• PortlandOregonWine.com
• Monteaux Restaurant
• Cork Wineshop
• Ristretto Roasters
• NorthwestFoodandWineGuide.com
• Anne Amie Vineyards
• Storyteller Wine Company
• Tapalaya Restaurant
• Coppia Restaurant
• Boedecker Cellars

The earthquake over the weekend in the Bologna area of Italy may have a long-term effect on Parmesan prices. According to The HuffingtonPost, 400,000 wheels of Parmesan and Grana Padano cheeses were damaged, most of them artisanal.

In all, some 10 collective Parmesan aging warehouse and cheese production sites have sustained damage in the quake, affecting 300,000 wheels, half of which are estimated to be at least a partial loss.

“The fallen forms in some cases can certainly be recovered and moved to another warehouse to finish aging,” consortium spokesman Igino Morini said. Partially damaged wheels may be salvaged for mixed cheese products or prepackaged foods – at a fraction of their value as fully aged Parmigiano-Reggiano.

Bon Appetit has named Bamboo Sushi as one of the Best Sushi Restaurants in the America.

The Rose City’s acclaimed, hypersustainable Bamboo Sushi expands to a new 90-seat restaurant (with a 22-seat sushi bar) in the northwest quadrant this June. Look for fancier cocktails, a Scandinavian note in cooked dishes, and great local fish.

What to Order: The black cod with smoked soy glaze is a Bamboo staple, but nearly a quarter of the offerings here will be new, such as a seafood charcuterie platter featuring raw, cooked, and cured options.

Good to Know: Just as at the original, every fish is approved by the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program, and a portion of your dining dollars help sustain a nature preserve in the Bahamas.

You can read the rest of their article here, including a list of their other top choices.

This next story is loosely about food and drink, but it was weird enough to raise my eyebrows. A company called SceneTap is installing a facial recognition system in bars.

Using a free iPhone or Android App, you can get a snapshot of the San Francisco bar scene, including male-to-female ratio, average age, and crowd size — all in real time. In short, you can find out if there are enough women to hit on before you bother getting decked out for the night.

So here’s how it works, according to SceneTap: Bars place special facial detection cameras inside venues, which pick up on facial characteristics to determine approximate age and gender of the bar crowd. All your personal information remains anonymous, and nothing about you or your face is stored long-term.  Venue owners have their own stake in it. They will have access to this aggregated demographic information, and over time they can use it to measure the effectiveness of their marketing efforts. In other words, did that ladies-drink-free special actually draw more women to the bar?

SF Weekly has a detailed article about the system.

You may remember the 2010 Cochon 555 event, where Chef Eric Bechard  and event co-founder Brady Lowe were arrested after a brawl outside of the Magic Garden strip bar that left Lowe with a fractured tibia. Bechard was angry because Lowe had allowed a non-local pig to be used in the competition. Now, according to Michael Russell over at OregonLive.com, Lowe is suing Bechard for “more than $280,000″.

According to the suit, Lowe suffered “a broken leg, bruises, swelling, scratches, headaches, concussion, contusions, bleeding … feelings of fear for his safety and well being” and that the incident caused Cochon 555 to “experience a loss in sponsorships and a significant decrease in attendance due to the negative press.” Lowe is asking for a post judgement interest of nine percent on any damages awarded.

Want to bet that Bechard files a countersuit?

There are a lot of people in the restaurant industry who don’t like me. Let’s meet outside of Magic Garden next Saturday night. You break my tibia and I get $280,000. I can live with that. I’d do it for $100k. Queue up quietly please.

Does organic food turn people into jerks? Maybe not, but it can give them a judgmental attitude. From the journal of Social Psychological and Personality Science,

Although organic foods are often marketed with moral terms (e.g., Honest Tea, Purity Life, and Smart Balance), no research to date has investigated the extent to which exposure to organic foods influences moral judgments or behavior. After viewing a few organic foods, comfort foods, or control foods, participants who were exposed to organic foods volunteered significantly less time to help a needy stranger, and they judged moral transgressions significantly harsher than those who viewed non-organic foods. These results suggest that exposure to organic foods may lead people to affirm their moral identities, which attenuates their desire to be altruistic.

More from Today’s Health.com -

“People may feel like they’ve done their good deed,” he says. “That they have permission, or license, to act unethically later on. It’s like when you go to the gym and run a few miles and you feel good about yourself, so you eat a candy bar.”

Eskine says he was surprised by the findings (“You’d think eating organic would make you feel elevated and want to pay it forward,” he says) and hopes to do additional studies that look at conditions that might prompt people to act differently.

Until then, organic eaters may want to rein in those self-righteous stink-eyes.

“At my local grocery, I sometimes catch organic eyes gazing into my grocery cart and scowling,” says Sue Frause, a 61-year-old freelance writer/photographer from Whidbey Island. “So I’ll often toss in really bad foods just to get them even more riled up.”

