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When I lived in NYC I would pay an arm and a leg for an avocado and man, they were so bland and usually from Chile. This "Foodie" is happy to be back on the West coast!
Why would you buy avocados in NYC if you are a foodie? That would be like buying blueberries in southern California! Foodies should buy food that reflects the best the region has to offer and speaks to the folk soul of the people that hand raise the local fruit from infanthood (the fruit, not the people. Most foodies look down on child labor; fair trade and all that). :-)
The funny thing, Deezus, is that most of us, "foodies", are actually complaining about the hipster, wannabe-something kind of restaurants out here in Portland. Most of my favorite food places in Portland are unpretentious and "are what they are". I have taken issue with the trendy, artisanal chalkboard out front kind of places that serve really so-so kind of fare.
This parody of those types of those types of restrauants is spot on:
That's like the menu for every new place on SE Division and N Williams these days.
I've never really thought of myself as a "foodie". I grew up with parents who would take us to interesting places to eat around Northern California and Canada as a kid and I just like finding places that are as good as what I grew up with. A lot of the places I like are pretty traditional or no frills places too. I mean all the taquerias or little Asians places I love whether here on in California aren't bragging about where their ingredients came from. I just like them because they taste good.
Why would you buy avocados in NYC if you are a foodie? That would be like buying blueberries in southern California! Foodies should buy food that reflects the best the region has to offer and speaks to the folk soul of the people that hand raise the local fruit from infanthood (the fruit, not the people. Most foodies look down on child labor; fair trade and all that). :-)
I am calling myself a foodie using quotation marks which denotes a bit of sarcasm...poking fun of the term itself. Why did I buy avocadoes in NYC, you ask. Because after three of years of living away from my homestate of CA and couldn't get any time to visit... I craved a bit of avocado. Actually, I probably bought an avocado for $4. the first year I was there.
Those damn pickles and pork belly on every freaking menu, too!
Oh yeah, you have to have pork belly--it's required at every trendy restaurant.
It seems like some of these trendy restaurants popping up these days are actually almost like parodies of trendy restaurants. It's like they're the b-grade ripoffs of other trendy restaurants. Faux wood panneling, minimalist font menus, and of course kale, harissa, and pork bellies in some combination but they feel like they were created by a marketing team and some shadowy investment group.
In between the hype you can find good places in Portland--it is a lot of hype, but there's still some good places. I like a lot of the restaurants in my neighborhood(Montavilla)--and the overly popular ones(Observatory and Country Cat) on our little commercial strip are pretty good. Some of the overly famous places in this city are pretty good even if they are just tourist crowds at this point--I'll go back to Whiskey Soda Lounge just for the chicken wings, though I'm not waiting 2 hours for a table at Pok Pok.
...though I'm not waiting 2 hours for a table at Pok Pok.
I finally went to Apizza Scholls after threatening to go for the last several years. I'd heard about the wait, and have never been a big fan of waiting more than, say, 30 minutes for a table at any restaurant (and even that's pushing it). But I wasn't overly hungry and decided that we could wait the 45 minutes they told us when we checked in.
Turned out to be closer to an hour. Caesar salad, pizza, beer. All very good. I really liked the pizza crust.
But in the end... it's just pizza! This is going to sound like blasphemy to some I'm sure, but the quality difference between Apizza Scholls and Pizzicato is minimal. Was the Scholls pizza better? Yes. Was it worth driving in the windstorm across the metro, dodging downed trees, and then waiting for an hour to be seated? No, not when I could go to my local Pizzicato and get (admittedly inferior, but only slightly) pizza. And my local Pizzicato is about a 7 minute drive.
I have to say that the trendy places with the lines in close-in neighborhoods are usually not so much incredibly better than the places you can find out in the burbs of Portland with no line. Plus you can save a few bucks. I had a meal at Lincoln in N. Portland a couple of years ago. Yes, it was good. But I also had a meal at Oswego Grill in Lake Oswego that I would say was comparable.
I really like fancy food. I also can find something to like about HomeTown Buffet. It's just the way I roll which I'm sure horrifies some foodies. I come from a long line of hillbilly stock.
Oh yeah, you have to have pork belly--it's required at every trendy restaurant.
It seems like some of these trendy restaurants popping up these days are actually almost like parodies of trendy restaurants. It's like they're the b-grade ripoffs of other trendy restaurants. Faux wood panneling, minimalist font menus, and of course kale, harissa, and pork bellies in some combination but they feel like they were created by a marketing team and some shadowy investment group.
I think it's sort of like grunge rock by the mid-90s--the next wave of bands was just sort of a ripoff that stripped out anything interesting about the original set of bands that they were copying. It's like a copy of a copy will be a little duller. Whereas cooks opening up a place with an interesting menu were taking a risk like 15 years ago, today it's just become sort of routine for a lot of this stuff. Which is why I sort of like the kind of hearty back to basics stuff, but now there's sort of this "eclectic but back to basics hearty food" restaurant type that seems to be trying way too hard(and charge too much).
In between the hype you can find good places in Portland--it is a lot of hype, but there's still some good places. I like a lot of the restaurants in my neighborhood(Montavilla)--and the overly popular ones(Observatory and Country Cat) on our little commercial strip are pretty good. Some of the trendy places in this city are pretty good even if they are just tourist crowds at this point--I'll go back to Whiskey Soda Lounge just for the chicken wings, though I'm not waiting 2 hours for a table at Pok Pok.
