ice cream in south portland

i don't eat all that much ice cream.  its not that i don't like it, i'm an american for fuck's sake.  but after many years of suffering, i finally admitted to myself that i am lactose intolerant.  ice cream is not only made with milk but they add lactose to it to make it have that creamy mouth feel so its a double whammy on the belly of us lactose intolerant folks.  but how can i be a whole person without a little ice cream in the summer?

so for this month's blog-o-rama project i elected to try willard scoop in south portland's willard square (there was some mild drama involved with this choice, it ends up i don't know how to use the 'send all' email function).  this was an exciting choice on multiple fronts.  number 1: we just bought and moved into our first house in south portland, and while we didn't manage to score a home in the coveted willard beach neighborhood, we are a short walk from said neighborhood.  number 2 relates back directly to number 1, willard square is so f-ing cute!

this past friday afternoon, we took a walk to willard square to try out willard scoop.  it has a totally adorable store front and the interior is equally adorable.  as we walked in, and were the only patrons in the little shop, the 2 women behind the counter didn't say hello.  i think this peeve is a marker of truly being a grown up.  but come on, you are just standing behind the counter, we walk DIRECTLY in to your line of view, and you don't greet us with a hello?  and its maine and people are suppose to be friendly in maine!  the young girl who served us was friendly enough taking our orders and did dish out a nice cone of ice cream.

all the ice cream is made on premise, and while they don't have a huge selection, they have a nice selection.  all your typical flavors and then some more interesting ones thrown in like blue berry and salted caramel.  a small scoop is $3.50 and if you want a waffle cone it's 50 cents extra on any size.

one of my other weird things with ice cream is that i don't like i lot of shit in it.  call me a purist but i really just want to taste the ice cream and not nuts or brownie or ribbons of fudge or potato chips.  i think this stems from my dad.  he eats ice cream EVERY night!  sadly he is not the happiest guy and i think his ice cream is likely one of the few things he finds pleasure in.  if he could, i think he would have vanilla hagen dazs every night.  don't buy him a pint of ben and jerry's or he might throw it at your head.

my favorite flavor of ice cream is coffee.   at willard scoop their rendition is 'dark roasted coffee' and it was delicious!  i got it on a sugar cone, which was the freshest cone i have ever eaten (i didn't ask if they make them there but they do make their waffle cones) and it didn't have any paper wrapped around it so you don't have to worry you are eating glue with your ice cream.  the ice cream was dense and creamy and very coffee-y!  pretty much a perfect cone of ice cream in my book.

seth got thin mint in a waffle cone -- think chocolate ice cream with girl scout thin mints mixed in.  and, as always, he elected to top it with jimmys.  willard scoop only has chocolate jimmys and seth wanted me to mention this as a bone of contention, he likes rainbow.  but really i don't care because i hate jimmys!  they are little waxy bits that don't taste like anything but sugar and they get stuck in my teeth and yuck. incidentally, jimmys are typically called sprinkles on the west coast.  i grew up calling them jimmys but that is probably due to the influence of my east coast born parents.  since initially writing this my frined katie who is also from california, said she called them jimmys as a kid.  maybe there is no east coast-west coast jimmy-sprinkle rivalry. 

once seth had licked off all the jimmys i did try his thin mint ice cream.  the texture was just as good as mine, creamy and dense, but the flavor wasn't as good.  it was actually a little difficult to tell what the flavor of the ice cream was: was it chocolate?  well then it didn't have a very strong chocolate flavor.  was it suppose to be minty?  then it failed completely there.  seth wanted something minty, and when he got chuncks of the cookie there was that taste of mint.  but otherwise it was not the perfect cone of ice cream.

willard scoop is  a great spot to go for a cone this summer.  there are picnic tables in the empty lot next door as well as couple seats right out front.  the square itself is great for people and dog watching.  a very enjoyable place to have a sweet summer treat.

doesn't jenner just love a bargain

its true i do love a bargain.  i have bored seth on many occasion going over the detail of my recent shopping trip and how much i saved.  but up until this point i have not jumped on the coupon band wagon.  that's not to say that i don't use the occasional coupon, because i do.  but generally it just seems like a lot of work for not that much savings.  and i don't really come across all that many coupons for things i really use.
up until trader joe's came to town, i hardly ever purchase or eat frozen meals; seth and i strive to eat as little processed foods as possible; and i really love me some natural home and beauty products.  so i thought that sort of ruled out any value for coupons for me. 
before i go on, don't worry, this is not going to become a couponing blog.  i think that people who coupon within the realm of healthy are pretty cool and i will go to their blogs for tips and tricks of getting great deals.  i have also recently realized that there is a large proportion of people who are not couponing within the realm of healthy, i.e. the crazies on extreme couponing.  and some of these folks even commit coupon fraud!  up until a week ago i didn't even know there was such a thing.
what i want to briefly share with you are some good sites i have found to get some info on couponing.  there are, in fact, a lot of coupons for organic and natural products out there.  but there are still some big draw backs to these.  one is that often the best place to find these coupons is on the company's website and they make you give them your name and email before you can actually download the coupon.  two, is that a lot of the products are still processed foods.  they may be organic but they are still processed.
so check out these websites/blogs and coupon to your hearts content.  i'm gonna try to save a little here and there but you won't find me buying 100 butterfingers or 200 rolls of paper towel anytime soon (actually occurrences on extreme couponing).

