Sunday dinner at home with the Generalaos and Clifts and Ngus
Just because we hadnt seen yall in so long.

Crispy pig ear salad

butter poached lobster

crispy sweetbreads

duck confit cassoulet

tarte tatin

 

Our two anniversary dinners.  First Gary Danko which is always a good bang for your buck!

Dungeness crab and corn soup

oysters and caviar

sweetbreads

bass

lobster

Pork 

squab

quail

cheese

I could not eat the stinking bishop blechhhh

and the better meal of the two... Commis in Oakland.  Forgot a picture or two.  oops.

 

yum tuna

scallops

bass

pork belly

dessert

and cheese

My new toy

eating out.  Mm mmm mm.  The food at Piperade is always pretty good.  The restaurant itself has some shady ass Living Social deals.  shame shame on you!!!  Cuttlefish is always good

porky rilletes are tasty

seafood stew is tasty!

their lamb dinner is a fucking deal!

mmm warm tart

and cakey cake!  So we bought an online deal for dinner for two at a set price.  Then they charged a weird tax for the deal at the restaurant and also a mandatory gratuity that was outrageous.  FUCK YOU PIPERADE!!!  foods good but we aint coming back!!!!

Okay our Portland trip was pretty good.  Tasty and sons for breakfast.   It was okay.

This breakfast board was nuts.  tons of bread, pate, beef jerky, pickles, boiled egg, and burrata cheese with berries.  Tons of food!!! but none of it was that great. 

only thing decent was this pork belly bowl with egg on top but cmon man it was like a chinese lunch dish

we went to the farmers market.  The PDX farmers market is pretty nice.  I'll give them that!

look at these pretty squashes!

and then we went to BEAST and sat at the chefs table

they prepped right in front of us

cold soup

charcuterie place with lots of different items.  This was pretty good

pallete cleanser

roasted hen

salad with country ham

cheese platter

figgy dessert

and some meringue type of treats.  Heres my problem with BEAST.  The sous chef who prepped all the meals has a very bad habit.  She holds her kitchen towel in her armpit.  She uses this kitchen towel on her hands.  She uses her hands to plate dishes and toss salads.  It was like 85-90 degrees in Portland that week.  She was sweating.  She made me lose my appetite which is very hard to do.  Never going back to BEAST.  Also writing chef Naomi to tell her about this disgusting problem.

Then theres POK POK.  Pok pok is delicious.  Its authentic thai food done by a white guy.  Yum o!

Salt and Straw.  The ice creams we had were WAY too sweet.  Could have probably done with half the sugar and the product would have been just as excellent.  Sorry guys but too much sugar is a no no.

then we decided to get tapas in portland.  

this is tasty and sons sister restaurant.  A lot of the restaurateurs have multiple restaurants.  Commercial space is so cheap in portland I guess it isnt very risky at all!  You can also charge less and bring in more business.  a little cazuela of pickles  

these bowls are so cute

fried fish

octopus pinxtos 

foie gras stuffed dates.  Now these were good!

smoked steak was gross

pasta with clams was good

 Toro Bravo was just okay.  Its pricey and the place didnt have any AC.  WTF?  it was like 90 degrees inside and people were all fanning themselves with menus.  We didnt stay long because it was so uncomfortable and the food wasnt getting better.  Sorry tasty and sons and toro bravo.... you suck!!!

 What do you do with leftovers in the hotel?  We had a fridge but no microwave.  You take the leftover food and put it into a clean ice bag.

put it into the ice container

take the coffee pot and boil water.  Pour it around the bag

put the platter on top and let it sit for a while.

comes out steaming hot!!!

The carts in Portland are ridiculous!  there are sooo many.  

this place is famous for their chicken.

very tasty!!!

then we went to little bird.  Heres some sweetbreads over pickled corn.  It was okay.

foie gras with brioche.  The foie was good.  The brioche was dry as hell

sea bass.  WAS SOOO OVERCOOKED!  I was going to send it back but by this point I had had enough of portland and was just ready to go.  

the cassoulet was good though!!! best dish that day!!!

and then off to Alaska!!!  First stop COSTCO!!!  We had to stock up on food since we were staying in a cabin and making our some meals.  Here I am eating pizza and Amina decides shes gonna eat a rotisserie chicken ha!

so we didnt get much stuff.  We figured we could go shopping at the local grocery store once we got to our small town.  The town didnt have much stuff =(

but still I cured some salmon 

This is the cabin we stayed at in Girdwood

okay lets see.. veggies and herbs

some lamb

some saucisson sec from Olympic meats in PDX yum

season the chops

sear in this shitty pan and put in the oven in an oven safe pot

use the  same pan to get some grease on our veggies

 chops should be done

dinner one is done

chops were cooked pretty okay!  medium all the way through

our backyard wilderness

our cabins kitchen

next morning check my salmon to make sure its cured

and eat it with eggs and capers

ahh eating al fresco

where the alaskan flies attack you and your food

next day we had a snack of king crab.  was delicious!!!

and for dinner we had cooked salmon 

and a side of jiggly egg custard to keep us warm

next breafast was delicious breakfast sandwiches 

and for dinner I made a chicken soup out of the rotisserie carcasse and leftover veggies

 Then we got sick of eating at home and drove into Anchorage.  We needed asian food.  So we got pho and Bun.  Yum!!!

and for dinner we had mexican

 

and then we got the hell out of Alaska cuz its boring there!!!

JK it was okay.  I mean I wont be going back but it was worth seeing once.  Check out this cool picture!!!

...That I didnt take.

but I did take these pictures!!!

and we saw a bear in our backyard.  Heres a pic.  That blurry ass black spot is a bear.  I didnt have much time to run and grab my phone so its blurry and hes walking away.  =(  We were face to face for a while!!!