3808 N Williams Ave, Ste C, Portland, OR 97212 (Neighborhood: Northeast Portland)
Pricing - $/$$ | Dining - Casual | Cuisine - New American, Brunch
www.tastyntasty.com

Portland, oh Portland. How I miss thee and your delectable delights. There are too many restaurants that one "must" eat at, and brunch seems to be a necessary part of the experience in that city. When we looked up good brunch places, the rave reviews were all about Tasty N Sons so how could we not check it out? Following recommendations to arrive early, we went a good 30 minutes prior to opening and found ourselves in a long line, barely making the cut-off for the first round of guests. Worth it? Absolutely.

[Original recipe post in December 2010] I'm working on revamping old recipes from when the blog first started. This pasta bake was a staple of my college days because I could work on it in one night's time and manage to eat it throughout the week. It's baked in a 9x13 dish, stacked quite high so that there is plenty to go around. I have my own version below but you can adjust with some ingredients here and there as you please. I have loved teaching this recipe to other people as well because you end up with something wonderful without need of much culinary expertise. If you are a fan of Italian ingredients and flavors, you'll love this hefty meal.

Founded just shy of 10 years ago, the Los Angeles-based sandwich shop sweetheart, Mendocino Farms, has finally reached down to Orange County to many people's delight. Opened in May of this year on the up-and-coming 17th Street in Costa Mesa, the "sandwich market" has already found itself some fans, particularly people who were accustomed to driving up to LA to get a bite of their favorite lunch. Since we had never visited its flagship location or any of the others in our neighboring county, we did not know what to expect when we arrived to dine (on invitation) at the first OC spot. I'll admit that the first impression was not good as the parking situation was atrocious but that is not the restaurant's fault. After we made our way in though, it was smooth sailing.

[Giveaway details at the bottom of the post] The signs that appeared at Irvine Spectrum months ago created some curiosity - what exactly is Tuscan cuisine? I and many others had seen the series of directional posters in the walkways of the center excitedly advertising the new opening of BRIO Tuscan Grille in the summer. It was the middle word that had people interested since there weren't other establishments in the area touting such style of food. It would be Italian but different somehow. After some delving, I realized that it was not a new restaurant by any means but rather, just new to the area being only the second Californian location of the chain. Meant to be a more upscale but casual restaurant, BRIO Tuscan Grille services to a wide range of clientele and aims to be a neighborhood restaurant. With their wide, wrapping patio, I can believe that! I came in on invitation to check them out a few weeks after opening. There were already several tables full that day for lunch!

We had a lot of tomatoes and a lot of milk. This is how ideas for dishes usually begin - there is a surplus of ingredients and I brainstorm a place for them all. Tomato bisque jumped to mind almost instantaneously though. A common but always welcomed soup, this creamy starter is actually not too difficult to make. It's actually a great go-to for when you want a comforting dish that isn't complicated. My recipe incorporates two ways to tackle tomatoes whether you use canned or fresh; go for the fresh if you've got enough time to!

What do you get when you throw together a little bit of attitude, a good-sized chunk of amazing food, and a whole ton of passion for helping people get healthy and feel great about themselves? I'd say, you get Bite Me Kitchen. The husband-wife soon-to-take-over-the-world duo of Adam and Rose Zalewski have been building an empire of plant-based, nutritionally balanced, and great tasting food right here in Orange County, affecting lives all the way from San Diego to Santa Barbara (meals delivered via courier service in eco-friendly containers). Currently based out of one of our favorite places, The Hood Kitchen in Costa Mesa, Bite Me Kitchen (BMK) is a food service with fully-cooked meals available for delivery or for pick-up without any subscription services or set minimums. They focus their a la carte items on being robust in taste and responsible in sourcing, making everything from scratch from the sauces/dressings to breads to even faux meats. As they say,

"We believe in delicious, calorie-conscious, wholesome cuisine that's affordable, accessible, and above all - SATISFYING."

