Archive for the ‘Restaurant Reviews’ Category
bistro la baia … stepping up their game
t says: g and I wanted to meet up with to Bistro la Baia with some of the old gang recently and eventually landed on going to Bistro la Baia. It was a tough decision because everyone had their requirements. dz enjoys filling pastas. I wanted something byo. g wanted someplace we’ve never been before. smn was probably happy enough just with the idea of going out to dinner at all, with all the crazy schedules she has been enduring recently. Normally we’d go to Melograno, but they’re a little pricey. While g and I are often full after a plate of their super-awesome pastas, normal-sized people often wish there was more quantity to be had. We finally landed on Bistro la Baia – a place that seems like it’s been around forever, but we just hadn’t had the chance to visit. Now, when we suggested it, w’s fiance had his doubts about Bistro la Baia, as they disappointed him once in the past – I believe he said something like “their food sucks … well … it doesn’t suck, but it’s very ‘middling'”. He tried his hardest to find alternatives (Modo Mio was booked …), but in the end, he was a good sport and went along with our plans.
July 2012, Friday Dinner, Party of 6. g and I arrived first, to be greeted (if you call it a “greeting”) by the older, larger gentleman who seems like he’s running the front of house. He was terse – sparing not a single pleasantry before showing us our seats. The place, itself, looks a bit “tired”. The floors are creaky, it’s unnecessarily dark, and the decor/tablesettings were plain. I looked at g and muttered, “ok … time to buckle up … this might be painful …”. As the rest of our party arrived, we found that our “host” was gruff to pretty much everyone. To illustrate his demeanor, I’m going to finish off this review as he would have …
The food. It’s good. Not great. But good. w’s fiance admitted something like, “the food quality here has really improved. I think they stole people from La Viola”. I find the quality to be similar to La Viola – not the most superb pasta textures or flavorful sauces, but definitely has a feeling of “home”. Oh, wait – that’s too descriptive. Sorry – back to being gruff: big portions, moderate pasta cookery, moderate flavors, no surprises or squeals of delight (except from dz … who loves pasta more than any Italian I know … which is funny … because he’s not Italian …).
The service is no-nonsense. You order the food. It comes out. Done. Their attitude was refractory to my offer of a glass of wine from an Italian pinot nero I brought.
The prices were reasonable – g and I spent ~$55 and were stuffed (and I had leftovers to eat a full lunch today).
Result: Bistro la Baia … it’s not fancy and it’s not foodie-heaven … but it is food. Bring some friends and some wine and have fun like we did!
Is that gruff enough for you … ?
Vernick … flirting with awesomeness
t says: We wanted to try up someplace new for my birthday so we took the advice of some Talula’s Garden staff: go to Vernick! I am lacking time to wax poetic nowadays, so we’re gonna cut straight to the chase …
June 2012, Thursday Dinner, Party of 2. Whoa. This place was loud. I’m not sure if it was the way the space was laid out or maybe if the patrons had too much wine or what, but I found myself barely able to hear g at times. I was not expecting that for a Thursday dinner.
And whoa. The patrons are kind of … older. I’m find with dining with “wiser” patrons, but when g and I are the youngest people in a place, that’s kind of weird. Further weird, then, is how/why these people were contributing to such a loud atmosphere.
But now the food …
housemade mozzarella + rhubarb + pumpernickel cubes
This was surprising, because this wasn’t some kind of rustic, bread-smearing mozzarella – this was a fancy mozzarella. It had this rhubarb sauce and that savory pumpernickely rye-twang – it was amazing … small … but amazing. Definitely one of those times when simplicity surprises you.
