It would be easy to label this restaurant “farm-to-table” and call it a day. But that term is seriously overworked.

(Full disclosure: I’m guilty of sowing that term just as much as the next writer.)

In reality, I don’t know Ned Ludd well enough to put it in a corner.

If it wasn’t for a local Phoenix writer, Justin Lee, I might not have known about it at all. I already had a full dining dance card for my recent trip to Portland, and then Justin dropped this one in my lap.

So I did what any self-respecting, food-loving girl would do:

I doubled up, and hit two restaurants in one evening.

Open since December of 2008, Ned Ludd appears to be a quintessential Portland restaurant, taking full advantage of the seemingly bottomless local farm scene, passing every dish through a wood-fired oven.

Ned Ludd is a fictional character, a name made up in the early 1800′s by frustrated British textile workers who destroyed machinery they felt was replacing them. Ergo, Luddites eschew modern technology.

So this Portland restaurant is premised on back-to-basics: a wood-fired oven, simple dishes and minimalist decor.

It’s quaint in a trendy sort of way.

How? Let’s start with the house pickle plate ($5). Canning and preserving made a huge comeback last year, perhaps due to the recession, or perhaps due to the fact that what’s old is new again.

Either way, Ned Ludd’s chartreuse pickled celery is crunchy, sweet, and could be habit forming.

Another trend that emerged last year in a BIG way is the fried egg-topped fill-in-the-blank.

In this case, Ned Ludd’s miso braised mustard greens ($8) are the lucky beneficiary of the sunny side up, golden goodness.

It’s a great idea, although for me, the greens could have used a longer braise — or some stem stripping at the very least — no modern technology required.

I wouldn’t change a thing about the roasted potatoes with sweet chile paste, basil and melted, tangy cheese ($7).

In fact, I’d put them back on the menu.

Because Ned Ludd is a farm-to-table farm-inspired restaurant, the menu ebbs and flows with what’s available, and it changes frequently.

A simple, old-fashioned s’more ($4) is still on the menu, though.

The toasted marshmallows don’t appear to be house made, but maybe they are. They do have a lovely smoky aroma, thanks to the magical wood oven.

In light of the impending dinner at Pok Pok (a fabulous Southeast Asian restaurant on the other side of Portland) later that evening, I didn’t have time to dive into Ned Ludd’s full plates.

But that didn’t stop me from fantasizing all the way across town about the pastured pork chop with porky smothered kale and cracklin’s ($17) and the lamb chop with broccoli rabe, olives and lemon ($18).

With only a fleeting encounter, I won’t cavalierly slap a trendy label on Ned Ludd.

I think it deserves another slot on the dance card… and next time, it’ll get my full and undivided attention.

Ned Ludd
3925 NE Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard
Portland, OR
(502) 288-6900

Tags: farm fresh fare at Nedd Ludd, Ned Ludd, Portland, restaurant
Posted in Travel Eats | 1 Comment »

On a sunny, summer Sunday morning, there is no line in front of Portland’s Byways Cafe. Apparently, Portland likes to sleep in on Sunday because just the day before, the line snaked around the corner.

As we wait for the door to open, a couple of ladies arrive, pushing their mother in a wheelchair.

“It’s Mom’s day out,” one says. “We always take Mom, who is 102 by the way, out for breakfast on Sunday.”

I never would have guessed. We hold the door open and “Mom” stands up. Gracefully, gingerly, she walks into the cafe and all the way back to their regular booth.

Over the course of the next hour, 10′s of customers stroll in, most of them regulars. I know this because the customers and staff acknowledge each other on a first name basis.

Byways Cafe is a diner in the tony Pearl District of Portland and serves hearty portions of homey, simple breakfast and lunch fare at reasonable prices.

The small space, decorated with tourist tchotchkes from all over the U.S, doesn’t feel cheesy. It feels comfortable — like visiting your wacky Aunt, who collects (and displays) gaudy trinkets from every place she’s ever been.

Byways Cafe was featured on Diners, Drive-ins & Dives. No matter what you think of host Guy Fieri, he picks some pretty rocking places — like Phoenix’s Matt’s Big Breakfast, and New Orleans’s barbecue haunt, The Joint.

At the time, I didn’t know Byways was featured on Fieri’s show. I found Byways because I spotted the Saturday morning line as we were wandering around the Pearl District.

