Tag: Brunch

Restaurant Review: Besaw’s (for dinner!)

About a month ago, Jonah and I were contacted by a local PR company to join them for dinner at a restaurant that’s a client of theirs, Besaw’s. Now, if you know anything about Portland, you know it’s a brunch city. Everyone goes to brunch, the lines are hours long, and brunch places are known for just that, BRUNCH. Besaw’s is one of these places. It’s known for its amazing brunch. The one time I tried to go, it was an hour and a half wait, and I was on a schedule, so I couldn’t stay. But if a place has an hour and a half wait, and people are WAITING, you bet your bottom it’s good.

The lovely dining room at Besaw's, feeling cozy and warm.

When I had long ago looked at the brunch menu, I had also glanced at the dinner menu, and let me tell you, it looked good. So I was pretty excited to have an excuse to drive across town (read: 20 minutes in Portland rush hour, really not so bad) to eat there. Now, I’m going to start with the end of our meal, because the owner, Cana Flug joined us before dessert and told us about how she came to own Besaw’s and the history of the place, and it’s quite cool. The restaurant has been around since 1903, when it was opened by loggers George Besaw and Medric Liberty as a beer hall. When the prohibition rolled around, Besaw became the sole owner and started serving food. Fast forward about 80 years, to when Cana started frequenting Besaw’s (it became a favorite spot and she lived nearby) and became friends with the owners. When they were ready to sell, they asked her if she wanted the place and, at the ripe age of 25, she said yes. Can you imagine owning a restaurant at age 25? I certainly cannot. The restaurant is sweet in the evening – nice lighting, and a very cozy and homey feeling. That, plus the fact that we were sitting with all these awesome, food-loving, powerful women, made the whole evening so comfortable and fun, filled with lots of stories and laughs.

On to the food: we started with cocktails and appetizers, specifically the Besaw’s Board (the house charcuterie board), fried pickles with a spicy aioli dipping sauce, and roasted mushrooms over polenta with marsala sauce. I shared these starters with Brooke, one of the publicists from Little Green Pickle, as well as Rebekah and Bee, two other food bloggers. My favorite of the starters was the mushrooms with polenta – so flavorful and the polenta was perfectly creamy. Yum.

Jannie holds a light while the photo shoot occurs, and Cana (owner of Besaw's) looks on and laughs.

We ordered our entrees while we waited for the rest of our party (Carrie and Jannie, the founders of Little Green Pickle). Our table quickly filled as the plates came out: Mac and Cheese, Fried Chicken over a Cheddar-Chive Waffle, Baked Fish (I think it was trout), Meatloaf, and the Elk Burger with an egg over easy on top. Carrie and Jannie arrived, and then came my favorite part of the evening. As a food blogger, I am constantly taking pictures of my food, which I think can be odd or annoying to the people around me. But surrounded by other food bloggers and lovers, everyone, and I mean EVERYONE at the table, whipped out their cellphones and started taking pictures of the dishes. Jannie even used her flash as a light to shine on the dishes in the dimly lit restaurant. It must have been a scene to the diners around us, but I thought it was hilarious.

Besaw's meatloaf with bacon, pan sauce, and roasted veggies.Besaw's takes on chicken and waffles: crispy fried chicken with a cheddar-chive waffle on the side. And syrup. Don't forget the syrup.

All of the food was really lovely, and it was definitely comfort food. But you know how comfort food can be really filling and heavy and make you feel like “oh, I should not have eaten all of that” afterwards? This did not feel like that. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t light, but it was really enjoyable to eat. The flavors were so homey and full without being overwhelming. My favorite dish, the meatloaf, was a surprise to me. I never liked meatloaf growing up, and if it’s on a menu, I never ever order it. But this meatloaf was so good. It had some bacon on it (let’s face it, bacon never hurts) and was served over roasted veggies (which are a serious weakness for me) and drizzled with some pan sauce. Oh gosh it was so good. I could have eaten that whole plate by my lonesome if I hadn’t been sharing with 6 other people. Also, the fried chicken was delicious – not too heavy and so crispy.

Besaw's Butterscotch pudding (in a cute little jar) served with molasses cookies and seasonal bread pudding (this one had lots of rosemary and was very fragrant).

After dinner, Cana sat down with us and talked to us about the history of the restaurant and her food and philosphy. She is extremely cool. I hope, should you decide to eat here (which you totally should) that you bump into her. She is enthusiastic, sweet, and very bright. After telling us her story, I heard perhaps my favorite words of the night when, after we had all been poring over the dessert menu, Cana told our waitress, “Just bring us one of everything.” Um, yes please. Again, the table was filled with plates of chocolate cake, bread pudding, apple betty, a chocolate chip skillet cookie (with a scoop of salted caramel ice cream), and my personal favorite, butterscotch pudding. Again, I was surprised by what ended up being my favorite dish – I am not usually a fan of butterscotch and I do not usually order pudding, but here I was wishing I had a jar of the stuff to myself. The butterscotch was perfectly subtle, and the pudding itself was so rich and creamy. A close second was the chocolate chip skillet cookie, which was perfectly crispy and crunchy on the edges and chewy in the center, balanced by the cool ice cream.