I won't go to Pok Pok just because of personal objections I have to the place. I have heard great things about Country Cat for brunch but still haven't braved the wait. Maybe I will go when the kiddos are at school. I DO like Slappy Cakes which is trendy as hell but they do everything on their menu well including their Bloody Marys. The staff is very nice there, as well. I like Pho Van and the Pearl location, Silk, so I try to get out to the 82nd location when I can at lunch time. The family that owns it is local and live in the NE from what I hear. I really try to support good businesses like Pizzicato since they donate a good deal of money to the public schools with their generous fundraisers. Their pizza is a distant second to Hot Lips IMO but they seem to run a quality business. Sometimes we drive along 82nd to a decent Chinese place that reminds me a little of S.F. Chinatown food but I can't remember the name. It's in a mini mall, East port mall, I think. Big dining room and I think they do dim sum. We went for noodles on New Years. What I like about 82nd Ave during lunch time is the real mix of Portlanders like at Pho Oregon. You will see construction workers, families of all races, workers from the Pet Hospital and it feels vibrant. The funny thing is 82nd Ave, where many cool hip people will not go, actually is the most urban and diverse part of Portland. They also know how to cook with salt!
I finally went to Apizza Scholls after threatening to go for the last several years. I'd heard about the wait, and have never been a big fan of waiting more than, say, 30 minutes for a table at any restaurant (and even that's pushing it). But I wasn't overly hungry and decided that we could wait the 45 minutes they told us when we checked in.
Turned out to be closer to an hour. Caesar salad, pizza, beer. All very good. I really liked the pizza crust.
But in the end... it's just pizza! This is going to sound like blasphemy to some I'm sure, but the quality difference between Apizza Scholls and Pizzicato is minimal. Was the Scholls pizza better? Yes. Was it worth driving in the windstorm across the metro, dodging downed trees, and then waiting for an hour to be seated? No, not when I could go to my local Pizzicato and get (admittedly inferior, but only slightly) pizza. And my local Pizzicato is about a 7 minute drive.
I like Apizza Scholls too, but yeah I get what you're saying. The pizza itself reminds me of a place that I grew up going to---but Apizza Scholls just has a really big rep in this city for what it offers(and being on Hawthorne doesn't hurt). It's really good, the funny thing is that they have all those baseball stuff on the walls and they don't have a TV to watch the game--I don't know why that bugs me, but it seems like a pizza place like that with Giants stuff on the wall should have a TV to watch the ballgame.
My wife really likes Ken's Pizza(which is also good, but requires waiting in line with tourists for an hour), but sometimes I'm like, can I just walk down and get a pie from Flying Pie in like 15 minutes?
But it's like, everytime I've been to New York someone inevitably takes me to one of the famous best pizza places. Grimaldi's, Di Fara, Roberta's, Patsy's, whatever. We wait in line and yeah, it is really good. Though in comparison to what I have outside New York--it's not that many order of magnitudes better than the best pizza I can get on the West Coast. I mean it's still just pizza--they're just doing everything right and it's very good and sometimes they have a rare coal oven and maybe it's made by the same Italian family for the last 100 years, but it's not like it's five times better than any other pizza slice I've ever had. But don't tell that to a New Yorker--it'd be blasphemy akin to insulting the Pope(and there's a good chance they'll put a hit out on you).
Quote:
I really like fancy food. I also can find something to like about HomeTown Buffet. It's just the way I roll which I'm sure horrifies some foodies. I come from a long line of hillbilly stock.
We had a dirtbag hippy friend in college(a sort of couchsurfing mutual aquantince who didn't attend college but was always hanging around)--who would always beg us for a ride to go to the HomeTown Buffet in Medford. He'd been sort of broke and poor for some time, that being able to eat a ton of food for cheap was really exciting for him. I don't know if I ever go back though--I had a bad experience gouging myself on "Chinese night" and got some bad "sweet and sour pork patties" that laid me out for a day. I'll go back to Reno casino buffets though when I visit family--those are always a fun experience in gluttony.
Oh yeah, you have to have pork belly--it's required at every trendy restaurant.
It seems like some of these trendy restaurants popping up these days are actually almost like parodies of trendy restaurants. It's like they're the b-grade ripoffs of other trendy restaurants. Faux wood panneling, minimalist font menus, and of course kale, harissa, and pork bellies in some combination but they feel like they were created by a marketing team and some shadowy investment group.
In between the hype you can find good places in Portland--it is a lot of hype, but there's still some good places. I like a lot of the restaurants in my neighborhood(Montavilla)--and the overly popular ones(Observatory and Country Cat) on our little commercial strip are pretty good. Some of the overly famous places in this city are pretty good even if they are just tourist crowds at this point--I'll go back to Whiskey Soda Lounge just for the chicken wings, though I'm not waiting 2 hours for a table at Pok Pok.
I don't know if I ever go back though--I had a bad experience gouging myself on "Chinese night" and got some bad "sweet and sour pork patties" that laid me out for a day. I'll go back to Reno casino buffets though when I visit family--those are always a fun experience in gluttony.
Yeah, the attraction is purely quantity and that it's edible (although some may disagree). I just like cheap American comfort food. I'm not very hard to please, but I know a good meal when I taste one. One of my friends dubbed me "The connoisseur of crappy food."
Ah, the casino buffets--they can be a big step up from Home Town (unless you're at Circus Circus or someplace like that, where it's roughly equivalent). Locally, the buffet at Spirit Mountain is actually quite good!
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