hamachi + grapefruit + jalapeno
This was a pretty tasty crudo. Or perhaps its more like a ceviche because of the pronounced tart grapefruit? That said, Fond can pretty consistently do something with a better flavor combination, as I feel that this dish was a little disjointed: there was fish and grapefruit and a little green … but it didn’t quite come together. g, on the other hand, liked it a lot – and she’s the crudo expert of the two of us, so maybe I should re-evaluate my memory …
potato ravioli + braised lamb + long beans
This was the “other” side of Vernick. While the mozzarella was kind of flirty and zippy and a little shi shi (did I spell that correctly?), this was earthy and powerful and filling. It reminded me so much of something we’d get from Melograno – it was that good … small … but that good. The nice chunks of lamb and a flavorful sauce really hit you in the mouth and keep you coming back for more …
the braised beef cheek
The beef cheek was wonderful. I know you can’t see much in the picture, but imagine a hunk of the softest beef you’ve ever put a fork through – all with a perfectly browned exterior and accompanied by crisp peas, spring beans, and celery. Celery! That was the most surprising part of the dish because it took something that’s so heavy and luscious and put some spring in its step. BUT … there was a drawback … I needed a starch. And no, I don’t need a starch for the sake of having a starch, rather, I wished I had something to sop up the leftover peas and beans that remained after the meat disappeared into the black hole of my stomach.
We also did the beef tartar which was quite delicious, but could have used a little more cow to tango with the horseradish …
And finally:
g called ahead and pre-arranged dessert!
g, anticipating that I’d order dessert, arranged for both of their chocolatey desserts to come out at the end of the meal. (She reads me like a book.) They were actually quite substantial (we couldn’t finish ’em! and I tried really REALLY hard!). In the foreground is their version of a candy bar which was layers of chocolate (milk and dark?) and something hazlenutty and something crunchy – it reminded me of nutella … and like nutella, this was awesome. The butterscotch-chocolate parfait-ish dessert in the background was pretty good, but could have used some texture – maybe some graham on the bottom or something. Regardless, I was one happy camper with all that chocolate – g knows me through and through.
In conclusion, I have to say that Vernick has some wonderful food. It’s pretty small (it took 4 apps and a main to appease us … and we’re normally a 3+1 or a 2+2 table), but definitely tasty. The wine … oh – I forgot to show you:
a lot of wine
They serve a lot of wine per glass … which would be fine … except that I wasn’t a huge fan of the selections I made. The rose had this earthy hoppiness to it that kind of reminded me of how beer smells. g’s red, meanwhile, had this grape liqueur-ish quality that was a bit overwhelming. I guess we can’t fault them for the wines we chose, but surely they were not prototypical examples of the varietals they represented.
Ok – so back to my conclusion: pre-game with a granola bar or something (small portions), brace yourself for tastiness, and stick to cocktails.
rch and mh try some Oregon wine …
rch and mh say: After spending a few days crisscrossing the state searching for the best breweries in Oregon, we settled into the Willamette Valley for two days of wine tasting. While we went to several awesome places, here were a few of our favorites.
Alexana Winery: We walked in here right as they opened on a Friday morning. Here is a picture from the back of the tasting room.
The people at Alexana were ridiculously nice. rch commented on how she liked the t-shirt the main guy helping us was wearing (he hadn’t yet changed into “work” clothes for the day). He went to change and then literally gave her the t-shirt off of his back. Ok, that way I wrote that sounds creepy, but it really wasn’t. It was a good example of how nice people were the whole time. The Alexana Winery folks also proved extremely helpful at recommending other places to go do tastings and teaching us about the wines they make.
Oh yeah, we also tasted some wine. We tried a Pinot Gris and Rose that were both very summery, then a few delicious Pinots. RCH’s favorite was the ’09 Alexana Shea Pinot, which was actually a wine that their winemaker had made with grapes from another vineyard (apparently a couple dozen wineries all take the Shea grapes and use them as a canvas to create all different wines, which is pretty cool). Notes of cherry, earthy, but a little tart. The vineyard said it was an example of an Oregon Pinot that did not need to be consumed immediately. We liked their wines a lot. If we did not live in the state of Pennsylvania, with its archaic and absurd alcohol laws, we would have considered joining their club. As it was, we settled for petting their winery housecat and buying a bottle.
WinderLea: After leaving Alexana, our next stop was down the road at WinderLea, a small, boutique winery that several people had recommended we stop by (we had even run into their marketing person the night before at dinner). Here is a shot of their tasting room. The whole vibe at the place is more “modern” than traditional vineyards.