whole foods has great coupons and you don't need to give them your email address.
i think the woman who writes healthy life deals is a kindred spirit. i mean she loves whole foods, trader joe's, and target.  she has a great section on how to "stack coupons" at whole foods.
speaking of target, they have online coupons and mobile coupons.
organic deals is also a good blog, especially their section on coupon databases.
if you can figure out how to down load mambo sprouts coupon printer thing (i haven't) you can find some good deals here.
i also like your green helper, for more than just coupons.

all the kids are doing it

guest blog post by seth eli goldstein:
if you are a culinary nerd you have heard about the food truck craze.  food trucks have become hugely popular in cities like LA, new york, and even boston (this week's tv diner was devoted to boston food trucks).  sadly, there are no food trucks in portland, yet...  however, with the recent opening of gogi you can feel like a trendy LA hipster while munching on korean/mexican fusion.
gogi (653 congress street) is in a space right next to local sprouts on congress.  i admired the black painted tin ceiling on walking into the restaurant.  i was hungry on this particular friday afternoon so i went for the proverbial "it."  one pulled pork taco, one beef short rib taco, and an order of fried dumplings, whose filling i cannot remember.  my food was ready in two shakes of a lambs tail and at $3/taco and $6/order of dumplings, a great value.
the tacos were wrapped in a single corn tortilla and topped w/ lettuce, cilantro, bean sprouts, and thin slices of radish and cucumber, with a wedge of lime on the side.  both variations were super tasty.  of the two, i enjoyed the pork more.
the dumplings were wonderfully fried and crispy and came with a vinegary soy dipping sauce that i could have consumed as a beverage.
my only complaint about the whole meal is that i had a taco "blow out."  you know what i mean, right?  all the taco stuffs busted through the tortilla, forcing me to rely on my fork to finish.  if gogi doubled up on the tortilla, like a traditional mexican street taco, they could reduce the risk of such blow outs.
given the affordability and uniqueness of gogi in portland, i think this establishment is a great addition to the portland food scene.  what is really cool is that gogi is open late night so if you need some korean/mexican fusion at 1 am, and who of us hasn't, you have a great option.
here is an article from the portland daily sun on gogi for a little more back ground.

pub style

burgers are one of those foods we have ALL eaten a lot of.  when you think america fare, you think burgers.  we have all had thousands of good burgers and hopefully quite a few great burgers.  but when you really think about it, probably not that many horrible burgers.  that's because burgers are such a simple thing that you really have to go out of your way to fuck up a burger. 
on our 3rd round of burger-o-rama, these are the things i am thinking about.  its strange too, because unlike the year of mediocre thai food i recently endured, average burgers don't bother me so much.  there is something soul satisfying about even the most mediocre burger.
so with that i start the review of my burger experience at the down town lounge.  i am an overall fan of this place.  at this point in my life you will not find me here late night, but seth and i are known visit on a random weekday evening enjoying their lengthy happy hour.  everyday from 5-7pm dtl has drink and food specials, all food on the board is 1/2 price.  its also generally a good place for burgers as that is what makes up their entire regular menu -- from a classic single patty burger to a greek gyro burger with fish, chicken, and veggie in between.  seth is a fan of their big mac, whose description brings you back to the 1980s commercials when "2 beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, on a sesame bun" sung to your belly.
on this weeknight i was on call for work so the only beverage i indulged in was a cola.  we started w/ boneless buffalo wings which were pretty delicious though also a little disgusting.  and like so many buffalo incarnations, no hot enough.  they were very crunchy and the blue cheese was very chunky so overall they get a thumbs up for greasy fatty bar food.  they were also half off so even if they were a little disgusting, how much can i really complain.  and they were only gross in that 'i can't believe how much i am enjoying this nastely little fried snack' sort of way.
i contemplated getting the most basic of burgers so i could really judge the burger and not the toppings.  but then i realized that dtl is not the place you go for your 100% angus beef burger cooked to a perfect pink medium rare.  these burgers are all cooked to a gray well done and its not one of those burgers where you really want to taste the meat (of note, this was one of my problems with my burger at david's.  as good as the bacon was, i think they should let the beef shine on its own).  so i went for the burger special: a bacon, swiss, mushroom burger w/ lettuce, tomato, and chipolte mayo and fries.  as it was on the board, it was about $4.
this was a good, satisfying burger.  everything really tasted great together.  i was a little concerned the mushrooms would be canned but they were fresh and very tasty but i do wish there was more. they were all sort of crowded in the center (another side note: until i moved to the east coast i didn't know that canned mushrooms existed.  then i worked at this dive-y bar in boston and that was all they served.  i even discussed this with a friend of mine, who is also from california, and her only response was: "they can mushrooms?"  i think we all can agree mushrooms really should not be canned.).  the chipolte mayo needs more kick.
seth got the haddock burger to start his research for another survey piece.  he thought it was very good but the piece of haddock could have been larger and he had the same complaint about the chipolte mayo.
i rarely meet a fried potato i don't like but i was pleasantly surprised by dtl's fries.  in a place like this i usually expect to find frozen fries.  but these appeared to be hand cut!  they were very good but i do think they are filling the heinz ketchup bottles with an inferior ketchup product.
so this was a good burger experience.  i think the price played a roll in my review.  at $4 i am more forgiving then at $12.  when i go to dtl i have lower expectations and so they are usually met.  if i am at a finer establishment with a higher price point i expect more.  again i will say, its hard to fuck up a burger and so i think if you need a burger fix with a beer and you only got a few bucks in your pocket, dtl will do the trick.

