Quick Hits: Mekong Bistro, Casba Mediterranean Cafe

Mekong Bistro claims to be Portland's only Cambodian restaurant, and I'm willing to bite. From a brief visit at happy hour—midweek that means from 3 to 6 p.m., perfect for those able to get their drink on early—the cocktail and beer specials are good and the snackage is abundant. But if you want to order some plates to share off the main menu, you'll be amply rewarded with authentic, intensely flavored treats not found on other menus, and nowhere are they executed any better.

That's because the owner's mother, Saroeun Khut, who fled Cambodia with her children after her husband was killed by the Khmer Rouge, is in the kitchen recreating the food of the country she left behind. Take, for instance, Ah-mok, catfish steamed in a banana leaf boat with coconut and lemon grass (top photo). The leaf, folded just so, its prow fastened with a peg to contain the luscious juices of the fish, arrives with slices of cooling cucumber sided with an umami-bomb of a dipping sauce.

Another must-have is the Angel Chicken Wings (above left), painstakingly deboned and stuffed-to-bursting with ground pork, silver noodles, onions and carrot served with a sweet and sour sauce. (Be afraid, Pok Pok, be very afraid.) Myself, I'm going back for the somlaw maju kreoung, called watercress soup on the  menu, a brilliant green broth of greens and beef redolent of tamarind and kaffir lime.

If you go, while the menu also features some Thai-inflected items like pad thai, ask to be pointed in the direction of the Cambodian specials like the chicken salad called nyum that I've heard is also, well, yummy. You'll be in for a rare trip through a Cambodia long gone.

Details: Mekong Bistro, 8200 NE Siskiyou St. 503-265-8972.

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A lot of big cities have great little ethnic restaurants scattered in the downtown core, sandwiched in teeny spaces between office buildings, serving lunch to office workers who don't have time or money for big two-martini (or these days, a single glass of wine) spreads at noontime. Portland has suffered from a dearth of these places, particularly lately with downtown rents skyrocketing, forcing many small businesses out of the central downtown area. One little gem I found recently is Casba Mediterranean Cafe in Old Town across from the NW Natural Gas building.

A clean, tidy spot, it has brightly colored walls with beautifully patterned Middle Eastern tiles and large windows that let the light from the street spill in. Its menu features a good selection of Mediterranean specialties like hummus, falafel, tabbouleh, kabobs, shawarma and gyros, all excellent and exceedingly affordable. A must-have is the Moroccan mint tea, delivered to your table on a silver tray set with a silver teapot, your hand protected from its warm handle by a robed fellow sporting a tarboosh, a type of fez.

Good homemade food, honeyed tea served on a silver tray, all for a song? This is my kind of place.

Details: Casba Mediterranean Cafe, 201 NW Davis St. 971-544-0875.

Hit the Deck

 

On a hot summer day, when there aren't enough fans in the whole world to cool the air in our house, what I want more than anything is a cool drink brought to me as I sit under the dodger of a sailboat out on the river. Since a sailboat isn't exactly close at hand, I've discovered the next best thing at The Deck, my new favorite getaway.

Picture this: a gorgeous sunny day, a comfy deck with a sweeping view of the Columbia River that allows a cooling breeze anywhere from teasing to capable of whipping up (small) whitecaps on the water. Now imagine a happy hour that runs from 11 am to 6 pm with prices on well drinks (including a very nice margarita) for $3.75 and domestic beer for $2.75.

On top of that throw in snacks including a bulging fish taco overflowing with honey batter-crusted halibut showered with cabbage and fresh tomato (with a side of chips and salsa) for $4.75, or maybe a half nacho or a shrimp cocktail for about the same price. It's a great, casual place to take in the river view with out-of-towners or friends, and there's a big awning over part of it for the sun-wary.

What's wrong with this picture? Only the fact that I'm not there right now. Which I will remedy in the very near future, and so should you.

Details: The Deck, 2915 NE Marine Dr. in McCuddy's Marina at the intersection of NE 33rd Dr. and Marine Dr. 503-283-6444.

