This Week’s Events

| Posted in Events

Wednesday — Wine Wise is teaching a class at The Wine Bar.

Thursday — wine tastings at Leavitt & Sons and Kitchen & Cork, Cultivating Community is hosting the next in their series of Twilight Dinners, and PortlandTaps.com is holding their monthly Third Thursday event at Brian Boru.

Friday — a 100-Mile Meal is taking place at BiBo’s, and Novare Res is holding their 3rd Annual Roguepalooza – 30 Rogue beers on tap.

Saturday — the 2nd day of Roguepalooza at Novare Res.

Farmer’s Markets — the traditional series of Farmer’s Markets are taking place Monday (Monument Square), Wednesday (Monument Square) and Saturday (Deering Oaks Park). Cultivating Community is running their new series of markets Wednesday, Thursday and Friday at various locations around the city.

For more information on these and other upcoming food happenings in the area, visit the event calendar.

If you are holding a food event this week that’s not listed above, publicize it by adding it as a comment to this post.

Review of Miyake

| Posted in Reviews

pArts has published a review of Miyake.

When I placed my order, Joe Ricchio – waitron extraordinaire – recommended instead the five course omakase tasting menu, adding “trust me.” I know Joe so trust was not an issue and I promptly changed my order. I’m glad I did (thanks, Joe!) At 50 bucks this is quite simply one of the best deals in town for fine dining – and it doesn’t get much finer than this – anywhere.

Trader Joe's Commentary

| Posted in Under Construction

Friday’s Portland Daily Sun includes an update on Trader Joe’s new store—the latest word is their aiming for a November 1 opening. The newspaper’s editor also looks at how Trader Joe’s fits with a Buy Local philosophy.

Heaven knows I’ll be there, no doubt fighting for a parking spot. But I’ll take some comfort in an interview we did a while back with Doug Fuss, the Bull Feeney’s operator who served on the city’s Task Force on Business Diversity … that’s the anti-chain gang.

I asked “does embracing “Trader’s” make us traitors to our buy-local, down-with-chains creed?

“The quick answer is ‘yes,'” responded Fuss, “but the longer answer is ‘no.'”

Trader Joe’s Commentary

| Posted in Under Construction

Friday’s Portland Daily Sun includes an update on Trader Joe’s new store—the latest word is their aiming for a November 1 opening. The newspaper’s editor also looks at how Trader Joe’s fits with a Buy Local philosophy.

Heaven knows I’ll be there, no doubt fighting for a parking spot. But I’ll take some comfort in an interview we did a while back with Doug Fuss, the Bull Feeney’s operator who served on the city’s Task Force on Business Diversity … that’s the anti-chain gang.

I asked “does embracing “Trader’s” make us traitors to our buy-local, down-with-chains creed?

“The quick answer is ‘yes,'” responded Fuss, “but the longer answer is ‘no.'”

Food Writing Talent

| Posted in People

Portland Phoenix restaurant critic Brian Duff recently met with some aspiring writers at the Telling Room’s Young Author camp.

I don’t know about them, but I learned some things. For example, if someone speaks past your snack time you can simply slump off your chair and lie listlessly on the floor and they will stop. I told them that the best way to write about food was to frame each review in some pseudo-profound malarkey that is both ridiculous and quite possibly true. They wanted to know if I had tried things they had tried. Mostly I had.