Any restaurant that has a line half-a-block long piques my interest. I bet it does yours, too.

By the time we leave Byways, the line is precariously creeping towards the corner again, and by 10 a.m, it wraps around 12th Avenue.

It’s easy to understand why. The food, although simple, is everything you’d expect from a diner.

Caloric, filling, and plentiful — a real value for the money. The service is snappy, genuine and if you don’t personally know your waitress by the time you leave, you’re probably a curmudgeon.

As far as I can tell, Portland has a thing about hash.

Every breakfast joint — from Mother’s Bistro (smoked salmon) to Bijou Cafe (fried oyster) to Beast (duck confit) — slings some kind of hash.

(OK. Beast isn’t a breakfast joint and the gourmet hash was flung at brunch. Still, as one of the top new restaurants in town, hash was on the brunch menu — so I still say this town has an obsession with hash.)

Byways Cafe’s hash is “traditional,” meaning it’s made with corned beef and a jumble of  potatoes, onions and green peppers. Surprisingly, the corned beef tastes head-tiltingly sweet — like it was brined in a vat of sugar water.

I can’t honestly say that it is my favorite hash experience in Portland, but it’s  not a bad hash, and gets bonus points melted cheese.

Filling? I have enough leftover for another meal, which I hand to a grateful man sitting on a stoop around the corner, past the line, politely asking for spare change.

A much better choice if you really want something sweet?  Blue corn pancakes with honey pecan butter. Oh, and real maple syrup.

The three, thin, plate-size pancakes are tender, yet richly textured from stone-ground blue corn meal. (This is Portland after all,  a food-centric city crazy about whole grains, organic produce and independent restaurants.)

The pancakes aren’t sweet on their own, so the maple syrup adds just the right amount of sweetness and the whole dish doesn’t feel like one big spoonful of sugar, like some pancakes do.

Here is what I love about Byways Cafe: it isn’t trying to be something that it’s not, and as a result, it ends up being just what the neighborhood wants:

A cafe that serves up hefty, home-style plates with a smile (our waitress even showed us her brand new ankle tattoo), with local ingredients dispersed here and there. And,  a bottomless coffee cup.

That — not Guy Fieri — is why there is a line out the door.

Byways Cafe
1212NW Glisan Street
Portland, OR
(503) 221-0011

Tags: byways cafe, diner in Portland, Guy Fieri, Matt's Big Breakfast, Portland, The Joint, where to eat in Portland's Pearl District
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That’s Beast, a blood-red doll-house of a restaurant, snuggled between two much larger buildings in northeast Portland.

Getting a reservation at Beast can be murder, as one would expect at a restaurant whose chef just landed a Food & Wine Magazine Best New Chef 2009 award.

Pomeroy took some heat recently in cyberspace from a food writer (who defies her self-written “all around nice girl” bio by brutally lambasting Pomeroy), about a quote she made in the Food & Wine article. Pomeroy said she doesn’t eat the meat in her favorite $5 bowl of pho because she doubted it was raised “sustainably.” I’ll admit the statement was a gaffe, but I’m not sure the punishment equaled the crime.

I have no idea how Food & Wine actually selects their 10 best new chefs every year. They say that it’s bestowed, after much searching and vetting, to up-and-coming chefs who’ve manned their kitchens for 5 years or less. How they skipped over Chef Kevin Binkley of Cave Creek’s Binkley’s Restaurant is beyond me (and any other rationale person who’s ever eaten there), but that’s another post.

This is about Beast, or more specifically, brunch at Beast because we couldn’t get a dinner reservation on short notice. In fact, the next dinner opening was two months from when we called.

Communal seating is not for everyone, but if you don’t mind sitting next to complete strangers (most likely kindred spirits in love with food as much as you are), Beast provides an added bonus of meeting interesting people. Like the young couple we met, who are contemplating a move to either Portland or Phoenix, and the quality of the restaurants might be the deciding factor.

Of course I attempted to make a persuasive case for Phoenix. Portland may well be known as a “foodie” town, but Phoenix has equally compelling, chef-driven independent restaurants that keep my heart palpitating throughout the year. In fact, the valley has several Food & Wine Best New Chefs, including a female chef, Deborah Knight of Mosaic (2002), not to mention several James Beard winners.