This was arguably our most “fun” tasting. The two guys running the show, so to speak, were very personable. We talked all about how they write tasting notes for the wines and about the industry in general. It turned out that one of the guys there knew a girl that RCH had gone to camp with when she was 8 years old, and even though RCH only remembered the first name and hometown of this girl, the guy immediately guessed the right name on the first try. This reinforced my belief that apparently everyone in Oregon knows everyone else. They also had some tasty wine. RCH does not even really like Chardonnay, but she said their ’09 Chardonnay was the best she has ever had. The ‘09 Ana Vineyard Pinot was also tasty. It was a bit earthy, with cherry notes. Our favorite was the ‘09 WinderLea Vineyard Pinot Noir. RCH described it as black fruit, not too acid, plum, baking spices (personally, I think she might be making up some of those terms).
J. Christopher: Our last stop on our whole trip was a winery called J. Christopher. It is a very small winery that many people had recommended. The person we met at WillaKenzie the day before had set us up with an appointment there. J. Christopher doesn’t even have a tasting room yet, which meant we got to do a tasting down in the barrel storage room, which is partially built underneath a hill. That was really cool. Here is a picture of the area.
We enjoyed the wines there, but not as much as at Alexana or WinderLea. Of course, by the time we got there, it was like our 10th winery in two days and our taste buds might have been a bit tapped out. We did really enjoy their ’10 Pinot Noir Willamette Valley, and got a bottle, but it didn’t quite measure up to some of our other favorites. After J. Christopher, we headed out and went back at our bed & breakfast with our spoils from the day, a few nice bottles of wine
But our day was not over yet. We left soon after for a fantastic dinner that will be the subject of our last post. . . . . .
PS We covered some of our favorites above, but for anyone who’s wondering, here are the other wineries we visited:
- Domaine Drouhin – A really cool experience, where we got a full tour and a tasting comparing Oregon wines and French wines
- Tyrus Evans Tasting Room – A place to taste Ken Wright’s pinot noirs. Delicious, but a little stuffy for our tastes, and with some pretty draconian buying rules.
- Carlton Winemakers’ Studio – A fun stop, where many winemakers share space in a collective operation. Great people, enjoyable tasting, bought a bottle that tasted just like a French Rhone wine (a favorite style of mh)
- Duck Pond – Really just a pit stop where we saw a sign and pulled over. Fun place to stop, with several different tasting menus and a funny eccentric lady who carried us wine as we browsed the store, but the wine was nothing to write home about.
- Elk Cove – One of the big dogs on the Oregon scene. We weren’t planning to stop, but it was recommended by several employees of other wineries. Beautiful (but remote) location, good wine.
- WillaKenzie – Recommended by a wine-loving friend. Very friendly employee, some tasty wines. Definitely worth a spot (and also got some good recommendations here).
going Rogue
rch and mh say: The next day of the trip was the one that mh was looking forward to the most – the brewery that inspired the whole trip – and it did not disappoint. First it was another early morning and another long drive as we drove from Eugene out to the Oregon coast, and then up the coast to Newport, OR. For those of you that don’t know, Newport is an Oregon version of the kind of seaside towns that people generally associate with Maine on the east coast. Small, extremely focused on fishing/seafood/marine-related things, and a cross between touristy and all about the locals who actually live there the whole year.
Anyways, on to the beer. Newport, OR is the world headquarters of Rogue Brewing. Rogue was the 25th largest craft brewery in America in 2011, but I suspect most people would have guessed they were higher. That’s because you can find Rogue beers on tap and in stores in all 50 glorious states of the union. Deschutes, in contrast, is only on tap in 18 states, but is the fifth-largest craft brewer. Different strategies, I guess. Business details aside, Rogue is a heavy hitter in the craft beer world. We arrived at their headquarters in the early afternoon for tastings, some food, and a tour.
Like Deschutes in Bend, Rogue has a bar in “downtown” Newport and then the brewery itself, as well as several brewpubs in other places in Oregon. Rogue’s most famous beer is its “Dead Guy Ale”. mh bought it for the first time in college just because of the name and the picture on the bottle! Below is a picture of the logo from the upstairs bar at the brewery.
Dead Guy Ale is one tasty beer. It is not a pale ale or an IPA (two very popular styles right now). In the words of Rogue Brewing, Dead Guy Ale is “In the style of a German Maibock”. It is amber colored, but not too heavy or too hoppy.
