Ristorante Fratelli

Last Friday my friend Chris and I were walking through the Pearl District looking for a place to have dinner when we came upon Fratelli. The restaurant was full, so we ate in the Bar Due where they also serve the full menu. The restaurant specializes in regional Italian dishes with seasonal local ingredients. We had the chilled corn and avocado soup and the seasonal green salad to start. Both were very good and well portioned. For entrees we tired the ravioli and the risotto. The Cantrell mushrooms that were part of the ravioli were amazing and the risotto had a great pesto sauce. We topped it off with two nice deserts, the chocolate cake and a peach pie. They had a very extensive wine list, but unfortunately it was (in my opinion) overpriced. While the food and service we both very good, I thought the meal was too expensive compared to many of the other great places you can eat in Portland.

Fratelli dining room hours: Sun-Thurs, 5pm-9pm, Fri, Sat, 5pm-10pm

Bar Dué hours: Sun-Thurs, 4:30pm-12am, Fri, Sat, 4:30pm-1am

1230 NW Hoyt St

Portland, OR

503-241-8800

fratellicucina.com

U2 - War

This pick is long over due, and a dedication to my brother Stephen who is a huge U2 fan. This was a very difficult decision between War and The Joshua Tree. I love both records, but I have to go with War because I feel like this was when U2 was at the top of their game. I kind of see U2 as the Rolling Stones of my generation, they are still great in concert and every now and again they put out a great record. From the release of War in 1983 to the release of The Joshua Tree in 1987 they were unstoppable, and could do no wrong. Since then there has been some great, 1991's Achtung Baby and some not so good, 1997's Pop. Still no doubt they are one of the most important bands of the 80's and 90's and they are still relevant today.

Dreams

I usually don't remember my dreams, and if I do I am not one to analyze them too deeply. I don't feel they have much meaning and are probably just the subconscious running wild as we slumber. However, every now and then a strange thing happens when you are dreaming and it does make you wonder. Last night I was having a strange dream and for some reason I was able to freeze time whenever a distinct bell would ring. This happened about three times before I woke up and realized that the sound was actually my phone alerting me that I had received a text. It was very interesting to me that I had incorporated something from the real world into my dream. I know this may not sound too unique as dreams usually incorporate familiar places and people, but I thought it was cool that I was actually incorporating a real time event.

So, I did a little research to see if this was a normal occurrence or if it had a deeper meaning. As I am sure most people know, there are several dreams we all seem to have. Chase dreams mean we are anxious about something; naked dreams, as in being naked in public, mean you are trying to hide something; and falling dreams mean you are out of control or overwhelmed. So what about the ability to freeze time? To dream about time, indicates your fears of not being able to cope with the pressures and stresses of everyday life. If time is flying or moving slowly, then it represents aging and growing old. Not as specific as I would like but OK.

I couldn't find out anything about incorporating real time events into your dream. The closest I got is the lucid dream, but this is when a person is dreaming and they know they are dreaming. I did not know I was dreaming, I thought what I was doing was very real. Unfortunately, I don't remember doing anything super cool when I froze time, but I think it would be a good superpower.

Ned Ludd

Last night we had one of the best meals we have had in a long time. Our friends Jenny and Al Campbell suggested we try Ned Ludd, for our "quarterly" dinner together. It was the first time for all of us, despite the restaurant being almost a year old. Ned Ludd was started by Jason French & Ben Meyer two veterans of the Portland restaurant scene. The building used to be a pizza restaurant, so they inherited a great brick oven that they use to prepare some of their best dishes.

The menu is divided up into forebits, or appetizers, of which the house pickle plate and charcuterie board were excellent. Kaltbits or cold bites, which are the salads and such, I can highly recommend the heirloom tomato salad, with cucumbers and an excellent spicy sauce. This will not be in season much longer, so hurry if you are interested in that. Which brings up a point very much worth mentioning, all the food is seasonal, sustainably grown here in the Portland area. Next we moved on to the warmbits, from which we enjoyed the summer squash, the meat pie! (that's right it has a ! at the end of it that is well deserved) and the mac and cheese or elbows 'n' mornay as they call it. Of all the food we got, the mac and cheese was the only mediocre thing, but as Al said, it's still mac and cheese. As entrees, we choose two of the "plats" or larger plates. The ruby trout was highly recommended and lived up to its billing, but the smoked hen breast with chantrell mushrooms was no slouch. To close it all off, we had the wood fired s'mores from the rearbits or desert menu. While not my favorite dessert, they were a fun way to close out a great meal.