But back to Beast. Or Beast’s brunch. Once everyone is seated, French pressed coffee is offered (included in the $28, four-course brunch), or for an additional $5, a mimosa, or $12, a glass of sparkling rosé.

The first course might be a folded crepe, crispy on the edges, covered with bourbon caramel sauce, a dollop of whipped cream, and accented with fresh figs, toasted hazelnuts and sugared bacon thin enough to see through.

The second course may look diminutive, but it’s filling. Slivers of duck, cubes of roasted potatoes and onions and fresh garden peas co-mingle to become a heavenly hash, topped with an elegantly poached egg and buttery hollandaise that would be equally divine if served straight up in a glass.

Cleansing the palate of the last traces of the mouth-coating hash is a sprite sherry and balsamic dressed mound of frisee, with three bites of artisan cheeses from a local cheesemonger. I notice I’m the only one at our table who also devours the nasturtium. It was almost too pretty to eat, but since the bottom of the flower was splattered with the lovely dressing, it didn’t stand a chance of getting left behind.

For the finale, a petite blueberry and fromage blanc tart with a teensy scoop of vanilla bean ice cream. Of the four courses, this was the weakest link, with too few blueberries and too little fromage blanc. Was it really even in there? Still, the pastry was buttery and darkly caramelized on the bottom, so it did have redeeming value.

Chef Pomeroy and her all-girl staff plate all the courses on top of a large butcher block in front of the tiny, open kitchen, moving like well-choreographed dancers. Watching them is part of the experience. But the real joy is tasting the carefully crafted flavors on the plate, sitting with like-minded folks, and soaking up the glow from a newly-anointed rising star.

Beast
5425 NE 30th Avenue
Portland, OR
(503) 841-6968
beastpdx.com

Tags: Beast, Binkley's, Food & Wine, Mosaic, Naomi Pomeroy, Portland, Restaurant Journal, Steve's Cheeses
Posted in Travel Eats | 2 Comments »

Bursting at the seams with booth after booth of fresh berries, summer vegetables and forest mushrooms, the Portland Farmers Market is an embarrassment of riches straight from local farms.

The market is utopia to locals (and visitors) clamoring for farm-fresh, organic, sustainable produce, meats, cheeses, and of course, North Carolina biscuits.

Wait a minute. Huh? North Carolina biscuits? In Portland?

Yeah, and guess which line is longest at the 130+ stall Saturday market? The organic, hot oatmeal booth?

Hardly. It’s the Pine State Biscuits booth, tucked away in the center of the farmers market.

It’s become something of a market phenomenon ever since three North Carolina college friends first set up at the market in 2006. The success of the biscuits at the farmers market prompted the guys to open a restaurant storefront a couple years later.

Wandering around the periphery of the market, lost in the sheer bounty of gooseberries, tri-colored carrots and fresh porcini and morel mushrooms — not to mention tiny-but-real Oregon truffles for $10 an ounce — I feel my husband tugging on my shirt sleeve and he won’t stop.

He pleads with me to follow him– all the way to the back of a snaking line of market goers chomping at the bit to get their hands on (and sink their teeth into) a hot, buttermilk biscuit.

North Carolina fancies itself a bastion of southern-style biscuits. I know this because I lived there for six years (it is also the birthplace of Krispy Kreme doughnuts).

Truth be told, a good buttermilk biscuit isn’t as easy to pull off as it sounds. It takes a deft hand (and soft flour) to make a really tender biscuit.

I spotted the “Reggie” on the menu and asked Wes, the biscuit artist assembling the sandwiches, “Who’s Reggie?”

Wes, an engaging character and clearly loving the adoring crowd, tells me Reggie is a fictitious name. Oh.

Even if the name is made up, there is nothing remotely fictional about the sandwich ($7, or $8 topped with an egg).

It is, without a doubt, the most “real” biscuit sandwich ever to pass my lips and from there, land directly on my hips.

Let’s see, a biscuit topped with fried chicken, bacon, cheese and then covered in gravy? Outrageous — in a gotta-have-it way, though.

Pine State Biscuits may not make the gravy on-site — but get this — they DO bake the biscuits right there (and fry the chicken, the bacon and the eggs, too.)

