Nichola's Restaurant

April 27, 2012

Date #29

Chuck’s turn! We head towards downtown Portland to Nicholas’s Restaurant; it's fresh Lebanese food. It’s located on Grand Avenue right beside one of Chuck’s favorite places Andy & Bax a military surplus store. There was a line up outside, but we had seen this before so we added our name to the list and stood under a tree to wait. 






Now if you know my husband he always sees someone he thinks he knows when we are out, this night was no different. He told me that guy looks so familiar but I don’t know where I know him from. So reluctantly, I turn around to see if I recognize him, and I did but I thought it was someone famous and Chuck agreed. While we were waiting and talking, I turned around occasionally to take another look, I would almost figure it out, and then lose it. A group of girls were finally called to their table and we were able to move closer to the restaurant and under a heater, but most importantly closer to this guy. Yes, I admit it I was eavesdropping on their conversation, but it was because I wanted to figure out who he was…and there it was, the word I was waiting for…”Big Foot” and it all came pouring in, he is Cliff from the show Finding Big Foot on the Animal Planet. It was fun to see Chuck figure it out about 7 seconds after me, his facial expression was priceless, and once he did, he went over and told him he enjoyed his show. Cliff thanked him, said they were on a two-week break, and had just completed a taping in Arizona.  I was too shy to say anything, but I also wanted to give him his privacy.
After quite a long wait, we were sat at a table by the window in a very small packed restaurant, although we didn’t feel crowded. We were served an extremely large, freshly out of the oven, pita bread with an amazing dip made from olive oil and spices. We also ordered humus to go with the pita bread, this is the best humus I have ever had, creamy smooth and garlicy.













We had a wonderful salad made with different types of lettuce, red onion, cucumber, and dressed with their house dressing. The dressing reminded me of tahiki sauce, SO good.
I ordered vegetable kababs made with fresh zucchini, tomatoes, onions, potato, mushroom, clove of garlic, and red pepper roasted in Middle Eastern spices and plated atop a bed of jasmine saffron rice with a side of toum (creamy garlic sauce). The vegetables were fresh and roasted perfectly in the spices, I’m not sure what they spices were, but they were very tasty. The toum may be the best thing I have ever tasted, GARLIC creaminess, YUM!
 

Chuck ordered lamb kababs, fresh lamb cuts mixed with onions, parsley, tomatoes, and their secret spices, this also came atop a bed of jasmine saffron rice with toum.  The meat was tender and spiced just right.
The meals were huge, enough for lunch the next day, yummy!
This was such a good evening. Not only did I try Lebanese food for the first time and loved it, but we got to meet a guy from one of the shows we watch. Don’t know if I can say it’s my favorite show, but I do like watching them look for “Squatchs”.

Dickie Jo's

April 20, 2012

Date #28

I decided to stay close to home and try a new hamburger restaurant in Tualatin. There have been quite a few hamburger joints popping up around town, like Five Guys Burgers, which we have already tried, so tonight we try Dickie Jo’s. 

Dickie Jo's is a very bright old fashioned looking place, the décor is white with red trim, and the music is from the 50’s and 60’s. At one point, I looked around when a Beatles song was playing, and 3 of the cooks were singing the song; oh yeah, the grill is out in the open so you can see the cooks cooking your meal, fun.

    

I had a veggie burger and fries and Chuck had a double burger with fries and a chocolate milkshake. They make their own buns right in the restaurant, so while you’re eating you smell fresh buns cooking, yummy! The fries taste great, nice and light with the skin left on, and the burgers are amazing. This veggie burger is tasty. I think most of the time restaurants put a veggie burger on the menu just so vegetarians have an option, but that’s all the thinking that goes into it. Dickie Jo’s has made the veggie burger just as special as the meat burgers. Very nice!!
After dinner I took Chuck across the street to one of his favorite places, Fred Meyer, fun night close to home.

Thai Herbs

April 13, 2012

Date #27

Chuck drove us to a wonderful part of Portland called Multnomah Village, a very cute old downtown street, the restaurant Thai Herbs, is located just off the main drag in an old house.

