Adam and I have been eating out less for the past few months – in part because my pregnancy cravings and complete inability to anticipate the size of my actual hunger have made cooking at home more pragmatic, in part to save money for the best Christmas present ever (baby boy!), and in part because we had plans to convert months of parsimony into a major wedding anniversary feast.
We staged that feast at Portland’s Beast.
Tucked into a neighborhood street of the city’s Alberta Arts District, Beast is a stylish, sexy affair staffed by the most gorgeous waitstaff I’ve seen in ages (nearly all women, all of them turn-your-head hot, all dressed in demure but well-cut trendy Portland garb, all of them serious about food).
To be fair, Beast is not the best venue for a romantic evening. The space on 30th Street NE is sized like a bistro but outfitted to accommodate as many as 30 guests at two large, banquet-sized tables.
We joined about 14 other people in five groups at a longer table, some of them fellow anniversary celebrants, some family get-togethers, one girls’ night out, and one infectiously adorable couple who brought along their 18-month-old daughter for a six course, prixe fixe dinner costing $50 a head (she clearly ate before the event).
Beast serves clever, artfully-designed send-ups of American and French fare. Its staff assembles the dishes, all made with fresh, local ingredients (the lettuce was from a farm two miles away!) on a high prep table that takes up roughly one third of the dining room.
All that color and beauty can be a little distracting. Luckily, I was faced away from the prep table, where the ladies were meticulously arranging hazelnuts and sprinkling chanterelles for the nearly three-hour service.
1. Soup. The meal began with what became my favorite moment, a chilled Armenian cucumber and yogurt soup with Dungeness crab and trout roe. Crisp and clean, slightly tangy chilled broth set against the sweetness of the crab — it was the perfect first taste in last week’s 95 degree weather (pic above).
It was followed by:
2. Charcuterie Plate. Pork liver, sour cherry and pistachio pate, chicken liver mousse, pickled shallot, steak tartar and quail egg toast, and a melt-in-your-mouth foie-gras bon-bon with sauterne gelee. Say what you will about foie gras – I’m pretty disgusted by how it is produced – I allow myself an occasional liver product that sends my eyes rolling back into my head.
Citrus sorbet. A palate-cleansing, pared-down show-stopper of grapefruit and orange sorbet.
3. Entree. Seared Sonoma Farms duck breast with toy-box tomatoes, watermelon and Padron salsa, romano beans and duck demi glace. Beast sets off the duck with a surprising summer salad that mixed watermelons and jalepenos and topped it with a parsley, mint and macerated shallot chutney (macerated: that’s soaked overnight in vinegar to us).
4. Salad. Gathering Together summer greens, marinated summer chanterelles, fresh corn and fromage blanc. The greens were from a farm in Philomath, the chanterelles from Oregon. I’m a salad snob and prefer my meaty chanterelles cooked a bit in butter or oil, so this one was the low-point of the courses.
5. Cheese Plate. Lucky Adam. My life has gotten worse since I got pregnant and learned I have to give up unpasteurized cheeses, such as these, from Steve’s Cheese in Portland. Adam’s life has clearly gotten better, since he regularly gets my share.
Beast serves the cheese course with candied hazelnuts, a green fig drizzled with local honey, and homemade thyme and fleur de sel shortbreads.
6. Dessert. Now, my German host mother Sabine always used to say that “Käse schliesst den Magen!” (Cheese closes the stomach!). Having spent much time in France herself, she is accustomed to a post-dinner cheese course to seal the deal. I had no cheese at all last Saturday night (wah wah wah), so I found it simple task to tackle Beast’s finale, a peach and summer berry trifle with lemon sponge cake and vanilla bean whipped cream.
See that little monkey in the back? That’s the little girl whose parents brought her along for this ride. If you can believe it, she sat quietly and played by herself with toys from her mother’s grab-bag of wonders the whole three hours without making more than a peep while he parents cooed and talked to her in Arabic and Japanese, their native languages.
Nearly a week after we got fed by the Beast, I am still amazed, not just by the food, the attentive service, the overall sexiness of meat, and the lingering memories of a meal well had, but by this little being, who has given me hope that my restaurant adventures won’t be over in five months.
Then again, I’m having a little dude.