Have you ever checked out someone else’s grocery selection and made a quick judgement? Admit it. I have, and I’ve also found it somewhat uncomfortable when someone is obviously looking at mine. “Let’s see… natural, healthy, organic, healthy… regular paper towels! He’s an ass!”

I should do some sort of poll about this.

So many new restaurants are opening in Portland it’s difficult to keep up, but the one with the most buzz seems to be the seafood focused Riffle, which just opened in the old 50 Plates space on NW 13th.

Dave Shenaut, expat of most of the best cocktail lounges in town is running the bar. According to SeriousEats.com, Emily Baker of rum club and Ricky Gomez of Teardrop Lounge has joined him, creating a force to be reckoned with. But wait, there’s more! Again from SeriousEats,

While water inspires the cuisine, ice inspires the cocktails at Riffle. They’ve installed an ice machine that creates 400-pound blocks of crystal clear ice that are traditionally used for creating ice sculptures. After 3 months of extensive testing, these giant blocks are destined for your drinks, whether carefully carved into crystal-clear spears to fit into a Collins glass for the Riffle Collins made with fresh celery juice, or shaped into a hand-cut sphere for the old-fashioned inspired Mayor Rock cocktail, comprised of mezcal, applejack, agave, and bitters.

The giant block of ice takes 4 days of careful monitoring to ensure perfect clarity, and is then “harvested”, and chopped with a chainsaw into smaller pieces. They have even retrofit a woodchipper to rapidly crush massive amounts of ice for use in the kitchen and bar. Shenaut is already brainstorming more creative uses for the giant ice including serving raw fish on ice plates, creating blocks to hold shot glasses for vodka flights, and other secret plans.

This entire thing has created an endless supply of jokes around town, including, of course, references to the movie Fargo, where a body was fed into a wood chipper staining the snow red. More information on Riffle here.

A few more items for you. Pok Pok Noi announced today that they are becoming a full service restaurant on May 25th.

We will have waiter service at the tables both in the dining room (at the counter and bar) and on our deck out back. The menu remains the same, hours of operation remain the same. We will not be taking reservations, sorry.

We think this will make for a more customer friendly environment, especially for the families in the neighborhood. Of course, we will still be offering to-go food for pick up.

Beaverton Foods’ mustards picked up six awards – two Golds – at the recent 18th annual World-Wide Mustard Competition. The press release was pretty run of the mill, but one section gave me pause: “NationalMustardMuseumCurator Barry Levenson added: “Beaverton Foods led all mustard makers – as it has done several times in the past – with six medals.”

Um, National Mustard Museum? My mind reels. Little known Food Dude trivia – when I was in college I collected mustard.

Slow Food USA has elected Portland Native Katherine Deumling as chair of its Board of Directors. From the PR,

A Portland native, Deumling founded and runs a cooking school and blog in Portland, Cook With What You Have, focused on making cooking with fresh, local produce an accessible, fun and creative part of people’s lives. She also works closely with area farmers markets to promote local produce, and collaborates with non-profits and public agencies to empower people to create healthy meals. Deumling lends her expertise to a handful of Community Supported Agriculture farms as well, creating weekly, customized recipes packets for their members.

Congrats to Katherine.

Finally, a reminder about the 2012 PortlandFoodandDrink Survey. We’ve already gotten over 50% of the responses needed to make it a serious survey. If you haven’t take it, jump over and do it now. If you aren’t sure about some questions, just skip them. As long as you answer at least 20 questions, you will be eligible for the random prize drawings:

• Portland Oregon Wine.com – a $30 bottle of 2005 Bordeaux
• Monteaux’s Public House – one gift certificate a month to try each of our 12 “country special regions”.
• Cork Wineshop – bottle of house wine, $20 gift certificate and two Friday Night Flights tasting coupons.
• Ristretto Roasters – a full spectrum of their offerings (6 single origin coffees and the blends). $50 gift certificate
• NorthwestFoodandwineguide.com – Wineopoly Game, 2 nice red wine glasses, two nice bottles of wine and a box of chocolates
• Anne Amie Vineyards – 2 tickets to their July 26th Pre-IPNC Counter Culture event – value $150
• Storyteller Wine Company – 2 $50 gift certificates
• Coppia Restaurant – 2 $50 gift certificates
• Tapalaya Restaurant – 2 $50 gift certificates
• Boedecker Cellars – wine tasting, cellar tour for four people OR an afternoon as a Cellar Rat for 2. Work in the winery cleaning barrels, racking wine and other glamorous cellar tasks. Finish the day with a glass of wine and light supper in the cellar. Value $200.

Thanks again to all of our sponsors!

This original post is by Food Dude, and it came from Portland Oregon Food and Drink.

