Quick Hits: Grassa, Ha & VL, Stone Cliff Inn

When it comes to meeting up with a friend for lunch, those of us on the east side of the river have endless choices in a panoply of cuisines, from American barbecue to Mexican tacos to African stews to Cuban sandwiches. And you can pretty much name your price point, from cheap to très cher. Downtown is another story altogether—in numbers, variety and cost—if you want to sit at an inside table in a heated room, and the past few weeks have been so unseasonably cold that those were pretty much required attributes.

Grassa's Aglia Olio.

So when a friend who works at PSU wanted to meet during her limited lunch hour, I suggested Grassa, Rick Gencarelli's pasta emporium on the upper side of downtown, an area recently bestowed with the tony-sounding title "West End." Walking in, some neck-craning is required to read the ceiling-to-floor blackboard menu before you step up to the register to place your order. Then you're given a number and directed to the long, shared counter-height tables and stools or the bar facing the kitchen.

We opted for two plates of the house-made pasta, and within 15 minutes they were placed before us. My squid ink pasta "Aglia Olio" was a basic pangratatto, the pasta beautifully black and tossed with olive oil, garlic, chiles, romano and crunchy toasted breadcrumbs. My companion's "Gigli"—lamb bolognese, pecorino and a sprinkling of fried mint—broke the comfort-o-meter with its warm, luscious combination of pasta and fatty meat sauce. At eight and eleven dollars, respectively, these were well worth the price, and we could have split a salad for not much more. Plus we were finished in time for a leisurely cappucino at Heart a half-block away.

Details: Grassa, 1205 SW Washington St. 503-241-1133.

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The day after my friend Hank Shaw's incredible booksigning/dinner at St. Jack where chef Aaron Barnett blew the roof off the building with his ducky prowess, we decided to take it easy and have a restorative lunch at what I consider the finest pho palace in PDX, Ha & VL. This postage stamp of a place has been known to run out of soup late in the morning, so I was somewhat nervous walking in a little closer to noon than I like. Plus Hank's home town of Sacramento has some of the best Asian restaurants of anyplace in California, which cannot, sadly, be said of Portland.

Ha Luu, maestress of pho.

I needn't have worried on either count. Since proprietor Ha Luu has started making two soups a day rather than just one, we were able to get a bowl of each. Mine was the Phnom Penh special, a perfectly balanced bowl of broth, noodle and bits of pork and seafood that makes me crave Luu's soups on a regular basis. Hank's pho ga (chicken soup for you non-pho speakers) was equally amazing, and he proclaimed that the pho here was as good as any he could get in his home town.

Details: Ha & VL, 2738 SE 82nd Ave., #102. 503-772-0103.

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The Stone Cliff Inn is one of those places that takes you by surprise. First off, it's a giant Doug fir-timbered lodge set high on a cliff overlooking the Clackamas River outside of Carver. It was built by the son of a local logging family, the Rosenbaums, on the site of a rock quarry, the rock from which was used to line the steep driveway and which forms the foundation of the lodge.

Inside you can sit in the vaulted dining room in front of the giant stone fireplace (left) or at one of the many windowed tables with a spectacular view of the river. The lunch menu features a decent middle-of-the-road selection of salads and sandwiches, but on it is also a very good and  plate of fish and chips with a hefty helping of fish, a decent cole slaw and some of the best sweet potato fries I've had in town.

If you're looking for a destination after a weekend drive in the country, this would be a fun place to go, or to take your Aunt Tilly for a nice lunch and a glass of wine. I'm interested in heading back when the deck is open and I can sit looking out on that great view with a cold beer to go along with those sweet potato fries.

Details: Stone Cliff Inn, 17900 S. Clackamas River Dr., Oregon City. 503-631-7900.

Eat a Sandwich, Help a Farmer

The straccetti sandwich was created in the 1960s in a small trattoria in Rome, according to Cathy Whims. The name tranlates as "small rags" and refers to the thin strips of marinated steak that are seared quickly then tossed with bright seasonal greens.

When Rick Gencarelli of Lardo invited Whims to create the first sandwich in his "Guest Chef" series, with proceeds going to the chef's designated charity, the Roman sensation seemed the perfect ticket for Lardo's meat-centric menu. With provolone cheese, chopped roasted asparagus and horseradish creme fraiche added to the traditional preparation, I can tell you from a personal taste test that this Italian import is not to be missed.

