes we ordered: (We ordered more than we would typically eat, as this was Hector’s first time and we wanted to try as much as possible!)

Shumai: 5/5

This is a traditional Chinese dumpling, with pork, shrimp carrots and mushroom. Sometimes, shumai comes with prawns. I really like this dumpling, as it comes with a fish cake texture with bits and pieces of the items I listen above. This was by far the best shumai I have ever tried, which is a lot to say. I have been eating shumai for about ten years now.

Hum Bau: 3/5

This particular bau, which is a fluffy bun stuffed with food items such as meats or sweets, is filled with bbq pork. While it is pretty tasty, I have definitely tried better at surrounding Vietnamese restaurants around the area.

This one was decent, but there could have been a bit more flavoring in the bbq sauce.  Here is a look at the inside of the bau. Clearly filled with lots of sauce, but I want to say that the best baus that I have tried, tend to have a brighter red color to it.

Lo Mai Gai: 4/5

Wrapped in a lotus leaf, this is a glutinous or sticky rice dumpling and contains bbq chicken. Although the leaf is pealed before you eat, it definitely adds a bit of flavoring to the dumpling. Trying to be low with carbs, I sometimes crave rice and thought this was delicious. I would have preferred a bit more flavoring to it though. Some added mushrooms, egg yolk or extra meat would have been great. But all in all, it wasn’t too bad. I enjoyed the amount of sauce that was mixed with the chicken, and the flavoring of the leaf was not too overbearing either.

Fried Shrimp Balls: 5/5

These are probably horrendous for your body, but they are quite delicious. Mixed with shrimp and chicken, then deep fried, you seriously can’t go wrong with these little shrimp balls. These are displayed on a cane sugar stick which gives you a better grasp of the dumplings. You can dip it in a sweet and sour sauce which is my absolute favorite. I would highly recommend this. Even a beginner dim sum eater would enjoy this without any fear.

BBQ Chicken Feet: 5/5

I am giving these chicken feet a perfect 5 out of 5 because this is my first time trying this menu item. I have always been too fearful to try these, but am so glad that I finally decided to. This dim sum specialty is very well liked and is therefore a staple in all dim sum restaraunts. Now I know why. The sauce on the chicken feet was wonderful. I’d say it was a mix of teriyaki sauce, hoisin and a little bit of bbq sauce. The meat was soft and tender and tasted very similar to vegan drumsticks. I will definitely be ordering this again now that I have gotten over my fear.

Pineapple Bun: 5/5

By this point, Hector and i were stuffed beyond words. But one look at the pastry cart, and our will power fell through. We had to finish off our meal with some dessert. There were many pastries to choose from, but we grabbed the biggest and most interesting looking one. Better than any baked good I have ever devoured, the exterior of this bun is made of a dough that is similar to that of a soft sugar cookie and decorated with a coat of pineapple frosting. The interior is filled with a pineapple custard that had a hint of vanilla. Just the perfect amount of sweet! We may have suffered from a food coma afterwards, but it was well worth it.

I especially enjoyed my experience at HK Café because I felt like it was much cleaner than many Chinese restaurants in Portland (many of my favorites have found their way onto dirty dining which really concerns me).  The décor was very nice, and the restaurant was spacious. The servers were a bit slow, but it could also be that we were seated in the back.

Overall, I am excited to try more that HK Café has to offer when I am back in December. My parents have been looking for a good dim sum restaurant in the SE area, and I am glad I can finally make a good recommendation for them. I hope to be a regular here because it was just that good. I wanted to leave you all with a quote that I found in the most recent book I am reading, How Italian Food Conquered the World, by John F. Mariani: “A person who is very, very, very interested in food. …They don’t think they are being trivial—foodies consider food to be an art on a level with painting or drama. It’s actually their favorite art form.” Story of my life.

Until Next Time,

Mandy the Foodie

Sweet Adventures to NW Portland

Last week, Hector and I celebrated the unusually hot, sunny, yet absolutely beautiful weather by exploring Northwest Portland. We’re huge fans of  the many dining establishments located in this area…especially the sweet ones.

