Yesterday was date night for Kay and me. We started with a quick meal at what I’ve seen touted as one of the best Szechuan Chinese restaurants in town, The Duck House. It scores a 4.3 on Google Maps, which is pretty respectable. However, Yelp only rates it a 3.7. I’ve been meaning to eat there for over a year now and this was finally my chance.
We got there around 545 and the place was packed, but they found us a two-top right up front. They delivered a large pot of complimentary tea (though I think it was black tea, not the oolong I would have expected). We ordered and the first dish was on our table within a couple of minutes.
First up was a basket of steamed 鮮肉小籠包 Pork Xiao Long Bao (9) soup dumplings (We dug in before I remembered to take a picture). Portland seems to have the largest concentration of restaurants serving soup dumplings I’ve seen and every one of them are outstanding. These were even bigger and meatier than any I had tried at other places around town. So far, so good.
Next up was my order of 左宗雞 General Tso’s Chicken, with sides of steamed rice.
Again, another hit, though I think they could have been slightly crispier, would have benefited from a light sprinkling of peanuts, some more green onions maybe and absolutely needed a whole lot more heat (this was one of the complaints I had seen online that I should have addressed upon ordering. Don’t give me White Boy heat level).
Finally, Kay wanted to try the 飄香竹塔魚 Deep Fried Fish Fillet Szechuan Style, so we went that route. It looked good on the plate, but upon trying a bite the breading wasn’t that crunchy and it was super salty. Neither of us even finished our first bite and when we asked for the check and they asked if I wanted a to go box I told them no.
With a pile of untouched food on the plate the server had the good sense to ask me if there was a problem and I told him that it was not to our liking and that it was way too salty (I’ve since heard from others that they’ve seen this same issue), so the waiter made the executive decision to take the item off the bill. This was a good call since to that point I wasn’t sure that I would have come back, but with that gesture I decided that the other two items were to my liking enough and that once again I needed to give a restaurant a second chance.
Even though the food wasn’t 100%, we had a good time, and I ended the meal with a fortune that bode well.
We made our way over the few blocks to the Brunish Theater in the Arts District, getting there about 30 minutes before the doors opened, as we were there to see the Light Opera of Portland (LOOP). The building itself was very modern and stylish, but I had a different picture in my mind for the theater room itself. The room was located on the top floor, was about 60’ deep x 100’ wide maybe, inside was all black and unadorned with little lighting, with three multi-tiered stands of seats: front center and off-stage left and right. We had center stage front row seats and were within 2 feet of the actors.
The video above is excerpts from Gilbert and Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance, their 1879 opera.
True to the blog’s name, we had a fun night on the town getting to try out a new restaurant I had been wondering about, see a new performance facility, and explore a previously unexplored art form (I’ve seen Le Misérables on the big stage, but nothing so quaint and up close like this).