Recent deliciousness in my life, which has been few because of the inside and outside work on the house. I hope to amend that soon now that that days are colder and darker- need something to keep me happy through the winter!
Casa Del Matador's Braised Carnitas plate offers a huge big enough for two slow-cooked pork shoulder with orange, allspice, cinnamon and bay leaves- it is just as tender and juicy but with a subtle twist as it sounds. Served with rice, black beans, and your choice of corn or flour tortillas and the usual side fixings of sour cream, guac, tomato salsa... seriously though, you really only need the meat and rice. And maybe some sort of tequila beverage
More photos at wulfspirit server
But just compare the last two photos of the last post with these:
Who would plant a poor tree in a post of a wall- stupid! Not the tree's fault, but it had to go. Also there was a wisteria tree- pretty, but planted to start like a tree and then trained to wrap around electrical cables on the side of the house so it would eventually ruin the house instead of on trellis or arches that we wouldn't be screwed if it decided to break- so the wisteria too had to go, a pity. Never even got to see it in bloom. I guess the intent was to have to growing as an arch by the kitchen door, or maybe go around the porch- but why steel cables specifically for this purpose weren't put in is a mystery. Of course, this is the same house that put the washer/dryer in the basement and expected the water to go uphill and then drain down... We had plumbers in this week to put in pipes so it would be upstairs off the master bedroom instead, but there's still the task of moving the washer/dryer to tackle next weekend perhaps.
In the front of the house, the rhododendrons were cut back. I'm sure the whole thing looked beautiful in the spring, but the amount of growth was unwieldy.
Also finally revealed! After much ivy and blackberry pulling, the stairs in the back of the house that lead to two mini decks (which are in total disrepair: there used to be a gazebo, bench swing) can now be seen:
View from up there:
Before
After the first dumpster was filled... and then after the second dumpster was filled this weekend...
Dumpster 1: clearing the ramp to the stairs and revealing the front porch
Dumpster 2: revealing the area below the front porch by cleaning back the "front yard"
I take no credit, all I did was do clean-up assistance and sweep and poke at a "katamari ball" of vines and weeds down the stairs towards the dumpster once it was already pulled. Both dumpsters were filled! And we'll need the dumpster again... and nothing has really been done to the "back yard" yet.
So in the past few days, I have gotten married, and we have purchased our first house and will be moving into it together after our honeymoon. We have 2 weeks (well, 1.5 weeks now) until our cruise honeymoon to Alaska, and then 3 weeks until we move into our home.
Our house which we just closed on Monday was a listing F found on Craig's List, which is different since all the houses we have seen so far are from the mailing list of a Prudential listing agent- she sends several a week with quick descriptions and then a webpage with some photos. This particular house stood out though because of the area: F can continue to walk downtown to work, and I can head to the Max station to get out to Beaverton. This particular broker also deals with bank-owned homes. This particular home is a short-sale.
F also took some videos of
-Going up from the bottom of the street up to the front door (obviously the plants have overgrown):
-The first floor floor of the house which includes a kitchen, 2 bedrooms, and a guest bathroom as well as a large dining and living room area (and fireplace)
-The little back deck that you can access the 2nd floor master bed/bath from going upstairs
-The master bedroom and bathroom
Although it is an older home- actually built in 1910, the previous few owners have put in a lot of initial work already to bring it up to more modern standards. Looking on the internet for a bit of research, the asking price is below the last purchase price of the home, and most of the homes around it are equal or quite a bit more than this house, so it would be a great investment.
We also snuck a look at another home on the market on the other side of this house's neighbor, and our handyman friend loved it as well but it was way too much for a first time homeowner to tackle. We even met our neighbor and he talked a bit about the work the previous owner, a doctor, had sunk in and the guy also talked a lot about what he did for his house... which now is registered as a historic home. The home we had snuck into was actually the architect's home itself! We know that the neighbor on our other side that we hadn't met (who actually has a garage, neither of the 3 homes I have just talked about does) also has a home in great shape and also part of the Jacobberger home row if we make an assumption based on the fact the gate to his home says Jacobberger on it. So that makes two of the houses on one side and the house on the other side all Joseph Jacobberger homes.
It's a little unnerving how excited F is about the house: he has been researching the landscaping around it for more than a week! He never likes planning ahead this much, but after being exhausted by the wedding project I managed, I'm glad to let him be the project manager of the house project. We just got the keys yesterday, and he already cut some of the weeds, checked out the roof, and set up the garbage, water, and electricity.
The brownie was served hot and gooey with a generous scoop of vanilla and some artful drizzle... at the Mc Menamins Market Street Pub's just a handful of blocks away. Service as always was slow and very laid back, but as long as you go in there with that in mind, they have a good happy hour with the prices on their food.
Next time, I'll have to order a loaf of bread because although the vast amount of cheese was wonderful (even though often the cheese would not necessarily marry best with the beer), we really needed a palate cleanser besides a glass of water.
The lineup included
- A jumpstart on the alcoholism (if you hadn't already ordered a beer while waiting for it to start as seating was at 5 and the tasting was at 6) with a special tasting of Rogue Spirit's Dead Guy Whiskey. A pretty smooth whiskey.