• PortlandOregonWine.com
• Monteaux Restaurant
• Cork Wineshop
• Ristretto Roasters
• NorthwestFoodandWineGuide.com
• Anne Amie Vineyards
• Storyteller Wine Company
• Tapalaya Restaurant
• Coppia Restaurant
• Boedecker Cellars

Beaker & Flask

Tales of the Cocktail is a five-day drinks convention where thousands of chefs, bartenders, spirits writers, and drink geeks go to New Orleans to gorge on seminars and tastings. It is the most important cocktail education, celebration and awards convention in the industry. This year, Portland has two nominees up for awards.

Beaker and Flask is nominated in the “Spirited Awards” for the “Best Restaurant Bar” category which is truly an honor when you look at the list of contenders -

• Bar Agricole – San Francisco
• The Beagle – New York
• Heaven’s Dog – San Francisco
• Lani Kai – New York
• No. 9 Park – Boston
• Rivera – Los Angeles
• Sable – Chicago, Illinois
• Saxon + Parole – New York
• Slanted Door – San Francisco.

This is a who’s who of great bars. Congratulations to Kevin Ludwig and crew.

Next, Clyde Common, nominated for “World’s Best Hotel Bar”. Wow! The other nominees are:

Clyde Common Cauliflower Soup

• Artesian at the Langham – London
• Clive’s Classic Lounge – Victoria, BC
• The Connaught – London, UK
• Lantern’s Keep at The Iroquois Hotel, NYC
• Roomer’s Bar – Frankfurt, Germany
• Sable Kitchen and Bar at Hotel Palomar – Chicago
• The Spare Room at The Roosevelt – Los Angeles
• Vesper Bar at The Cosmopolitan – Las Vegas
• The Zetter Townhouse – London, UK

Congratulations to Jeffrey Morgenthaler and staff!

You can read our previous coverage of Tales here.

This original post is by Food Dude, and it came from Portland Oregon Food and Drink.

• PortlandOregonWine.com
• Monteaux Restaurant
• Cork Wineshop
• Ristretto Roasters
• NorthwestFoodandWineGuide.com
• Anne Amie Vineyards
• Storyteller Wine Company
• Tapalaya Restaurant
• Coppia Restaurant
• Boedecker Cellars

Every so often a publisher sends me a book I’m sure will be lousy, but it turns out to be an enjoyable read. Such is the case with “Restaurant Man” by Joe Bastianich, long time business partner of Mario Batali. It is a combination of homage to food and wine, and tutelage on owning and managing restaurants.

Bastianich grew up in a restaurant family in Queens, back in the days when a plate of spaghetti and meatballs could pass as Italian cooking. He cut his teeth working in his parent’s restaurant, doing his homework in the back, and absorbing the business from his father, a self-proclaimed “restaurant man”. It was during these years that he learned every facet of the small business, from washing dishes, to sitting in the back of his father’s truck where he was “practically waterboarded with bloody chicken juice”.

From here the book meanders a bit, beginning with his parents opening Felidia restaurant on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, his education at Boston College, and a brief stint as an investment manager on Wall Street. From there he took his year-end bonus, and headed to Italy to learn about the food, eating and working his way through restaurants and vineyards.

“I was tasting flavors that would last a lifetime. Flavors I would bring with me into everything that worked later, like what ‘real’ grilled calamari tasted like. You have to burn it just right, until there are freckles of black blistered char. It was sweet – caramelized and tender, and doused in this angry, bitter olive oil, laced with unbelievably stinky garlic, and hit with chopped parsley, and shot into outer space with this lemon that was so sweet and tart, it made you screw up your face. “

When Bastianich returned to New York, he met Mario Batali. The two decided to open a restaurant together, and Babbo was Born.

Bastianich was more of a restaurant traditionalist, and at first working with Batali panicked him. When they were opening the restaurant they got a quick education on each other’s personalities. “… he was coming up with these beef cheek ravioli, and the calamari Sicilian lifeguard style. There was no f’ing Sicilian lifeguards. He was just like, “hey, how do you suppose a Sicilian lifeguard would make calamari?” And then he did it. I didn’t quite know what to make of it all; I was panicked, because right in the moment of pressure, and being out in the public eye, I was kind of reverting, to what I knew, which was traditional Italian food. Mario was spinning that food and tradition into something new. He was right of course, and it launched our complete revolution of ideas. We never accepted anything just because that was the way it was done.”

From there the book chronicles the close partnership between Joe and Mario and their adventures in both Italy and the U.S. as they opened a long list of restaurants. As their empire expanded economy of scale played into everything they do. When they needed a good house wine, Joe went to Italy and opened two wineries. When they couldn’t find enough good fish to supply the restaurants, they became a fish wholesaler, even selling to competitors. Olive oil? Italian tomatoes? They now own shipping containers to bring the products they buy directly from Italy into the United States. Even the gasoline for their vehicles is made from the waste oil of their restaurants.

