The Burger to End All Blinging Burgers....

I was looking through my pictures on my computer, and we all know that we have tons of useless ones in our files, when I ran into a two year old picture of a burger I had in Las Vegas at the Daniel Boulud Brasserie located in the Wynn Hotel. The Original NY DB Burger was an 9-oz. sirloin burger stuffed with braised short ribs, foie gras, and black truffle on a Parmesan bun with French Fries. Stacked high that you had to plan each orgasmic bite. It was rich and luscious. The tomato jam worked very well to cut the butteriness of each juicy bite. It was a true BlingBling burger, the burger cost $32! I just need to pair it with some gold teef and I would be ballin'! I could only eat half of it, but took down the other half later on in the early A.M. after a night of gambling and cocktails. It was even better cold or maybe I was just drunk like David Hasselhoff.

New, Not So New Hong Kong

Ahh…..nothing better for Sunday brunch than Dim Sum. I went to the New Hong Kong restaurant, formally known as New Kowloon. The new owner is the former owner’s ex-wife, so pretty much the same ownership, just new a name. I love going to Dim Sum, the bustling restaurant with a team of Chinese people working hard towards the American dream pushing carts of steaming food, showing items on their cart to the customers in hopes to stamp your food bill. While passing each other they throw jokes or talk shit to each other in their native tongue. I wonder how many of the employees of New Hong Kong came over in a ship container. (Food for thought?)

Dim Sum is the definite cure all for a hangover, very greasy, salty, and lots of fried food. You are in HEAVEN!!! We first started with a sweet baked bun with bbq pork, one of my childhood favorites. I was a somewhat picky eater as a child, not that you would know that now since I am willing to try anything these days. So that was my staple during our Dim Sum outings. Then we moved on to orders of different dumplings. Sticky rice steamed in a banana leaf, fried shrimp, friend tofu, and other steamy or fried delights kept stacking up on our table. My family tends to order way more than we can eat, we just want a taste of everything.

On item we’re sure to get every time is the good old stand by of chicken feet. A family fave, we all can eat this stuff all day. Chicken feet may make the majority of the population squirm but we love them. I swear if you had a Vietnamese family compete on Fear Factor we would not only take first place in the eating challenges, but go on to be world champions. The chicken feet are braised in some kind of savory sauce that makes the skin so very soft and tender that it just falls off the bones. Some people argue that the skin of the animal is the best part (fried chicken skin anyone or pork rinds?). It is a little challenging to eat since you have so many bones to work around but it’s well worth the effort. I don’t know why I love it, I just do. It’s damn good.

I also tried something new, Duck Tongue. It’s pretty much the bottom half of a duck’s bill with the tongue attached. The tongue was battered and deep-fried. Again, anything deep fried crispy is good in my book. I was a little weirded out by it at first but quickly got over it after the first bite. It was light and crunchy. I really could not describe it more than very crispy fried chicken skin. Just a little bit more chew to it. It was seasoned well, I think with MSG.

When you are done, say hi to the new owner that (wo)mans the front desk and runs the cash register. She was camera shy, but I did take a sweet picture of a framed photo of her and our state governor, Christine Gregoire.

Bubble Tea is Awesome!

If you have not tried bubble tea, you have to go out and get one of these delicious suckers. You can have the tea in a variety of flavors, jellies, blended, iced, or even hot. Bubble tea started some time in the 80’s in Taiwan. The “bubble” in the name is actually in reference to the bubbles that occur during the brewing process, not the tapioca pearls as most people believe. I went to Ambrosia, my favorite bubble tea shop in Seattle. It looks like a hole in the wall but I can tell you they serve the best in town. Much better than the flashy, more popular Gossip bubble tea shop across the street. It must be the karaoke machine they have in the upstairs loft and the bright colored Ikea furniture that draws people there. I had the iced green apple flavor milk tea with tapioca pearls at Ambrosia. The balance of flavored tea and milk was just right and the tapioca pearls have the perfect chewiness and weren’t too sweet. Pop in the extra wide straw, suck, chew, and swallow (that sounds slightly dirty). Enjoy!

Obama endorses !! Bling Bling TACO !!

Here he is showing his support for BBT by eating a taco. It worries me a little that it looks like the guy next to him is either showing him how to roll a joint or how to fill a taco. Seems like the next president should already know how to do both. Regardless, we appreciate your support Obama!

Dove Vivi - The Jesus Pizza

If this pizza were a professional "wrestler" it would spend no less than 20 minutes behind the curtain during its entrance while the arena filled with fake smoke and fanatic techno music pumped the crowd into a frenzy. Then when it finally emerged, 80,000 screaming fans would have a collective aneurism in the aura of its awesomeness.

In other words, I have a hard time expressing just how amazing the Pizza's at Dove Vivi really is. Their speciality is 12" pizzas on a cornmeal crust and despite their diminutive size, a single pie can EASILY feed three people. They usually have one or two specials and a few regular pies. The last time we were there we ordered one of each, my two favorites, the corn pizza with caramelized onions and the brie and grapes pizza with toasted pine nuts. While everything on the menu is always tasty, these two pies in particular offer a transcendental dining experience. They have a deep crust shell that allows for several layers of taste sensations and the topping combinations are creative and interesting. The pieces are so dense that it's difficult to get through more than two. I've eaten three pieces a couple of times but I'm not sure it was ever a good idea.