I can't say enough about the food and the service, everything was excellent and the prices were also very reasonable. As a bonus, we chatted with the chefs when they finally slowed down in the kitchen. We were all invited back for fresh ground hamburgers on the outdoor BBQ Thu-Mon from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. that sounds like a can't miss.

Serving Dinner: Thursday through Monday starting at 5pm. Serving Lunch: Ned Ludd Porch serves grilled and applewood smoked items Thurs-Mon, 11-7.

Ned Ludd

3925 NE Martin Luther King Jr Blvd.
Portland, OR 97212

503 288 6900

nedludd.com

Facebook App

About a month ago facebook launced a major upgrade to their iPhone app and I have to say it is a huge improvement. They have made it function much more like the main website with nine easy to navigate sections: news feed, inbox, photos, calendar, profile, etc. It is a lot easier to update and add photos now and most importantly the news feed looks like the website. If you are on facebook and you haven't downloaded this I would recommend you add it, it makes it a lot easier to stay up to speed on all things facebook.

Not Drowning Waving - Tabaran

When I was younger, I was more inclined to buy records by bands I had never heard of; Tabaran by Not Drowning, Waving is one of the great successes of that policy. Tabaran is a Kuanuan word spoken by the Tolais people who live in Papua New Guinea. In collaboration with local musicians, Australian eclectics Not Drowning, Waving produced an album that combines rock and pop textures, ambient production, traditional Papuan material, and then-contemporary PNG musical approaches, though the liner notes warn against any illusion of ethnic musical purity. Upon its original release in 1988 it was critically acclaimed and commercially successful, almost going gold. The 2005 deluxe reissue has been completely remastered, and comes with a bonus DVD containing short films, one for every track. There is also a hidden track 9½ minutes after the end of the listed cuts, a brief but amusing stringband outing. Resurrecting this record makes me want to check out the rest of the NDW catalog.

The Day Trip

The one day business trip is always an adventure. When you have to get on an airplane to go somewhere you should stay more than a few hours. Preferably, you should get a hotel room and a nice dinner, but in these fast paced, austier days, you have to get in and out as fast as possible. Today we went down to San Francisco for a presentation that went from 11 AM to 6 PM. It was great to see the people we were presenting to in-person, but you also tend to try to pack everything you can into the short time you are together. I was especially disappointed that I didn't get to spend any time in San Francisco. Our client's offices are in the Persidio, which is an old army base, and it is a great area. It also has a great golf course I would have loved to play. As we drove out of the park through Pacific Heights, I marvelled at the amazing architecture; there are so many great, old Victorian houses and churches, as well as a few cool modern buildings thrown in.

The flight back was pretty quick, but the Horizon plane we were on was small, so even though I was in an exit row I didn't have much leg room. All I could think about was how great it was going to be to get home and watch a little Sportscenter before bed. Of course, that was not to be as I had left the lights on in my car and my battery was dead. The good news is PDX has a fast and free jump start service, so I was out of there within 20 minutes. Still a long day.

Bus knitting season kicks off today

Knitting is back! I have not seen anyone knitting on the bus all summer, but now that the weather is getting a little colder, people are starting to knit those wool hats and sweaters again. Here's a guy who is easily in his 50's happily knitting away with his iPod on. I am having a hard time imagining what he could be making, maybe a nice scarf.

Rebirth Brass Band - Ultimate

The Rebirth Brass Band is in my opinion the best contemporary New Orleans vintage marching style band. The group formed in the early '80s while they were still in high school. They include multiple trombone, trumpet, tuba and percussion instuments that create booming uptempo tunes, spirituals, rags, marching numbers, and originals. We used to go see Rebirth at the Maple Leaf bar in New Orleans and it was a crazy scene. Now-a-days, I hear they are playing at Rock 'n' Bowl, which would be a great place to see them too. It is very hard to recreate the live Rebirth experience on a recording, but at least this compilation has all their best songs and if you turn it up really loud, in a small sweaty room, you can start to get the picture.

Portland Noir

Inspired by the best-selling Brooklyn Noir, Portland Noir is now part of the series of books that investigates the darker side of the city: crime, drugs and murder. Each story is set in a familiar Portland neighborhood, sprinkled with recognizable landmarks, from the Shanghai Tunnels, dog parks, dive bars, sex shops, Powell's Books, Voodoo Doughnuts, the Pearl District, Oaks Amusement Park, to one of our many strip clubs. Violent crime, petty mischief, and personal tragedy run through these mysterious tales. In fact, if you have spent any time at all in the city, many of the characters are instantly recognizable. The most disconcerting stories are the ones that are closest to home, literally. Mt Tabor (my 'hood) is the setting for a house break-in that goes terribly wrong. It was all too real reading about the junky casing the street looking for a house that would be easy to break into. I could almost hear myself thinking, please don't pick our house.