Focusing mostly on the front of the house, Restaurant Man is an unapologetic accounting of the highs and lows of Joe and Mario’s experiences as their empire continued to grow. The philosophy of each restaurant is detailed from concept to opening and beyond, replete with stories about Mario, restaurant employees and their customers.

The f’bomb is dropped constantly, and his writing style is brash, not hesitating to criticize people they met along the way, other vendors, and even employees. It is far from politically correct, Bastianich has some scores to settle – “And then you have a withering douche-bag like Pinot Longo. For five minutes about a thousand years ago, he was able to convince New York that he was some kind of a Tuscan cook. But frankly, I think he was always full of shit.” Of Le Cirque, “When I think of who ate there, it’s Barbara Walters, Walter Cronkite, Nixon and Kissinger — his customers are all dead or dying. Le Cirque never appealed to a younger audience, it never evolved to accommodate the next generation of restaurant-goers. It was always dominated by Sirio, and he never let his kids perform in the center ring.” The latter was especially interesting to me, as I had just finished watching “Le Cirque: A Table in Heaven”, which left me with some strong opinions too. He also blows the doors off of restaurant secrets – Desserts are almost pure profit, no bottle of wine costs more than five dollars to make, and some restaurants dilute expensive Parmesan cheese with other, cheaper varieties.

Bastianich also has a self-congratulatory tone that gets annoying at times but it is difficult to dismiss because he’s such a successful businessman. I suppose that being overly confident is one of the ingredients needed to make such an entrepreneur, but at times it gets tiresome.

Restaurant Man serves as an education to anyone wanting to enter the restaurant business. Along the way it talks about managing employees and vendors, staging a scene by letting in just the right mix of customers, and the need to have a balance between making art and making a living. “Most people who open restaurants will fail, because they lack the fundamental understanding of restaurant math. Either they think they’re superstar cooks or they think they’re superstar hosts. They do it for ego, and they don’t realize that without making money it’s nothing but bullshit,” writes Bastianich. “If you think you’re some sort of glorified dinner host or some artistic cook, you’re not going to last a week.”

Overall, I liked the book. If you are in or going into the restaurant business, read it. Most people interested in food or restaurants in general will enjoy it too.

Restaurant Man by Joe Bastianich.

This original post is by Food Dude, and it came from Portland Oregon Food and Drink.

• PortlandOregonWine.com
• Monteaux Restaurant
• Cork Wineshop
• Ristretto Roasters
• NorthwestFoodandWineGuide.com
• Anne Amie Vineyards
• Storyteller Wine Company
• Tapalaya Restaurant
• Coppia Restaurant
• Boedecker Cellars

Bluehour is on Gayot’s list of the “Top 10 Restaurants for Mother’s Day Brunch in the United states“.

Mother’s Day brunch at Bluehour in Portland, Oregon, kicks off with a basket of pastries plus artisanal coffee, Bellini or mimosa. The prix-fixe affair continues with a choice of appetizers such as quiche or sweet pea soup, and a main course from options like soft scrambled eggs with lobster or brioche french toast with caramelized banana-hazelnut compote.

Ever since the ex Spago chef de cuisine took over, I’ve been hearing good things. For the uninitiated, they are at 250 NW 13th Ave in the Pearl District – 226-3394.

This original post is by Food Dude, and it came from Portland Oregon Food and Drink.

• PortlandOregonWine.com
• Monteaux Restaurant
• Cork Wineshop
• Ristretto Roasters
• NorthwestFoodandWineGuide.com
• Anne Amie Vineyards
• Storyteller Wine Company
• Tapalaya Restaurant
• Coppia Restaurant
• Boedecker Cellars

The survey this year has fewer questions than 2011, and there will just be one to fill out instead of two.

Each survey result will get its own post on the site. The 2011 survey questions received well over one million page views, so your votes can make a difference to your favorite restaurant’s bottom line! Once we have 1000 people take the survey, we’ll announce the results.

To reward you for completing the full survey, incentive prizes donated by great local businesses will be randomly awarded to participants who have answered at least 25 questions:

Here are this year’s sponsors:

• Cork Wineshop – a prize pack consisting of bottle of house wine, a $20 gift certificate and two Friday Night Flights tasting coupons.
• Ristretto Roasters – a full spectrum of their offerings (6 single origin coffees and the blends). $50 gift certificate
• NorthwestFoodandwineguide.com – Wineopoly Game, 2 nice red wine glasses, two nice bottles of wine and a box of chocolates
• Anne Amie Vineyards – 2 tickets to their July 26th Pre-IPNC Counter Culture event – value $150
• Storyteller Wine Company – 2 $50 gift certificates
• Coppia Restaurant – 2 $50 gift certificates
• Tapalaya Restaurant – 2 $50 gift certificates
• Boedecker Cellars – wine tasting and a cellar tour for four people OR an afternoon as a Cellar Rat for 2. Work in the winery cleaning barrels, racking wine and other glamorous cellar tasks. Finish the day with a glass of wine and light supper in the cellar. Value $200.