The line of folks waiting for their shot at a North Carolina heart-attack-on-a-plate is only mind-boggling given the location – a farmers market, filled with fresh produce.

I feel for the booth selling wholesome, organic oatmeal. I’m sure the oats are delicious, but they had no customers. Everyone was in line for a biscuit.

But seriously, how could you not fall for this knife-and-fork beast?

Juicy, double-crusted fried chicken, a lone strip of chewy bacon, just melted cheddar cheese, sage and pepper-spiked gravy as thick as molasses and of course, that tender, butter-laden, fresh-from-the-oven biscuit.

It just goes to show you. You can lead a normally sane person to healthy food, but you can’t make her eat it.

At least not when a Pine State biscuit is an option.

Pine State Biscuits
3640 SE Belmont Street
Portland, OR
(503) 236-3346
pinestatebiscuits.com

Tags: biscuits, farmers markets, Pine State Biscuits, Portland, Portland Farmers Market
Posted in Travel Eats | 12 Comments »

“No reservation?” No, we don’t have a reservation.

“Hmmm, it’ll be about an hour and a half, but there is a cool bar just down the street where you can wait,” the host said. He took our number, promising to call if a table opened up earlier. It didn’t.

Turns out, the chef’s girlfriend is a bartender at the cool bar. Also turns out, after just one meal at Portland’s Le Pigeon, I’d likely wait an eternity for another shot at Chef Gabriel Rucker’s riff on American bistro cuisine.

At 28, Rucker has already snagged a Food & Wine Best Chef nod (2007) and a James Beard nomination for Rising Star (2009, an award that ultimately went to Nate Appleman of A16 in San Francisco.)

In a town known for quirky, independent restaurants, Le Pigeon could easily be the mascot. The space is tight, maybe less than 10 tables, plus front-row seating for 10 at the L-shaped bar overlooking Rucker’s exhibition kitchen.

It is here where Rucker and his band of cooks (a trio, counting Rucker) perform nightly for an adoring public, including a visiting chef the night we scored coveted bar stools.

The menu changes frequently, reflecting what’s fresh at area farmers’ markets. If Rucker is playful with guests at the foot of his stage — and he does banter back-and-forth — he’s laser-serious when it comes to putting food on the plate, tasting here and there, correcting flavors with a pinch of this or a splash of that. Just six starters and seven entrees populate the wisp of a menu.

The visiting chef tastes the foie gras topped jelly donut ($16), proclaiming the foie gras “excellent” even if he wasn’t thrilled with the donut.

He should have ordered the sashimi-quality sliced scallops, dusted with minced tarragon and orange zest, paired with a fennel and radish confit and a dollop of flying roe dotted butter ($15).

With choices like beef cheek bourguignon ($21) and veal blanquette ($25), the Strawberry Mountain Farms burger ($9) might seem pedestrian, but it’s quite the opposite, paired with duck-fat fried chunks of potatoes. The charred, square bun soaks up beefy juices and drippy, aioli-dressed iceberg.

How can you not order pigeon ($27) when, after all, the place is named for the bird? Would I have ordered it if it had merely said “squab?” Probably not.

A bed of butter-soaked greens mixed with shiitakes propped up a square of toasted brioche smeared with liver pate.

Which in turn, held tender medallions of dark-meat bird with a sweet and tangy red pepper jam. Poor thing — its legs and feet precariously balanced on  the bowl’s lip.

Edgy, fun and utterly delicious.

But perhaps the biggest showstopper of the evening was the signature dessert: apricot-studded cornbread, topped with maple ice cream, chewy bacon nuggets and a drizzle of viscous maple syrup.

The cornbread, coarsely textured and caramelized on top, might be the best dessert I’ve tasted all year (and as the dessert columnist for PHOENIX Magazine, I’ve had my share of desserts.)

Rightly so, Le Pigeon attracts foodies from near and far. And seven nights a week, Chef Rucker tends to his faithful flock. No, not the tattoos on his right forearm — his guests, the ones who gather at his stoop, for just another bite with the show.

Le Pigeon
738 East Burnside
Portland, OR
(503) 546-8796
www.lepigeon.com

Tags: Gabriel Rucker, Le Pigeon, Portland, Restaurant Journal, Travel Eats
Posted in Travel Eats | 4 Comments »

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