One of the first things we learned upon arriving was that Rogue was not named after its original location – in the Rogue River Valley – but because the brewmaster, John Maier, wanted to literally be a bit different than the completion, a bit “Rogue.” Maier is a big guy in the beer world; a former home-brewer who made the transition to brewing on a much, much larger scale. He also comes up frequently when talking to people at Rogue – it is clear that you see his “vision” in all of the beers they make, and the employees are very proud of his influence.
You walk in and through the actual brewery to get to a merchandising room and a set of stairs to take you to the bar. There, they have just about every Rogue beer on tap. And there are a lot of them:
They also have Rogue’s newer line of spirits. That’s right, Rogue now makes gin, whiskey, and rum. More on those in a bit. One upside – when you walk in, the bartender immediately pours you 3 oz of the “special” beer of the day. In this case it was the Dad’s Little Helper Black IPA. It was hoppy but also a bit malty and creamier than a normal IPA. It was a nice way to start our visit!
We started out with tasters, inexpensive small pours of four Rogue beers. We each got four different ones, giving us a chance to taste eight of them. Quick quiz: can you tell which of these pictures came from a traditional digital camera and which came from the camera on a Droid Razr Maxx (mh is very jealous of rch’s new cellphone, in case you couldn’t tell)? Favorite beers in the tasting included the Chatoe Rogue Single Malt Ale (similar concept to a single malt scotch or single vineyard wine – Rogue is now growing their own organic hops), the Dry Hopped St. Rogue Red, and the Brutal IPA. The Brutal IPA actually is not that brutal – when it was released it was seen as extremely hoppy, but after the explosion of super-hoppy IPA’s over the last decade, it now seems a lot smoother.
We also got some food, specifically some delicious “Irish Nachos”. Think perfectly cooked potato wedges instead of chips and you’ve got the idea. Excellent way to soak up some beer before the tour.
After officially joining Rogue Nation (25% off the t-shirt that mch purchased), we headed down the road to the Rogue Distillery. Rogue has been producing spirits for a few years, but the distillery just opened to the public recently. Things are going well so they are expanding. Here are pictures of their current building (pictures shows the *entire* distilling operation – this is an extremely intimate environment that, combined with the friendliness of the distiller, made for a great “tour” and discussion) and the new building they are moving production into.
We did other things in Newport as well. We went down to Agate Beach to see the large piece of wreckage from the Japanese tsunami washed up on American shores, we had a delicious seafood dinner at Shark’s (the Cioppino, in particular, was great – as advertised), we tried the clam chowder at Mo’s Original Restaurant (good but I’m still going with the Boston variety as the best!), and we finished our evening at the Rogue Ales Public House on Bay Street. But this trip was pretty much about the Rogue Brewing Company. And we were not disappointed. Great beers and a great visit.
From Monday to Wednesday we drove from Medford to Klamath Falls to Bend to Eugene to Newport. We traveled about 450 miles (or about the distance from Boston to DC), got to see old friends, we tried a lot of great beer. Mission accomplished – so far.
Thursday morning, we woke up and drove to the Willamette Valley for two days of touring wineries and drinking lots of Oregon Pinot Noir (t jumps in: Wine! Did someone say wine!?). Our winery tours on Thursday and Friday will be the subject of our next post, before we wrap it up with a description of a tremendous dinner we had at Paulée, a fantastic new restaurant in the heart of Oregon wine country.
the rotisseur pork belly banh mi
t says: After reading about it on foobooz, I was disheartened to find that I’d have to miss out on Rotisseur’s pork belly banh mi (I just couldn’t fit it in my schedule). And now, after some time has passed (hopefully so they could perfect the recipe), I was psyched to finally try it!
pork belly banh mi sign at Rotisseur
Having had many-a-banh-mi, this one had a twist! Actually it had two twists: the mango slaw and “fresh peaches”. As my brain tried to put the flavors together, it eventually crashed, as I just had no idea how it would turn out …
here it is!
