I don’t tend to spend much time in coffeehouses these days but I do have a few favorite spots to retreive that magical warm brew.

Whenever I have a moment to spare in downtown I stop at Coffee Crutch (1023 SW Yamhill). It’s a quiet funky little place right across from the main branch of the library. They have nice art on the walls, reliable wifi if you need it, and really good panini (try the brie and pear with walnuts). But the real reason I go is the cubano breve. Cubano style is to line the filter basket with raw sugar before tamping in the ground espresso. Breve is a latte made with half and half instead of milk. Sweet. Strong. Rich. Yum. Though the owner of the shop (young guy named Ryan) has instructed his baristas well he still makes the best cubano breve I’ve ever had. The serve Nossa Familia beans, which are new to town and with the tiniest little hint of prodding Ryan will tell you all about the company and why they are fantastic to work with. I’ll let him do the honors.

I’ve been a Stumptown fan since before I moved to Portland. I had visited the shop on SW 3rd and Ash during little big city jaunts, but I was still acquiring the taste for espresso. Now I live just down the street from the Belmont shop (3356 SW Belmont) and I’m so spoiled. My favorite is the mocha breve. I love the chocolate sauce they use and they always stop midway through the milk pour to dust in some cocoa powder, then finish off the little leaf lourish so it has streaks of chocolate in it. It is a work of art that I almost hate to cover with a plastic travel lid.

My newest discovery is a little place in the Pearl called Acorn Cafe (539 NW 13th Ave). Though I’m still learning about it, they do make a fine mocha breve and they do have loose leaf earl grey tea. From the little bit of research I’ve been doing online about the place I really missed out yesterday by not trying one of the original sandwiches with quirky ingredient combinations. Sounds right up my alley and definitely warrants a return trip.

- Epicurienne

Price: about $4 a drink
Last Bite: The chocolate silt that fell out of the coffee mixture as it cooled. I love that part!

We made 5:30pm reservations at Piazza Italia ( 1129 NW Johnson) before the 7pm Crowded House concert at the Schnitz. Our timing was good, but neither J or I brought any kind of time keeping device, so we were a little at the mercy of our waitstaff, who did take their time. I was just barely able to stay relaxed and pay attention to the food, though the food itself didn’t really help.

I ordered a glass of the house sangiovese, which was a little flat. I’ve definitely had some more full-bodied ones, and I usually prefer to taste some fruit in my red wine, but here there was none.

I tried my dangdest not to order ravioli, because it’s one of those standbys that I always order, but it won out over the rigatoni bolognese in the end. The waiter promised italian sausage filling, but if there was more in those little pockets than some ricotta cheese and air you coulda fooled me. The sauce was good and they knew it apparently, because the ravioli were swimming in it. It was a tomato cream-based sauce, light in color, texture and flavor. It could have used some pepper or maybe a tad more cheese.

And thank goodness we had time for dessert. Not only was it the saving grace of the meal, I would have left hungry had it not been for the extra course. The waiter didn’t even get to finish reciting the dessert menu. I stopped him with enthusiastic nodding at the word profiteroles. I love anything that includes pastry made from choux paste. These were spectacular. The hollow little pastry balls were filled with chocolate pastry creme, covered with the gooeyest white chocolate sauce, drizzled with melted chocolate and dolloped with whipped cream. J and I split a plate of 3, which he threatened to steal entirely at first (the nerve!) –Epicurienne

My impressions were similar to my more learned companion, even if I can not for the life of me remember the actual name of what I ordered.  Basically, it was thin sliced beef, drowned in a watery red sauce.  The menu offered me the meat by itself for $14.50, or with pasta for a dollar more.  Fortunately, I chose the option with pasta, because I shudder to think how unsatisfied (and hungry) the steak alone would have left me.

It was stringy and tough, and somehow dry despite its being submerged in the sauce.  The sauce itself was…okay.  It was thin, as I mentioned, and seemed to run off the food without imparting any particular richness or flavor to it.  The pasta was plain, but good, with a good texture.  The dessert was fabulous though, I heartily concur.  Is there a reason why there always seems to be an odd number of menu items like this, even when people frequently share them?  Anyway, the profiterole were light and flavorful and I should have just ordered a couple of plates of them and skipped the main course altogether. –Gastronomic J

Price: $50ish
Last Bite: All together now! Pro-fit-er-ole!

The place felt comfortable and unassuming the moment we walked in. My first assessment was “I could be a regular here.” I had barely a chance to glance at the specials board by the door before we were seated. Though I dutifully looked through the entire menu, I had already seen the magic words that sparked activity in my salivary glands: Mango Cashew.

I ordered it with chicken and a Thai iced tea. It came with rice. It arrived a large and brightly glistening pile of orange and red and green. It smelled heavenly. The sauce was tangy and very slightly salty. The mango was soft but sweet and flavorful. The peppers, carrots and onions were crisp. The cashews were warm but still crunchy. The chicken was tender, all white meat, and just cooked enough.