First, we went to PBJ’s Grilled, after enjoying half a Spicy Thai sandwich at The Bite a few weeks earlier (https://mandythefoodie.wordpress.com/2011/08/17/bite-of-oregon-2011/). I usually don’t eat at food carts, but I really enjoyed this one. It helps that their invention of beautiful peanut butter sandwich concoctions are phenomenal. I need/must/deplore that I try all of the sandwiches this cart offers when I am back in Portland – after a few 10k runs of course!

We got there in the evening at around 5:10, not knowing that the cart closes at 5. But one of the owners, Keena, said she’d serve us as her last customers, even though they were heading off to a big catering event. Keena is awesome! We chatted with her while she was cooking up our sandwiches for only about 10 short minutes, but she made it feel like we were life long buddies. She even came out and thanked us with hugs. Major kudos for top notch customer service!

I got the most heavenly sandwich on earth! The Pumpkin Pie: 5/5.

It was so hard for me to decide which sandwich I wanted. But I finally decided on this one, which had “Challah bread, pumpkin butter, Two Tarts caramel sauce, pie crust, PBJ’s peanut butter.” It tasted like pumpkin pie with peanut butter on top. Too good! Even better than the Spicy Thai…which I thought couldn’t be beat.

Hector got the Oregonian: 3/5

This sandwich came with “Challah bread, Marion berry jam, Rogue Creamery blue cheese, Oregon hazelnut butter.” I’m absolutely in love with the color of this jam, which was really good. Beyond that note, I may have already fallen deeply in love with my sandwich, or it could be that I’m not the hugest fan of either blue cheese or hazelnut butter, but this sandwich just didn’t sit quite right with me. Although, for those of you who do enjoy these toppings, you may love this and scarf it down in a few short minutes as Hector did.

We really enjoyed our sandwiches that were very decently priced ($5.50/sandwich), and can’t wait for our next trip back here! I would recommend buying some sort of beverage with your sandwich though, because all the delicious peanut butter sure had us parched. PBJ gets an overall rating of 5/5. Even if I wasn’t the biggest fan of the Oregonian, the Pumpkin Pie and Spicy Thai that I had were both divine! On top of that, the customer service was the best I have ever received.  I hope this cart finds it’s way towards a store location soon for a PBJ Cafe! Check out all the wonderful sandwich concoctions for yourself: http://www.pbjsgrilled.com/index.html

We were pretty stuffed at this point, but I was overly excited by the fact that my favorite pastry shop, Two Tarts, was right around the corner. I had been searching near and far for the store location, and felt so accomplished that I finally found it. Two Tarts is this cute little pastry shop owned by two sisters, hence the name Two Tarts. The two bake up hundreds of mini pastries each day, and their weekends tend to be the busiest because of their stand located at the Portland State Saturday Market that I often frequent. Pastries are my weaknesses, but most of them are just too big make me feel awful afterwards. Well, these fit just right in my belly, at about two bites per piece. I usually pick two different pastries for the day, and at .80 cents per piece, I am always left feeling satisfied but not too guilty.

My all time favorites happen to be the lemon bar (so lemony but so sweet) and the fleur de sel chocolate chip cookie (sea salt on top of a soft and chewy cookie with big chunks of chocolate…is that heaven calling?). But today we got the double chocolate chew and peanut butter creme which were equally as good. Clearly a 5/5! I’m glad I finally got to see the store also. I felt right at home, and the workers made me feel that way too. One lady was working in the front, and the other was baking in the open kitchen. There is also bar styled tables set up right next to the open kitchen so as your munching on your pastry, and drinking your delicious coffee or tea, you can watch the pastry chef bake away. The dining area had coloring books and fun guide books for dining in Portland.
I’ve been eyeing the chocolate cheesecake brownies for ages, and I think that’ll have to be my next purchase from this shop. These pastries might be the best Portland has to offer, and others agreed with me: http://www.yelp.com/biz/two-tarts-bakery-portland

Alright, at this point, we truly needed to take a little rest from devouring our faces with such sweet Northwest Portland delights. We decided to sit and chat at Jamison Square in the Pearl, where children are generally playing in the water area. But on this occasion, a wedding reception was taking place in the water area. I know this is a food blog, but I thought I would add this in because it was too interesting/weird/Portland for me to resist.