As you can see, this doesn’t feature big hunks of belly, rather, thin slices. I was intrigued at how thin they were! And then look at those peach slices! The guy making the sandwich took great care in arranging the peaches so that they’d look pretty. I appreciate that. This was going to be another take on the banh mi for sure …
But how did it taste? You know I love Rotisseur, but to be honest, this was kind of underwhelming. The sandwich wasn’t bad by any stretch (and the side of kale is still pretty killer!), but the flavors just weren’t as bright or as deep as in other banh mis … or even Rotisseur’s own chicken sandwiches! (which is surprising given the meat they’re using). The other flavors of the sandwich were nice, with the togarashi playing well with the peach. That said, it kind of made me long for their chicken instead … Oh well – sorry guys – I’m just going to have to stick with your chicken-based stuff from now on …
a cross between Tiffin and a night club …
t says: g and I love Indian food – or at least – we think we do. It all started when we first had chicken korma at Tamber’s/”Nifty Fifties” in Baltimore. While probably not the most authentic example of Indian food, we were hooked, and ate there (or did take-out) quite frequently. Now that we live in Philadelphia, our favorites for Indian are Ekta and Tiffin, both of which deliver (of which Ekta is probably the better of the two). As far as Indian restaurants go, however, we just haven’t quite found one we like (although I have to confess that we haven’t been to many). Bindi has long since closed (the owners citing lack of interest in Indian food as the primary cause) despite smn and dz liking it – sorry guys! So now enter Tashan, an upscale Indian dining venue owned by the same guy in charge of Tiffin. His shtick: “modern Indian cuisine”. His location: some building on Broad south of South street. His menu: kind of pricey. Nevertheless, at least one person likes it (although I disprove of the accusatory tone he adopts in his post). Fortunately, kp also felt that the food was good, having been there for multiple happy hours. We figured, “well, kp is Indian, and he cooks extremely well, so if he says it’s good, then it’s gotta be good” … but we still just never got around to it … until now: I saw that Mondays are BYO nights at Tashan. Boom. Done. We made a reservation (even though the hostess initially messed up and denied BYO Mondays – she and her manager both called back to confirm its existence) and ventured to Bella Vista (sadly it wasn’t an FTC meeting, as a and v were busy preparing for a trip) …
June 2012, Monday Dinner, Party of 3. We’ll try to keep it short. First, the setting: it’s kind of huge! There’s a ton of space – this is no small BYO for sure. It’s also evident that someone spent a lot of money, time, and effort trying really really hard to make this place cool/hip. The result is a kind of like what would happen if you put a restaurant in a space that was meant for a night club. It’s just trying so hard to be cool, but to be honest, it’s not like anything in there is actually cool – and that’s coming from me, who is pretty much a sucker for anything sleek/modern (that, and I still think that Adidas samba sneakers are cool). Sorry Tashan, I just don’t think that all of those renovations were worth it …
The service could also use some improvement. The waiter was very well-mannered and pleasant, but his actual serving performance was straight-up bad. He’d say that he was bringing wine glasses but not bring them until 10-15 minutes later. He’d say that he was bringing the wine, but not until 10-15 minutes later. The pacing of the meal was all over the place (25 minutes before our orders were even taken, and then a bizarre 25 minute gap after apps). At least he had a winning smile to go along with his enthusiasm for “his favorite dishes” when we asked his opinion. My advice: is you’re going to say you’re going to do something, then actually do it.
And now on to the real matter at hand: the food. I can say that everything was at least “good” … which isn’t bad (actually, I’d say that every dish but one was “very good”)! Indian food can be very hit-or-miss for me depending on the level of spice and the level of cream/fat in the dishes. To be blunt – I’m not a fan of dishes so spicy that I can’t taste anything or dishes so rich that my tongue can’t clear the hydrophobic coat. Tashan had none of those problems.
The best dish of the night was probably the lamb “lollipops” (that’s our name for them, not Tashan’s):
it doesn’t look appetizing in the photo, but trust me – it’s ridiculous
The lamb was impossibly tender and smothered in a flavorful combo of spices that I’m sure I’ll never be able to parse. The “green stuff” was a lively addition. (Actually, I went so far as to even say out loud, “damn, there’s just no way I could do this at home!” kp smiled, but didn’t say much. This was kp being coy. I called him out on it, asking him directly if he could cook a lamb like this. He pretended to think for a few seconds before admitting that he was sure that he could. Result: FTC at kp’s before the summer is up – Battle Rack of Lamb. Stay tuned!) Nevertheless, the three of us enjoyed our lamb, deciding that they are a must-order for the future.
Butter Chicken and Saag Paneer!