lazy mo fo and chinese food

if i was a good blogger i would have posted about the article my very significant other had published in the bollard as soon as the paper hit the news stands in march.  instead the entire month passed by and i didn't post anything.  so here it is, april and a new bollard will be hitting the stands soon and i am only now telling you about the amazing piece on all-you-can-eat chinese buffets my husband wrote.
my devoted following knows i am not a good blogger.  what can i say?  i am lazy and that is a big part of it.  there are multiple things each day that occur and i think to myself: "random people want to know this pointless thing about me."  but i don't write about it.  also i have a job in which i spend the whole day on the computer without any real down time to fuck off and surf the web or write a blog post (a slow morning has provided me with a free lunch to post this entry). 
so i can say i am vowing to write more about food and mundane occurrings in my life.  but i probably won't.  and you probably don't really care either way.
in any event, check out the online version of seth's article: from super great to super soggy.

burger fancy

for this round of burger-o-rama it is fine dining!
seth and i have been wanting to try david's ever since tv diner gave it the platinum plate.  when a said that david's had burgers i thought it would be a great chance to check it out.
the actual space that david's occupies is beautiful, with really high ceilings and lots of cool architectural details.  but the decor made me feel like i had taken a step back in time to the 1990s.  their were multiple out of place decorative colloum, i think i remember a few romanesque busts, and just a sense that someone with just a little decorative know-how needs to come in and pare down the decor.  even the david's logo needs some updating to the 2010s.  i know you don't really care about how the place looked, but i just had to say.
they started us a bread basket with these very tasty bread knots served with a parmesan cheese, oil, and herb mixture that was not so pretty to look at but was pretty good.  i was so hungry when we first sat down so i ate way too much bread and was stuffed after only a few bites of my burger.

the burger's description in the menu is full of superlatives like magnificent double smoked bacon and a really good pickle.  the bacon was pretty magnificent but the pickle was no more than what i would expect to come with a fucking $12 burger.  it was good but if you are going to say something specifically about the pickle, then it better be a really good pickle.
large thick angus beef patty was perfectly cooked at medium rare. the double bacon is really a double wide sliced of bacon.  it was unsurprisingly delicious as bacon tends to be.  it was served with cheddar cheese, ice burg lettuce, thin slices of red onions, and sad looking tomatoes.  the truffle fries with truffle ketchup were each very good but together, the truffle flavor was overwhelming.
overall the burger was good.  the bacon was smokey (surprise) and crispy and kind of overpowered the flavor of the beef.  i don't remember the cheese at all so it clearly wasn't that memorable.  i forgive the tomato, it was february in maine.  but maybe you should just leave it off if its no good.
while the burger was good, i would not go back to david's specifically for this buger.  if you are at david's and you are craving a burger, this one will do the trick.  but it was short of magnificent or even very good.

romantical meal

i don't go out to dinner on valentine's day but i do love to go on romantic dinner dates with seth. one of our favorite places is benkay japanese restaurant for romantic dinner for two.