Overall, I could not have been more pleased with the meal. The service was lovely, company was fun, and the food made me feel like someone’s grandmother was cooking me dinner. Because the food was so homey, I immediately felt comfortable in this setting and with these new friends. I am of the belief that food should bring people together, bond them, and give them a shared, pleasurable experience.

Restaurant Review: The Wandering Goose

It even looks pretty, right?

Whenever I go home to Seattle, there is a big old question to ask: Where do we eat? See, every member of my family is a foodie just like me, and we want to eat only delicious things. So when Jonah and I were there before New Year’s, my dad took us to this tiny little place on Capitol Hill called The Wandering Goose. The menu is full of biscuit sandwiches and delicious looking pastries, and it’s obviously good, because the place’s 10 or so tables are packed, with a line halfway from the counter to the door.

And for dessert, pastries.

The fare at The Wandering Goose is all seasonally inspired and very affordable. We started with the special biscuit sandwich, which, on the day we went, was ground wild boar in some kind of tomato-based sauce with cornmeal crusted jalapeno slices and a sunny side up duck egg. The biscuit was lovely: light, flakey, and full of flavor. The filling was nice and spicy, without being too much so for breakfast. The other main dish we ordered was braised beef brisket, vegetables, potatoes, and two poached eggs, served in a mini cast-iron skillet. This was my favorite: the beef fell apart and was so flavorful, and the little bits of potatoes and veggies were nice to have mixed in to lighten the dish up. And of course, who can say no to poached eggs? I loved how the yolk ran over the beef and made everything that little bit richer. Yum.

For our second course, we returned to the counter and got an apple-rosemary hand pie and a slice of the pecan blueberry coffeecake. The coffeecake was good, but paled in comparison to the hand pie. I have been wanting to make hand pies for a while now (I mean, have you seen this recipe?), and this one was definitely in an inspiration. While I wish the rosemary had been chopped into smaller pieces, the amount of rosemary was lovely: more than just a hint, but not overpowering. And the crust was dusted with sugar and perfectly crumbly. I definitely recommend this place for breakfast if you’re in the area, whether for some pastries on the go or any of the breakfast plates or biscuit sandwiches!

Restaurant Review: Tasty n Sons



A few weeks ago, my mom and her boyfriend and my sisters ALL were in town. They came to see me and Jonah do a gig out at Edgefield winery in Troutdale. Which was really fun. The morning after the gig, we decided to go to Tasty n Sons for brunch. I’d been once before, and man was it good. And man was the wait long. But worth it, I think.

So we went, and yes, the wait was long. But while we waited, we sat back behind the restaurant by Chop, the butchery, and watched the cooks at the restaurant make bacon. There are worse ways to spend your time, don’t you think?

When we finally sat down, we ordered far too much food. I ordered the steak and eggs, which comes with an amazing jalapeno cornmeal pancake below some delicious scrambled eggs and marinated steak. We also ordered bacon-wrapped dates with maple syrup, the breakfast board, and polenta and sausage ragu with mozzarella and a fried egg, among other things. The polenta was delicious! Creamy and cheesy with yummy ragu, and covered in runny yolk.

Then came the breakfast board. It had… teriyaki beef jerky, some bacon-y type stuff, bread with delicious sweet cheese, some kind of pate, and Hood strawberries. It was good.

And I sat waiting for my steak and eggs, trying not to eat too much of anything else so I wasn’t too full to eat my dish. And I waited… and waited… and waited… And it didn’t come. So I finally asked about it, and our waitress had forgotten to put in the order. So she put in the order and I figured, oh they’ll rush it, so it won’t take that long. But it still took kind of a long time. At this point, everyone else had finished eating and we were all pretty full. To apologize they brought biscuits with gravy, which was good, but all I really wanted was my steak and eggs! So eventually I asked to just have them put it in a box, and I took it home. And actually, it made really good leftovers. I ate it for lunch the next 2 days.

Now, even though my food didn’t come in time for me to eat it, everything else was really very good. Even after the fact, my dish was really good. The place is a Portland staple, and worth the long wait, in my opinion. The previous time I went, I didn’t have to wait too long for any of my food. So you know, I think this just happens to me a lot (see what happened to me at Stopsky’s). So I would definitely recommend Tasty n Sons! Just know that it’s busy and loud, and that the food is delicious.