As I was saying yesterday, we’re on our last beautiful days of Summer here in Portland and starting early next week we go into the rainy season, only to come out of it on the other side of winter in many months. With that in mind, I had some spare time and knew I needed to get out and about.
My first stop of the day was a great little spot that I’ve talked about several times before called The Love Shack, a cool little cocktail bar in the Slabtown part of Portland. This place ends up on morning news a lot. Not sure who they know but they are featured every couple of months and get great exposure. It’s normally hard to get in without a reservation, but showing up right when they open at 2pm on a Saturday afternoon got me first in the door with no wait and a seat at the bar.
During Happy Hour they have great drink and food specials, and I had to start out with a One of These Nights, which is made with chai-infused George Dickel Rye, mango juice and sweet vermouth. It is addicting to say the least, and had I stayed longer I could have easily gone another round. To go along with my cocktail I decided to get a couple finger sandwiches, settling on two (The pictures were taken up close. The sandwiches are really only about 2 inches long at most). The first was the Croissant Banh Mi, made with Viet pork, pickled carrot, cilantro and jalapeno. The second was The American Dream, a mini-Chicago dog covered in fresh onions, relish and mustard on a sweet roll. Just a little something to soak up the elixir.
While I was waiting for the food, I saw a bottle of Malort on the shelf and asked the bartender, “You have a half bottle. Do people drink that on a dare, or do you actually make a cocktail from that?” You see, Malort is an extremely bitter liquor that some say is the absolute worst tasting thing you can put in your mouth. The bartender said, “No, I just have it there in case people ask and I give them a shot”. So, having heard about this wormword-based Swedish liquor for years I said, “Sure, I’ll try a shot”.
I tried the shot and found it to be exceedingly bitter with a lingering aftertaste, but it was not unbearable. I don’t know that I would drink it again by choice, but honestly it wasn’t as bad as everyone I’ve seen online make it out to be. It might even make a good mixer in a sweeter drink to tone it down. Anyway, not sure that was a bucket list item, but in the spirit (see what I did there) of this site’s title, I no longer wonder what Malort tastes like.
After that experience, the food came out quickly, each sandwich was about two bites, and within 25 minutes I was walking two blocks over to visit the Bull Run Whiskey Distillery to try out some of their products. I’ve driven by many times and have always wanted to go in check them out, and today was the day.
The tasting room is cramped, warm and offers no seating or area for relaxation (I guess I am a bit spoiled, being a member of the outstanding Westward Distillery). I was immediately a little put off, but it had a cozy vibe and the gentlemen behind the counter was friendly enough, so being the only one in there after he offered me his chair I sat down and opted to taste their flight of five premium whiskeys and one of their Vodkas.
In talking with the worker, it turns out that Bull Run sources a good portion of their spirits from Midwest Grain Products (MGP) a major spirits manufacturer for many of the brands you have grown to love and may not know where they come from. Bull Run merely bottles it under their brand, versus actually participating heavily in the process of grain selection, barrel selection, aging etc. to produce a truly unique in-house spirit. After tasting the whiskeys and Starka vodka, I wasn’t super impressed, but I did like the 16-year barrel aged whiskey finished in pinot noir casks for an additional 37 months and their Starka Vodka that is also aged for 7 years in pinot noir casks and ended up getting a bottle of each.
Ok, again, not necessarily a bucket list item, but I now no longer wonder what Bull Run is all about, and unless I have a very curious out-of-town whiskey-loving guest that wants to check it out, I don’t think I’ll be going back, and I won’t be looking for their products on any local area menus.
After wrapping up there I still had a couple hours to burn and decided to head home to drop things off and indulge in a quick nap. Upon completing my short siesta I prepared to head out for my 5pm reservation at Higgins, a former (2002) James Beard award-winning (Best Chef Northwest) restaurant. Spoiler alert, I think they have been living on this laurel for far too long.
It’s a nice modern outfitted restaurant designed in a split-level format inside an old downtown Portland building (I think we’re at the point now where we don’t really need to make the distinction that the building is old, as pretty much everything in Portland is vintage, in a good way). I was the first one in for dinner service and was quickly seated by the window. I had seen the menu online and pretty much already knew what I wanted, but the waiter was proud of the specials and wanted me to hear them all. I must say that I was intrigued and as I’ll mention later, it’s likely that I’ll have a chance at a future time to try other things on the menu, but today I had my heart set on the Filipino Braised Pork Shoulder and Belly Adobo with longganisa sausage, atchara pickles, choy and basmati rice.