here is what you get:
a choice of one drink, per person, sake or beer or wine
first course: seaweed salad, squid salad, shrimp and vegetable tempura, and tofu and pork gyoza.
main course:
sushi: tuna, Salmon, yellowtail, shrimp, flounder, eel
sashimi: tuna, salmon, yellowtail
Roll: choice of any two rolls from the regular menu

so what this means is you each get a drink, then you eat a beautiful bento box full of delicious appetizers. this is a really exciting part of the meal to me because we don't usually order these as our main focus is maximizing our raw fish pleasure. but I love goyza and tempura.

then comes the plate of maki, sushi, and sashimi. the sushi and sashimi are selected for you but you get to choose your maki and the selection is excellent and some of the choices are fancy $10 rolls. every time we go to benkay we have to order the new york roll with grilled salmon skin, cucumber, scallion, bonito flakes, radish sprouts. this is the best salmon skin i have ever had with crispy crackly skin and amazing smoky flavor.

the fish is very fresh and the slices of sashimi sit on the plate like little jewels, waiting for me to scoop them up with my chopsticks, dredge them in a slurry of soy sauce and wasabi, and plop them in my mouth.

the thing that really makes this a romantic dinner for two is the price. all this for $70! and for those of you out there who do go out to dinner for valentine's day, you can get it all for $60! go to benkay's website and print out the coupon and get $10 off from february 8th to 14th.

normally benkay is one of those great restaurants that always has a table open, but for valentine's day you will likely need reservations.
other spots we find to be romantical are salt exchange and bar of chocolate.

cold stuff

ice

frozen

meats

the first hot beef injection

we own a copy of george motz’s hamburger america; a state by state guide to 100 great burger joints. we’ve had burgers at new haven’s louis’ lunch, reputably home of the original hamburger.  (the proprietors don’t allow any ketchup or condiments in the restaurant and have been known to kick people out who attempt to smuggle in ketchup packets. truth be told, even after living in new haven for 3 years, jenner never at here.)  we’ve had the burgers at harman’s lunch, maine’s sole entry in hamburger america.  we’ve had from connecticut’s own ted's steamed cheeseburgers to the california's in-n-out.   What we are trying to say is that we like hamburgers, perhaps not as much as some people, but a lot.  so we are enthused about this new portland, maine food bloggers collaborative project, portland’s best burgers.  first up, the diner/sandwich shop burger.

so are we wimps because we went to hot suppa?  jenner doesn’t think so.   she even called both of the two diner/sandwich shops named after a man and a woman (steve and renee's diner and kathy and dave's cafe) , but both were only open for lunch.  it was wednesday night and we wanted some burgers.  After looking over the portland food map’s diner/sandwich shop section we settled on hot suppa, as much to check out their burger as to indulge in their amazing cubano sandwich.

our last trip to hot suppa, right after they first started serving dinner, was kind of a bomb.  except that jenner ordered the cubano and fell in love.  before we even walked in the door on this recent cold wednesday evening jenner knew what we were ordering.  the restaurant was warm and bright and we got a nice cozy booth by the window for people watching. service was fast and attentive and our server knew a lot about their tea selection.  seth feels, and experts (meaning otis) agree, that hot suppa has the best bloody mary in portland, and so he started his meal with one.  jenner ordered a white pear tea due to her ongoing upper respiratory infection, then proceeded to order us poutine, the double double, and the cubano. 

the poutine came first, and while we ate the entire plate, jenner didn't feel like they lived up to her expectation.  now jenner does not claim to be a poutine expert (though, she wants to go to montreal but seth has a strange xenophobia directed toward french canadians), so the let down may simply have been that her expectations were unrealistic.  but she wanted thicker gravy and the cheese curds sounded amazing but were not melty enough.

the double double and the cubano came out together with their chosen sides of sauteed collard greens and some kind of tomato soup.  normally jenner doesn't believe in double patties on burgers because it usually leads to bad burger to bun/topping ratio.  but on reviewing the menu she realized that each patty is 4 ounces and one patty would be a small burger.  as it worked out two 4 ounce patties was in perfect ratio to the bun/toppings.  the patties are hand made and thin with the edges thinner than the center.  not only does this create delicious crispy edges when the burger is cooked on a flat top, its really pretty to look at and congers up nostalgic feelings of a bygone era of burgers.  when we ordered the burger, the waitress said "it comes w/ cheese, pickles, and sauteed onions, is that okay?"  hell yeah that's okay!  but when the burger got there we realized that cheese, pickles, and sauteed onions are all that come on the burger.  a quick wave to the waitress got us a side of tomato and lettuce.  iceberg lettuce.  normally jenner loathes iceberg lettuce, but when you are talking about this type of old fashioned, basic burger, no other lettuce will do.  