In addition to the pizzas we usually order the beet salad (amazing!) and sometimes a special salad as well. It's a nice way to warm up for the main course.

On a side note, I once bit down hard on a particularly tough piece of cornmeal while eating here and ended up cracking a filling in my tooth. I just had it fixed but if you exclude the $124 in dental work, Dove Vivi is very reasonably priced at $20/pie.

BAGEL LAND

I've always kind of been a sucker for places or stores with either "LAND" or "WORLD" in the name. It's like the easiest store name ever, but always seems awesome to me.

TACO WORLD or POTATO LAND or TOILET WORLD. All awesome names, and no confusion as to what they sell or where you need to go to get any of those things.

Anyway, I got a whole wheat bagel with a schmear of cream cheese. It was fine. I've never found a bagel in the NW that compared to NYC bagels though. I'm not really sure why... it seems like it should be easy. And there are all these weird little shops in NYC with dirty kitchens and people that don't exactly inspire culinary confidence by the appearance with ridiculously good bagels. But that is not BAGEL LAND. BAGEL LAND sells a bagel that reminds me a lot of the bagels from bagel oasis in Seattle. Which are pretty good, but something seems missing. It's certainly better than Lenders or some packaged bull*bling* masquerading as a bagel, but probably not worth going out of your way to eat. However, there is a great coffee shop just north of BAGEL LAND called Ristretto. They make and roast awesome coffee.

But what is the deal with Bagel places in the NW being run by hippies? Hippies.

Sawasdee Thai Food

Oh man. So good! Sawasdee is another of the food carts down at 9th and Alder in downtown Portland. We've got to get a group shot of that area sometime. It's neat. There are so many options down there, that I feel a little bad going to the same place twice, let alone getting the same thing twice, but their pumpkin curry warrants being a "repeat offenda" as my friend Booyeah might say. The pumpkin curry seems especially apropos right now since the weather is feeling more and more like fall. Waiting on the my bicycle waiting for the bridge to open and close, I knew I wanted something warming. And then halfway there, I knew. THE PUMKIN CURRY MOTHER BLINGERS, YEAH!

Anyway, it's a nicely sweet yellow curry sauce with green bell peppers, basil, tofu (optional. you can get meat or something if you want) and pumpkin. It's probably not the variety of pumpkin you are familiar with. It's green on the outside and orange on the inside. Similar to an acorn squash maybe? They cook it with the skin on though. With little score marks on the outside. It's delightful though. One thing about this place though, I got 4 stars today, and it was really mild. If you like it hot (some do), you might have to specify that yes, you may be whitey, but you like spicy food. Unless your not a whitey, in which case that would be a stupid thing to say. Maybe they were just out of hot pepper, I dunno.

I've also had the Spicy Egplant (pictured as well), and it was pretty good. Not as good as the pumpkin curry, and again, not spicy. Worth eating, but honestly I would say just go with the Pumpkin curry. Scott thinks it is one of the best things on the face of the planet.

EDIT : I forgot to mention that when I went there today, they had switched from those big nasty plastic to go containers to the nice waxed cardboard containers! I thought that was great, so I wanted to mention that.

Paseo's 2- Because you need a baby's worth of pork in you right now!

During a recent trip to Seattle I had conversation with fellow BBTer, Michelle, that went something like this.

Michelle: What do you want to do?
Me: I NEED MEAT.
Michelle: We're in Ballard! You're totally not going to get anything good out here.
Me: PUT SOME DAMN PORK IN MY BELLY.
Michelle: Quit making that gesture, it's disgusting.
Me: PIG ME! PIIIIG MEEE!!

And so it was that we happened upon Paseo's 2. For quite a while people gave me very hard looks when I told them that I'd never eaten at Paseo's, well no more! Though not the original, Paseo's 2 offers the same long lines and cash only cuban delights that I had heard so much about.

The location is unassuming, just a building on the side of a busy street without a lot of parking and only a couple of picnic tables for seating, but the throng of people surrounding it betrays its quality.

I briefly scanned the large menu posted on the wall when a when a note scrawled in marker caught my eye: "Most popular". It followed an arrow pointing to the cuban roast sandwich and I knew what I had to order. The cuban roast is a mayonnaise sandwich that also includes deliciously tender pork, onions, japalinos, and lettuce, all on a roll the size of a baby's arm. The meat was perfectly cooked and very well complimented by the jalapinos, which offered just the right amount of spice.

I found myself both proud and regretful after finishing the entire sandwich. It was blinging ginormous but well worth the effort. The staff was friendly and efficient and generally tolerant of us taking their picture. The next time I'm in the neighborhood I'll definitely be back, it's nice to finally have some affordable and freaking awesome food out by Golden Gardens.