The Portland series includes authors: Gigi Little, Justin Hocking, Christopher Bolton, Jess Walter, Monica Drake, Jamie S. Rich, Dan DeWeese, Zoe Trope, Luciana Lopez, Karen Karbo, Bill Cameron, Ariel Gore, Floyd Skloot, Megan Kruse, Kimberly Warner-Cohen, and Jonathan Selwood. Of course some of the stories are better than others, and in some the locations and local references seem more forced than others, but overall this is an enjoyable collection that was a good read.

How much coffee do you need?

I need to say upfront that I do not drink coffee, so I don't understand why people need to spend $5 for a bucket of coffee in the morning to get going. I understand that caffeine is a stimulant, but a little moderation needs to be practiced here. The cup I saw on the bus this morning looked like the size before you move up to a Big Gulp.

I also think it's strange that coffee shops don't have small or regular coffee's anymore. I have heard all the jokes about the fancy names they use, but they basically start at medium and go up from there. My favorite is venti, it sounds pretentious, but it's Italian for 20, as in 20 oz. I have never personally seen an Italian drink a 20 oz coffee, they all sip it out of little espresso cups. I think an Italian would be sick if they saw the sizes of our coffee cups. If you need 20 oz of coffee to wake up in the morning, you may need to re-evaluate your sleeping habits. Of course, you probably can't sleep as you are so full of caffeine. And wait till you try to save some money and cut back on your coffee intake. That's when you find out coffee is just as addictive as nicotine.

Two for Tuesday

"Two for Tuesday" has become a weekly tradition with the golf team here at W+K. Every Tuesday around noon we hike over to the Taco del Mar in the Pearl and get two tacos, rice and beans, and a drink for $5.00. It is one of the best deals in town and the food is really good. I first tried Taco del Mar when it opened downtown in the late 90's and I was not a huge fan of their signature dish, the fish tacos, so I was reluctant to go at first. I have totally turned around on them now and can heartily recommend the tacos and burritos.

I usually get one chicken and one pork soft, flour taco, with the refried beans and rice, but the also have meat and fish as well as hard tacos and soft corn tortillas. There are healthier black beans, if you are not into refried or you can substitute chips and queso if you are not into the beans at all. They also have great salsas, with your choice of hot, medium or mild; I find the medium has a pretty good kick without overpowering the food. The service is fast and the folks that work there are always nice, but of course it is a chain, so it'll depend on where you are, and as I said the prices can't be beat. To top it all off, they also give you a punch card, after 10 Tuesdays, you get a freebie. We are close to filling up our fourth card and are thinking of having a winner take all competition for the cards, so one lucky person would eat free for a week.

Check out the Taco del Mar website for loactions, menus, etc.

Lebanon, Oregon

We took a nice trip down to Lebanon Oregon this weekend to visit Barbara's sister Dede and her husband Jeff. We brought our niece Tanna, who lives in Portland, along to see her Mom and get some good food. Lebanon is a longer drive than I remembered. For some reason I thought it was between Portland and Salem, but it is about 20 miles further down the I-5 and a little east. It is also bigger than I remembered. It is an interesting mix of small Oregon town and the generic stuff you can find anywhere. There is an old school burger place a couple of miles before you get to town, called Sally Mays, that I want to try out the next time we go down there.

That may be hard to do as you always get a great meal at Dede's house. This trip was no exception as we had an amazing eggplant and Chicken Parmesan. We brought down one of Matt's amazing cheesecakes, carmel and apple, for desert. It rained the entire way down there, but luckily the sun came out and we were able to sit out in the garden for a while after lunch. Dede has done a great job with her garden, she has ton's of vegetables as well as strawberries, and grapes growing back there. We left with a great jar of salsa and strawberry jam. We finished the salsa within 20 minutes of getting home.

Beastie Boys - Paul's Boutique

The Beastie Boys are an interesting one as they have put out a lot of great singles, but only one great record. Paul's Boutique was panned when it was first released and did not sell well on the heels of the million selling, Licensed to Ill, but in retrospect it is now seen as the band's most important record. The Beastie Boys started out as punk rockers, but switched to rap in the early 80's. After creating a following in NY, they were signed to Def Jam and powered by the single, "Fight for Your Right (To Party)," they blew up. However, there were a lot of haters as many in the hip-hop community were not too excited about three white Jewish kids "pirating" their sound. After being dismissed by critics as a frat band, and a ugly lawsuit with Def Jam, they left NY and regrouped in LA. They teamed up with the Dust Brothers and tried something a lot more cerebral the second time around with Paul's Boutique. It is a dense, layered record with samples and beats that take a few listens to appreciate. While "Hey Ladies" hit the top 40, this is more of a start to finish record than anything the Beasties have done before or since. To this day, it still stands up as their best work.