We admire that their from-scratch, plant-based meals are made from organic non-GMO ingredients without compromising taste or price. I have been on their mailing list for a while now and see the drool-inducing menu items available every single week; it is amazing just how diverse the menus are. We just had to get to know more about them so we pulled up a few chairs and had a chat to learn what exactly BMK was all about. Be warned - long post ahead. We just loved our interview and time with them a little bit too much.

I don't like making anything complicated because I want to be able to replicate it later. One late night, I decided I ought to work on our Test Kitchen ingredient of Israeli couscous. The typical routes of making a salad or throwing together a childish dish were not appealing. What about putting some basil pesto vinaigrette on it though? We had a bottle of it in the refrigerator. What to pair it with though? It seemed like a Mediterranean flavor, the pesto in couscous, so I came up with this Mediterranean chicken. It's a dry rub that infuses its flavors into the thin chicken breast to keep it moist and still flavorful. Check out the easy recipe below!

As the food-loving crowd of Orange County gallivanted about the South Coast Plaza Village on the evening of August 7th, some of the best chefs the county has to offer were wiping their brows with the upper sleeves of their chef's coats and putting signature touches on bite-sized food. It was the 2014 "To Live & Dine" event hosted by Riviera Magazine, a much anticipated food foray that pits chefs against one another in a friendly battle for votes. Each attendee clasped their one vote in the form of a gold coin and tried tastings from restaurants they both knew and maybe have never heard of; whatever was the "best taste" for the guest would get the vote. How does one pick when sixteen chefs have put their best food forward? There was a tasty assortment but we did have our favorites...

I've enjoyed tofu desserts over the years but have always wondered how easy or hard they were to make. I got my hands on some tasty, workable soft tofu the other day and decided I would give it a shot. Now, this recipe involves using crust that is already made but you can easily form and bake your own too for a better flavor. I took advantage of how well tofu absorbs other flavors when pureed and mixed it with coffee for a coffee pudding pie. This is a no-bake pie and is extremely easy to make.

The world of wine can be an extremely intimidating to enter whether you are new to the whole spectrum of wine or only to a region. With that trepidation comes a shyness to reach out for help sometimes but there are classes and events out there that can help with education. We heard of Del Frisco's Grille in Santa Monica hosting monthly Sommelier Saturdays with Sommelier Adem Sash and finally were able to attend one (on invite) to see what the program was like. The restaurant itself sits directly across from Santa Monica Pier so offers a fantastic beach view and the southern Californian experience, a fitting setting for a wine education class. Every class has a different theme, and our attendance was at the Loire Valley focused event which happens to be Duc's favorite region. The other guests were lively, eager to learn, and varying in regards to wine knowledge. We were pleased to see how well Adem was able to navigate a balance between the familiarity levels in his session, and we certainly had a fine selection of wines to go with the knowledge!

Do you have a favorite go-to spot for lunch, for healthy meals, and for tasty food? Why can't it all be the same place? That seems to be our relationship with the talent over at Green Tomato Grill (GTG) whom we've written about before and whom we visit whenever we are up in that area (good thing my car dealership is near there so I can get food during oil changes!). It's a health-driven fast casual spot with a menu built out by talented Executive Chef Kyle Markt, previously of several culinary positions including in Laguna Beach hospitality. The items are geared towards balance with great taste, something we noted in a previous 2013 "Best Of Orange County" post. They have just passed their one year anniversary and from the point of us visiting to now, every stop in looks busier and busier. We were happy when we met up again with Chef Kyle to find out that Green Tomato Grill has outgrown itself and is looking to expand. The lucky communities (Anaheim Hills, Yorba Linda, and Brea) where the plan is to branch out to will soon get to taste the amazing, healthful food that we had seen on the previous menu as well as some of the summer items we also got to taste as well!

What to do when you end up having a refrigerator overstocked with Guinness stouts? We had already made miniature Guinness cupcakes but a whole four dozen of them barely used up a single bottle. Darn. How else to use them? What about something savory? I somehow landed on the idea of using it in a cottage pie which is practically identical to a shepherd's pie except it uses ground beef while the latter, more commonly known one is supposed to use ground lamb. Now when you cook down the beer to the degree that I did for this pie, you don't get the alcoholic taste but rather the subtle sweetness that comes with tasty stouts. Go ahead and try this recipe out; I even invite you to experiment with other stouts of your choice to see what other flavor profiles you can bring out!

