Oktoberfest and Grüner

I think that the weekends my mom comes to visit result in the best Princeton Eats Portland posts, and I know that is because my mom and I do some damn good eating. This past weekend was no different.

Friday night, a friend of mine and I picked up my mom and headed straight to Gustavs/Rheinlander for Oktoberfest. Not one of the three of us expected the festivities that were occurring in the tent covered parking lot adjacent to the restaurant - long tables packed with people guzzling beer out of 1.5 liter steins, a German band playing all the latest polka hits, sausages, pretzels, and fondue galore. Above are some pictures to give you an idea of how awesome it was.

We may have indulged in a bit too much beer, and had it not been for the sausages, pretzels, bread and fondue we ate, it might have been a rough Saturday morning. Instead, my mom and I hopped out of bed around 7am to run 10 miles. "Hopped out of bed" is not really what we did, but we did run the easiest 10 miles either of us have ever run. We agree that perhaps we hadn't yet metabolized all the alcohol from the night before making the run a bit easier. Who knows.

After the run, we wiled away the day eating and drinking and watching football, basically wasting time until dinner. Not to downplay the eating and drinking we did; we had a wonderful breakfast at Bakery Bar, beers at Migration, lunch at Pambiche, then more beers at Migration. Oh, and a hunt for remaining Missoni for Target stuff resulting in a THROW PILLOW for me! And my mom scored an adorable zig zag bikini bottom for $6.  Why it was marked down is a mystery.  A fantastic mystery.

Thank you to whoever returned this to the Mall 205 Target:

Then, the next event: dinner at Grüner. I have been hearing hype about Gruner for many months now, but this was the first chance I got to dine there. We started with a charcuterie plate consisting of, from top right moving clockwise, country pate, rabbit mortadella, salame gentile, liverwurst canapes, speck, spicy coppa, and house made pickles and mustard.

The speck was the star of the show. I have never had speck served like prosciutto. And, yes, I know speck is smoked prosciutto, but I usually see it diced and used in small amounts. Thinly sliced and served alone is a marvelous way to eat it.  Who knew?  The liverwurst canapes and the country pate came in a close second.

Next was frenched green beans, duck breast, blackberries, goat cheese, hazelnuts, black currant vinaigrette, and crisped shallots.  Absolutely delicious.

For the entree, we split grilled golden trout with a white corn ragout, crayfish sauce, and crisped speck and a mixed grill of sudan farms rack lamb chops and cevapcici - spicy slovenian lamb & beef sausages, cherry tomato-parsley salad, and cucumber-yoghurt salad with mint.

And this wasn't all the great food we ate.  Stay tuned for the rest of our eats!

Bon appetit.

Beef Panang Curry

The green papaya salad I made yesterday gave me a hankering for more Thai food. When I went to Fubonn to purchase the ingredients for the salad, I also stocked up on things like good curry paste and coconut milk. Since I have a ton of beef, as you know, and panang curry goes so well with beef, that is what I settled on for dinner.


I am tired, it has been a long week, and I need to pack for my upcoming trip to New Jersey, so let's get to business.


About 10 oz beef filet or tenderloin, thinly sliced
About 1/2 lb green beans, cut into 2 inch pieces 
1 red bell pepper, cut into 1/4 inch strips
16 oz coconut milk, reserving 2 Tbsp for garnish
4 Tbsp panang curry paste (Mai Ploy brand is my favorite)
2 Tbsp palm sugar, grated
2 - 3 Tbsp fish sauce
1/2 cup fresh sweet basil leaves
1 red chili, sliced
4 Tbsp coarsely ground peanuts


1. Put half of the coconut milk into a wok (Ideally a wok, though I don't own a wok, so I made the curry in pan.  How un-Asian of me.) and fry for 3-5 minutes, stirring continuously, until the coconut oil begins to separate out.


2. Add the panang curry paste and fry for 1-2 minutes. Once the paste is cooked add the meat and cook until the outside of the meat is cooked.


3. Add the vegetables and rest of the coconut milk and bring to the boil. Simmer and add the palm sugar along the side of the wok until it melts and then and add the fish sauce. Stir to combine and then add half the basil leaves.  Cook until the veggies are at your desired doneness.


4. Turn off the heat and serve garnished with the red chillies, remaining basil leaves and remaining coconut milk.


Panang curry is traditionally meat only, but I was at the farmers market and couldn't resist getting some fresh veggies. 

We Americans don't care about bastardizing other cultures' food anyway, so add whatever vegetables you want. When I used to make curry on a regular basis, I would throw in whatever I had. It's a good way to get rid of veggies that are on the verge of going bad.


Also, I used beef round steak for the dish, sliced very thin. It is not ideal to use a tough cut like round, but sliced thinly, it works and tastes just fine. Tenderloin is expensive, and, in my opinion, it doesn't make sense to use it for curry. 


Bon appetit.