Chaval

With Some Exceptions, Dining Well Beyond the Portland Nexus Is a Worthy Excursion

July 10, 2023 / / Restaurants

No  thick plush of white tablecloths because there’s no room for them with tables just inches apart apart and noise levels beyond comprehension, these traits might describe  the scene at so many otherworldly dining chambers in Portland nowadays where the civilities of the past give way to guileless  gimmickries as though we’re shoppers, not collectors. And let’s not forget the prices.  If you think navigating  at the local supermarket where shelves are stocked with sticker shock is fruitless, dining out is a way more perilous game of arithmetic.  One example is Twelve, the Portland outpost where the refugees of  Eleven Madison Park   didn’t bring the tranquilities of the mother ship to give new life to our 2023 Portland dining scene.

Twelve’s version of roast chicken, which I had last year when it opened.

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First Look: Update–Hungry For A Neighborhood Café, The Ugly Duckling

February 14, 2023 / / Baking & Desserts, Restaurants

Here are a few new dishes that I’ve tried recently.

The Breakfast Sandwich and Breakfast Sweet

Yinz breakfast sandwich served on a rye English muffin with a special Yinzer sauce(mustard and ketchup

Pastel de natas, filled with a wonderful custard filling

The Ugly Duckling courtesy of Chaval’s Damian Sansonetti and Illma Lopez opened today to an overflow crowd that spilled onto the street waiting to get in for some superb pastries and sandwiches. It’s part of a mini food mecca that has grown along Danforth Street in Ruski’s territory.  Zu Bakers, the 211 Danforth  and now Ugly Duckling comprise this delicious corner of food fare.  The Duckling, however, is in its own realm, serving up Illma’s divine pastries, excellent coffee and breakfast sandwiches served on Illma’s signature buttermilk English muffins.

The trocadero

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Chaval Is As Good As It Gets

April 2, 2022 / / Restaurants

If  Chaval is the ultimate Mom and Pop West End Portland restaurant, then proprietors husband and wife team Damian Sansonetti and Ilma Lopez have achieved the pinnacle of success through sheer drive and talent.

During the Covid years, they strove to stay in business with a brisk take-out menu  with dishes like coq a vin and any one of Ilma’s desserts. But they’ve looked past the  pre-pandemic rah-rah  of Portland’s  much chronicled ascent as dining wunderkind. And they’ve emerged better than ever crafting their menu of  seasonal French and Spanish cooking with a bit of American bistro fusion for good measure.

The space still epitomizes the core of an urbane dining room. What’s more,  Chaval has grown grown into more than a neighborhood spot to garner  a crowd that’s more than just locals. In the process they’ve emerged with a James Beard Foundation nomination for best chef (Sansonetti) in the Northeast.

Chaval circa 2017

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The Survivors: Three + Portland Restaurants That Still Excite, Simply Delicious Food

July 4, 2021 / / Uncategorized

The point is,  can you get into any restaurant in Portland  on the spur of the moment? No.   From persnickety websites to various ways of reserving a table, it’s not so easy.  Online is encouraged, but in person or phone discouraged.  Tuesday has become the new Monday, both of which have been the day that most restaurants are closed.  Then there’s the Wednesday dilemma–some closed, a few open–where dining out can only take place Thursday to Sunday.  Dining tables inside or out are precious few to reserve.  If your favorite restaurants are serving at full capacity, where every allowable table is ready to be booked, the restaurant’s staff may still be limited, thus affecting the easy sway that restaurants used to enjoy–yes, I’ll say it–“pre-pandemic.”

The perfect Negroni at EVO

One place that I often visit when I don’t feel like cooking is a neighborhood eatery (Munjoy Hill) that specializes in pizza.  The problem is you can’t call up to order a pie.  It must be done online.  Recently I walked in since I was in the neighborhood to place my order for pizza pie.  I was told it must be done online. (Why not in person?)  I answered that I have problems with the website, filtered by TOAST, the popular format for online ordering.  Sometimes you hit it just right and can breeze through the process.  But doing it on a cell phone is not effortless if downright impossible.   It just it doesn’t work that well.  I spent 5 minutes once looking for the menu on which to place my check mark to order.

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Cooking at Home is Getting Old Hat, Long In the Tooth, Tiresome–Get Me Out to a Good Restaurant

April 4, 2021 / / Discoveries, Restaurants, Travel

I never thought it would happen but I’m really fed up with cooking at home.  Even though I’m thoroughly vaxxed, I’m still hesitant to dine-in at restaurants regularly.  Yet I really don’t like take-out food unless it’s a carton of Chinese food or a box filled with pizza.  I recently went so low and bought some frozen supermarket entrees to avoid cooking and cleaning up after.  Dreadful!!!