Opened in early 2013, Harlow's Fine Cuisine & Crafted Cocktails in San Juan Capistrano has been making an impact in its community and has even been attracting clientele from far away. Perhaps it is their commitment to make as much from scratch as possible or their focus on a contemporary Californian cuisine with as many organic and local ingredients as possible. Live music on the weekends can also be a big draw though it doesn't hold a light to just how good both the food and cocktails are. The location used to be a local pizza joint so when Harlow's took over, it was reconstructed from the ground up with even Executive Chef Aaron Anderson joining others in painting the walls and ceilings and using the jackhammer to work on the floors. Now the restaurant has a historic European vibe with some jazzy elements but don't be fooled - the food is still exquisitely modern. To gain more insight into what makes Harlow's a budding hot spot, we decided to sneak behind the scenes and get right into the kitchen and cook with Chef Aaron. Lucky for me, he was gracious in sharing the space.

[Giveaway is now over - thanks for participating!] It's been a long time since I last wrote about Taco Asylum (and this was back when I was using my mini point-and-shoot!) but new circumstances have called us back to the crime scene where innocent tacos got devoured. Not only is the restaurant sporting a new look and label these days, it has also recently released its revamped and redone menu, lovingly created by their new Executive Chef Carlos Anthony. Once the ownership of the restaurant shifted to full ownership by Ace Patel (instead of partial), the rebranding was imminent but who said all change is bad? We'd say that the refreshed menu is a welcomed direction, especially by the hands of the exuberant and passionate young chef at the helm now who even said himself that "this is the restaurant I've been dreaming of opening." To get an idea of what influence this chef (formerly at San Diego's Searsucker and Michelin-starred Redd's in Napa Valley) had on Taco Asylum, we were invited to taste the tantalizing tacos.

The Test Kitchen is a test of both ingredient creativity and skillset a lot of the times. When lavender cropped up as a Test Kitchen ingredient for me, I didn't necessarily want to stick to a dessert but it kept coming around to that. I realized also that I had a lot of white chocolate remaining in the pantry so putting the two together yielded the idea of panna cotta. I admit though that I got a lot of guidance from this website here with much of the recipe from there too. I have never made panna cotta before but this one just seemed right. Lavender infused with orange zest components, this white chocolate panna cotta is a treat and may take some patience but is well worth it. Once you share it with someone, I'm going to guess that they'll start calling you their best friend once their sweet tooth starts hankering for more!

This post is part of a series Much Ado About Fooding is doing on farmers' markets - Duc and I plan to visit as many as we can, starting in southern California, to get a sense of what sets each apart, what drives communities to them, and what gems people should look out for. To keep track, bookmark the "Farmers' Market" category.

It's been a little while since our last "Finding Farmers' Markets" post but the weekends have been absolutely nuts lately! Not sure when the next in the series will happen but let's take a look at Costa Mesa today. I clearly remember the South Coast Collection (SoCo) farmers' market from their "Farm to Food Truck Challenge" years ago which was the very first time I had even been in that parking lot space for an event. Located in Costa Mesa, tucked away from major streets but visible from the 405 freeway, SoCo has quickly been gaining ground as a food hot spot in Orange County. It is also home to the infamous OC Mix, residence to multiple well-known and talented vendors. The farmers' market itself has shrunk over the years but there are still some pickings you can get your hands on (sorry but food trucks haven't been there for a year or so now)!

I vaguely remember that there was a sauce I used to make for dipping meatballs and lathering over simple rice and meat dishes. It was tangy and used plenty of ketchup as the base but was still delicious. I realized that I had put the recipe up on the blog at one point in time but after looking at it again, I thought that I should update it and ramp up the flavor. This version has a bit of kick to it from the optional hot sauce you can contribute but it mostly has a tangy, curried quality. We used it to dip some meatless "meatballs" and really enjoyed the snack. It's simple to make and contains staple ingredients you'll likely already have in the kitchen!