Central

I was prepared to hate this place. First, it's owned by the people who own Perreira Creperie, where I once waited 45 minutes - for a sidewalk crepe - before finally asking for my money back. Second, the design is eye-rollingly trendy, with a mounted deer head, old windmill ceiling fan and laboratory stools. And finally, I thought the whole speakeasy thing was really pretentious. But someone told me they had good drinks so I checked it out.

And, they do have really good drinks, and good service, and those are pretty much the only two things I care about when I go out for cocktails. The bartender, Lydia, is fresh off a stint at PDT in NYC, and not only that but she's actually really nice and hospitable. There is a creative and well-executed cocktail list, respectable back bar, and of course crepes. It can be a cocktail geek bar if you want it to be, or it can be just somewhere you go for a drink with your friend or after work. And best of all, when I was there, there were no annoying people getting in the way of me enjoying my drink (a delicious flip with cognac, Benedictine, absinthe, orange bitters and nutmeg). All in all it's a great, laid-back but good-drink-producing place and I'm planning to go back. Exposed filament lightbulbs be damned.

220 SW Ankeny, Portland

Dinner: The Most Beautiful Word In The English Language

I've been cooking delicious things again and I want to talk about it. It's not that fancy.

Dinner last night: Yogurt chicken with roasted turnips

Turnips:
Cut in big chunks, throw in a pan and drizzle with oil, salt and pepper. Roast at 450 until they start to brown (or throw them in to broil at the same time you do the chicken). Check on them and stir them around once or twice when you think about it.

Chicken:
Slather boneless/skinless chicken breasts with full-fat yogurt, cumin, paprika, coriander and a little salt. Don't be shy about the spices. Put it under the broiler for 10 minutes each side.


Dinner tonight: Lazy sausage, kale and corn

Heat up some olive oil in a big pot. Slice up a thing of kale and a package of precooked sausages. Especially chicken-apple or chicken-mango. Throw those in the pan with a package of frozen corn. Salt and pepper it. Put a lid on it so it steams in the liquid from the kale. You could also pour some beer in there and that would probably be really good, but it's really tasty without too. Give it a stir now and then. It's ready when the kale is not a total chore to eat.

Boar and Beer

Chris Carriker, who's been head chef at Gilt Club for about a year, is having a lot of fun at work, as was evident in the all-out wild boar dinner he and Gilt owner Jamie Dunn hosted there on Wednesday. He got his hands on a whole 77-pound boar and made charcuterie, roasts and even dessert out of it, blowing the minds of a table full of chefs, food bloggers and their lucky plus-ones.

A seven-course spectacle of deliciously rich, salty, gamey wild boar interpretations gives lots of chances to toy around with drink pairings. I like pairing with this kind of food because it stands up to a lot without being overwhelmed. Whiskey drinks worked well - I had a Brooklyn and my arm candy had a Sazerac - but the Rodenbach Grand Cru Lucy and Tony brought and generously shared with us was even better.

Rodenbach is a Belgian sour beer (by way of Saraveza) with a lot of personality. It's fresh and funky sort of like a saison, and sour and fruity sort of like Duchesse de Bourgogne but without the sweetness. The combination of bold flavor and crisp tartness meant the beer shone articulately through the whole meal while also working to cleanse the palate. It was a great match for everything on the table - mellow but unbelievably flavorful boar loin and liver sausage, butter lettuce salad with snacky crisp boar ears and bacon, fatty trotters with foie gras and mushrooms, perfect gnocci with bits of melty slow-cooked boar, boar tenderloin roast with succulent succotash, some sort of boar something wrapped in chicken skin with more foie gras, and the so-wrong-it's-right boar liver creme caramel with figs and berries.

I've been reluctant to accept the coming autumn, but if it provides a suitable environment for sturdy, warming flavors like these, I think I can handle it. After a summer of delicious but direct food-as-fuel, I want to have fun with it too. Thanks guys.

Interesting Fact

I've stopped blogging for the moment but I'm still obsessing about food and drinks. You can read about it on Twitter.

Delicious Thing of the Week: Eggs

A hardboiled egg eaten over the sink, with salt, is one of my favorite kinds of minutes. Eggs are also necessary for matzoh brie.

Doner Kebab

Shwarma, kebab, tandoori kebab, all of that kind of stuff. I like it. I like eating it on the street at night and I like eating it for lunch. The doner kebab version is really great. It is full of interesting, savory, balanced flavors and just saucy enough. Here the meat is turkey. (I think. The menu only refers to it vaguely as "kebab meat.") The pita is fluffy and toasty. Also, the fries are battered. And you can actually go inside and sit down. In their weird mall-like restaurant. And eat a doner kebab.

515 SW 4th, by Washington

Fog Cutter

One thing I like about being an adult is that you can go out on a weeknight if you want to. On Tuesday I went with a friend to Thatch, which is one of those bars I love but hardly ever visit because it's more than 10 blocks from my apartment.

Thatch is a super gung-ho tiki bar, with a bunch of authentic, amazing decor from (I think) Trader Vic's and the Jasmine Tree. Mix blowfish lamps above the sunken bar, a giant clam shell holding paper towels in the bathroom, and dark, colorful lights with cheap vintage furniture and a small space, and you get an atmospheric but comfy and unpretentious... uh, beach hut? You can get fruity, tropical drinks and not be embarrassed, because that is the point, and classic tiki cocktails actually taste good. They have different kinds of rum and cherry heering and things like that. They will also fuck you up pretty good so take it slow - less drinking, more talking.