Rao’s lasagna and spaghetti and meatballs, lasagna on the left

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Al Fresco Dining is a Savior of Inside-Out Dining

September 29, 2020 / / Restaurants

I’d like nothing better than to go to a restaurant–the only face covering being my beard–to settle into the simple pleasures of indoor dining.

Recently I asked a friend where we should go out to eat ( inside).  Her response listed these restaurants for indoor dining: “Tuscan Table (it’s so large), Royal River Grill House, Boone’s, Scales, Fore Street, etc.”   It ran the gamut of choices, leaving out some. I suggested Chaval because they  offer   wonderful garden seating behind the restaurant.  Last Friday night I was not able to secure a spot outside  but reserved a table inside, requesting the big round one at the window, far enough away from other diners. By 8 PM we were finished and only a few tables in the main dining room were occupied. But there was a steady stream of take out orders being picked up at the front door and the garden dining area was humming.  Indeed Chaval has taken every precaution to abide by the city’s inside dining rules. Without the  buzz of a packed restaurant, the atmosphere was subdued.

The dining room and entry at Chaval; Sole stuffed with clams in a spinach puree; ice cream roll

Bar or counter dining is basically minimal at most restaurants.  I’ve even been to  Moody’s and Becky’s where counter seating–once a mainstay–is off limits. Scales and Fore Street have devised plexiglass shields between seats for twosomes  at the bar.  If there’s a silver lining the kitchens are less stressed than they would be with crowded dining rooms and the food is more carefully prepared.

But for now I’m still enjoying  eating in the open air.  And if there’s a water view, all the better.  I’ve yet to go hunker down  under the bunker-walled enclaves on Middle Street–as though those fortifications that mark many outdoor dining rooms were devised to prevent runaway Mack trucks from plowing  diners down.

The Middle Street restaurant row is the most popular in the city.  Though the mass of diners seems too close for comfort.

I limit my dining out options to lunch, preferably either on the water or overlooking it. Having a table on a busy street is not appealing after sunset. One in particular whose food I like a lot is on such a busy corner and is smack dab in the path of a blinding setting sun.  Sunset is earlier now (6:30 ish).  Will restaurants be installing lighting when the sun sets by the late afternoon?

Top: The bar and halibut in meyer lemon sauce at Fore Street; Bottom: The patio at Scales and tuna

 

Solo Italiano taking reservations and setting up for the evening’s roster of outdoor dining

Here is a short list of what I like.  I know, I know.  There are other spots, but …

My three favorites at lunchtime  include  the patio at the Cumberland Food Company, in the heart of Cumberland Center’s farm country; Mr. Tuna along the Eastern Prom and EVO-X at Fore Points Marina at the end of Thames Street.

The patio at Cumberland Food Company–a day in the country!

Chef/owner Bryan Dame has quite a following at both breakfast and lunch.  Most recently I had a grilled chicken sandwich served on  homemade focaccia.  The lightly grilled chicken breast was melt-in- your- mouth tender, but it was the bread that was the star–bursting in flavor, with a texture that was both silken and hearty. It just crumbled in your mouth like the flakiest pastry.

The chicken sandwich  with flavored mayonnaise served with housemade pickle served on the patio at Cumberland Food Company

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Covid Cacophony: Singing the Take-Out Blues Instead of Cooking at Home or Dining Out For Real But Try Farm Stores and Small Supermarkets for Daily Stress-Free Shopping

May 24, 2020 / / Discoveries, Restaurants

It’s been several weeks since I’ve  cooked at home. The  reason is that I had to deal with packing up my kitchen for my move to a new apartment. That fateful, monumental event took place about a week ago.  My new apartment is still filled with unpacked cartons (there were originally 80 cartons of books, dishes and bric a brac of every type such as piles of placemats and napkins that I forgot I had). In my new kitchen I have lots of drawers and cabinets and am slowly filling them.  One notable mishap was that I couldn’t find the carton that contained all my spices.  From peppercorns to exotic blends, even vanilla extract  and my homemade baking powder  were  all missing.  And then  yesterday I finally found them in a carton marked “Fragile Glassware.”  Indeed.

So like so many in Portland I’ve resorted to take out before and during  Covid quarantine.

In general, my biggest gripe is the navigability of the  restaurant websites. Many are hosted by Upserve, which  can be finicky.  And heaven help us if you want to feed yourself on Mondays to Wednesdays since most of the kitchens limit  take out to Thursday through Sunday. There are some exceptions, of course.  And I fully understand that restaurants are operating on lean budgets and staff.  I think Damian Sansonetti and Illma   Lopez of Chaval are virtually solo in their kitchen,  and keeping up with diner-out demand is difficult. Monte’s, too, for his great Roman style pizza works from a skelton kitchen staff but plans to be open 6 days a week in June.