simply put, the burger tasted great.  this is not a fancy or gourmet burger, in fact its made with american cheese.  but if you are looking for a really tasty burger, you are not gonna go wrong with this burger.  all you got to do is find someone to split the burger and the cubano with you and you got yourself a fantastic date.

so yeah, this cubano is all that.  we know this piece is all about the burger but we really need to tell you about this cubano.  we are big fans of cubanos.  in boston we lived just down the street from la esquina de sabor, el oriental de cuba.  to translate for my non-spanish speaking reader, el oriental de cuba is a restaurant that touts itself as the corner of flavor.  they are in fact on a corner, and before they got moltov cocktails thrown through their windows and had to redo the whole restaurant they had a neon sign that read esquina de sabor.

el oriental's cubano is a classic cubano while hot suppa's is a slightly more modern version.  it starts off with this really amazing french bread.  the first time jenner had this sandwich she asked about the bread and it is actually made specifically for this cubano.  then the sandwich is layer with roast pork, ham, gruyere, mustard, and cornichons.  that's right, roast pork AND ham.  seth remembered that last time jenner ordered it he wanted a little extra mustard so we had the waitress bring some extra on the side.  this is an awesome sandwich.  jenner really really loves sandwiches and she thinks this sandwich is really really awesome.

the sides were good.  we both love and hate that the collard greens are sauteed and not real true stewed collard greens.  they are meaty and hearty and smokey and when you eat them you feel like you are eating something good for you.  jenner didn't have any of the soup but seth really liked it.

so we are definately going back.  next time we will skip the poutine and get fries as a side to either the burger or the cubano and maybe we will try to fool ourselves that we are eating healthy by getting the collard greens again.  oh and we will get the chocolate bread pudding again because jenner loves bread pudding and this is a great version (we will take it to go because seth likes some time between dinner and dessert).

the best of the thai-o-rama best

so if you have been following my blog or this thai-o-rama project than you know there was a lot of not great thai food eaten in the last year.  all a long you may have been thinking, "i don't care about hearing about bad thai food, just tell me where the good stuff is."  so this is where the pay off of eating all that not great thai food happens.  i can, with authority, tell you where you should spend your money on thai eats, and where you should not.
all of the bloggers are all using the same categories below to rate the restaurants:

Best pad thai: i actually don't order pad thai that frequently.  i thinks its kind of a wimpy thai dish, like ordering california rolls at sushi.  but sometimes i do crave it and reading back over my reviews it seems that vientiane had a great rendition.

Best curry: curry is the opposite of pad thai for me, i like to order it every time i go for thai, and i especially love to get it with duck.  the green tofu curry at chiang-mai two was excellent, though one needs to be aware of their heat rating. sabieng thai also had a good panaeng tofu curry.  with these two endorsements i think it may actually be tofu i like to order in my curry

Best spring rolls:  i think that spring rolls across the board are pretty mediocre so i can't recommend any places rolls over another.  but since seth's go-to thai appetizer is crab rangoon i will tell you that hands down the best version of this is at chiang-mai two.  you can actually taste crab in this version.

Best soup: we only ordered soup at 2 or 3 spots so i am gonna decline to comment here.

Best atmosphere: boda is the only interesting restaurant space of any of the restaurants we dined at.  but remember, if you like bus stations, vientiane is the place for you.

Best overall: i'm gonna do a top 3, in no special order -- pom's thai taste, chiang-mai two, and boda.  i'm not totally on the boda band wagon, and i didn't like everything we ordered.  but with some much of exactly the same thai food, its fun and exciting to dine on something different.  honestly i would put it in the top category alone for the dessert of sticky rice, coconut milk and mango.  it was a total surprise that chiang-mai two was so good.  it has a very traditional menu but everything we ordered was the best version we had in 13 restaurants.  pom's thai taste is a great stand by with a huge menu and is super approachable for those new to thai food.  i also think that veranda thai and sabieng thai do a good job.

Best prices: i think this really should be best value for the money.  again i think chiang-mai two had excellent food and reasonable prices.  vientiane also had very good food at pretty much dirt cheap prices.