If any other businesses want to donate incentive prizes, let me know – I’m happy to work with you! It is good exposure for your business.

Click here to take the survey!

This original post is by Food Dude, and it came from Portland Oregon Food and Drink.

• PortlandOregonWine.com
• Monteaux Restaurant
• Cork Wineshop
• Ristretto Roasters
• NorthwestFoodandWineGuide.com
• Anne Amie Vineyards
• Storyteller Wine Company
• Tapalaya Restaurant
• Coppia Restaurant
• Boedecker Cellars

Blair Reynolds is known all over town for his participation in just about every tiki event that comes along. He’s finally opening his own place, Hale Pele in the old Thatch space on NE Broadway.

Here is the press release -

Located on NE Broadway, in the former space of Thatch Tiki Bar, Hale Pele will offer a list of classic exotic cocktails made with the finest ingredients and craft methods, as well as a list of “New Wave Tropicals”, featuring modern spirits & liqueurs. Paired with these world class drinks will be an all new robust contemporary food menu.

For over a decade, Hale Pele owner Blair Reynolds has been passionate about tropical cocktails. Founder of locally made B.G.Reynolds’ Hand-Crafted Syrups, Blair Reynolds has created specialty tiki menus for bars in the Pacific Northwest, and lectured at Tales of the Cocktail, Portland Cocktail Camp, and the Great American Distillers Festival. Blair has contributed to several cocktail books, and served as an expert for Imbibe Magazine.

As a long-standing member and officer in the Oregon Bartenders Guild, Blair will bring a commitment to the consistency of the cocktails, using the freshest and highest quality ingredients and spirits available. “Too long has the word tiki been associated with bright red and pink drinks tasting of artificial coconut. Bringing in my years of research and study, I hope to serve Portland the best of tropical drinks both past and present,” says Reynolds.

Hale Pele will also include the great décor you’d expect from a world-class tiki bar, with interactive features, dancing waters, and other wonders from exotic isles. “I’m inspired by the unique décor of tiki bars from times past, and want to bring a bit of the novel fantasy of that bygone era into an exotic, yet welcoming environment. There is a story behind the setting, some of which will be revealed and some hidden. But beware of uncovering the mystery, lest you incur the wrath of Pele!”

This original post is by Food Dude, and it came from Portland Oregon Food and Drink.

• PortlandOregonWine.com
• Monteaux Restaurant
• Cork Wineshop
• Ristretto Roasters
• NorthwestFoodandWineGuide.com
• Anne Amie Vineyards
• Storyteller Wine Company
• Tapalaya Restaurant
• Coppia Restaurant
• Boedecker Cellars

<UPDATED>

I’ve heard from Fivespice -

Hello, I am the GM of Fivespice Tim Mattera. I guess we can all have dreams like that to hire line cooks and Sous Chef with that kind of experience, but I can assure you that we did not post that ad, but we can always need a good line cook.

From Craigslist:

Five Spice Seafood and Wine bar hiring BOH (Lake Oswego)

Sous Chef

Candidates must have a minimum of five years experience in serious fine dining. Two years Michelin star restaurant experience is a plus for an easy transition into our day to day production. Culinary degree is also a great plus, but not necessary. Experience in assisting with inventory control, ordering, all forms of butchery, charcuterie and you must be highly organized and clean. The menus will be changing very frequently once we hit our stride so there is a lot of room for creativity and experimentation. We have one sous chef in place and will grow to a three to four sous operation. We will be executing a blend of modern and classic cooking techniques. This is a very serious position in a serious restaurant. 

Line Cook

We need serious line cooks with fine dining background; fine dining being – a restaurant with a three star rating or higher or Michelin stars. If you don’t have these experiences do not apply. There is opportunity to contribute to menu development as you will be the chef of your station under the guidance of the Chef and Sous

Goodness. I don’t even know what to say. Good luck?

Emphasis mine.

Five Spice Seafood and Wine bar hiring BOH (Lake Oswego)

This original post is by Food Dude, and it came from Portland Oregon Food and Drink.

• PortlandOregonWine.com
• Monteaux Restaurant
• Cork Wineshop
• Ristretto Roasters
• NorthwestFoodandWineGuide.com
• Anne Amie Vineyards
• Storyteller Wine Company
• Tapalaya Restaurant
• Coppia Restaurant
• Boedecker Cellars

Twelve Oregon breweries have won awards at the 2012 World Beer Cup, held by the Craft Brewers Conference. In blind taste tests by judges from all over the world, beers from 799 breweries from 45 countries were tasted. Considering all the competition, Oregon did quite well, taking the following awards:

Category 1: American-Style Wheat Beer, 23 Entries
Gold: Wagon Box Wheat, Black Tooth Brewing Co., Sheridan, WY
Silver: 1919 choc beer, choc Beer Co., Krebs, OK
Bronze: DD Blonde, Hop Valley Brewing Co., Springfield, OR

