Portland Weekend: Lauren's Visit

Last weekend, Lauren came up from San Jose to run the Portland Rock n Roll Half Marathon. The last time Lauren came to visit me in Portland was at the end of our junior year of college, before she was 21 and when my knowledge of Portland was limited to NoPo, Downtown, and the Pearl.

So of course there was a lot I wanted to show her. Instead of writing a bunch of long posts covering each spot we visited, I'm just going to share our itinerary. You can check out Lauren's blog, Sugar Coated Sisters, for more detailed reviews.

Friday:

Chicken wings and drinking vinegar cocktails at Whiskey Soda Lounge.

 

Moscow mules at Secret Society. 

Shuffleboard at The Fixin' To. 

Live music and tots at Slim's.

Saturday: 

Breakfast at The Waffle Window. 

 Hike (and a very cold impromptu swim) at Oneonta Gorge.

The Betty and The Oregonian from PBJ's Grilled. 

Walk to the Rock n Roll Expo and Banagrams at On Deck. 

Carbo-loading at Piazza Italia. 

Sunday: 

HALF MARATHON! Lauren did amazing! So proud of her!

Post-race treats at Voodoo Doughnuts.

Lunch from Native Bowl at Prost. 

Mini pub crawl from Prost to Amnesia to Hopworks (with a pit stop at Pix Patisserie).

Such an amazing weekend. Can't wait to show Lauren around Seattle when we run the half marathon there in a month or so! (Yes, I am running a half marathon. Stop laughing. I've been training. Sort of.)

P.S. Just wanted to brag that Lauren (aka Boo Radley) brought a dozen of her world-famous Snickers cupcakes (my absolute favorite) with her and they were just as delicious as I remembered them. Doug is officially obsessed as well. Thanks, Lo!

Thursday Night Supper: Sushi and Spring Rolls

The first Thursday Night Supper was at Adam's and my house, and we felt the pressure to create a fun, memorable, and delicious dinner. For weeks, Adam has been wanting to make sushi since he swears he could eat only sushi for the rest of his life. 

We decided to try it, and figured we should do it right! So we wandered to Beaverton to hit up Uwajimaya, a "quality Asian grocery" since they were sure to have everything we needed.

Our appetizer was fresh spring rolls. I always order them when we go for Thai food and I figured if Adam was going to attempt sushi, I could do spring rolls. Turns out, they're really easy!

SPRING ROLLS

Ingredients:
- Rice Paper
- Vermicelli noodles (or "Rice Sticks")
- Tofu, extra firm
- Green leaf lettuce
- Fresh basil
- Fresh Cilantro
- Cucumber
- Carrots
- Peanut Sauce

Instructions:
Cook the vermicelli noodles in boiling water for 5 minutes, strain and run under cold water.

Cut tofu into strips about 1/2 inch thick. Cut the cucumber and carrots into strips, wash the lettuce and chop the cilantro and basil.

Saute the tofu for a few minutes on each side until slightly crispy with a little olive oil, or for more flavor mix in some sesame oil, soy sauce, and ginger.

Fill a bowl with warm water and place one rice paper in until soft. Take the rice paper out (and put another in) and lay on a damp kitchen towel.

Fill the rice paper with all your fixings. Roll it up, cut in half, and serve with peanut sauce!

SUSHI 

Ingredients:
- Short grain rice (Sushi rice)
- Seasoned rice vinegar
- Nori
- Shrimp
- Avocado
- Cucumber
- Sushi grade tuna
- Sesame seeds
- Wasabi
- Pickled Ginger
- Soy Sauce
- Bamboo rolling mat

Instructions:
Cook the rice according to the package directions. When cooked, pour the rice out on a cookie sheet and fan while sprinkling with a few tablespoons of seasoned rice vinegar. Avoid buying the plain rice vinegar, because then you'll have to make it seasoned with sugar and salt.

Once the rice has cooled, lay out a sheet of nori (the seaweed flat square) on the bamboo rolling mat. Leaving an inch on each end, place a thin layer of rice over the nori.

Lay your desired ingredients for that roll in a strip on the end closest to you. In our case we did a few rolls with shrimp, avocado, and cucumber and a few with raw tuna and cucumber. Mostly we just mixed and matched!

Roll it up, tightly, and using a serrated knife with a little water on it cut into pieces.

Place the rolls on a plate and serve with pickled ginger, wasabi and soy sauce.

Other sushi roll ideas if you aren't comfortable handling the raw fish could be California rolls with crab or using smoked salmon with a little cream cheese and cucumber.

Also, a couple bonus tips: If you want the rice on the outside, lay down a sheet of plastic wrap over the bamboo sheet. And if you're a fan of some spicy mayo, just mix mayonnaise and Sriracha sauce. So easy!

Of course each meal needs a good DRINK!


Ingredients:
- Pok Pok Som pomegranate
- Club soda
- Gin

For this Thursday night, I (well really Katie made them!) recreated the drink that Katie and I had at Ping. We wanted the rhubarb, but that isn't sold "retail" so pomegranate was the next best option.

Instructions:
Mix 1.5 - 2 ounces gin, a little Pok Pok Som (depending on how much flavor you prefer), then fill cup with ice and club soda.

Enjoy!

Happy Hour Honeys Reunite at Ping Happy Hour!