Best "I never expected to like it" dish:  i have mixed feelings about crab rangoon and i usually just allow seth to order it.  so i guess my 'never expected to like it dish' was the crab rangoon at chiang-mai two.
Place I would never go back to (my own catagory): so while there was a lot of mediorce thai, most places were not horrible, just nothing special.  i think that if they are your neighborhood thai restaurant than you can get a decent americanized-thai meal there.  the one restaurant that i would never recommend anyone is viet bangkok cuisine.  i actually gave this place a okay review when we dined there but it was only our second restaurant and i was not yet jaded by just okay food.  and, in fact, this place's food is not okay.  i can still taste that weird plasticy taste that flavored our curry.

last thai supper

so last night for our last thai supper (round 13 of thai-o-rama) we all met up at sengchai thai (803 forest ave).  we were the only table in the restaurant (really glad i made reservations) so we got a lot of attention from our server.  at first she was endearing and quirky but by the end of the dinner it was a little much for me.  i was out to dine and conversate with friends and our server frankly dominated the conversation at times (i will be interested to hear how everyone else felt about her).  with all this said she was quite attentive, she gave us all separate checks which i always think is above and beyond what a server really needs to do, and she gave us a free appetizer of curry puffs, which were tasty.
seth and i ordered crab rangoon (surprise) which the server said was great but was only your average crab rangoon that don't taste like crab but are somehow satisfying in their fried creaminess.  we also got the tom kha gai which was quite flavorful with a strong scent of lemongrass and, of course, coconut milk, but was a little watery in texture.
for our entrees we got the spicy basil with tofu and the pineapple curry with duck, both ordered 2 out of 5 spiciness.  the spicy basil was spicy w/ lots of nice fluffy pillows of fried tofu and a nice basil flavor.  the pineapple curry was a red curry w/ loads of pineapple, red and green bell peppers, carrots and duck.  i thought the flavor was fine, not the worst curry i have ever had but far from the best and it wasn't spicy at all. there also wasn't really that much duck in it, but i liked the duck that was there.
finally, my thai iced tea, which i sucked down in about 5 minutes flat, so it clearly wasn't that bad, was not as strong as i typically like them.
so as you can tell, this was yet another mediocre thai meal.  if you are in the area and you are really craving thai, by all means stop into sangchai thai and you will get a predictable meal of thai standards.  but by no means go out of your way to dine at this restaurant. 
coming soon, find out which thai restaurants you should go out of your way to dine at when i do my wrap up of all things thai in portland.

no name thai restaurant

guest blog post by seth eli goldstein:
Well, this is embarrassing.  Jenner asked me if I would guest blog for this round of Pad Thai-o-rama.  Sure I would, and so I headed down to the Thai food restaurant located in the food court at Monument Square.   The embarrassing thing is I can't remember this place's name.

                The food court is a nice clean space and there is excellent people watching when all the suits downtown are released for their one hour recess.   The restaurant, whose name I cannot remember, is really a counter place.  The cool thing is that you can watch your food cooked to order before your eyes.  My Pad Thai went straight from the wok to my Styrofoam container and was piping hot.   It was a large portion and I felt like I got a pretty good value for the price.  I would have tried a couple of appetizers as well but I was all by my lonesome and although I am in the Guinness Book of World Records for most crab Rangoon eaten in a single meal I just went with the Pad Thai. 

                I thought that the spice was pretty mild, particularly as I requested a spice factor 2 out of 3.  Perhaps a tad bland as well, but still passable Pad Thai with wide noodles served with scallions and mung beans.  Sometimes pad Thai can be a bit on the sweet side.  The Pad Thai, from the restaurant whose name shall remain a mystery, was not too sweet, and that was nice.  If you need a quick and affordable Thai fix for lunch (I'm pretty sure this is a lunch only joint) that will leave you with leftovers for dinner, hit this place up.  It won't knock your proverbial socks off but it does the trick.

this was a guest posting brought to you by seth for the 12th round of thai-o-rama. the unknown name of this restaurnt is siam orchid and it is located at the one city center food court.

cumberland county fair

alpacas!

mini lop bunny

i grew up with guinea pigs and i heart them very much

midways are made for hipstamatic and cross process

stuff i see, portland streets 1

one of the best things about my new iphone is having a camera with me at all times.  honestly, while i am trying to get the cost of it covered by work because there are health care apps that i can use for my job, i really bought it for hipstamatic.