Category 8: Coffee Beer, 56 Entries
Gold: Bacon and Eggs Breakfast Coffee Imperial Porter, Pizza Port Ocean Beach, San Diego, CA
Silver: Drunken Elf Stout, Columbia River Brewing Co., Portland, OR
Bronze: Coffee Stout, Rock Bottom Arlington, Arlington, VA

Category 15: Indigenous Beer, 26 Entries
Gold: Got Beer, BJ’s Restaurant & Brewery – Tacoma, Huntington Beach, CA
Silver: Hqt, 21st-Amendment Brewery, San Francisco, CA
Bronze: Oyster Stout, Upright Brewing Co., Portland, OR

Category 18: American-Style Sour Ale, 14 Entries
Gold: Ching Ching, Bend Brewing Co., Bend, OR
Silver: Mattina Rossa, Allagash Brewing Co., Portland, ME
Bronze: Supplication, Russian River Brewing Co., Santa Rosa, CA

Category 19: American-Style Brett Ale, 28 Entries
Gold: Peche ‘n Brett, Logsdon Farmhouse Ales, Hood River, OR
Silver: Peche, AC Golden Brewing Co., Golden, CO
Bronze: Wild Wild Brett Rouge, Crooked Stave Artisan Beer Project, Fort Collins, CO

Category 56: French- & Belgian-Style Saison, 44 Entries
Gold: Carnevale, The Lost Abbey, San Marcos, CA
Silver: Saison Station 55, Hopfenstark Brewery, L’Assomption, Canada
Bronze: Urban Farmhouse Ale, The Commons Brewery, Portland, OR

Category 66: English-Style Summer Ale, 32 Entries
Gold: Cross of Gold: Revolution Brewing, Chicago, IL
Silver: Stone & Wood Pacific Ale, Stone & Wood Brewing Co., Byron Bay, Australia
Bronze: Mother Lode Golden Ale, Laurelwood Brewing Co., Portland, OR

Category 67: Classic English-Style Pale Ale, 33 Entries
Gold: Annadel Pale Ale, Third Street Aleworks, Santa Rosa, CA
Silver: Summit Extra Pale Ale, Summit Brewing Co., St. Paul, MN
Bronze: Caldera Ashland Amber, Caldera Brewing Co., Ashland, OR

Category 71: Scottish-Style Ale, 26 Entries
Gold: MacPelican’s Scottish Style Ale, Pelican Pub & Brewery, Pacific City, OR
Silver: Redhawk Ale, Rockyard Brewing Co., Castle Rock, CO
Bronze: Beltaine Scottish Ale, Shoreline Brewery, Michigan City, IN

Category 77: Oatmeal Stout, 49 Entries
Gold: Naked Oat Stout, Rock Bottom College Park, Indianapolis, IN
Silver: Stumblers Stout, Columbia River Brewing Co., Portland, OR
Bronze: Alaskan Oatmeal Stout, Alaskan Brewing Co., Juneau, AK

Category 81: Barley Wine-Style Ale, 62 Entries
Gold: Stormwatcher’s Winterfest, Pelican Pub & Brewery, Pacific City, OR
Silver: Barley’s Wine, La Cumbre Brewing Co., Albuquerque, NM
Bronze: AleSmith Old Numbskull, AleSmith Brewing Co., San Diego, CA

Category 83: Classic Irish-Style Dry Stout, 30 Entries
Gold: Blarney Sisters Dry Irish Stout, Third Street Aleworks, Santa Rosa, CA
Silver: Ring of Dingle, Sun King Brewing Co., Indianapolis, IN
Bronze: Breakside Dry Stout, Breakside Brewery, Portland, OR

Congratulations to all the winners!

This original post is by Food Dude, and it came from Portland Oregon Food and Drink.

• PortlandOregonWine.com
• Monteaux Restaurant
• Cork Wineshop
• Ristretto Roasters
• NorthwestFoodandWineGuide.com
• Anne Amie Vineyards
• Storyteller Wine Company
• Tapalaya Restaurant
• Coppia Restaurant
• Boedecker Cellars

A report last week released by Oceana shows that seafood mislabeling has become a huge problem. DNA tests have found that 55% of the seafood sampled by Oceana in the Los Angeles area was mislabeled based on federal law.

In May and December of 2011, Oceana staff and supporters collected 119 seafood samples from grocery stores, restaurants and sushi venues in Los Angeles and Orange counties. The targeted species included those that were found to be mislabeled in previous studies as well as those with regional significance such as wild salmon, Dover or other regional soles, red snapper, yellowtail and white tuna.