And the charity? Whims chose Friends of Family Farmers, a group dedicated to fostering and supporting small family farmers in Oregon. Smart cookie, that Whims, since her restaurant, along with so many in our area, depends on those same small farmers to supply them with the goodness they feature on their menus!

Details: Guest Chef Series at Lardo: Cathy Whims' Straccetti. Available mid-April through mid-May, $10, with proceeds benefiting Friends of Family Farmers. Lardo East, 1212 SE Hawthorne Blvd.; 503-234-7786. Lardo West, 1205 SW Washington St.; 503-241-2490.

Quick Hits: Lunching on the Go

There are some things it takes me an embarrassingly long time to get around to. Like learning how to roast a chicken. Or, perhaps more surprisingly, trying and subsequently falling in love with bourbon. I'd heard a lot about Rick Gencarelli and his Lardo food cart, but it took until he'd opened not one, but two, brick-and-mortar outlets for me to get in there. The focus, of course, is meat, mostly of the porcine variety, in all its wondrous incarnations: smoked, ground, grilled, braised and fried. There are a couple of vegetarian sandwiches, a few salads, a long tap beer list. (Word is, Gencarelli's planning on simplifying the menu and making it into a chain operation.)

From my visit to their Hawthorne location with the big tent on the corner for even-in-the-rain outdoor dining, that could be a truly great idea. My pork meatball banh mi, with its juicy ground pork balls and vinegar-and-fish-sauce-infused veggies topped by cilantro was a pile of porkyliciousness, and the smoked coppa cubano was a big mouthful of hell yes. Fries tossed with herbs and parmesan were of the could-be-crisper but perfectly decent persuasion. And prices were in the low to moderate range, meaning right around ten bucks for lunch (without beer). For the quality you're getting, that's a steal.

Details: Lardo Eastside, 1212 SE Hawthorne. 503-234-7786.

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Tacos, to me, are the perfect street food, best consumed standing up outside where the juices and, occasionally, some of the contents can trickle onto the ground. Ideally, that would be on a sandy beach in Mexico or from a market stand in the city with people and scooters hustling by loaded down with what will become the day's meals.

Here in Portland we have to take into account what the rain would do to those tacos, so we must compromise on the outdoor aspect on occasion. But the bright, cheery interior of Uno Mas makes that a pleasure, especially with the handmade corn tortillas and authentic fillings and sauces of Oswaldo Bibiano's latest Mexican eatery.

Cheap at $2 each for the "tradicional" (meat) and "vegetal" (veg/cheese) versions and $3.75 for the seafood-laden, these little flavor bombs are priced to mix and match at will. There are also steamed tacos, which I'd never had, small tortillas filled, folded in half, then steamed, that were kind of like mini pupusas. Bibiano himself was in there the day I visited, looking happy with his new baby. As well he should.

Details: Uno Mas Taquiza, 2337 NE Glisan St. 503-208-2764.

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One of the absolute best perks of being a writer is the opportunity to meet and get to know people I might never have had the chance to talk to in my normal life. One of those was an interview with Tina and David Bergen (below left) owners of the landmark restaurant Tina's in Dundee, for last year's spring wine guide in the Oregonian.

So when a friend suggested a field trip out to wine country for lunch and tastings, I hinted that it might be fun to stop at Tina's to check out their spring menu. Lovely and warm but unpretentious, it has to be one of my favorite outside-of-Portland spots, with a dedication to local ingredients—and by local I mean within a mile or two—and letting those ingredients speak for themselves rather than be drowned out by execution.

For example, the fried oysters (right) were simply battered and briefly fried, leaving their fresh brininess still intact, and with a light sorrel mayonnaise that accented, rather than buried, their sweetness. The day's spring pea soup was like tasting a pea shelled right in the garden, and the risotto with asparagus and duck confit was probably one of the best risottos I've ever had, period.

Prices, as you might expect, aren't cheap, but for a special day out in the country in spring, you won't find better, more beautifully prepared ingredients anywhere, or more lovely people.

Details: Tina's, 760 Hwy 99W, Dundee. 503-538-8880.

Photo of David and Tina Bergen by Beth Nakamura for the Oregonian.