Bar Food: No Longer an Oxymoron

Back in the day (or "B in the D" as a friend's kid said) you went to a bar to drink. And, except for a bowl of stale store-bought pretzels or nuts, that was pretty much all that was offered in terms of sustenance.

But these days, especially here in Portland, the newer drinking holes are going head-to-head with finer restaurants, building kitchens, hiring chefs to run them and offering patrons everything from small plates to entrées to desserts.

I can remember when Nancy Hunt and Randy Goodman opened Bar Avignon on the then-nascent restaurant row at SE 21st and Division, its tagline was "just a bar." They offered a range of small plates to accompany their well-curated tap list, wine selection and Nancy's excellent cocktails. (Also at that time Randy swore they'd never, ever list a burger on their menu…but a little bird told me that chef Jeremy Eckel may have laced big R's coffee with a little sumpin' sumpin' and that may be about to change. Stay tuned!)

The plates that Ben Bettinger is slinging at Beaker & Flask have put it at the top of dining as well as drinking lists in town, and it's apparent that any bar worth its salt (or fleur de sel) seriously considers its food to be as critical a component of success as the creativity of its cocktail list.

When I had the chance to pick a spot for a happy hour meeting near downtown recently, Teardrop Lounge came up the winner. Word had it that chef Chris Degenhardt was putting out some mighty fine vittles to accompany the bar's top-notch drinks and, from the hour or so I spent there, its definitely a place to seek out for future HH action.

The Dungeness crab salad, a dollop of barely-adulterated crab topped by a hat of pink slaw (upper left) was not only pretty but plenty tasty. It was followed in a timely fashion by a slab of layered beet terrine drizzled with a balsamic reduction (right) that was impressive for its attractiveness while also treating the ingredients minimally, letting their flavors stand out. The same was true of the caramelized onion cazuela (top photo), a more complex flavor combination with the sweetly browned onions topped by a disk of chevre and a spoonful of olivada. I wanted to applaud.

Seems like, between the food that's hitting cocktail tables and the crazy food cart scene around here, if restaurants in town want to survive as more than special occasion choices they're going to need to look across the board at everything from their bar menus to their pricing, because any of the choices above would suit me fine for dinner any night of the week.

Details: Teardrop Lounge, 1015 NW Everett St. 503-445-8109.

Happy Hour: A Plate of This, A Plate of That...

I have to admit that happy hours do just that. They make me happy. I'm happy when someone suggests meeting for a happy hour drink. I'm happy all that day just thinking about it. That evening I'm happy to be sitting and ordering my happy hour drink and little plates of happy hour food. And I'm happiest of all when I get the happy hour check and it's way less than it would be during regular hours.

So when my cousin Julie called and suggested meeting for happy hour, you can imagine how...well...happy I was to accept. We settled on 50 Plates because of its proximity to her workplace and because I hadn't been back since a media dinner last July.

The bar is a tiny place. Just a couple of small tables and maybe eight stools at the bar, so it's either designed to be crowded or they let folks flow over into the dining room. The ceiling is low and the lighting is intimate. Not that it's dark, but it does have a certain sophisticated sleekness with the low lighting, hard surfaces and black-and-white color scheme.

My favorite bartender, Suzanne, holds down the fort on Monday and Tuesday nights, so I knew we were in for a good time. I hadn't had one of her trademark Monique's Gimlets (made with Hendrick's gin) for ages but, alas, they were out of Hendrick's that night. Then, because resourcefulness is the hallmark of a brilliant bartender and Suzanne blows the lid off the Stanford-Binet of mixology, she subbed in a new local gin I hadn't tried called 12 Bridges.

Its flavor derives from the 12 botanicals used in its recipe and it has a distinctive cucumber character as well, perfect for the gimlet. So with that settled, we ordered some nibbles from their bar menu starting with their signature dirty rice beignets (above, right) and, at Suzanne's suggestion, a wedge of iceberg with warmed cherry tomatoes and pancetta drizzled with invisible vinaigrette (left).