When my little tummy was full, shock of all shocks, I couldn’t resist taking home leftovers (and I actually ate them the very next day!). Pad Thai Kitchen, I will definitely be back.

Last Bite: A carefully composed bite consisting of mango, cashew, chicken, carrot, red pepper and sauce soaked rice.

–Epicurienne

I am sometimes possessed of very little imagination. For example, every time I eat at a new Thai restaurant, I order Pad Thai. Given that the very name of this place seems to promise at least a passable example of their namesake dish, I saw no compelling reason to change that habit. Not being even remotely a vegetarian, I ordered mine with chicken.

It’s a good thing that the Pad Thai was indeed good: the noodles just chewy and sweet enough, the chicken tender and juicy. Because I got a lot of it. A big, heaping, steaming plate of it. There’s a really simple equation guaranteed to make me a loyal fan of your eating establishment: Taste+Big portions-Not overly expensive. Pad Thai Kitchen succeeds in all three.

Last Bite: About my three hundredth noodle, which tasted as good as the first.

–Gastronomic J

Price: $20-30ish (for two)

I must confess, I did the low sugar diet thing a few years back and after reading a passage that compared a baked potato to eating a bag full of processed white sugar I swore off potatoes entirely. I still can’t eat a baked potato, but I’m slowly welcoming back such potato favorites as roasted red new potatoes and skillet fried breakfast potatoes. And these french fries are the best I’ve had since rejoining the potato game.

The meatloaf sandwich was mediocre. It came on toasted rye bread, which was a plus, but had this little baby green salad on it that wilted immediately. The meatloaf was dry and there was too much non-meat filler and it was sliced too thinly. I had to search for the telltale red smear of tomato paste along one side before I could confirm it was actually meatloaf. I’m not generally a fan of mayo, but this time I was grateful for the added moisture.

They brew their own rootbeer, and since I don’t drink beer this was my preference. At first the waiter said they were out. Then asked me to hold on and went back to check. He came back with a rootbeer in hand. It was flavorful and sweet. But oh those fries!

They were cut with the skin on. They were light golden brown. They had been sprinkled with coarse salt, so that I could see little opaque cubes of goodness dotting the pile. They weren’t oily or greasy. They were soft and warm. I was in french fry heaven. –Epicurienne

Price: about $12
Last Bite: Oh just one more fry… as i’m standing up to leave.

So when I was hungry a couple of days ago and went wandering in search of food, the stereotypical facade of the Golden Jade restaurant on Belmont beckoned welcomingly. I thought of fortune cookies, and giant heaps of fried rice, and that red cocktail-type sauce I’ve never actually known the name of. There was nobody eating there when I entered, but that didn’t worry me overmuch. I’ve never seen a crowded Chinese restaurant; maybe it’s because there are so many of them. The menu promised delicacies from every region of China. The menu went on for pages and pages. How could I possibly decide? Easy… “I’ll take number 6″

I, generally speaking, hate vegetables. Which is why I consider it a minor miracle that I love vegetables in most Asian cooking. I’ll eat forkfuls of shoots and those weird little corn on the cobs and even cooked carrots (shudder) with considerable relish, because the sauce somehow make it all taste good together.

Sadly, that would not happen this evening. The only seasoning the cooks were aware of was salt, which they dispensed with wild abandon. I could discern no other flavor, no matter what color of vegetable I was reluctantly eating. My Chow Mein had five or six miniscule pieces of boiled chicken in it, rubbery and dull. You know how people describe unfamiliar foods as tasting “like chicken”? Well, in the way that everything vaguely tastes like chicken, this chicken tasted like precisely nothing at all. The shrimp were a tiny white rumour in a great blob of greasy breading. The barbecued pork were not only dry, they had the quality of drawing all the moisture from my mouth and giving me a tickle in the back of my throat as if I’d just eaten sand. The egg flower soup was crunchy and gelatinous. The rice was okay (I love fried rice and am very un-picky about it) but it had seemingly been jammed around the great heap of Chow Mein, so there was barely any of it.

And yet, somehow, none of this was the worst part. The part that makes me yearn for the days of white cartons with crappy dragons imprinted on them. The way in which no Chinese restaurant should ever, ever fail us.

I didn’t get a fortune cookie.

-gastronomic J

Price: Too much. Pumping your stomach will cost more.

Last bite: Not so much a bite as big gulps of blessed, mouth-cleansing tea.

I took a quick trip down to the break room, tossed my half pints onto a paper plate and nuked it for a minute. The pilaf was fantastic. Golden raisins, pecans and green onions among long grain wild rice and brown rice. Sweet and nutty and crunchy. The roast beef was a little tough from the nuking but was still tender enough to eat with plastic cutlery and the green peppercorn sauce added a little punch and some extra moisture. –Epicurienne

Price: under $10
Last Bite: A slowly dissolving bit of soft buttery caramel.