Among the report’s other key findings include:

• Fraud was detected in 11 out of 18 different types of fish purchased.
• Every single fish sold with the word “snapper” in the label (34 out of 34) was mislabeled, according to federal guidelines.
• Nearly nine out of every ten sushi samples was mislabeled.
• Eight out of nine sushi samples labeled as “white tuna” were actually escolar, a species that carries a health warning for it purgative effects.

You can read a .pdf of the report here.

Another entrant in the flood of Mexican restaurants has been announced. According to Portland Monthly, Kelly Myers, previously Nostrana’s chef de cuisine, will be the chef at Xico – 3715 SE Divison. Look for a walk-up window in mid-July, and a dining room in August. The emphasis will be on making everything by hand with fresh ingredients. Big surprise. Lots more details here.

Researchers at Washington State University have discovered that a garlic compound is 100 times more effective than two commonly used antibiotics at fighting the source of food-borne illnesses. From Eurekalert.org,

The discovery opens the door to new treatments for raw and processed meats and food preparation surfaces.

“This work is very exciting to me because it shows that this compound has the potential to reduce disease-causing bacteria in the environment and in our food supply,” says Dr. Xiaonan Lu, a postdoctoral researcher and lead author of the paper.

“This is the first step in developing or thinking about new intervention strategies,” says Michael Konkel, a co-author who has been researching Campylobacter jejuni for 25 years.

“Campylobacter“, says Konkel, “is simply the most common bacterial cause of food-borne illness in the United States and probably the world.” Some 2.4 million Americans are affected every year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with symptoms including diarrhea, cramping, abdominal pain and fever. The bacteria are also responsible for triggering nearly one-third of the cases of a rare paralyzing disorder known as Guillain-Barré syndrome.

More information here.

OregonLive reports that Yaw’s Top Notch burgers is coming back.

The famous Yaw’s hamburger with toasted buns and gravy fries, Green River soft drinks, thick milkshakes, homemade mayonnaise, relish, pickles, berry tarts and pies; and the car-hop service and Tootsie Roll cop, made Yaw’s Top Notch a destination location for Portlanders; people sometimes waiting more than an hour to get a seat.

Yaw said he is bringing all the old family recipes to this venture. “They were done with the old ribbon and ink typewriter; some of them are still handwritten from way back when, but we got them all on computer now.” He said he feels fortunate they have been able to come up with all the products that made their hamburgers unique.

At its peak in the seventies, Yaw’s had four locations in the metro area; including a Yaw’s Ham Bur-Beef location on Halsey, current home of King’s Omelets.

You can read the complete article in midcountymemo.com here.

Eater has the story on Morso, Kenny Giambalvo’s new café, which has opened in the old Pearl District Mio Gelato space. You may remember Kenny from such ventures as Balvo, the short-lived restaurant that is now 23Hoyt, and as the previous chef de cuisine at Bluehour. It’s located at 25 N.W. 11th. More details here.

McDonalds has released a joint statement with the Humane Society of the United States, saying they will be requiring its U.S. pork suppliers to outline their plans to phase out the use of sow gestation stalls.

“McDonald’s believes gestation stalls are not a sustainable production system for the future. There are alternatives that we think are better for the welfare of sows,”said Dan Gorsky, senior vice president of McDonald’s North America Supply Chain Management. “McDonald’s wants to see the end of sow confinement in gestation stalls in our supply chain. We are beginning an assessment with our U.S. suppliers to determine how to build on the work already underway to reach that goal. In May, after receiving our suppliers’ plans, we’ll share results from the assessment and our next steps.”

“The HSUS has been a long-time advocate for ending the use of gestation crates, and McDonald’s announcement is important and promising,” said Wayne Pacelle, The HSUS’ president and CEO. “All animals deserve humane treatment, including farm animals, and it’s just wrong to immobilize animals for their whole lives in crates barely larger than their bodies.”

These efforts are supported by Dr. Temple Grandin, of the movie Temple Grandin. If you haven’t seen it, you should.

It should be noted that the crates have already been banned in Florida, Arizona and California, and are being phased out in Maine and Oregon.

Between 60 and 70 percent of sows are kept in crates during pregnancy in the United States,^[10] each pregnancy lasting four months, with an average of 2.5 litters every year.^[11] Sows, which can weigh 600 pounds (270 kg),^[12] spend most of their three or four years of adult life in crates,^[12] giving birth to between five and eight litters. As the sows grow larger, they no longer fit in the crates, and must sleep on their chests, unable to turn, until they are slaughtered.^[5] The crates are usually placed side by side in rows of 20 sows per row and 100 rows per shed, the floors of the crates slatted to allow excrement to fall into a pit below. (Wikipedia.org)

According to their latest newsletter, Kenny & Zuke’s bagels will be available at all seven Portland area Whole Foods stores.  Some will also be carrying their rye bread and rugelach. Wholesale pastrami is still in the works.

