The Best Thing I Ate This Year...

Our food writers pick their favorite Portland meals of 2011.

Food Reviews & Stories On a miserable, soggy day in mid-November, my wife and I sought shelter from the cold at Five Spice (2446 SE 87th Ave.), a Cantonese restaurant that opened this spring. It’s a pleasant, under-de   More

 

Wednesday, December 28, 2011 WW Culture Staff

Devour: Elizabeth’s Tamales

Food Reviews & Stories There are many things I want to know about Elizabeth, the woman who rolled a cooler up to my front door to sell tamales. How she got in the cooler-based tamale business, naturally. Also, who else    More

 

Wednesday, December 21, 2011 MARTIN CIZMAR

You Wanna Pizza Me?

Via Tribunali and Oven and Shaker vie for downtown pizza dominance.

Food Reviews & Stories How’s this for timing: Two Neapolitan pizza places happened to open nearly simultaneously in downtown Portland, both serving authentic thin-crust pizza at affordable prices. Each has been pack   More

 

Wednesday, December 21, 2011 BEN WATERHOUSE

A Prim Woodland

The Woodsman Tavern tastes good and looks better.

Food Reviews & Stories It’s Thanksgiving eve and the Woodsman Tavern is bustling. The harried staff darts about as diners seated on iron-legged drafting stools blend together in the richly dim room. A pale, slightly b   More

 

Wednesday, December 14, 2011 MARTIN CIZMAR

Soul Food, Thai Style

Manao ditches the pad Thai and brings on the pork knuckle.

Food Reviews & Stories Pok Pok has fish sauce wings; Manao has pig knuckles. That’s not to say that Chef Ekkachai “Chew” Sakkayasukkalawong’s quiet new Thai spot in Sellwood will grow to inspire the same legion    More

 

Wednesday, December 7, 2011 KELLY CLARKE

Cinnaman

Seven dudes pick Portland’s best cinnamon roll.

Food Reviews & Stories It wasn’t Willamette Week’s intention to limit our taste-off of Portland’s best cinnamon rolls by gender. But by happenstance, only dudes—seven of ’em—came down to the conference room    More

 

Wednesday, December 7, 2011 WW Staff

Central Nonstandard

Central opens up its curtains and menu, featuring diverse small plates.

Food Reviews & Stories When tiny Central first opened a little over a year ago, it was planned as something of a craft-cocktail hipster speakeasy, unmarked and secreted away in a narrow back alley of otherwise chaotic   More

 

Wednesday, November 30, 2011 MATTHEW KORFHAGE

Buckman Brewery

Food Reviews & Stories Through the north doors of the cavernous brewery/warehouse/meeting room that is the Green Dragon, you will find a patio. There you will find a Quonset hut. And in front of this Quonset hut, you will f   More

 

Wednesday, November 23, 2011 KAT MERCK

All in the Family

At Sugar Mamas, food is love.

Food Reviews & Stories Sugar Mamas is not going to win any beauty contests. A parade of sadness twitches past the tiny downtown cafe’s windows on the way to the nearby drug treatment center. The walls are a sickly olive g   More

 

Tuesday, November 22, 2011 KELLY CLARKE

’Hood Hit

For a quick mocha, panino or pint, Laurelhurst Cafe is an ideal neighborhood eatery.

Food Reviews & Stories What happens when a fine-dining chef and an exacting first-time restaurateur open a casual eastside joint? At Laurelhurst Cafe, good things. This place gets all the details right, offering food    More

 

Wednesday, November 16, 2011 DENISE CASTAÑON