growing on me

Head out on any Sunday morning, into any neighborhood in Portland, and tell me what you notice. I can guarantee you three things:

1. Bikes
2. Lines
3. Breakfast

That's all you'll see, and it paints a pretty clear picture of the town I live in. Portlanders ride their bikes to places where they can stand in ridiculously-long lines and wait for a brunch table to open up. And then they write about, as shown by the recent features in Portland Monthly and MIX magazine, which penned big, sloppy-kiss, love letters to the first meal of the day. Breakfast is everywhere, and not just on the weekends. We have two friends who both work in morning spots who tell us that the crowds show up all week long. Call it a hangover cure, call it a ritual, call it a social scene, but one thing is clear: Portland *hearts* breakfast.

Now, as for A and me? Not so much.

Anyone who's known us long enough has probably held witness to our breakfast rant. Blah to scrambles, blah to hash, blah to french toast and pancakes and waffles. Basically, I feel like when I go out for breakfast, I get a mediocre, under-flavored dish with a high mark-up and some burned coffee. And there's always too much food, which I inevitably eat every bite of. Plus, I'm a sucker for a lame special and brunch menus are rife with featured dishes. So when I want sweet, I'll fall for savory, and when I hunger for something savory, I'll be tricked into ordering a sweet dish. This means that I almost always end up ordering some tarted-up, whipped cream-covered french toast and giving myself a bellyache. Yeah, you could probably say a lot of my breakfast issues are probably of my own creation.

So breakfast just never really did it for me. But a few months ago, I was totally surprised by an issue of Saveur devoted to breakfasts around the world. Here were some meals I could get behind. A Singaporean vegetable curry. Sheep's milk cheese with honey and olives from the Mediterranean. Miso and quick, cabbage pickles in Japan. A beer and pretzel mid-morning snack from Germany. By the time I'd finished reading the issue, I was ready for a second breakfast.

Since that issue, A and I have found ourselves going out to more and more breakfasts, and we've gradually been inviting our friends out for brunch more often, too. In a way, I feel like we've started to become - dare I say it - brunch connoisseurs. So, as recent converts, you can take our advice for what it's worth, but we thought we'd share a few of the places we've recently been digging, and a few we're soon to try...

Broder
This Swedish place has a routine close to what we'd eat at home on an ideal morning, making it our favorite breakfast in town. Their bords bring together a poached egg, granola, cheese, cured meat and fish, jam and toast for a simple, attractive meal. But that doesn't mean you should overlook the delicious aebleskiver pancakes and the smoked trout pytt i panna (hash). Plus, the space is so effortlessly chic and Scandinavian that you leave determined to redecorate your home kitchen.


Little Red Bike Cafe
Run by a young couple who used to man a farmer's market stand, the adorableness of this tiny cafe is only rivaled by their cute-as-punch (if sometimes a little sappy) blog. With good, bike-delivered coffee, a list of egg sandwiches named for biking lingo, and a bike-thru service window, it's pretty damn Portland. Their house-made ice creams aren't to be missed - the last time we ordered a salted caramel milkshake I awkwardly told the owners how delicious it was three or four times.


Tastebud
Whether we're just grabbing some of his wood-fired, Montreal-style bagels at the farmer's market, or we're sitting down in his Southeast cafe, we really love Mark Doxstader's approach to the morning. His formula's simple: things taste good from a wood oven. Things like baked beans, bagel sandwiches, and roasted potatoes, that is.


Screen Door
This place falls at the complete opposite end of the spectrum from the other breakfast spots we've been enjoying. It's probably the most traditional brunch-style place of the lot, and the portions are definitely anything but modest (it is Southern, after all). Still, anywhere that has breakfast corndogs on their menu wins a place in my heart (and a return visit to order some). If you're going to do waffles and benedicts and other breakfast chestnuts, this place does them right.


NEXT ON THE LIST

HA & VL
Jellied pork blood, spicy tripe, soothing chicken pho, and hot, Vietnamese coffee. Early in the morning, you ask? Well, when they sell out of the favorites by 9:30 am, you better believe it.

Navarre
With their rustic and farm-fresh European small plates, this is one of our hands-down favorite restaurants in town. We just found out they do a late brunch on weekends, and I don't even think they change their menu for the mornings. Sounds perfect.

Pambiche
Cuban sweet breads, plantains, empanadas and beans prove that other countries really understand how to begin the day. No need for Mrs. Butterworth when you can douse everything in banana ketchup.

Beast
Prix-fixe four-course brunch menu? It feels so decadent. And it probably will be, given chef Naomi Pomeroy's magic way with pork. I'm imaging bacon pastries, poached eggs, and a cream-laden dessert. I'm also imagining myself making reservations very soon.

With only two mornings each weekend, we've got a lot of eating to do. But this list doesn't even mention Simpatica, Pine State, Moxie, Flavourspot, Wong's King, Little T Bakery, or cold, leftover pizza from Dove Vivi. I guess that A and I need to fess up to the fact they we may just happen to enjoy breakfast.

Here we go, a-waffling

Lately, the weather has been gorgeous in Portland. Not only that, but the weather has been gorgeous ON THE WEEKEND. Wonder of wonders. It's been the kind of weather that makes you forget its only February and spring is still over a month away: sunny, clear, and warm (in comparison with the usual winter weather, of course). We've been so excited to closet our rain gear and winter coats that we haven't much felt like spending time inside, which has necessitated more eating out than usual.