- Full Sail Ltd 03 Lager with Fern's Edge Fresh Chevre. Great chevre, just so light and airy
- Eugene City Brewery Honey Orange Wheat with Willamette Valley Gouda. Great summer beer, very flavorful gouda- but that didn't in my opinion go well together as the gouda overwhelmed the subtle honey orange
- Rogue Hazelnut Brown Nectar with Alsea Feta. I already knew I liked the beer, but the feta was surprisingly not too salty. And, I got lots of it because the table didn't particularly care for it. I forgot to take a picture of this one as I was getting greedy with the feta.
- Rogue Dead Guy Ale with Monteillet Mejean. This was the smelliest cheese, but since it didn't smell like foot fungus and certainly didn't even worsen upon breathing out after taking a taste of it, it is not the worst cheese I have ever had. It is pretty barnyard-y though. I see the humor in pairing it with a beer called "Dead Guy" because of this, but seriously this needed a much stronger beer.. maybe even a merlot with some tannin to balance it
- Rogue Mocha Porter with Rogue Creamery Chocolate Stout Cheddar. Thank goodness this safe combination cleared our palates. Would be a great combination for fondue I think.
- Deschutes Twilight Ale with Bravo Cheddar Special Reserve. I kept this cheese as an "emergency cheese" in case as we got to stronger beers another Mejean appeared in the lineup. Who knew what Humblodt Fog or Oregonzola would actually turn out to be like...
- Terminal Gravity India Pale Ale with Cypress Grove Humblodt Fog. Turns out this was my favorite cheese, and maybe a bit of it was that finally, there was some bread to cleanse our palates too: all we have had is what I showed pictured and a glass of water (and perhaps a leftover pint from while we were squatting our booth before the tasting started). At the end the waitress was kind enough to bring some of the leftovers the kitchen had from the tasting, including 5 of these which I could not stop eating when I tried to snack on just one.
- Issaquah Brewery Menage a Frog with Rogue Creamery Chipotle Cheddar. I totally forgot to take a picture of this one. I was disappointed they did not pair this with Rogue's own chipotle ale or smoke ale.
- Hair of the Dog Fred Strong Ale with Rogue Creamery Oregonzola
- Rogue Imperial Stout with Maytag Blue of Iowa. Maytag is already my go-to bleu cheese, and I was happy to rack up all the leftover blue cheese from the rest of the table that I put on some potatoes the next day. Great combo since the potatoes didn't need anything but me mashing them and spreading the cheese around (I always eat the skin at home because I wash them and know they are clean).
It just shipped via UPS yesterday and will be here on the 30th supposedly! Finally! I will be in the 21st century. I'm going to have a smartphone! I am getting a red MyTouch from TMobile. It uses a Google Android OS and has a 3.2-inch 320×480 pixel display, 3.5G support, Wifi, GPS and 3M pixel camera with autofocus
Last week, Pearl District had a small festival in celebration of Bastille Day in Jamison Square Park. I did not stay to watch the Waiter's Race though. I did find room to enjoy some frites and watch a chef work on the creation below...
Somehow, we still found room to enjoy some Mediterranean food after the frites (which I literally finished right outside the door) at Madena of the Pearl, and this Saturday we went back for more. The falafal there is fantastic, as is the dolmeh and baba ganooj. The hummus is serviceable, and the labne dip is not bad. so this past Saturday having the hummus combined with the tender chicken schawarma, and the owner was serving several tables with one arm (and a baby on the other!). I think we will be back again.
That's right, Korean Tacos. The concept originally became popular in L.A., but a food cart dubbed "Koi Fusion" has brought them to Portland OR. I say food cart, but really this particular cart is actually mobile and sometimes can be found at PSU for lunch, by PGE park in the evenings, or other places depending on where they decide to park. So, really, a food truck a la what I've seen in Chicago and New York is more accurate. Even for a food truck, this is one nice ride. Sure, it's pretty new since they just launched in May and they have been producing only in limited hours on certain days... but look how spiffy they look! They have their nice beverage fridge as well as a tub with ice for drinks (just to the left and below those girls in the first picture), shelves for snacks like fried pork skin (above the girls' heads), and even a mini condiment station to the right by the driver's door and a trash center. When I visited on Friday, they also had a simple white table set up behind the truck with two bottles, one of green and one of red, Mexican chili sauce waiting.
During the lunchtime that I visited at their spot between 6th and Broadway on College, they only had one order guy (who was sweet but a bit clueless of how the truck menu worked and the pricing scheme) and the cook (obviously running the show). So, an order might take 20 minutes to get! But, we all waited pretty patiently I think, and the cook always was apologetic and thanked everyone for their patience, trying to get at least pieces of orders out as soon as possible.
Koi Fusion (Koi stands for Korean organic infusion) offers tacos and burritos as well as some other specials, but using organic meats and the meats are prepared Korean style, i.e. marinated to tender deliciousness. You choose your meat of bulgogi (they really need to say korean "bbq"/marinated beef after that as I heard someone ask in confusion what that was), spicy chicken, spicy pork, or spicy tofu for $2 taco, or $6 burrito. For $1 extra, you could upgrade to short rib meat. The specials I saw that day included sliders, kimchee quesadilla, and k-dogs for $6.
