Portland`s Food is Famous!

OMG, how I miss Portland`s food scene.

As much as I love the open skies of Nebraska, the food is crap. The only grocery I was able to eat from was Whole Foods (the produce at Omaha`s Wild Oats was wilted and rotting - no joke). There is one gem: The falafel at Amsterdam in the Dundee neighborhood. http://www.afkdundee.com/

And here in Japan, the produce is lovely and seasonal, and we`ve already found a few excellent restaurants in our small town. Difficult for vegetarians, but possible. My four favorites:

Soul Terrace, a Korean restaurant run by our friend Mike. They have sophisticated food, beer on tap (rare because beer laws are so archaic in Japan), and striking modern architectural design.

Doxson Curry House http://personal.furano.ne.jp/f795km/curry/shops/doxon.htm The micro-brewery beer is wonderful, the atmosphere unusual and charming, and the curry delicious. Nick likes their home-made sausage (I admit I nibbled a bit too).

Bistro Le Chemin, serving French cuisine with a lovely wine list. http://www.le-chemin.com/ The chef trained in Paris for many years, and the food and service were excellent.

There is also a great little sushi-go-round place called Tropical. I ate the most delicious roasted eggplant maki, with dark miso on top. The sushi is seasonal (sadly, asparagus is now out-of-season!).

This all brings me to a glowing article about P-town`s culinary culture in the New York Times. Yum!

In Portland, a Golden Age of Dining and Drinking
By ERIC ASIMOV
PORTLAND, Ore.
THEY come but they don’t go.
In the way New York drew artists in the ’50s, this city at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia Rivers seems to exert a magnetic lure on talented chefs who come from almost anywhere else and decide to stay right here. About the hardest thing to find in Portland these days is a homegrown chef.
Portland may seem an unlikely place for such status, a city destined to play second string on the West Coast to San Francisco and Seattle. But in the last five years or so Portland has grown and evolved.
At first it was a sort of underground stop for food and wine lovers who had heard word of small, fascinating restaurants run by young, talented chefs serving a bounty of local produce. It’s underground no more. Portland has emerged from its chrysalis as a full-fledged dining destination.
This is a golden age of dining and drinking in a city that 15 years ago was about as cutting edge as a tomato in January. Every little neighborhood in this city of funky neighborhoods now seems to be exploding with restaurants, food shops and markets, all benefiting from a critical mass of passion, skill and experience, and all constructed according to the gospel of locally grown ingredients.
In close proximity is a cadre of farmers committed to growing environmentally responsible produce with maximum flavor, delivered to restaurants and to the gorgeous farmers’ markets that dot the city. There are local fisheries and small beef, lamb and pork producers. Not far away is the Hood River Valley, with its myriad fruit growers who supply glistening, fragile berries and stonefruits of every stripe and color.
World-class wine is produced in the Willamette Valley, the center of the Oregon wine industry, just a half hour’s drive away. Portland has six micro-distilleries making any kind of spirits you can name and, if you’d like a chaser, more breweries than any other city on earth. Just as important is a receptive populace, demanding yet eager to be wowed. . .
[see full article at http://www.nytimes.com/]