Odd right? You should have seen the reactions of all the tourists! But after watching all the tourists reactions, I noticed that they were more into their ice cream than this reception. It must be because they were all enjoying the locally owned, and completely original Cool Moon Ice Cream located across  the square. Hector and I ended our sweet night with some treats from this awesome ice cream parlor. At around 8:30, this shop was still overloaded with customers. But it surely was worth the 15 minute wait. Hector got the thai iced tea ice cream and I got the chocolate sorbet. Both receiving high marks of 5/5. These were so good that I forgot to take a picture…but I did find a picture of the chocolate sorbet with marionberry sauce that my foodie friend Alex took on our last visit here. The creative mixtures of ice cream and sorbet range from ginger cookies and creme to lychee sorbet.  I love that they also sell unique flavors of shakes, sundaes, coffees, and floats. The daily menu items change on a weekly basis I believe. You can see the rotating menu items at: http://www.coolmoonicecream.com/cmFlavors.html.

After a wonderful evening of eating adventures, I had myself fasting the next day with fruits and veggies. But it sure was worth it. I hope you all find a way to enjoy this wonderful Portland weather too!

Till Next Time,

Mandy the Foodie

Pho Van

Hello all!

Feels like it’s been ages since I’ve last written on here. I’ve still been eating, cooking and dining a lot. I mean a lot. On top of that, I am leaving for Europe in 8 days…unbelievable. I have no doubt been  busy preparing for my trip, but when I did have free time, I was eating some of my favorite meals. I won’t be able to post all of my dining and cooking adventures, but I’ll be sure to post my favorite dining moments these last few weeks, starting with Pho Van.

I grew up eating Vietnamese food, and because of that, I always took it for granted. It wasn’t until I came to college and was served burgers, sandwiches and salads on the daily that I started to really crave homemade meals such as chao ga (rice porridge with chicken), goi cuon (salad rolls), and of course, pho. So whenever I make my way home during the school year, the first place my dad takes me to is Pho Van on 82nd  (closest to my house and the airport, although you can choose from the Hawthorne or Beaverton location). This  is one of  my favorite Vietnamese restaurant in Portland. Each time I come into this restaurant, I can’t help but to rave about the beautiful decor.  From the lighting, to the woodwork of the seating, I love it all. This restaurant is top notch in cleanliness and we’ve always had friendly servers who were  quick, efficient and not too pushy. This is the Vietnamese restaurant to go to for vegetarians – there are as much vegetarian options as there are meat options. Unlike other Vietnamese establishments, Pho Van goes beyond fried tofu for the vegetarian. There is fresh goi (salad) with an assortment of vegetables, spring rolls and vegetarian curry. There’s also plenty of seafood options including ca nuong (grilled fish). For the meat lover, you can choose between many entrees that include duck, beef, pork, and chicken. I certainly never get bored here, and am always trying something new.

On this particular visit, I decided to get the vegetarian curry: 3.5/5.

This was my first time getting the vegetarian curry and it sure was yummy! This comes with yellow curry sauce with an assortment of veggies such as tofu, carrots, yams, oyster mushrooms and sugar snap peas as well as a big side of rice. The menu indicates that the curry had a medium spice, which also translates to mild spice in my opinion.  Yellow curry isn’t my favorite to order, but luckily, the curry was still  flavorful, and had the perfect combo of veggies.

My mom ordered the mi vit tiem (braised duck noodle soup): 5/5

Maybe it’s because I didn’t grow up eating this dish, but this is so delicious! It might be the best dish I’ve tried at any Vietnamese restaurant. If you ever get bored of beef or chicken noodle soup and you see this on the menu, please get this! This comes with duck in duck broth, with egg noodles, shiitake mushrooms and baby bok choy. The duck is sweet and tender, the broth has a unique spice to it and the vegetables are not only my favorites, but are different from what you would normally get at a Vietnamese restaraunt. I highly recommend this dish.

My brother, Jason, got the com tom thit (honey lemongrass pork and shrimp): 4/5

This dish isn’t anything to die for, and is portioned pretty small in comparison to other Vietnamese restaurants that offer this dish, but regardless, this entree always stands out as a beautiful dish. Sure, the pork is a bit fatty, but it’s a deeply flavorful charbroiled pork that you definitely can’t make at home. The veggies in the dish are clean and fresh, with crispy cucumbers, lettuce and sweet carrots contributing to an excellent meal.