A few weeks ago we had one such beautiful Saturday and, though we were overflowing a bit in the leftovers department, we decided to have lunch out at a food cart we've been meaning to try. Despite my normal aversion to all things fast food, I am a sucker for the food cart. There is something very jolly about a little van or trailer packed with people and food (admittedly this is probably jollier for me than for those who are packed), serving tasty and often unusual treats. I also like the fact that I'm buying the food from the person who cooks it, enabling me to properly thank my chef for a satisfying meal. And, yes, it's fast...and sometimes that's fun.

Mississippi Avenue in North Portland has become a kind of haven for food carts. The neighborhood is one of our favorites and every time P and I stroll the streets I seek out the carts with my eagle eye, looking for any that I haven't seen before and reminding myself of the ones I am aching to try (ridiculously, up until a few weeks ago we had tried not-a-one). Here is the range I've noticed: Baked goods/juice , Filipino, Mostlandian, good old fashioned BBQ and a recent addition, a waffle cart.

The waffle cart, Flavourspot, used to have just one location, on North Lombard - a bit of a trek, which partly explains why we had yet to try it. However, they recently opened a second location on Mississippi, from which they now serve their sweet and savory waffle sandwiches - tasty waffles wrapped around an assortment of ingredients from lemon curd and whipped cream to sausage and maple spread.

I don't know if the world is divided into pancake people and waffle people in the same way that it is divided between those who listen to the Beatles and those who prefer the Rolling Stones (I like both, but then, I'm a bit of an anomaly); if it is, I fall decidedly on the side of the waffle. You may try to convince me otherwise, but in the great battle between waffle and pancake, I know where my loyalties will always lie. Where the waffle's texture is perfectly balanced between a buttery crisp exterior and a light fluffy interior, the pancake's is uniformly flat and spongy. Where the waffle delightfully stands up to the maple or other syrup you drizzle o'er its surface (and into its dimples), the pancake quickly becomes soggy and unappetizing. Try as you might to dress up a pancake, I will always see it for what it is: a poor substitute for a waffle.

Flavourspot offers some damn fine waffles. The exterior is perfectly crisp and buttery (but not overly greasy) and the inside is airy, but still chewy. The fillings range from traditional - butter and powdered sugar; to savory - a waffle take on a croque monsieur; to decadent - a waffle wrapped around an ice cream bar (seriously). I decided on the Sweet Cream with Jam (whipped cream cheese and Strawberry Jam) and P went with the (Veggie) Sausage and Maple. Both were fantastic and we devoured them quickly on the lawn chairs next to the cart. While immensely satisfied, we weren't yet sick, so we decided to share a third waffle: chunky peanut butter and nutella. I was plenty sick after that, but oh, the glory of the waffle...

I was so inspired by the success of our waffle cart outing, that I decided to make my own. Waffles are one of those foods for which mixes abound, and yet they are incredibly easy (and far superior) if you make them yourself. The key is the butter, which contributes to the pleasant crispness and lightness and also aids the release from the waffle iron. I modified a recipe from the Joy of Cooking to make my Poppyseed buttermilk waffles, topped with mascarpone and blueberry-lemon syrup. I've included the basic waffle recipe below, as well as the modified version.

I discovered the pleasures of waffles for dinner while studying in Norwich, England. A favorite restaurant of mine was The Waffle House, which served everything waffle, sweet and savory concoctions alike; the fresh spinach, potato and chickpea curry was my favorite for dinner. (Portland, too, boasts a waffle restaurant, but I have yet to try it.) You can use the basic recipe below to make savory waffles, just omit the sugar in the recipe. Serve them with sundried tomatoes, goat cheese and arugula, or with a rich mushroom sauce. I strongly abide by the traditional adage, "a waffle a day keeps the devil at bay."
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Basic Waffles
from Joy of Cooking

[You can vary the amount of butter in this recipe. Joy offers three options: 4 tablespoons for reduced fat, 8 tablespoons (1 stick) for light and fluffy, 1/2 pound (2 sticks) for extra crunchy and rich. I happen to adore butter, but I went with the middle option and was perfectly satisfied with the richness of the waffle. Any more butter and I fear the waffle may have melted on my plate]

Preheat a waffle iron. Whisk together in a large bowl:

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt

Thoroughly blend in another bowl:

3 eggs
1/4 cup to 1 cup (1/2 to 2 sticks) butter, melted
1 1/2 cups milk

Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in the wet ingredients. Combine with a few swift strokes of the whisk. Spoon about a half cup of the mixture into your pre-heated waffle iron and cook until steam has stopped emerging from the cracks in the iron and the waffle releases easily when the lid is opened.


Poppyseed buttermilk waffles
with mascarpone and blueberry-lemon syrup
Adapted from Joy of Cooking

To make the waffles:

Prepare the waffles as above, but decrease the baking powder to 2 teaspoons and add 1/4 teaspoon baking soda and a 1/3 of a cup of poppyseeds to the dry ingredients. Substitute buttermilk for the milk.

To make the sauce:

Put about a cup of berries into a pan with the juice of a small lemon and 1-2 tablespoons of agave syrup (substitute sugar if you don't have the syrup on hand). Cook, stirring, on medium heat until the syrup thickens.

Enjoy the waffles with a drizzle of blueberry-lemon syrup and a dollop of mascarpone.

[These would be delicious on a brunch menu if you're cooking for friends. The waffles keep well in a 200 degree oven. Or, you could do as we did and go it alone (together). That way, you can freeze the leftovers in plastic and enjoy them throughout the week, for a wholesome (read: decadent) start to your day!]