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.

Weekend with Mom - Hiking and Little Bird

My mom and I woke up Sunday morning knowing we were going to hike but not quite sure where we wanted to go.  We decided on Salmon Butte, a 9 mile hike with 3500' elevation gain.  My mom had suggested the hike on Saturday, but I shot it down right away after she said "3000' elevation gain".  But for some reason, I was up for an adventure.  It was a very difficult, but absolutely gorgeous hike.  

Unfortunately snow prevented us from making it all the way to the summit of Salmon Butte, or maybe it was fortunate; we saved probably 500' or so of elevation and 2 miles.  The hike ended up to be 10 miles exactly (why are hiking books so often wrong on mileage?), and the hard work on the way up was worth the reward of an easy trot down.

We were very tired after our hike, so we relaxed at home and watched the Giants beat the Indians while waiting for the time to leave for dinner.  

I was delighted when my mom was excited about going to Little Bird  when I sent her a link to the website last week.  Little Bird is a restaurant I have never been to but had been hoping to try for a while.

Our first course was a charcuterie consisting of, starting at 6 o'clock, pickled fennel, pork rillette, pistachio truffle sausage, foie gras brûlée with apricot jam on toast, Saucisson d’Alsace (from Olympic Provisions), and in the middle, duck terrine.  Every item on the plate was spectacular, but the foie gras stole the show, in my opinion.  The sweet and salty flavors and the combination of textures was just fantastic.  


The other appetizer was roasted marrow bones with olive and citrus tapenade.  Neither of us were expecting the bones to come like this; we were thinking they would be cut the other way, into circles.  The only marrow I have eaten is with Osso Bucco, and I love it.  This particular dish, with the olive and citrus tapenade on top, was delicious.

We ordered grilled lamb belly with peas, mint, whipped crème fraîche and grilled Trout with almond purée and green bean salad to share for the entree.  Very tasty, especially the trout.  It was grilled to perfection. 

We cleaned the plates on everything we ordered and were quite full when the waitress asked us if we would like to see the dessert menu.  I like to check out the menu even if I know I am not going to order dessert.  The first item on the list was lavender crème brûlée with riesling strawberries.  I don't even really like crème brûlée, but something came over me that I really wanted it.  Riesling strawberries just sounded so good.


This crème brûlée was the best crème brûlée I have ever had, and one of the best desserts I have ever had.  It was light with the faintest hint of lavender.  We (and by we I mean mostly me) practically licked the serving dish.


Oh, and I can't forget to mention the painting of the owl.  Right when we walked into Little Bird, my mom commented on how creepy the owl is and how it was staring at her.  The table we were given was about eye level with the painting, and my mom was sitting facing it.  The owl stared her down the whole meal.

Bon appetit.