The other exciting thing that happened was that in the middle of the day when we were exploring Pearl District, it started snowing!!! At first, it was a light confetti type of snow and I was enjoying the feeling of snow falling on my eyelashes and tasting it with my tongue. But then it progressed to a pretty crazy snowstorm. Everything was completed coated in a white blanket! Driving in the snow was not fun and we got stuck in traffic for 2 hours when we were coming back to the hotel from the distillery (we were only 2 miles away from our hotel and in normal conditions it would have only taken about 10 minutes). I haven't experienced real snow since I left Oregon so it was a beautiful experience. L is worried it's gonna snow again tomorrow when we have to drive the car back to his brother's but I'm secretly wishing that it will hee hee :).
Back to brunch - I wanted to sample the other fillings at Ziba's Pitas so we ordered a spinach filled one and a zucchini filled one. Ziba remembered me too :). We also tried the "ustipaks", which according to Ziba herself are "like bread, but much better". Here they are pictured below...they reminded me of Native American fry bread actually and were a little bland on their own but very tasty when consumed with a bit of the ajvar.
Here are the spinach and zucchini filled pitas! Very delish!
I also stopped by a cart called Savor which specializes in soup and build your own grilled cheese sandwiches. I tried their chicken tortilla soup which was really tomato-y and tummy-warming.
Here are some pics of food carts which I didn't have a chance to try....
This one looked really cool but they were not open yesterday or today :(.
Last night, we had reservations at Nostrana, an Italian restaurant run by Chef Cathy Whims who was a James Beard finalist for 2009. I was very excited because the cuisine is from the Piedmonte region of Italy and I've heard fabulous things about the food from this area.
The restaurant had a cool wall of wines:
It was really, really dark in the restaurant, so I couldn't take decent pictures of everything we ate :(. So only 2 food pics of our entrees. But here's everything that we ordered:
Appetizer
Pan Fried Ribollita, with borlotti beans, red cabbage, winter squash and Nostrana ciabatta, featuring Tenuta di Capezzana Olio Nuovo
Comments: This dish was a little disappointing especially after how much our waiter had played it up - the concept sounded very interesting. Basically, a minestrone soup with day old ciabatta, that's cooked down until the ciabatta absorbs all the soup. Then the ciabatta is pan fried and drizzled with olive oil. The texture was as expected, a little mushy, but the flavor was lacking. I expected a flavor punch especially after such a long cooking process, but instead I didn't taste much of anything.
First course
Paglia e fieno – straw and hay pasta - Spinach and egg fettuccine with prosciutto, shiitake mushrooms and cream
Comments: This was delicious. It immediately reminded me of a fettuccine dish I had in Rome, so fresh and light. Even with the prosciutto and cream, the dish was not heavy...salty and creamy and woody (from the shiitake).
Entrees
Astoria Black Cod with herbed Dungeness crab, tomato sauce, braised greens and Parmigiano bread crumbs
Comments: This was AMAZING. The cod was buttery and cooked to perfection. The tomato sauce was absolutely terrific - I cannot put my finger on all the flavors, but it was the perfect complement to the fish. I could eat this over and over again.
L's:
Franco’s award winning stuffed pork belly with spicy onion & raisin relish and braised cabbage
Comments: This, too, was amazing. There was a side of crackling on the belly that just melted in your mouth. The stuffing consisted of rapini with pork sausage, pine nuts and fresh herbs. The raisin and onion relish had a great spicy kick to it and the cabbage was sweet and tart.
I can see why people rave about Nostrana. The entrees, especially, were so well thought out and the flavor profiles were amazing. I think I counted at least 8 or 9 elements of taste in each dish :).
To wrap up our day, we visited Clear Creek Distillery which is one of the few places outside of France that produces a pear brandy (eau de vie) where the pear is grown directly in the bottle. It is pretty amazing. We tasted about five of their offerings, and the pear brandy tastes exactly like a Bartlett pear - exactly like it. It takes 30 lbs of pears to produce just one bottle of brandy. And the liquors are all at least 80 proof so it's some really crazy strong stuff. In fact, the distillery is only allowed to serve 5 items during a tasting cuz I guess Portland was worried that people would stumble out too drunk to drive :P.
Here's a mini bottle of the pear brandy that we purchased to take home.
We also tasted their Apple brandy which is made from Golden Delicious apples and is similar to the French Calvados. This is their 2 year brandy which is a little fruitier and lighter. They also have a much more potent 8 year version. There's a dish I made in school, a braised chicken in Calvados and apple juice, that this would be perfect for.
For dinner today, we had reservations at the Veritable Quandary, but due to the traffic, we had to cancel :(. I was quite sad about it, but we ended up having a good meal at Jake's Crawfish which is a Portland institution and has been around for 100 years. I had the Arctic Char which is a fish that's closely related to salmon and trout. The flesh is much like salmon but less oily. It was extremely fresh and served with a citrus butter and dungeness crab topping. We also had their bourbon bread pudding and three berry crumble for dessert which was a great finish to a snowy and cold winter day!
It's time to say goodbye to Portland :(. I will miss thee, especially Ziba and Spella and all the lovely food carts that I wish I could bring back to the Bay Area with me.
The next post will be from Seattle!!! Until then :).
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