Esparza's Tex Mex

Esparza's in another long time favorite that for some reason I have never reviewed here on M+W.

When we first moved here from LA I was worried that there would be no Mexican food in Portland. That fear was assuaged by finding Esparza's. I should start out by saying I like traditional Mexican food, some of the best restaurants I have ever been to are in Mexico City (great seafood), but I don't like California Mexican with all the sour cream and cilantro and a burrito is not Mexican to me. If you are going to bastardize Mexican food, the only way to do it is Tex Mex. That means plenty of spicy meat and cheese rolled in tortillas with rice and refried beans on the side. That means fajitas with chips and salsa to start. That means margaritas and cold beer. Esparza's does not have fajitas on the menu, but they are heavy on all the other favorites as well as some interesting diversions.

Joe Esparza learned his recipes from his mom growing up in San Antonio. He has great tacos, tamales, and enchiladas filled with cheese, chicken or beef, but if you are the adventursome type you can also get them filled with ostrich, salmon or buffalo. My favorite dish is the Cowboy Tacos, which are three large tacos filled with beef brisket and BBQ sauce. I like to get a side of pico de guyo to make sure each taco is loaded up. They also have great margaritas, I recommend the Cadilac, on the rocks, no salt. They also have a wide range of tecillas and beers. On Thursday nights they have my favorite Texas dish, chicken fried steak with mashed potatoes and gravy. It is awesome. On top of great food and quick service, you will also get some pretty cool ambience. There is a lot of 50's style cowboy art, stuffed armadillos and dozens of marionettes that hang from the ceiling. This place has been around for a long time, but is still one of Portland's best.

Mon-Sat 11:30am-10pm (in summer Fri-Sat until 10:30pm)

Esparza's Tex Mex

2725 SE Ankeny St

Portland, OR

(503) 234-7909

Role Models

Wheeler (Seann William Scott, Stiffler from American Pie) and Danny Donahue (Paul Rudd, who also gets a screenwriter credit here) are the two worst role models you could ever hope your kids to be hooked up with. That's basically the pitch. Wheeler and Danny are in dead-end jobs, only Wheeler does not know it. When Danny comes face to face with this fact, and a break-up with his girlfriend Beth (Elizabeth Banks), he looses it and crashes the promotional truck they drive from school to school touting an energy drink. To keep themselves out of jail they have to become "bigs" for an after school mentor program. Their "littles" are a sassy, foul mouthed little kid named Ronnie (Bobb'e J. Thompson) and a little-too-old for the program, role-playing geek, Augie (Christopher Mintz-Plasse or as we know him, McLovin'). While the story gets a little corny in a few places, overall the interaction between Wheeler and Danny and the kids is hilarious. Jane Lynch, who has made a career out of playing weirdos (she is always a special treat in any Christopher Guest movie) does it again as the overly enthusiastic director of the mentor program. But the guy who takes the cake for weird is Ken Jeong. You might remember him from the guy who jumps out of the trunk of a car, naked and attacks the bachelors in The Hangover. In Role Models he plays King Argotron the ruler of the role-playing world. Equally creepy and scene stealing. As I said, this movie gets a little cheesy at the end, but it is still very funny and a great weekend rental.

Jury Duty

A few months ago I received a federal jury summons for Tuesday, September 1st. I was to report to the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse at 8:30 a.m. for possible jury duty. You don't know if you are going to be needed until the day before, so it is hard to schedule meetings at work that day, but you can call at 4:00 p.m. to check on your status. If a case is terminated without a trial, you will not be needed. So, I dutifully brought my summons to work and set a reminder to call at 4:00 to see if I was going to be fulfilling my civic duty. For some reason the reminder popped up at 2:00 p.m. and I some how screwed up the repeat, because I did not get another reminder that evening.

In fact, I did not get another reminder until 7:30 a.m. this morning, as I was about to head out on a run. Of course, I could not call from home as I had left all the information at work, but luckily the offices opened at 8:00 a.m. and surely I could talk to someone and see if I was needed. Wrong. It was an automated service with no live person to talk to. I jumped in the car and got to work as quickly as possible. At 8:25 I called the clerk's office and found out I would not be needed. Good thing, I don't think I could have made it to the courthouse from my office in five minutes. So, not the end of the world, I missed my run, but I got to the office a little early, and now I won't miss any of the meetings I had scheduled. Wrong again, all four of the meetings I had on the schedule today have been cancelled or moved. September is off to a good start.