The outside patio has tables to eat at when the weather is nice, but it was raining of course so we went inside. The restaurant is very bright with quite a few tables in 2 rooms, they have interesting things to look at on the walls, and the tables are covered in burlap sacks and Plexiglas, the décor made me happy. 
 

We started out with crab and cream cheese stuffed wontons and veggies spring rolls. The wontons were creamy, crispy, and flavorful and the spring rolls were fresh and tasty, both came with a spicy sweet dipping sauce, full of wonderful tastes to start out our meal.













We both stepped away from our norms I ordered wide rice noodles and veggies in a garlic sauce and Chuck pork and veggies in a sweet and sour sauce with Basmati rice. The wide noodles were very wide and surprisingly tasty, the veggies were crisp, and the sauce was garlicky yumminess! Chuck enjoyed his dish so much he didn’t leave leftovers for lunch on Monday. Sorry Chuck I saved some of mine for lunch and I’m not sharing. 












After dinner it wasn’t raining so we took a little stroll down the main drag in Multnomah Village. The bookstore was still open so we went inside for a look; they had a resident cat that walked around the store, and said hello to the visitors, very neat! There were also a few other restaurants that were packed with people; might be on the calendar for a date night in the future. The other exciting thing about this area is it’s very close to work, might take some of my co-workers here for lunch.

India Oven

April 6, 2012

Date #26

My friend always talks about her favorite Indian restaurant, but until recently, I didn’t pay much attention because I didn’t think I liked Indian food. Over the past few months Chuck has changed my mind and I have grown to really love Indian food. So when I was thinking about where to take my husband for this week’s date night adventure I thought of India Oven my friends favorite place. 

It is located in a trendy part of Portland on Belmont Street, just up from a restaurant I went to with another friend called Utopia Cafe, I had no idea this was the area I was headed to when I typed the address into my trusty GPS. Utopia Café has awesome breakfast food, but that will be another story.

I ordered garlic naan, and mixed vegetables. The garlic naan was crispy on the outside and soft on the inside and covered in garlic and herbs, and the main course was a medley of fresh vegetables, cooked with onions, ginger and garlic. Chuck ordered Rogan Josh which was cubes of lamb cooked in a blend of spices, and plain naan. The meal also included Basmati rice with peas. The combination of spices, vegetables, rice, and naan were incredible; flavor combinations I have never experienced before. We both commented that this was the best naan we have ever had, and I said that Indian food might be my new favorite food, sorry Mexican food!

We took a lovely walk along Belmont Street, every restaurant and bar was  packed with Portlanders, the streets were packed with cars and bikes, typical for Portland. Very nice evening.

The Original

March 30, 2012

Date # 25

Chuck’s turn. We started out late this evening with an 8:30pm reservation at The Original, an old-fashioned dinner club in the old financial district of downtown Portland.  It’s hard to believe that these beautiful sandstone buildings with amazing pillars and iron doors were made so long ago.

We wanted to start out with poutine (French fries, gravy, and cheese curds) mostly because I am from Canada and this is the new thing there, but we weren’t so lucky because they forgot our appetizer.
I dined on house made chickpea & quinoa veggie burger and a bowl of soup, the patty was way too soft for a burger and had no flavor. The soup on the other hand was so simple made with vegetable broth, onions, carrots, celery and quinoa, but so incredible, wished I had more than a cup. Chuck had a tuna nicoise sammie that included poached tuna, arugula, bacon, egg, fingerlings, olives, green beans, and aioli and a bowl of tomato soup. Chuck said both the Sammie and soup were very good.

The manager came to our table, apologized for forgetting our appetizer, and said the dessert was on them. We ordered pear and berry cobbler and mocha caramel cheesecake. The desserts both tasted ok, mine was burnt and they took forever to arrive, just like the other parts of our meal.

Unfortunately, mostly because of the lack of service, the night did not turn out so good, the place was not full at all I guess the staff just didn’t feel like working that night.