What: Ping
Where: NW 4th and Couch
When: Tues - Sat 2 - 5:30 pm HH, Tues - Sat 11 am - 10 pm
Honeys Heart: Pok Pok Som

Katie made it through her cross-country road trip, is all moved into her apartment (after a week of being roomies with me again!) and has been working for an awesome new start up - check it out here! So now that everything has settled down, we finally made it to a happy hour. Both a celebratory HH and work meeting - multi-tasking at it's finest - we enjoyed Ping with Katie Burgess, a friend from UP and our favorite Portland Monthly account executive.

Ping was opened in 2009 by Pok Pok's Andy Ricker and a team of impressive Portland peeps including Kurt Hoffman, W+K's executive creative director John Jay, and style consultant Janet Jay. Basically, this sister restaurant had some high expectations to meet.

As you might have guessed, as Pok Pok's sister restaurant, Ping also features Asian-inspired dishes. Owner Andy Ricker described Ping as,"Southeast Asian drinking food - Indonesian, Thai, Vietnamese with a definite emphasis on Malaysian/Singaporean stuff." Read more from the founding team here.

Reviews for the spot have been mixed, but we enjoyed our first Ping experience.

To get things going, we ordered the Salted Lime Tom Collins ($5.) Both fans of an original Tom Collins, Katie and I felt that the addition of salt made the drink more interesting, but it wasn't necessarily thirst-quenching since the saltiness begged to be washed down with something, well, less salty.

Like usual, the three of us shared a selection of items off the small plate style menu. First to arrive was the Salapao ($3), a Thai-style steamed bun stuffed with sweet shredded pork and fried shallots. Apparently we were hungry since we finished it before realizing we neglected to take a photo, but no worries, it was one of our favorite items so we ordered another!

Our second favorite from our selection was the Kobayashi Dog ($5), a beef frank grilled with teriyaki, and served with wasabi mayo, cucumber relish, bonito flakes and toasted nori. The large bun slightly overwhelmed this hot dog, but the wasabi mayo added great spice while the cucumber relish was fresh and crunchy. We were glad to have shared it, but for $5 it's definitely a great option if you're ordering solo.

It was about time for another cocktail, but we needed to try something new. We all opted for a well drink with Pok Pok Som drinking vinegar ($5.50)!

This was such a unique, simple and delicious drink we went back and bought some Pok Pok Som the next day (for Thursday Night Dinner!) Based on suggestions from our waitress, I ordered the tequila lychee, Katie went for the gin rhubarb, and Katie B. selected the vodka passion fruit combination. All of them were great depending on your preferred type of liquor, but we decided Katie's combination of gin and rhubarb was amazing! 

In addition to our second round of cocktails, we also enjoyed the Wild-Caught Gulf Prawn Skewer ($2 each) and the Roti Dhal ($3.) The prawn skewer was simple and could easily be replicated at home, but with three shrimps on each skewer, it was fairly priced and tasty. A fun component of this dish is the "do-it yourself dipping sauce" where you squeeze the lime wedge into a dish of salt and pepper, then stir. Simple, good and like I said, easy to replicate! 

The Roti Dhal is Malaysian flat bread served with yellow lentil curry. This was probably my least favorite dish and I wouldn't order it again, but Katie B. was a big fan. For me, the dish was bland, but perhaps my over consumption of salt has affected my palette!

Ping's HH is affordable, offering good food and drinks with a relaxed and welcoming atmosphere. It's a nice place to meet up with friends or family to enjoy a communal dining experience and try something different. I've heard good things about the Spicy Mama Ramen ($6)! 

So glad to have Katie back in Portland with me and I have a feeling we'll be hitting up a lot more of Portland's HH's now that we're reunited!

Portland Restaurant: Pok Pok

Posted by Kelly

What: Pok Pok
Where: 3226 SE Division

My family and I went to Pok Pok for my birthday dinner (in June) and it was freaking delicious. Unfortunately it took me so long to post this that I don't know the name of any dish or drink that we had. My recommendation --- ask your waiter/waitress what to order. That's basically what we did and we were pleased with all of it!

Of course we started with drinks. All three were flavorful, fresh, and unique. I haven't had a drink like them before or since. I definitely recommend branching out from beer, wine or your usual cocktail to try one of their concotions.

Now for the food. I don't know the actual name for any of these dishes, but they were basically all amazing. These were chicken wings with kind of a crunchy outside that was sweet with ginger and garlic. Mmmmmm.

Below is a curry type noodle dish and I absolutely LOVE curry. I wasn't dissappointed and would be happy to order this again!

This dish had catfish in it, and I wasn't sure that I was going to like it, but (like everything else) I did.

These prawns were good, but not the best thing we ordered and not as flavorful as I had hoped. Plus it was too much work to peal off all the shells. Or maybe I'm just lazy...

This might have been my favorite pasta/shrimp/meat item we ordered. The sauce was a little sticky, but it had such a unique flavor. I probably could have eaten the whole thing by myself!

Chicken. Tender. Sauces. Not especially interesting, but very good. 

Ribs. Good. Not my favorite item, but like I said, you really can't go wrong.

Now that I have finally posted these pictures and been reminded of the superb food at this favorite SE spot I think it might be time to return!