Pai Men Miyake

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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New York Dining: Worldly-wise without too much farm-to-table

June 13, 2016 / / Discoveries, Restaurants, Travel

During the frenetic few days that I spent in New York last week I splurged, as always, on enjoying the city’s dining diversity.  Compared to home, it’s a gastronome’s playground far from Maine’s more preciously focused seas and fields. It’s like stepping out of an exiguous puddle into the vast ocean, from food trucks to haute fare.

On West 46th Street the food trucks are an international lineup

On West 46th Street the food trucks are an international lineup

This led me to enjoy Chomp Chomp, Obica and Marta, which respectively took in Singaporean hawker fare in Greenwich Village; a midtown mozzarella bar on Madison Avenue and in NoMad the thinnest crust wood-oven pizza imaginable—that in addition to a divinely urbane menu of Roman style cooking in the pop-culture panache of restaurant guru Danny Meyer and chef Nick Anderer.

What’s immediately apparent is how New York restaurants fixate less on local fare than we obsessively (and gladly)  feed on eating local.  That’s not to say that their greenmarkets aren’t cherished both by residents and restaurant chefs.

The dining room at Chomp Chomp on Cornelia Street

The dining room at Chomp Chomp on Cornelia Street

I read about Chomp Chomp in a New York Times review from 2015 and filed it away. I made a beeline for it on my first night in New York joined by a trendy downtown friend who frequents these places.  Hawker fare, he said, is popping up in a lot of places. And fancy chefs are recreating street food in various guises.  (Hairy crab en papillote?)

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Another tale of two cities: Boston vs. Portland Dining

February 26, 2016 / / Uncategorized

Another foray into Boston dining led me to Banyan Bar and Refuge, which bills itself as a modern Asian gastropub.  I read about it in Boston Magazine where it was given top billing on two lists: The best 25 restaurants of 2015 and the 50 best restaurants in Boston 2016.

The bartender at the hotel where I was staying couldn’t warble higher and louder to sing its praises.  There were other restaurants on the lists that sounded just as intriguing such as O Ya, Shojo—you can see I was attracted to Asian restaurants—or more traditional haunts like Barbara Lynch’s Menton  or the very avant garde Tasting Counter in Somerville.

The bar and dining room at Banyan

The bar and dining room at Banyan

Interestingly the night before my trip to Boston, I went to Evo in Portland where we had an extraordinary impromptu dinner that had so much style and taste—a hard act to follow anywhere and at one of out city’s best restaurants.  And it was still on my mind when I began my dinner at Banyan.

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Fleeting pleasures–and a few minor misses–at Pai Men Miyake

October 9, 2015 / / Restaurants

Portland may not be a city of financial titans or internet billionaires (at least not by New York, LA or London standards) who covet trophy dining with star chefs.  But it can be proud of its chefs like Masa  Miyake who is as much of a force in Portland’s dining scene as his compatriots Chris Gould of Central Provisions, Larry Matthews of Back Bay Grill, Sam Hayward of Fore Street, Damian Sansonetti of Piccolo and other gadabouts from the culinary girth of fine dining here.

Moreover, in my last few visits to his venerable noodle house and pub, Pai Men Miyake, the food is still admirably done.

The kitchen and dining room at Miyake

The kitchen and dining room at Miyake

Though, pardon this round of nitpicking, there is, I’ve noticed, a slight curve ball of discombobulation in how the restaurant is run and the scope of the menu, which seems more stagnant than vital.

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Weekend brunch, Portland: Are you still standing on line to get in?

September 14, 2015 / / Restaurants

From the divine dining annals of  Middle Street (Eventide, Duckfat, East Ender,  et al) to the proprietors on the four corners of Longfellow Square,  the legion of brunch buckaroos waiting on line to get into Portland’s trendiest eateries has spiraled to new highs.  All that craving rush for variations on eggs Benedict or the latest take on tater tots define this culinary madness.

The hot spots, Local 188, Eventide, East Ender and Duckfat

The hot spots, Local 188, Eventide, East Ender and Duckfat

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Snapshot Review: Two very different restaurants open in Portland—OCHO (Why?) and Ramen Suzukiya (Why Not?)

September 11, 2015 / / Restaurants

Full disclosure: I don’t like burritos, especially those being slung at the newly opened OCHO at its miniature outpost on Congress Street. As for ramen dishes, well, here again, I’m not nuts over ramen of any kind (too many carbs), but there’s a great story of potential at Suzukiya that’s worth keeping an eye on beyond the inchoate muss and fuss. Should Pai Men Miyake take notice?  Will Kei Suzuki’s homemade organic noodles topple Masa Miyake’s domain?  I don’t think so.  They’re worlds apart and it’s nice to have a choice.

The dining room at Suzukiya and inside OCHO

The dining room at Suzukiya and inside OCHO

Here’s the snapshot wrap on OCHO.   Basically this is full-blown Americanized Mexican wrap that’s as common as a tuna melt, except the latter is more appealing.  But then I admit I’ve never had a real burrito, the kind that you’d find in a Tex-Mex or Cali-Mex kitchen or in various regions of Mexico.  What I dislike about the thoroughly American version as we know it in its ubiquitous Northeast guise is its doughy unctuousness, further assaulted when it’s stuffed to the gills with gook.  Yuck.  It’s like having a bubble gum sandwich on Wonder Bread.

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