tamales for thai

for this round of thai-o-rama it was off to chiang mai-two at 52 washington ave.  while we were pretty sad to see loco pollo close down, it was fun to see what the new proprietors had done with the space.  it really felt very different from its previous incarnation as a tamale shop.  i thought it was tastefully decorated with a merciful lack of south east asian kitsch. 
there was only one other table the tuesday we went in but the young man who was cooking and serving all the food seemed a bit overwhelmed.  in any event he waited on us quickly, was very friendly, and all of our food came out fast.
for appetizers we ordered the crab rangoon and the thai dumplings.  if you have been following these posts, you know that seth loves crab rangoon.  i feel pretty ambivalent toward them -- i enjoy the creaminess of the filling contrasted with the crunchiness of the wrapper, but i never, ever feel like they taste like crab.  these crab rangoon actually tasted like crab and i could even see real pieces of crab in the filling.  served with a clear, sweet plum sauce and yum.  the thai dumplings, filled with minced pork and shrimp and topped with fried shallots, were two bitefuls and again a fabulous version of a standard thai appetizer.
the entrees are ordered by star for how spicy you want them on a one to three star scale. i asked the waiter if one star meant not spicy at all and he answered "i can make it not spicy if you want."  so really it should be a zero to three star scale.  we ordered the spicy duck as 2 stars and the green tofu curry as 1 star. 
the spicy duck was served in a creamy red sauces with lots of bamboo shoots, snow peas, green bell peppers, and basil.  the duck was suppose to be crispy and it was, a little, but it wasn't exactly what we expected.  and it was a bit of a small serving of duck.  but on a whole, it was delicious and spicy!  2 stars definitely gave it a great kick that made my nose run and my lips burn.
the green tofu curry was full of tofu, yellow summer squash, zucchini, green beans, bell peppers and basil.  the curry itself was creamy and flavorful and 1 star was a great level of spiciness for this dish. 
somewhere in the midst of this burning goodness i had an epiphany.  this is what is missing from so much thai food. thai restaurateurs have watered down their cuisine so much to make it palatable to americans that it has lost most of its flavor. thai food is suppose to be spicy. its from a country that is hot and the spice is there to make you sweat and cool you down.  unfortunately, the next morning seth paid for our spicy dinner, if you know what i mean.
the waiter, it ends up, is the owner and he was really excited to talk to us about the restaurant, local thai food, and even this blogging project.  he gave us some coupons for 25% of an entire meal (but which are only good for less than a month) and tried to give me like 10 take out menus, i think to hand out to friends.  i'm not gonna give you a menu but i do recommend that you check out chiang mai-two.  i have accepted, after 10 or 11 thai restaurant reviews, that there is really very little variation in the vast majority of menus.  so instead of judging on originality, i judge on quality.  i thought this place was great when it came to taste and quality.  in all honesty i think its gonna be our new go-to thai restaurant.

a little thai take out

we are not huge take-out people.  part of it is that i love the experience of eating out and the other part is that i hate the waste involved with getting take out.  of course there are exceptions, like pizza and i find it absolutely decadent to get indian take-out and eat it in front of the tv.  but with the assignment to go to ventiane for this round of thai-o-rama we made another exception.
and to be frank, vientiane has absolutely no ambiance for a dine-in experience.  unless you like to dine at bus stations, in which case this would be the perfect spot for you cuz you could get some tasty thai and not have to breath in diesel fumes.  there is a small selection of asian condiments that is fun to browse through while you are waiting for your food, so i think that's enough ambiance.
as far as the food goes, it really quite tasty.  we got fried spring rolls to start which were pretty average but the sweet, thin dipping sauce helped out.  for our mains we got yellow chicken curry that had lots of fresh veggies -- peppers, eggplant, green beans, basil -- but kind of scant on the chicken.  seth felt like the chicken was overcooked, but it was in a saucy curry so it wasn't really an issue.  the curry was creamy with a nice subtle burn.  we also got pad thai with 2 shrimp and scant chicken, but with lots of crunchy mung beans.  there was a good peanut flavor, and while it wasn't served with lime wedges (sorry dawn) i really enjoyed it.
they also have a really fun selection of canned asian beverages so we each got a can of thai iced tea and the cashier talked us into trying a can of jelly grass drink, which kind of tasted like tea w/ long pieces of jellied something.  not something i would try again.
we also got at jar of tom yum soup mix which reads: "remark: use fish, chicken or other meat also delicious."
i have heard rumor that there is something on the menu that is so spicy that it clears the entire shop as its being cooked.
after a summer break from thai food and blogging, vientiane was a great welcome back.  while they offer the average thai fare, vientiane does a good job at it.  its very convenient and we will definitely be going back for thai take-out.