I thought this idea was brilliant, but apparently not many other people do. A Texas group is trying to fund a smartphone app called “Haiku Review”. Their idea is a direct response to the increasingly long (and clueless) reviews being written on Yelp. The app restricts reviews to a single haiku, which, as you know from our recent contest, restricts you to 17 syllables. Think of it as restaurant reviews on Twitter – short, creative and to the point. Unfortunately, their attempt to raise money on Kickstarter to fund development only came up with a tiny percentage of the amount needed.

Remember, a Haiku is a seventeen syllable poem in three phrases with 5, 7 and 5 syllables. An example:

Haikus are easy
But sometimes they don’t make sense
Refrigerator

Try writing a restaurant review following that format in the comments. It’s easier than you might think.

I’m pretty open to trying new things, but “roadkill” is not one of them.

From NPR’s The Salt -

For a lot of hunters, eating roadkill is no big deal if it’s picked up within a few hours of the accident and it’s not too hot outside. “A good deer roadkill does not stay long beside the road around here … Nothing like fresh, free, venison,” writes a commenter from Georgia on a recent piece on roadkill in Car and Driver.

Some states like Florida and Tennessee have laws that allow hunters or would-be scavengers to take roadkill home. Sometimes it’s a favor to transportation officials who say 300,000 accidents a year are caused by animal-vehicle collisions, according to a 2008 report by the Federal Highway Administration.

But before serving any animal — be it deer or raccoon — on a plate, it’s important to know how to check the blood, hair, and eyes of the animal for signs that the meat is safe enough to eat, as Steven Rinella, host of the Travel Channel show The Wild Within,demonstrates in this video. Some wild animals are susceptible to disease, and experts say the risk of foodborne illness with roadkill is no different than that from hunting wild game.

If anyone was ever to open a roadkill restaurant, I have a feeling it would be in Portland.

This original post is by Food Dude, and it came from Portland Oregon Food and Drink.

• PortlandOregonWine.com
• Monteaux Restaurant
• Cork Wineshop
• Ristretto Roasters
• NorthwestFoodandWineGuide.com
• Anne Amie Vineyards
• Storyteller Wine Company
• Tapalaya Restaurant
• Coppia Restaurant
• Boedecker Cellars

Revere House Menu, Boston MA 1851-1859. Mock Turtle soup anyone?

The menu collection originated through the energetic efforts of Miss Frank E. Buttolph (1850-1924), a somewhat mysterious and passionate figure, whose mission in life was to collect menus. In 1899, she offered to donate her existing collection to the Library — and to keep collecting on the Library’s behalf. Presciently, director Dr. John Shaw Billings accepted her offer and for the next quarter century Miss Buttolph continued to add to the collection. Her principal method of acquisition was to write to every restaurant she could think of, soliciting menus. When letters failed, she often marched into a restaurant and pleaded her case in person. She also placed advertisements in trade publications like The Caterer and The Hotel Gazette, but just as often, published news of her collection prompted outright contributions of specimens from around the world. Three times between 1904 and 1909, The New York Times wrote about her and the collection, noting once that “she frankly avers that she does not care two pins for the food lists on her menus, but their historic interest means everything.” Miss Buttolph added to the collection of more than 25,000 menus until her death in 1924. The collection has continued to grow through additional gifts of graphic, gastronomic, topical or sociological interest, especially but not exclusively New York-related.

This, of course, sent me on a day long expedition, digging through the NYPL collection, and then on to the LA Public Library, Alice Statler Library, and the Cornell School of Hotel Administration Library collections.

I think menu history is important, if only to show and learn from time past. So many dishes have come and gone, many just because they have gone out of style. If I was a chef, I’d be browsing them from time to time looking for ideas. In the meantime, for those who always wondered what it is, here’s a recipe for Mock Turtle Soup, courtesy Wikipedia.

Mock turtle soup is an English soup that was created in the mid-18th century as a cheaper imitation of green turtle soup.^[1] It often uses brains and organ meatssuch as calf’s head or a calf’s foot^[2] to duplicate the texture and flavour of the original’s turtle meat.

Mrs. Fowle’s Mock Turtle Soup,:^[3] ”Take a large calf’s head. Scald off the hair. Boil it until the horn is tender, then cut it into slices about the size of your finger, with as little lean as possible. Have ready three pints of good mutton or veal broth, put in it half a pint of Madeira wine, half a teaspoonful of thyme, pepper, a large onion, and the peel of a lemon chop’t very small. A ¼ of a pint of oysters chop’t very small, and their liquor; a little salt, the juice of two large onions, some sweet herbs, and the brains chop’t. Stand all these together for about an hour, and send it up to the table with the forcemeat balls made small and the yolks of hard eggs.”

Mock turtle soup is the basis for the character of the Mock Turtle in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the joke being that Mock Turtle Soup is supposedly made from Mock Turtles.

You’ll thank me for the above when you see it on local menus.

This original post is by Food Dude, and it came from Portland Oregon Food and Drink.