Destination: Park Kitchen

Happy birthday to me. Danno took me to Park Kitchen for my birthday back in April. This is what I love about Portland...many of the dining establishments have seasonal menus! Living in Southern California helps one forget that there are actual seasons...it's always sunny, the leaves don't change colors and the sky, well, is always the same color (I won't say what color...).

This is not to say that So Cal restaurants don't have seasonal menus. Lucques (where I learned from the best) always has a Market salad and procures from the Santa Monica Farmers Market. But Portland has a strong Locavore movement. Maybe it's more apparent to me because Portland just isn't as expansive of an area as say, the Los Angeles Basin.

Anyway, on to Park Kitchen...it was a quiet night for them. This destination spot sometimes overflows with patrons waiting at the bar to be seating. That night, we were one of maybe four parties after 8pm. The previous Friday was apparently similarly unbusy but the Tuesday before was super busy. The economy is a crazy inconsistent creature.

Everything sounded so delicious that we decided not to decide and ordered the "Tasting Menu." It's the chef's selections for the day or night, as in our case. Let's start at the top...

Sizzling baby octopus...sauteed in butter, butter and more butter. The server recommended that we save the bread for last, in order to dip it into the buttery goodness at the bottom of the skillet. We listened to him the rest of the night.

Farm egg, braised leeks, nettles and duck ham...yeah, duck ham. I'm not the biggest fan of nettle but in combination with the creamy egg, tender leeks, and the flavorful duck oink, it was quite tasty.

You might not be able to tell, because I couldn't until I bit into it but that's a clam salad. Razor clams, celery root remoulade and ham to be precise. There was a surprising repetition of seemingly similar ingredients (clam, nettle, ham-ness) in the tasting menu but everything was refreshing. The julienned razor clam was tender and is warming me up to the larger clam's texture.

Nettle fettucini, saffron braised cipollini and clams was a surprise. I usually enjoy my smaller clams tossed in black bean sauce and my green pasta is usually spinach, so imagine my surprise when this plate arrived at the table. The fettucini was a tad more bitter than the standard green pasta but was nicely balanced by the mild cipollini onions.

Then we had Nic's sprouted salad with quinoa crunch. Apparently Nic is one of the cooks and grows sprouts in his garden. The salad reminded me of the Magic Mix from Jazzy Sprouts (sold at many So. Cal. farmers markets). The quinoa crunch was a thin, sweet cracker. It was simple and might have been my favorite part of the meal.

We finished the meal with a sticky date pudding with whipped yogurt and sesame and a rhubarb consumme, hibiscus, goat cheese panna cotta. I wasn't too crazy about the rhubarb or hibiscus but I loved the panna cotta. The other dessert ironically did not stick in my mind.

For us, the meal was definitely better than the dessert. It was a slow night for them so I hope that business picks up again for them this summer because it is a definite destination spot.