Unlike from the review from Portland Food Cart, it was a two man operation- no mom making fresh tortillas, though it did allow the order guy to pump out music loudly on the radio while the customers waited making the wait more tolerable. The real referral though was Lizzy from Lizzy Dishes Portland, which I discovered even before I moved here, and have only started reading again recently with new-found free time not working during a company shutdown week. She can get pretty detailed in her review, but I think that means she's thinking about the food too much- this particular review was much more light and just simple enthusiastic, which got me enthused. Yelpers had raved about the slider also, so when I saw it as a special, I knew that was what I was getting.
I got thrown off by order guy though, who asked how many sliders I wanted. Oh? I thought there were a couple on a plate, but maybe that wasn't cost-effective for them so they scaled back. So I thought I had capacity to also order tacos. Ha ha... I wouldn't get the sliders from the cook until after he finished making the tacos (same thing with burritos- they take a lot longer than tacos)- so I didn't realize how screwed I was until way too late, and no one else before me had ordered the sliders, and I saw the tacos looked small... so I ordered 3.
First to come out was the short rib taco. Savory juicy tender kalbi meat that had been shorn from the bone (the only annoying thing about eating kalbi is the bones, and no problem with that here), and this had a kickass marinade applied to it. I even added a bit of the green sauce and it held up fine. The tortilla was nothing much to comment about except it was soft and held together even though it was also stuffed with lots of shredded cabbage (this was the only thing I would improve upon), crunchy fresh bean sprouts, chinese cilantro, cucumber, and a wedge of lime to squeeze on that bit of acid. Maybe the cabbage is supposed to stand in for the Mexican side (besides the fact I could squeeze the green or red sauce on this) but then shouldn't it be fresh shredded lettuce? I didn't think the cabbage was contributing as much as the others- it was a bit soggy and taste-wise the bean sprouts had more impact. At least get a salad spinner guys. If it was supposed to be wet because of a sesame oil vinaigrette, using cabbage alone isn't working, just makes it slightly slimy and doesn't hold the flavor- maybe use it on the bean sprouts, as that does come together in a popular Korean side.
I had almost finished devouring this - so say give it 2 minutes- when I was being called again to pick up my other 2 tacos, the spicy pork and the bulgogi. The bulgogi... well, it just couldn't compare now that I had had the short rib. Sorry man, the meat just wasn't as rich with flavor, though it is a much thinner cut of beef. The spicy pork was great though- tangy with a bit of a burst of spicyness just at the end, it gets the silver in the medal rankings of the 3 tacos. I tried the red sauce with both of these latter two, and only the spicy pork held up.
When I had picked up the second taco tray, the order guy sheepishly asked me what kind of meat I wanted in the sliders. Apparently, I had the choice of any meat, and he had forgotten to ask (even when I ordered them, he had to ask the cook how much they were). I asked for the short rib. Oh, realized the order guy, its a $1 extra? Yes, I'll take it, I knew the quality of the short rib from my half eaten taco already. Well worth it. I had barely finished eating the bulgogi taco and taken a bite of the spicy pork (and then hastily remembered to photograph it) when I was called about the slider pickup. And then I knew gluttony was upon me.
These sliders definitely are the OMFG rating that Lizzy had given them. Ok, she didn't have the F but I think they deserve them, because even though I was expecting greatness, they *still* surpassed my expectations with their deliciousness. These were insanely good- soft doughy roll with a touch of crunch from being toasted, spicy creamy sauce (the kind you would expect drizzled on some fancy Japanese roll, and there's a judicious dollop here that doesn't overwhelm) with the cheese and (still the same soggy) cabbage and savory meat, and a lime wedge to squeeze for a accent of tangyness. I cannot imagine how popular these would be after a late night at PGE park- how satisfying on a bit of an alcohol tipsyness? Since I usually work in Beaverton I won't be able to do this lunch thing again, but I am going to have to make a late night run to Koi Fusion again and just test that out.
And there's still those kimchee quesadillas that I was interested in...
One last note- the tacos are extremely messy. Despite the best efforts of that lil soft tortilla, that soggy cabbage was all over the place. Maybe the burrito is the better way to go if you want to do the Mexican style rather then sliders. Really though, I haven't found the tacos too Mexican- and the sliders aren't either but they are definitely killer infusion going on of a very accessible way of getting those great grilled Korean meats so I'll let it slide (ha ha...). I'll like to continue to diligently test that too.
To save yourself frustration because these guys are on Asian time aka late, make sure to follow them on twitter if you are a casual twitter follower- I check twitter when I want to, and it doesn't go to my phone harassing me all the time, because they tweet half a dozen times a day. But considering they are still figuring things out, I am not expecting the Kogi truck, who has an impressive exec chef uncle to lean on- don't go looking for gourmet. You're still getting something fantastic and fresh and tastes like it should be a guilty pleasure- and is very very kind to your wallet.
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