Pine Ridge Acres Farm with cases filled with fresh and frozen meat, dairy and eggs; canned good made at the farm as well

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Dining In And Out: Choices in Portland Abound, from Plain and Simple to the Sublime

August 31, 2018 / / Restaurants

From the venerable Empire Chinese to Forage, Chaval, Pai Men Miyake, Little Giant, Evergreen Chinese, The Shop and dinner at home under the auspices of Martha Marley Spoon home delivery, it was a pretty good several weeks of dining in and out.

Martha-Marley Spoon. I started subscribing to Martha’s home delivery a few months ago, and once a week for $48 for 4 servings I receive dishes of my choice from a long menu list.  For the most part the food is good: very fresh, either natural or organic ingredients, and most of the preparations are very similar: main dishes of meat, chicken or things like tacos or flatbreads along with various vegetable dishes.  The prep list is somewhat complicated, though nothing takes more than 30 minutes to prepare and cook.  The delivery, however, is erratic, coming a day late and the freezer packs are perilously close to thawing out.  Still it’s an A- service and I’ve enjoyed most of the meal plans.  ***1/2

Seared steak with ginger butter and oven-baked fries and green beans

Empire Chinese. It’s still the best of our Chinese cuisine dining options.  Authentic Cantonese dishes, including dim sum, are beautifully prepared.  It’s one of my favorite restaurants in Portland. ****1/2

Kung pao chicken

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Sunday Brunch: The Gloire of Weekend Brunch’s Newcomers Defining the Scene

February 19, 2018 / / Restaurants

In our town, filled with bounteous brunch menus—some offered on weekends and others just on Sundays—the vagaries of the star brunch dish, Eggs Benedict, rarely surprise.  But then consider Chaval, commandeered by the highly effective husband and wife chef duo and co-owners, Damián Sansonetti and Ilma Lopez. The latter’s focus is her art of refined pastries and Sansonetti wielding his firm hand in the kitchen—really a co-conspiratorial affair—giving Portlanders a fine fusion of American-European fare.

The dining room and bar at Chaval

Chaval’s brunch menu is part of a new wave of offerings that typify the meal from some of our newest, highly regarded restaurants—namely, in addition to Chaval, Little Giant and Bolster, Snow, all of whom offer highly evolved brunch menus with twists and turns that elevate this strange thing called weekend brunch.

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First Look: Don’t Walk But Run Right Over to Chaval, the new West Ender That’s Divine

July 16, 2017 / / Restaurants

Rarely does a new restaurant get it so right at the gate.  But then when you have two pros—a highly acclaimed chef and pastry chef, in this case husband and wife who are the owners of the new establishment, Chaval, then the level of success is nearly assured. With Chaval’s opening this week after a renovation of the former Caiola’s in which it’s housed, this duo has brought to Portland one of the most exciting restaurants in the city set to pamper those who cross its threshold.

Devotees of Caiola’s were mostly West Enders who called this place their own like a private dining club when it opened  in 2005. It fit into the fabric of the West End like a a brick townhouse wrapped up in an  old comfy sweater.  The interiors were plain and woody; the food from chef Abby Harmon was deliciously inventive—always something unusually devised with ingredients that you’d never dream of pairing.  Who could not love her savory puddings filled with lobster or crab meat swathed in an elegant cream sauce, for instance, or grilled pork chops with caramelized onions; Johnny cakes with fried chicken and maple syrup or crab cakes under a dome of beet puree–homespun but inventive fare highly tasteful and bathed with flavor.

The space at Chaval is open,, larger and very comfortable

So, when Damian Sansonetti and Ilma Lopez bought Caiola’s—both the real estate and the restaurant–we all kind of rolled our eyes that seemed to say, Wow this will be a hard act to follow to please die-hard Harmon fans stumbling out of their brick manses to revel in her cooking.

When they took over the restaurant they kept the Caiola’s menu.  Though many of us thought, it’s not the same.  Good but not remarkable.  Hmmm.  Where is that famous Sansonetti touch who installed himself fresh from New York of Daniel Boulud fame where he was executive chef at Bar Boulud into his divine Piccolo, their heavenly dining aerie in the footsteps of Bresca and its former owner, Kristen Dejarlais, another star chef?

Bar dining is already in high demand

Fast forward: After a few months Sansonetti and Lopez closed the Caiola space and the undertaking of a total rehab ensued:  not just the space but the kitchen, menu and staff.

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