Band May 9
= WW Pick. Highly recommended. By RUTH BROWN. PRICES: $: Most entrees under $10. $$: $10-$20. $$$: $20-$30. $$$$: Above $30. Editor: MARTIN CIZMAR. Email: dish@wweek.com. See page 3 for submission instructions.
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 11
REVIEW MIKE GRIPPI
BEST nEW
FOOD & DRINK
Old Town Pizza Fundraiser Dinner at Aviary
Old Town Pizza, everyone’s favorite place to shanghai a new deckhand, suffered a fire recently. If anyone knows how much that can screw with your restaurant, it’s Alberta’s Aviary, which closed for five months after a stray Fourth of July firework set it alight last year. So, the folks at Aviary are paying it forward with a benefit dinner. The meal will pair four courses with beers from the pizzeria’s new brewing arm. Aviary, 1733 NE Alberta St., 287-2400. 6 pm. $45. 21+.
THURSDAY, APRIL 12 Sake Fest PDX
Think sake is just a sidekick to sushi? Prepare to have your entire world view destroyed. Oregon’s SakeOne and a host of other sake brewers will sample their wares, alongside Japanese (and Japaneseinspired) beers, plum wine and bites from the likes of Masu, Yakuza, Departure, Kalé and Biwa. The ticket price includes a souvenir sampling glass and free admission to an after-party at Saucebox. Governor Hotel, 614 SW 11th Ave., 224-3400. 6:30-9 pm. $49 in advance, $59 at door. 21+.
Simon Pure Dinner: Unleashed!
Sweet Jeebus. A meal pairing for dog owners and their hounds. Dogfood cook Rick Woodford celebrates the release of his new book, Feed Your Best Friend Better, by teaming up with Jamie Snell of the Lamb’s Table Catering for a pop-up dinner at a vintage furniture store. Waaay too much Portland right there. Anyway, humans will eat a meal and their pets, will get a meal featuring similar ingredients. The press release says it will be “gourmutt.” Reservations can be made at the store or by calling 208-2580. Seek the Unique, 931 SE 6th Ave., 208-2580. 7 pm. $35 per person. Pets free. BYO booze.
SATURDAY, APRIL 14 Kitchen Revival Tour
For 14 years, the Architectural Heritage Center has been allowing nosy folks to pry into Portland’s kitchens with its Kitchen Revival Tour. This year will feature eight houses from 1898-1961, including three DIY kitchens and one in the 1925 San Carlos apartment building. Other people’s stuff is so much more interesting than your own. Tickets and info at visitahc.org. 10 am-4 pm. AHC members $20, nonmembers $25.
Celebration of Mazurkas
Mazurek is a type of Polish cake made only at Easter. It will be served up alongside a feast of Polish music at Polish Hall, featuring five regional pianists playing your favorite hits from Chopin, Szymanowski and Maciejewski. The mazurek comes with coffee and tea, and Polish liqueurs will be available in Grandpa’s Cafe downstairs. Na zdrowie! Polish Hall, 3900 N Interstate Ave., 715-1866. 7 pm. $10.
The Gamechanger Fundraiser
Space Reservation & art deadline - 5/3 at 4pm Email: advertising@wweek.com • Phone: 503.243.2122 26
Willamette Week APRIL 11, 2012 wweek.com
The Gamechanger Bucket is a 5-gallon bucket created by Nike and Hurley with nonprofit Waves 4 Water containing a new soccer ball and a filter that its makers say can provide clean water for 100 people for five years. W4W is holding a fundraiser to get more of these buckets where they’re needed.
DRAGGING ON: Yin-Yang shrimp is more boring than it looks.
BULL IN A CHINA SHOP A dish called Dragonwell Lionhead summons imagery straight outta Game of Thrones: writhing lizards hatching from the skulls of your enemies doused in Sriracha—or something like that. Part of the letdown in ordering this dinner off the “new dishes” menu at Dragonwell Bistro is that it’s just meatballs. But the disappointment is heightened because they are such bland meatballs. The chopped pebbles of pork leg are satisfactory meat, but they’re braised to a dry uniformity, then served in a bowl of what looks like boiled cabbage and water. The dish costs $16, and it is one of the house’s evening bargains. I don’t want to heap trouble on Dragonwell, a Chinese restaurant that seems to have suffered enough turmoil already: It was owned by local chain Sungari until Jan. 1, and signage in the foyer explains at length how it has feuded with restaurant.com over obsolete gift certificates. But this is the sort of eatery that comes and goes in downtown Portland without notice, and the accumulation of them has come to define the dining scene along the downtown MAX lines, where exceptions like Luc Lac appearing as rare points of light. So its failures are worth examining, if only to ask who pays $22 for Yin-Yang Shrimp. The Yin-Yang dish contains items carefully separated on their sides of the plate: giant prawns in a tangy Mandarin sauce on their end, and bitsy shrimp in Cantonese white wine sauce on the other. It’s actually the most enjoyable meal I had at the bistro, because it offers two options for monotony, while everything else stuck to one. Order this: Seafood is best The recipes here all follow a temhere, if also most expensive; plate: evenly coat meat and veggies try prawns or scallops. in something sweet and sticky. The Best deal: At lunch, similar menu items are half the price. presentation is outstanding. The I’ll pass: I half suspect that consumption is a drag. While nothsoup was hot tofu water. ing is a fiasco—the seafood, especially the battered scallops ($23), struck me as good catches—the taste and texture of each bite is unvarying. Most of these sauces, such as the Champagne orange chicken glaze that’s sticky with actual (seemingly canned) mandarin oranges, are not a far cry from mall food-court Chinese. Meanwhile, the egg drop soup was the thinnest I have ever tasted. It also cost $3.50. Which is the troubling thing about an otherwise forgettable place: Somehow, dining in ostensibly posh environs in the central city seemingly inflates prices to keep the doors open. They’re a good bit cheaper at lunch, which may explain, along with the coupons, how those doors actually remain open. That makes Dragonwell Bistro less a symptom of our troubled economy and popped real-estate bubble than a victim of it, another desperate effort to keep the mediocre times rolling. It is all rather fantastical. AARON MESH. EAT: Dragonwell Bistro, 735 SW 1st Ave., 224-0800, dragonwellbistro.com. 11 am-10 pm Monday-Thursday, 11 am-midnight Friday, 5 pm-midnight Saturday, 4:30 pm-9 pm Sunday. $$.