Our Food and Drink Writer Moves to Virginia This Week. Here Are the 40 Things He’ll Miss Most at Nearby Bars and Restaurants.

Bon Voyage, Matthew Korfhage!

(Rachael Renee Levasseur)

1. Discovering a new whole new kind of oyster on a sunny winter Sunday at the Flying Fish counter at Providore. Downing it with a new kind of vermouth from the wine section in the back.

2. Upright Brewing in general. Grain and Gristle in general. Culmination and Breakside Brewing in general.

3. Driving to the Goble Tavern way out past Scappoose and talking dumb history and dumber politics with members of the Ventures and people who remember Willie Nelson's mom from back when she used to tend bar.

4. Aimlessly browsing the blue room at Powell's with a fresh receipt worth $50 in trade, then carting the haul to the Virginia Cafe for a Reuben.

5. Dungeness crab and a shit-ton of butter.

6. The Spanish-coffee flame dance at Huber's.

7. Texas brisket as good as it gets outside Texas, at Matt's BBQ.

8. Pfriem Pilsner or Breakside IPA at half the dive bars in town. Mirror Pond and Black Butte at even the crustiest.

9. The fact that our basic bar food is as good as the restaurant food in most towns in America.

10. Drip coffee at Heart on Burnside. Decent coffee almost everywhere.

11. Running the whole left side of the menu once a year at the Le Pigeon chef's counter.

12. Impossibly delicate dim sum rice noodles and dumplings at Pure Spice. Taking friends to dim sum at Pure Spice for the first time and watching their sense of the possibilities expand.

13. The daiquiri at Bar Casa Vale. The Genius Waitress at Shift Drinks. The peach blended at Rum Club. The Pedro Martinez at Rum Club.

14. Fighting elderly Taiwanese men for a parking spot at Kenny's Noodle House on Powell. Slurping too-hot dried-oyster congee next to prim matriarchs in pink jackets.

15. Reading all the new graffiti while waiting for perfect, crispy, juicy broasted chicken and jojos at Reel M Inn. Picking up a big ol' sauce rack and forgetting to use any of the sauce.

16. Watching Jess at the Standard explain proper tipping etiquette to yet another 21-year-old on dollar Hamm's Wednesday.

17. Cheap Blue Pool oysters and $6 burgers at Little Bird on Sunday.

18. Tuesday press-day ritual: $5 Korean fried chicken and Rainier at Revelry, half-off beers at Eastburn.

19. Eating Telephone Chowder next to fish-gut buckets at Northwest Wild on the Astoria docks, followed by a near-lethal yucca cocktail at Mary Todd's Worker's Tavern.

20. Drinking after hours at a Portland bar and watching the ashtrays come out the second the doors lock.

21. Nouveau day at St. Jack. Open house at the Southeast Wine Collective. Riesling and Scorps at Teutonic. Slipping into Davenport near closing time to taste whatever bottle Kurt Heilemann happens to have open.

22. Marionberry milkshakes.

23. Shooting the breeze with some of the best jazz players in town on soul nights at the Spare Room.

24. Epic runs for truly great Mexican food: tacos at La Carreta de Mi Tierra in Salem or Los Michoacanos (RIP) on Stark, cochinita pibil at La Mestiza on Fremont, pork nopales at Tienda de Leon at the edge of Gresham, birria and consomé at El Amanecer (RIP) in actual Gresham.

25. Watching fans stop by the table to pay their respects to legendary drummer Mel Brown, one by one, while he's out in inner Northeast grabbing a drink with his wife.

26. Drunken chefs and caviar mountains at Feast food fest after-parties.

27. Prime rib Wednesdays at the Sandy Hut.

28. Kale salad at the Sudra. Fried kale at Wares.

29. Geoduck sushi and unbelievable sake at Zilla. Uni and chirashi and muscadet at Nimblefish, or Fukami before that, or Hokusei before that. An endless train of hand rolls at Sushi Ichiban.

30. Pork rinds at the St. Jack bar. Late-night happy-hour mussels at La Moule.

31. Those perfect potatoes and green sauce at Chicken and Guns.

32. Cioppino at Jacqueline. Cioppino in general.

33. Little T baguette, Rogue blue cheese and Olympia Provisions salami out at the Skidmore Bluffs.

34. The feeling of anticipation right before eating a Slow Burger, as you crush the onion rings down so it can fit in your mouth.

35. A bowl of fancy-broth pelmeni dumplings and a flute of horseradish vodka at Kachka.

36. Rainy-day soup: pho ga at Teo Bun Bo Hue, snail soup at Ha VL, tonkotsu ramen at Marukin, ham and bean soup at Tails and Trotters, fish maw soup at Powell Seafood.

37. Scorching every taste bud eating the funky, burn-your-heart-out Southern Thai ground pork at Hat Yai.

38. The clam chowder at Gracie's in Depoe Bay. The ice cream at Buttercup in Nehalem. The scallops at Local Ocean in Newport. Oysters right from the water at Netarts.

39. Rediscovering salmon, once a year, at Paley's Place.

40. The B-Side, forever and ever.

Matthew Korfhage will be the new food critic at The Virginian-Pilot in Virginia Beach, Va., where he is assured they also like crab and oysters.

Willamette Week’s reporting has concrete impacts that change laws, force action from civic leaders, and drive compromised politicians from public office. Support WW's journalism today.