2 posts tagged “dragonfish”

It's been pretty hectic on my front the past two weeks. Little did I know that when I had my one on one with my manager on the night of Halloween, that it would be my last. We chatted about the work I had been doing, and particularly that morning I had led a meeting that aired out some undercurrents and by doing so, made them confrontable and what I theorized, solvable. The meeting outcomes met my hypothesis, and helped solidify us in the direction of my vision of where I wanted my work and the team's work to go. After chatting with him for a while about this, we also turned to discussing what I had been exploring in Portland which as you probably noticed in my previous posts, just happened to be alcohol related. In fact, I was going to a beer meet up the next night at Bridgeport. My manager was more of a sake enthusiast though, and chatting with him on a local sake, it put me in the mood for sake and to Dragonfish I went, again.

As it turned out, on Monday morning, my manager ceased to be my manager because my team was laid off... except for me. I was moved into what was previously our internal client's team and now reported to one client instead of being in a central services area. That Monday was pretty surreal- I had come in with a list of things to do since I was going on a trip to gather customer input the next day and I wanted to have a paper prototype. Instead of working with my team, I ended up building that prototype that late afternoon after some of my former co-workers had already left and that evening before my flight by myself. Instead, the day became one of trying to help the people I had chosen to join in a team make their exit, and also transfer as much as that knowledge to me as possible so it wasn't lost. One of my coworkers had been with the company for 30 years, and it was the only employer she had ever had. Keep in mind that I had only been with the company for 5 weeks.

So as you can imagine, these past two weeks have been busy days in which I am trying to understand my roles and responsibilties- both what is expected of me, and then also trying to carve out the space so that I can continue doing what I intended to come to the company to do in the first place. It has taken two weeks, but I think I have basically regained the foundation that I thought I was establishing two weeks ago- now it's on to the planning how to execute the work and getting buy-in from the next level up in the chain on that plan now that they are warm to the concept at least.

Here are photos from that dinner at Dragonfish that Halloween night though. I found the sushi rolls disappointing, the guacapoke had too much avocado and needed more tuna, and the dessert was disapointing. You'd think that they would realize that after a dinner of cold to room temperature food, dessert should be either a really cold temperature like green tea ice cream something or a oven-warmed tart to finish, and with the dessert we ordered it seemed a perfect combo of the two, but the tart was room temperature and the bananas inside slightly chilled/room temperature instead of being warm and gooey inside.

I should have tried the Lobster Roll, which is the only thing left on the menu now that I am curious about (lobster salad and cucumber wrapped with tuna and avocado, with blood orange sauce and lemon mayo). But on the waitress' recommendation I tried the other roll that had caught my eye, the Dragonfi Roll (tempura shrimp, enoki and shiitake mushrooms, and asparagus wrapped with eel, tuna, orange and green tobiko and eel sauce and lemon peel mayo). Unfortunately, this turned out to be a flavor mess- I was hoping it would be a cool twist on the rainbow roll which also has quite a medley of ingredients but winds up being like a neopolitan in sushi form, but... well, it wasn't. At least F's spicy mushroom fried rice was delicious! Also per my ex-manager's recommendation, I tried the Momokawa Flight, which consists of Ruby, Silver, Diamond, and Pearl, and I really did like that. The Ruby was described as "soft and lightly sweet with hints of honeydew", Silver as "smooth with a dry tart green apple finish" (this was our favorite), the Diamond as "dry with a crisp favor and granite aroma" (much sniffing and tasting was done trying to figure out this granite description), and the Pearl, the cloudy one pictured, is "unfiltered and sweet with a coconut undertone" which I didn't find too bad either.

Tonight I am going to Le Pigeon, which was Portland Restaurant of the Year in Diner 2008. I've also volunteered in one of my dining groups to host a dinner meeting once a month, so there will be more food reports!

For Steven's Portland branch of his birthday celebration, we went to Dragonfish Asian Cafe for happy hour sushi and sake. We started off with a glass of Momokawa Ruby Tokubetsu Jummai, a sake with a taste that is soft and lightly sweet with hints of honeydew, as well as a Lemongrass Lime Rickey, a cocktail with vodka infused with lemon grass and kaffir lime leaves, lemon and lime juice, and a splash of soda. It was like a Sprite really. I grabbed a sheet and started filling in circles of the happy hour menu (sort of like filling in the circles of an SAT or ACT test that I actually want to take) with cheap bites, such as Inari, Tuna, Salmon, and Spicy Tuna sushi for $1.95 each, cucumber rolls and crunchy crab rolls for $2.85 each, and edamame ($2.85), caramel ginger chicken ($3.85) and my favorite of the evening, salmon katsu ($3.85). Since they made the mistake of putting the vegetarian sushi on the plate as the fish, F couldn't eat it so he additionally ordered off the dinner menu a green curry dish with tofu. We ordered a flight of sake and a bottle of the house warm sake.

They have a sake club at the restaurant- each time you visit and order a glass, flight, or bottle you get a punch to earn you free sushi or dinner. This is really a fun place to unwind after work, and it's on the way home. Definitely want to take Steven here for some sake when he comes into town!

Another good meal I've had recently is when I went with my dining group (my first meeting with them) to go to a restaurant in Portland called Belly.  I loved the appetizer of a smoked pork rillette which spread so well on the toasted bread, and was countered well by the pickled asparagus (although there was a bit too much asparagus given- too generous!). The mustard was not needed.

The entree of the "loaded potato" gnocchi with bacon, scallions, creme fraiche, and shaved white cheddar was good, but I was expecting something special besides making it taste like a baked potato. Yes, they seared the gnocchi for an interesting texture when you found a crunch, but I think adding another ingredient to counterbalance the heaviness with something spicy or tart would have improved it by a lot. I know traditionally baked potatoes are pretty rich, but some places do throw in a touch of curry powder or something reminiscent of sour cream to add to the cheese and bacon richness. I guess I was looking for innovation because it seems like they want to try it: also on the menu, but I didn't order because I wanted the smoked pork more, was an appetizer called "pb & j - crisp pork belly, toasted baguette, apple butter". Other entree choices also included chicken fried duck leg and braised rabbit pot pie, so they seemed like they wanted to take known traditional comfort food and put a twist on it. It just didn't happen to the extent I wanted it to for the loaded potato gnocchi, and after the perfect balance of that appetizer, I felt a bit disappointed by the gnocchi because it wasn't at the same level, though it was still pretty good.

Dessert was aa-maa-zing and so I ended on a happy note: dark chocolate cake with hazelnut bavarian cream and chocolate sauce. I ate that thing in minutes, and I don't usually like chocolate. I still think about that dessert when I think of chocolate- it is the new chocolate cake by which I will measure other chocolate cakes.