Before that would arrive though the waiter brought me a complementary amuse bouche that he described as a sunchoke and potato gallete. I looked at it and thought, “Huh?” (I mean, look at that picture. It looks like a worm or something. And did someone already take a bite off it?) I tried it and it was mostly tasteless and mushy. When he came back over and asked me what I thought I told him that it needed some crispy pancetta sprinkled on top to give it both texture and some saltiness, as it was very bland and didn’t have a good mouthfeel. He didn’t seem to take the criticism well and I started to suspect where things were about to go for the rest of the meal.
One of the items he rattled off was a Dungeness crab “slider” on a mini croissant with a frisee salad. He made it sound like the sliders were large and that I might not be able to handle three with the other food I was getting so he was willing to cut it down to two… Ok. When the plate arrived I had to laugh, as there were two tiny nubs in a nest of green on the plate. I tried one and the bread was overly crunchy and crackly and it was gone in one bite. It had a hint of crab, but mostly it was sandwiched in wet chopped up daikon and other veggies. I ate the second, and set the plate aside completely unimpressed.
Next up was a small salad with dressed greens and blue cheese crumbles. I took a bite and immediately thought I was being Punk’d by the chef after my previous comment. The balsamic dressing was so overpowered by salt that it was barely edible (In the end I only ate about half the salad).
The place started filling up and by the time I received my entree the dining room was packed. I was hungry at this point and when the plate arrived, once again I was very underwhelmed with the extremely small serving (That dish below is $49 bucks and that is a small plate probably only 8 inches across. The food itself was actually tasty, and everything went well together, but I had to break the 3 small chunks of meat down into smaller bites to draw out the experience so I could pretend that it was actually enough food to satiate me. That “mound” of rice in the picture is maybe about two tablespoons at most.
After cleaning my plate, the waiter offered up some desserts, but nothing on the menu looked appetizing (That’s saying a lot coming from someone with a sweet tooth like me), so I called for the check. When presenting it he asked me, “So, will we see you again?” I responded, “Well, you had some real misses here tonight, but I’ll probably give you another shot in the future when I’m in the area”. No follow up, no questions on his part. He didn’t seem to care and appeared as if the fault was with my palate and demeanor (After all, they had earned a James Beard award 22 years ago). I suppose it is possible that the issues were mine, but as I said earlier, I feel like this place has been living on its laurels for far too long and there are other places in town that offer better food, much better service, and more reasonable prices for the volume of food delivered.
Having said all that, I still feel like it could be a pretty special place and I’m going to give them the benefit of doubt that this was just an off night (part of me doesn’t believe that though), and I know I’ll be back for the Symphony again in the future and this joint is very conveniently located, so it’s possible that I give them one more try down the road. We’ll see.
I still wanted dessert though and I had about an hour before curtains at the symphony, so I headed over to the Heathman Hotel to check out their Tavern. The place was packed so I grabbed a seat at the bar and ordered up a double espresso and the Hazelnut Bete Noir, (French for Black Beast) a sinfully delicious chocolate cake confection with coffee cardamom anglaise, whipped mascarpone and candied hazelnuts…. Everything a dessert should be and then some. Perfect size, decadent, sweet, bitter, crunchy soft, yes, yes, yes. That absolutely hit the spot and together with the coffee set me up with the energy to pay attention for the next several hours.
The Oregon Symphony Orchestra was performing their Sound of Space concert for two nights only, in the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, a French Renaissance or Northern-Italianate-style theater built in 1928.
The concert was primarily performed by the Oregon Symphony, with assistance on some of the songs from the Portland State University Chamber Choir.
The setlist included soundtracks across space and time, including: Star Trek, Star Wars, Avatar, The Martian, 2001 Space Odessey, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Independence Day, Doctor Who and an encore performance of the 5th Dimension’s Aquarius.
The concert lasted about 2 1/2 hours with a 15–20-minute intermission. The theater has great acoustics, but I would definitely not want to sit on the bottom level as I don’t think that the grandness of the theater comes through with that roof being so low. I also learned a lesson not to sit in the first row of a section as the theater was built when men were 5’6” and weighed 140 pounds and the half wall is very constricting. It was worse than sitting in the first row of economy plus with the wall right in front of your face and no place to put your feet. Eventually I moved back a row so I could stretch my feet, as the entire lower balcony was empty.
What a fantastic day overall despite some of the misses. This was a great performance; I had a wonderful evening, and I look forward to seeing another one of their concerts in the future.
Stay tuned for more posts in the coming days when I check out a new (to me) BBQ spot while seeing a guitar virtuoso rock out in a 97-year-old theater down the street, then later Kay and I watch the Light Opera of Portland perform Pirates of Penzance….
There’s always something to do in Portland…