A couple of other plates, including one of their house-made pretzels, bronzed and salty, that Suzanne brought on the house, concluded our very happy evening. What more can you ask of an hour of happiness?

Details: Happy Hour at 50 Plates. Mon.-Fri., 3-6 pm. 333 NW 13th Ave. Phone 503-228-5050.

Looking in the Screen Door

It was almost embarrassing. Like when I admitted that, as a native Oregonian, I hadn't ever been to the Steens Mountains in the southeastern corner of Oregon. So one year we decided to remedy the situation and rented a trailer at the Malheur Wildlife Refuge for a week.

Hush puppies.

I had no idea there was a huge wetland right in the middle of the high desert, much less a bird sanctuary teeming with birds stopping on their way across the continent. The Steens themselves were gorgeous with amazing views and mountain goats traipsing over rocky outcroppings. And the French Glen Hotel served a mighty fine and welcome dinner after a day spent gallivanting around the countryside. Glad to have finally paid my respects, I slapped myself for not getting there earlier.

The same feeling washed over me when we finally got around to having dinner at the Screen Door on East Burnside. It was Dave's birthday and, after the requisite happy hour oysters (now $12.95/doz.) at Dan & Louis Oyster Bar, we drove over to the eastside and snagged the last four-top in the room.

Crispy fried buttermilk-battered chicken.

After ordering fried oysters (you can never have too many oysters), hush puppies and drinks, we browsed the very reasonably priced menu of Southern classics. I went with the fried chicken, which consisted of three very large pieces of (as advertised) crisply fried and perfectly done chicken pieces on a bed of mashers with a small ramekin of tasso gravy and a side of braised greens and bacon.

Carolina pulled pork sandwich.

Dave went with the (duh) smoked and barbecued brisket with crispy fried onions and, happily substituted by the waitress, a side of the braised greens. The beef was both a smoky and deeply delicious example of the craft as well as being fall-apart tender. Mr. B chose the Carolina pulled pork sandwich in honor of our recently-departed-for-the-Carolinas friend Richard, though this example, while moist and deliciously smoky, was of the southern (sauce cooked with) rather than northern (sauce added after) variety. The white bread bun was a classic of the genre and the crunchy fries were excellent.

The tab was a nice surprise, too, and considering the amount of food we took home in boxes, well worth the trip. Which made us even more ashamed we hadn't been to this place before.

Details: Screen Door Restaurant, 2337 E Burnside. Phone 503-542-0880.

Happy Happy Hour

Happy hours are aptly named, aren't they? It's the end of the work day, you need a little something to take the edge off and the drinks and/or food are just as good and much cheaper than at dinner. I like to use them for a quick date with Dave after work, or for meeting a friend before going home to make dinner.

Tabla's savory caprese.

The other night was just such an occasion, and I met a friend at Tabla on a warm spring evening. Both of us had family commitments later in the evening, but the five o'clock start time would get us home before the troops started grumbling. We got started with their happy hour drink special, a raspberry margarita, its fresh fruitiness cooling us off from a hectic day.

Raviolo with egg and poppy seeds.

The well-chosen and diverse happy hour menu gave us plenty of options, and we immediately jumped on the caprese with pickled red peppers cleverly substituting for the not-yet-in-season local tomatoes. Of course, with my egg fixation, I couldn't pass up the raviolo stuffed with cheese, herbs and an egg that was sprinkled with poppy seeds and drizzled with oil. This heavenly combination was lovely and silken, and has me wondering how difficult it would be to duplicate at home. (Any suggestions are welcome!)

Lastly, we strayed off the happy hour menu to split an entree of duck confit, my friend's can't-pass-up passion, and I'm glad we scratched her itch. This leg with its perfectly crispy skin around fall-off-the-bone tender meat was one of the best I've had and would be well worth going back for on its own.

Details: Happy hour at Tabla. Tues.-Sat., 5-6:30 pm. Tabla, 200 NE 28th Ave. Phone 503-238-3777.