the perfect morning

i initially started this post to describe a perfect day i had.  but i only made it to 11:30 am before i put it on hold to finish in a few days.  now i am coming back to it more than a month later.  so i think i will edit it a bit and post it as the perfect morning.  and truthfully, this is how most of my saturdays look, though i am not quite lucky enough to have a massage every saturday morning.
let me tell you what a perfect morning looks like in jenner's mind.
7:45am: okay so this was a little early for a perfect morning but i was getting up early for good reason.
8:00am: church tag sale just down the street from my house.  i have always wanted to be a regular tag sale go-er but i have only recently starting really started going.  i didn't have any unbelievable finds, but i still had a great time and spent $4 on 4 items.  and i got to indulge my obsession with cookbooks and add yet another one to my collection.
9:00am: massage w/ becca.  okay, i have been keeping this secret to myself for long enough.  the awake collective in the east end has massages for $40/hour!  yes, that is right, $40/hour!  and this is an AMAZING massage.  worth at least double what they are charging.  becca has gifted hands and she is truly a healing practitioner
10:00am: ice coffee and berry muffin from katie made bakery.  they have coffee ice cubes.  need i say more?  but i will say more -- greatest berry muffin ever!  i also really love their berry scones.  i have had a love affair with scones for years, probably made all the more intense because a good scone is hard to find.  my most favorite scone was from the original buckie's biscotti in dennis, massachusetts.  but ever since they moved locations (and the fact that seth works every weekend so we never make it to cape cod) i never get to indulge in this favorite.  finding these amazing scones at katie made is a happy discovery.
10:30am: farmer's market.  this is my saturday ritual and it really does make me happy.  this saturday i got to meet up w/ jen and her two kids.  one of my new favorite finds at the farmer's market is swallow tail farm's dairy products.  every morning i make a smoothie w/ their kefir and in season berries whenever possible.
11:30am: seth finally has a weekend day off ...
so that is what a perfect saturday morning looks like in jenner's mind.  not surprisingly, food is a major factor.

please stop

every time i post something here i get one, and sometimes multiple, comments in japanese or chinese trying to advertise their websites of young asian women in their under ware.  i have nothing against these websites or their content, but i always block your comments and i really don't think that anyone reading my usually about food blog is looking for information about your websites (not that they aren't in to the content but they know where to more appropriately look for that content).  i doubt you are actually reading the posts you comment on, but if you are can you please stop posting comments on my blog?  i will never publish your comments so you are really wasting both your time and mine.  please please please stop.

go over the bridge right now

seth already told you how good it is.  i dropped their name in a post about a totally different restaurant.  but have you gone yet?  i know you have some weird aversion to driving over the bridge into south portland but i'm telling you that pho hanoi will not disappoint.
if you like vietnamese you have try this place out.  i am very fond of than than 2 and i enjoy the pho immensely at siagon, but i don't know that i need to go back to either because pho hanoi is SO GOOD.
so i am begging you, for the very selfish reasos that i don't want to see this little gem go out of business, go to pho hanoi!!!!
other people like it too:
yelp
chow hound
urban spoon

saneg thai house

so for round 9, it was off to saneg thai house.   they have two locations, strangely close to one another.  the original is on congress street, in the shadow of maine medical and the other is literally around the corner on st. john street.
seth and i had been urged some time ago to try this place out by our friends, mark and kate.  they had warned us that it could be hit or miss but we decided to try it out anyway.  this was way back before i was an expert on the thai restaurant scene in portland and in general we were very pleased.  the food was good and the service was ... um, entertaining.  
the old thai woman working the front of the house, who ends up to be the sister of the owner, seemed to not have the stamina to walk all the way over to our table so took our order from across the room.  at some point she warmed up quite a bit and decided to tell us in great detail about her mammogram and pap smear.  now this is something i'm pretty used to because once you tell people that you are a nurse practitioner they want to tell you all about their health.  but i didn't tell her i was a nurse practitioner.  it was also quite interesting to watch the numerous people coming in for take out, almost all ordering pad thai, and asking for no radishes.  they were repeatedly told, there are no radishes in the pad thai, but in fact the menu does say their are radishes in the pad thai.
but that was last time.  this time i also felt the food was good, though pretty standard.  at this point i have surrendered myself to average thai food.  the service was also not nearly as entertaining this time around.
for appetizers we got the basic pu pu platter, which was -- you guessed it -- standard, but still tastey with its fried chicken wing, and chicken satay and crispy cups of some sort of ground meat and lots of sweet dipping sauces.  
for entrees we got pad thai (no radishes please) and a duck red curry.  i was pretty pleased with the pad thai.  it was peanuty and light and citrusy (lack of citrus can be a big complaint of my fellow bloggers).  there was plenty of chicken and i think a few shrimp and it really satisfied that rare craving i get for pad thai.
the duck curry was also very good.  it was a rather mild creamy red curry with lots of big chunks of crispy, fatty duck.  there were so many vegetables they were practically spilling out of the bowl.  i especially liked the cherry tomatoes and the grapes, which when hot sort of burst open in your mouth (yeah i know, "that's what she said").  i don't imagine that grapes are especially authentic in thai cuisine, but i really did enjoy them.
in relation to all the standard thai in this town, i think its up towards top of the list.  but as my friend mark said, we may just be hitting it on the right night.  its also quite a deal with the pad thai costing like $6 or $7.  so at this price point and the two good meals we have had so far, i would visit saneg thai house again.