When g and I try a new place for Indian, we stick with some basics to really test ’em. Enter the Butter Chicken and Saag Paneer you see above. We’ve had these dishes from Ekta and Tiffin (as noted in the face-off linked to above), ultimately deciding that Ekta was the winner. I have to say that Tashan’s are probably tied with Ekta. They’re not as boldly flavored as Ekta’s, but really allow the underlying components to stand out – there’s a certain amount of subtlety there that kept me coming back for more. If you want spice and wiz-bang, stick with Ekta, but if you want to taste something a little more elegant (as “elegant” as spinach/paneer or tomato are), go for Tashan.
We did try other dishes (the sausage was fantastic! – but very spicy), which showed us that chef knows how to cook. The only miss of the evening was the goat cheese taftaan – it was interesting, but not in a good way, rather, an “overly fussy, why is this so hard to eat, and why does it taste like the ingredients don’t really jive together” way. I’d avoid it in future outings.
Ultimately, the food is a nice mix of traditional Indian and not-so-traditional Indian, with both approaches yielding delicious dishes. As a result, I think that Sheehan was right: Tashan is definitely one of the best restaurants that we’re not going to (along with Cochon). However, unlike Cochon, Tashan has real, legitimate reasons for people to not want to go (while we still can’t figure out why Cochon isn’t getting as much love as it used to) … Tashan’s service needs some help. Furthermore, we foresee that the location is going to be a problem, indeed. Passers-by in that neighborhood aren’t exactly the type to drop that kind of money (i.e. it’s not Rittenhouse), which means that they’d probably like to be a destination dining establishment – but do they have the chops for that? I think of the places that we go out of our way to go, and I realize that Tashan just doesn’t have the outrageous food like Bibou/Fond, the friendliness and ridiculous desserts/cheese of Talula’s Garden, the intimate BYO feel (and BYO price-tag) of Melograno/Mercato/Modo Mio. And, unlike Jamonera and Barbuzzo, this atmosphere is actually not hip/cool, no matter how many dark interior finishes you put in there. So what’s it gonna do? kp is going to keep on going for happy hour, hoping that his efforts alone can keep them from going under. As for me, I’ll go if other suggest it, but I wasn’t so blown away that I’m rushing back (well – maybe on a BYO night …). I hope for their sake that they find something that keeps them afloat – some kind of off-the-hook dish (the lamb was good, but it’s not Bibou pig’s foot) or special dining events or something. We wish them the best of luck, though – it would be tough for Philly to lose yet another “upscale Indian” place.
mch says: Ditto on Tashan. Service was “meh”. We were definitely impressed by some of the appetizers. The quail was tasty and unexpected since not traditionally what I think of as Indian. Main courses to us seemed fine – but not necessarily better than a neighborhood Indian place. If we went back, we might just order appetizers and naan. We’ll probably go back to try it again at some point.
Beer, beer, and more beer (and driving 500 miles in a day)
rch and mh say: After a fun night in Klamath Falls with friends and family, we headed up OR-97 to Bend, OR. If you look at a map, Bend seems pretty out of the way, but the place was impressive, especially for a fan of good beer. The official town visitor center features a Beer Map where you can attempt to get your “passport” stamped at each of the dozen or more breweries on Bend’s “Ale Trail.” This is now a big tourist destination, and Bend has recently moved into first place in Oregon for breweries per capita. It’s become a pretty cute, yuppified little town, something like Boulder Colorado (with similarly beautiful scenery), and we were happy to be able to check it out. Since we only had a few hours in Bend, we were limited to trying just two. First, we went to a newcomer on the Bend beer scene, Good Life Brewing Company.
It smelled delicious in there, but we were there just to drink, not to eat. So we put the scent of good food behind us and each ordered a beer. rch got the Descender IPA while MCH got the Mountain Rescue Dry Hopped Pale Ale. The Mountain Rescue had a hoppy finish due to the dry hopping process, but was clean and a bit milder than the IPA. The Descender IPA was an IPA in all its glory – bold and hoppy, but not bitter.
We soon departed Good Life, however, to head to the anchor of the Bend brewing scene, and the biggest brewery in all of Oregon, Deschutes Brewery. Deschutes is a heavy hitter in the beer world. They are the fifth largest craft brewer in the United States, according to data from 2011 (huge points if you can name the other four without looking them up. Hint: Boston Beer Company (Sam Adams) is #1). They have also been around since 1988, making them practically ancient compared to many of the microbrews around these days. Here is a shot of some of their fermentation tanks.
