Engineer’s Attempt at Writing

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.