While Pho Van is a bit more expensive than other Vietnamese restaurants (3 entrees: $26.50, not including tip), you are also paying to sit somewhere very nice and comfortable. The price is nowhere near outrageous, but you can’t say it’s cheap either if you compare it to other Vietnamese dining in Southeast Portland. Regardless, I will continue to be a frequent customer at this restaurant for the ambiance, service, and of course, the fresh and unique variety of food!

Still can’t decide if you want to make a visit to this restaurant?

Check out more reviews here:

http://www.yelp.com/biz/pho-van-restaurant-portland

Love,

Mandy the Foodie

Bite of Oregon: 2011

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. I started off my weekend at my favorite Portland event – the Bite of Oregon! The ultimate place for a Portland foodie. I got to enjoy it with the amazing Hector Lopez, and I probably could not have chose a better person to go with. He did inspire some of my foodie inspirations after all.

Hector and I loved the Bite 2010 and decided that we wanted to volunteer at the event this summer.The event benefits the Special Olympics, and oh yeah, free entrance? Rewarding and a deal, can’t beat that.

We got to make chef hats which I thought was pretty fun. Too bad I had my hair up, because I wasn’t able to wear mine!

But Hector got to sport his, and he got lots of compliments because it was pretty studly if you ask me!

First we went to a vegan restaurant called Sweet Lemon Vegan Bistro which is located on NW Bethany. The owners were so cute, I had to buy something. It probably helped that the menu items were fitting my appetite perfectly. Something filling and not too heavy.

I ended up getting the vegan dancing drumsticks: 4.5/5.  It was really thin, almost tasted like we were eating chicken skin. The drumsticks were tossed in lemon grass, dipped in spicy sauce and topped with sesame seed.  Pickled carrots, cabbage and a slice of orange were decorated on the side and went well with the drumsticks. I couldn’t believe it was vegan. So what are vegan drumsticks anyway? I did some research online and found that most vegan drumsticks are made out of beancurd skin [some are made with potato] with baby corn being the replacement for bones. I would highly recommend this restaurant, as there were also kabobs, spring rolls, noodle and rice options that looked yummy

The picture caught my eye, but it looks even better in person!

and could fit anyone’s appetite, even if you are a meat lover. If I ever make my way to the West side of Portland this summer, I definitely want to check out this restaurant again.

It was Hector’s turn to pick, and I have to say, he did a pretty job on picking our next entrees. We went to North 45 Pub which is located on NW 21st. The staff were friendly and energetic.

We went with the bacon wrapped jalapeno poppers and shrimp kabobs: 5/5. I thought these were great! Both items came with sweet chili sauce and cabbage which we loved. I’m a woman of my spices, so a little extra spice never hurts. The shrimp was grilled perfectly and the amount of cream inside the poppers wasn’t overbearing like many other poppers.

It was almost time for us to volunteer, so we wanted to catch one more quick bite before we headed off to our four hour shift. Hmm…where to? Everyone who knows me knows that I have quite an obsession with peanut butter and srirachi. I even went through a faze where I was melting my crunchy pb and mixing it with srirachi and soy sauce to put on my rice. PBJs Grilled which is located on NW 23rd offered the perfect sandwich for me. The Spicy Thai: 4/5. Seriously, it mind as well be called the Mandy Sandwich! It came with not only peanut butter and srirachi, but orange marmalade, curry and fresh basil.

It tastes much better than it looks!

The only point that knocks this sandwich down to a 4 instead of a perfect 5 is the fact that I could have used a tad bit more peanut butter.

Finally, it was time for Hector and I to volunteer. We had so much fun serving sodas, teas and water and seeing all the delicious food people were getting! It was even better when we ran into people we knew. 🙂

We must sound like fatties – ok we kind of were for this event – but we swear we only ate bite size food items!! The Bite is such a fun way to preview some of Portland’s best eateries. We hope to check out not only Portland’s but Seattle’s 2012 Bite event.

Hope you all enjoyed my post.

