Engineer’s Attempt at Writing

I went with my friends on Saturday to Lucy’s Table for dinner after having a couple of beer at Blue Moon. Lucy’s Table usually has a nice atmosphere and Saturday was no exception. I generally like Lucy’s Table but I was disappointed at my entree. I will just describe the bad first and then describe the good second – there were many goods. I ordered the duck breast which was the special for the day. The duck breast was chewy and the skin was not crispy at all. In addition, it did not have much taste – a little salt and pepper would have gone a long way to improve the dish. When the waitress asked me how my dish was, I just had to say that “it was not bad”.

Although my entree was not that great, the appetizers were excellent. First we got these cookies with eggplant purees for free. These were tasty little morsels full of buttery goodness.

We ordered three appetizers to share among us. We had the goat cheese ravioli. Although I am not a huge fan of cheese ravioli, they were probably some of the best cheese ravioli I have ever had. I did like the caramelized onions on top of the ravioli. The onions were super yummy.

We also ordered a shrimp salad with blood oranges, oranges, and some type of tasty dressing. The shrimp was sweet – a little like the sweet shrimp you see at Sushi places. This appetizer was very good; I especially enjoyed the oranges and the dressing.

The last appetizer we had was escargot on polenta. The escargot itself was so so, but the polenta was so well done. It was a little bit crispy on the outside while soft on the inside in addition to an excellent buttery taste. I think everything is better with butter.

Finally, we had a one called Buty that was really really good. I don’t know anything about wines but this white wine had a nice refreshing after taste to it.

Overall Lucy’s Table was good and I would recommend you to go even though my entree was a bummer.

My friends and I went to Tapalaya to celebrate three of their birthdays. I have seen Tapalaya multiple times but never had a chance to try it out. I think the restaurant is pretty good and the price is very reasonable. It is actually a Cajun restaurant but served in smaller portions. I have to say that I think Tapas is a great idea – it gives you a chance to try out multiple items without being bloated after the meal.

I shared crab cake with my friend and it was good. However, most of the dishes were under seasoned. I had the Crabby Mac and I have to say that the crab did not really stand out in the mac and cheese. I think the Mac and Cheese overpowered the crab – maybe they need to give more crab? Then I had the Shrimp Po Boy that was also under seasoned. I ended up putting a whole bunch of Tabasco sauce on the Po Boy after every bite of the sandwich. I also had a shrimp fritter but there was too much breading and again under seasoned.

My friend had the Jambalaya but unfortunately it was also not seasoned well. Tapalaya would have been a lot better if the food was seasoned better. This should be easy to fix and maybe they just had a bad day. I would try this place again and see how it is.

I went to Otto’s on my day off to get a sausage. Otto is pretty cool with a lot of different type of sausages that you can buy and grill on your own. I bought 3 different type of sausage but I have not had a chance to grill them yet. However, I did end up getting a pork sausage link for lunch there and the the pork sausage was good. It was grilled which is how I like it, but unfortunately it was served on a regular hot dog bun. What happened to the French bun? Otto does have a really good Jalapeno mustard that is very nice. I think the Jalapeno mustard is better than the spicy mustard that you can get at Top Dog.

I will have to try the other sausages at Otto before I can decide whether they can be my Top Dog of Portland.

I decided to check out the Asian Station to get some Xiao Long Bao for lunch. However, I could not find the food cart – wonder if it is closed? I needed something for lunch and so I decided to check out SuperDog since I saw it on some website that it was a nice place to get good sausage.

I was pretty excited about this place because I had such fond memory of TopDog back at Berkeley. I walked to the place and I saw only a couple of customers. I thought to myself that since it was a Saturday, maybe there are just not that many people eating there. I looked at the menu and I was a little bit surprise by the price – every type of sausage cost $4.50. I guess that since I am no longer a starving graduate student, I should stop complaining about the price.

I was hoping to get a lemon chicken but unfortunately SuerpDog did not have that so I just got a Bratwurst. I was a little surprised that the Bratwurst was already done – boiled and ready to serve. I like my Bratwurst grilled and butterflied. The Bratwurst was serve in a normal hot dog bun. You do get sauerkraut, onion, relish, and quite a few choices of mustard. But the condiments just does not make up for the boiled Bratwurst and hot dog bun. I need my Brat grilled and butterflied served on a sesame seed french roll just like how they do it at TopDog.

I am not sure how the other sausages are. But I just can’t recommend this place to anyone else. I will not go back there.