Deschutes has a downtown pub in Bend (they also have pubs in Portland and elsewhere), as well as their actual brewery. We headed to the brewery for a tour, meeting up with rch’s friend who lives in Bend. What we found was a very professional operation. The tour was conducted by personnel who seemed tasked for that purpose – rather than a brewer or bartender. Also, unlike the other brewery tours we will discuss in future posts, the tour took place completely on a railed-in catwalk overlooking the actual brewing operation. That being said, it was an interesting and educational tour. The tour guide was knowledgeable and gave us a great overview of the beer-making process. rch’s favorite part was when they passed out whole hop flowers to each person for us to break apart and taste. It turns out that the crystallized sap in the hop flower is what gives the signature hoppy taste to all of our favorite beers, though I confess that, tasted alone, it gives a bit of Bitter Beer Face. Very cool element to the tour, though. The other interesting note on the tour was their story about how one of their new brewing tanks, the Lauter Tun, was so big that it wouldn’t fit down the highway when they were shipping it in to Bend. Apparently they actually worked with the state police to shut down a whole section of Highway 97 for two nights to get the tank to the brewery. Wonder if the police got paid in beer…
We even got to see the bottling operation in action, as you can see below.
The Deschutes Brewery gives each person over 21 four generous samples of different Deschutes beer (we got to call which beers)! So, what about the beer itself?
The Twilight Summer Ale was their seasonal. We described it as a slightly hoppier Sam Adams Summer Ale. While mh was a big fan, it had the same slightly sour taste that rch does not love in Sam Summer. The Green Lakes Organic Amber was delicious and clocked in at a low ABV – only 5.2%. It had a clean flavor, pretty mild overall. The Chainbreaker White IPA was one of the more interesting beers we tasted the entire trip. It was a white beer, blonde and unfiltered, something people tend to associate with lighter or fruitier beers, but it was also an IPA. Unexpected and great. The Mirror Pond was only slightly hoppy and a generally smooth pale ale.
Of course, the Deschutes flagship beer is the Black Butte Porter, the best-selling porter in the country. Very few breweries have such a dark and complex beer as their flagship, which is one of the things that put Deschutes on the map. It is great. It has a chocolate smell and a slightly bitter taste. After the tour, we only had minutes to spare before departing Bend, so we headed downtown with Kaeleen to the Deschutes Pub for one more beer.
We drank more tasty Deschutes beer here, but with a twist. We had a large, soft pretzel with Deschutes’ stone-ground mustard. It was delicious. That mustard is outstanding. Just wow. The pretzel was also interesting – a bit more like multigrain and “breadier” than many pretzels. It was a great snack to end our brief tour of Bend.
From Bend, we set off another 130 miles across the state to Eugene, OR. Eugene is not just home of the Oregon Ducks – it also features its own set of craft brewers. The largest of the Eugene-based microbrews is the Ninkasi Brewing Company. Founded in 2006, Ninkasi is rapidly becoming one of the largest beer producers in Oregon, if not the country. They also have a well-run marketing machine. Note how everything there is “branded” with the Ninkasi label (it was also on every glass, in giant mosaic on the floor, on the outdoor tables, on the doors and windows, etc.).
We met up with some good friends who recently moved from Philadelphia to Eugene and sampled some of their beers. mh had a lighter beer – the Spring Reign Ale. It is their seasonal beer and it was light and crisp. Very nice for drinking outside on a patio – which we were doing! rch had the “Total Domination” IPA. How can you go wrong with a name like that? She thought it was great, a little milder than the name sounds but tasty. We carried our beers along on the tour, and she is sure that added a little something to the flavor.
The tour itself was excellent. Ninkasi is a much smaller operation than Deschutes, so in some ways it was more intimate tour. For a fun depiction, note the slide the Ninkasi folks use to move ingredients around the warehouse!
Ninkasi was also fun because it was filled with the perfect set of Eugene people, almost like something out of Portlandia. There were plenty of pairs of hipster glasses, some tie-dye, and some dreads. And everyone was nice.
after dinner sneeze 