Mellow Mushroom

March 23, 2012

Date # 24

I spent the week in Columbus Ohio for business and had to eat out for every meal. I like to try new places especially when I am in a new city, but I’m not that adventurous. I was driving down a street in Columbus on the way to a mall and saw a place called Mellow Mushroom, the name caught my eye, but it was in a strip mall so I was a little leery. While in the mall walking around, I saw a girl with a t-shirt from this restaurant, this was a sign to me, so I knew I had to go there for dinner. I looked it up online and saw they have a location in Portland; perfect, date night this week I thought.









The Mellow Mushroom is located in the Pearl District of Portland; it just opened in October. The place is decorated in 60’s - 70’s decor including orange and lime green chairs, lamps, lighting, and pictures; the music is also from this era.

We started with Tangerine beer and The Capri, a mixture of mozzarella, tomato, and basil, drizzled with a balsamic glaze, and a spring mixed salad. This was an amazing creation of sweet, sour, a refreshing start to our meal.

Next, we each had a half hoagie, I the Tempeh and Chuck Irv’s sausage. The Tempeh included grilled tempeh, mushrooms, onions, and green peppers, feta, pesto mayo, tomato, lettuce, and sprouts on a toasted French bread hoagie. The bread definitely made the sandwich, but the ingredients completed it. The tempeh was marinated just right and the grilled veggies and pesto mayo combination tasted amazing. This was my first experience with tempeh, I like it so much I went out and purchased some to make at home.
Irv’s sausage hoagie included Italian grilled sausage, caramelized onions and green peppers, provolone, spicy mustard, tomato, lettuce and pepperoncini. The hoagie was savory and spicy, not usually something my husband enjoys but this concoction was so tasty, he would definitely have again.

Because we had half hoagies we saved room for dessert; I had the key lime pie, Chuck the brownie ala mode. The pie was made with a pecan and graham crust, and a lime not overly sweet filling. This pie was perfect because it focused on the lime and wasn’t too sweet. The brownie was warm with a soft inside and crispy outside, and topped with a huge scoop of vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, and a cherry; chocolate-yummyness!

We enjoyed this date night so much, the atmosphere was amazing it brought us back to our childhood, the food was delicious, and the company second to none. I think the best part of the Mellow Mushroom was it included vegetarian/vegan options in a “normal” restaurant; this doesn’t usually happen. I am happy I came upon this place in Columbus and I could share with my hubby.

Le Bistro Montage

March 16th, 2012

Date # 23

Usually we give each other little hints about what the evening’s events will entail but we said nothing today; I had no idea what we were doing. Again, Chuck used his GPS to find the place and we ended up in an industrial area of Portland that was deserted. While we were parked on the side of the road so Chuck could look at the GPS to get his bearings, I was looking in the rear view mirror making sure we weren’t going to get car jacked, (Chuck didn't know I was protecting us).

After a few more block and a few more turns we ended up under the Morrison Street Bridge at Le Bistro Montage right beside the City Liquidators, a place we have been before. I was still a little nervous because no one was around, but there were some nice cars parked on the street. We opened the door and the place was packed, we left our names with the host and went next door to their bar called La Merde to wait for our table.

The bar was packed with people and contained a hodgepodge of furnishings including mismatched tables and chairs, church pews, video game tables, and board games laid out on a few tables. Chuck strayed a bit from his hefeweizen and ordered a Tangerine, which is a tangerine wheat beer from the Lost Coast Brewery in Eureka California , he enjoyed it so much he had two.

We had to wait for half an hour for our table and then were sat at a table for 6 European style, with 2 other couples. The lighting was dark, the floors were messy, and the atmosphere was controlled chaos and very loud. After a few minutes we got used to it and settled in for the night.



The menu was uniquely written on both side of a large sheet of paper, it included frog legs and alligator for appetizers; Chuck wondered if they would be ok for lent, I didn’t have an answer. 

I ordered Old Mac with garlic, heavy cream, and parmesan, it tasted so garlicky and so amazing, the only bad thing was the calories and carbs! Chuck had Linguini Andouille Sausage in a creamy alfredo sauce, it was creamy-cheesy-tactic.

I am so happy we found this place, great food and really different atmosphere. I like that Chuck finds these out of our ordinary places and I just go with the flow. This is so different for me but I am truly enjoying it.