Till next time,

Mandy

Fire on the Mountain

Growing up, I was always a meat lover. It was always in my household. From pho to grandma’s egg rolls, and of course, those special occasions that didn’t come without steak. It was a staple in my household to say the least.

But this March, I did what nobody in my meat loving family thought would ever occur. I gave up meat. At first, I thought, how hard could this be? But the next week, I weighed myself to find that I was a solid four pounds heavier! Yikes. I noticed that I was starting to become way hungrier than usual due to a lack of protein, and would tackle on way more carbs than I should have to fulfill my cravings. Soon enough, I found that adding protein (tuna, beans, nuts, etc) to every meal, and eating smaller meals would help me to maintain a healthy weight while staying fuller for a longer amount of time. I enjoyed the energy that I was getting from this diet and it lasted for five months.

I am beginning to eat meat again in preparation for my trip to Europe (t-minus 24 days) so that I can appreciate the culture while I am there, which consists of lots of meat! i.e. rabbit sprinkled in almonds and soaked in beer sauce? Still intrigued by the thought of it.

Last week, while chatting with my girlfriends, Mary and Linh, we were talking about some of our favorite restaurants. Somewhere along the line, we ended up talking about Fire on the Mountain.

Fire on the Mountain is like the hipster, Portlandy, ten-times-better, colorful version of Buffalo Wild Wings with the options of deep fried desserts (oreos, twinkies, bananas and nutter butter), and vegan drumsticks. I wouldn’t exactly say this is the healthiest restaurant, but its just too good to pass up.

This place gets a 4.5/5 in my book! Google seems to be muttering the same rating, with 4.5/5 for the East Burnside location and 4/5 for the North Interstate location. If you find yourself in Portland, please go here!! There are options here for everyone. From salads and pastas to sandwiches and boneless to bones.

I only started to eat meat about a week ago, slowly but surely, once a day, so that I could enjoy some Fire on the Mountain wings before I left for Europe.

When we first arrived at the restaurant, it was jammed packed! People were sitting on the streets with the pavement as their tables because they wanted their wings so badly. Knowing that it would be a while till we received our meals, we chowed down some sweet potato fries: 4/5. Tasted like your usual sweet potatoe fries, nothing too special! We meant to order the sweet potato tots…which truly looked divine.

We also ordered homemade fried pickles with chipotle mayo sauce: 4/5. This deserves a 4/5 because the chipotle mayo sauce was uh-mazing! I have never really been into fried pickles, but everyone at my table seemed to really enjoy it!

There are a number of flavors you can choose from for your wings, and as you order your wings, you are able to sample all the sauces. We went with spicy peanut, buffalo lime cilantro, and sweet bbq with the bones: 4.5/5. This was all so good!! I love love love the delectable amount of sauce that is put onto these crunchy wings. I usually always order extra celery because I like to dip it with my leftover sauce. I would give this a 5/5, but the buffalo lime cilantro sauce just didn’t have the kick that I was looking for. I enjoyed the sweet bbq and spicy peanut sauce so much, that I brought some home in small jars for my parents to cook with bbq. It was only $4/jar. Quite a steal if you ask me.

 Mary enjoys her wings without the bones, which are chicken strips dipped in sauce. She chose medium sauce and man did these smell yummy! For those of you who like your sauce a bit spicier, there is also the choice of hot or x-tra hot.

We were absolutely stuffed at this point, but Linh, being a deep-fried food lover, and me, being a dessert lover, could not stop staring at the dessert menu which consisted of so many deep-fried sweets options. There were also delicious brownies and ice cream sandwiches…but like I was saying, deep-fried sweets. After playing e ne me ne mi ni moe we decide to go with the deep-fried oreos: 5/5. Melted oreo dipped in sweet batter and powdered with sugar on top. I mean, can you go wrong at this point?

It was just that good.

This trip to Fire on the Mountain was not only delicious, but super fun. I’ve known these girls for about 12 years or so, and till this day, we still enjoy each other’s companies.

For more information on Fire on the Mountain, be sure to check out their website:

http://www.portlandwings.com/

Hope you all enjoyed my first dining post.

Till Next Time (Bite of Oregon 2011 at Waterfront Park…!)

Mandy the Foodie