Now that the better(?) weather is here. It’s time to “Bug Out” to some of Oregon’s “Local” eateries. And, they don’t come any more local than Bugatti’s. It is owned by the Bugatti family and they only have 3 places, I believe. We live between 2 of them, one is in Hillsboro, on NW Cornell (across from the “Streets of Tanasbourne”, the other is on Cedar Hills Boulevard, in the WINCO shopping center. If you want local,fresh & delicious Italian food, this is the place to go. My wife’s favorite is the Lasagna, it has just the right balance of meat, cheese, pasta & sauce. in most places it would be too spicy for my wife to eat… Not here, they do not have a “heavy hand” with the spices, rather they let the taste of the food speak for itself. I have tried most of the pasta dishes. My favorite is the Pasta Gamberetti, made with, Angel Hair Pasta, Prawns, Pine Nuts & Green Onions. It normally comes with a spicy white wine sauce, I ask them to make it NOT SPICY, & they deliver every time. There is a nice selection of salads and sandwiches, of which you can order a 1/2 or full size portion. All of the sandwiches come with your choice of Kettle brand chips or french fries. I am a big fan of kettle style chips but prefer the french fries, which taste sweet on the inside & come to the table HOT, like they’re supposed to. My favorite sandwich is the Meatball Parmesan. The meatballs are just the right size, the cheese is melted just enough and if you’re not carefull the sauce will dribble down your chin & your wrist. I also like both of the chicken dishes, Marsala & Piccata. They are both made with some pretty tender chicken breasts & have just enough flavoring of wine, on the Marsala and lemon on the piccata. There is also a very good selection of 10″ pizzas, which I eat by myself, with all kinds of flavors from, Margherita, Artichoke Florentine, my favorite New York’r, which comes with Just Mozzeralla cheese, chopped Garlic, Oregano, a touch of Parmesan and Tomato sauce.. There is also a VEGETARIAN Eggplant Parmesan. Now, I’m not a vegetarian, by any means, but I sureley like this dish. They do have a kids menu, which I haven’t tried yet. Even though my wife says that I act so childish sometimes. The prices are moderate, they have a full service bar & patio seating. They take all major CC’s, have plenty of parking & a very friendly, helpful & knowledgable wait staff.

The last time that I visited Newprt Bay I gave it a pretty negative review.  My policy, as a restaurant reviewer, is to visit a place 3 times to see if they improve, or not.  I’m glad to say that Newport bay, in Tanasbourne, has improved tremendously. The servers & service were friendly, quick & efficient.  I had Oyster shooters & the cocktail sauce was just spicy enough to make me sit up & take notice and the oysters weren’t too big where they would be tough, they tasted fresh & tender.  My wife had the clam chowder, which she thought was not thick enough.  But I think that’s just a personal choice, she did say that it tasted pretty good,  We both had “steamer Buckets” with white wine, lemon & garlic.  Mine was Dungeness crab with clams, crab, fish, red potatoes & corn on the cob.  There was SO MUCH stuff in there that I actually had to leave some over.  Although I thought that mine was a little to lemony, especially when I got closer to the bottom, I will definitely try it again.  My wife had the 1lb clam bucket which was stuffed pretty much the same way.  She didn’t say that hers was too lemony.  Both buckets also had andouille sausage in them & we had asked to have them taken out.  After about 10-15 minutes the manger came over and apologized for the delay, they had accidently put the sausage in.  Our server noticed it and instead of just taking the sausages out she made them prepare two freshly cooked plates.  That’s what I call EXCELLENT customer service.  The manager then offered us free deserts for the mix up.  And their bread is still warm & the butter at just the right temperature to spread easily.  KUDOS to Newport Bay, you have addressed some of the issues that I mentioned and are now on our list of  places to eat at.  Keep up the good work.

For years my brother & I have been at odds when it comes to Baseball teams. For 60 years I have been a diehard N.Y. Yankee fan, since the days of Joe Dimaggio, Phil Rizzuto, Yogi Berra, Bobby Richardson, Mickey Mantle & Don Larsen, just to name a few.  My brother, on the other hand was a diehard Brooklyn Dodger & still is a LA Dodger fan.  So you can imagine the animated discussions that we had & still have.  Well, have to say that I have recently become a Dodger fan…  No, not the LA Dodgers,  the Dodgers restaurant, in Warrenton, OR..  A few weeks ago, my wife & I decided to take a ride out to Astoria.  On the way there she Googled some restaurants.  She found one that sounded interesting called Mixed Marriage, which specialized in Peurto Rican & Jewish food.  So, we headed over the bridge to find Mixed Marriage, only to find that it was out of business.  Better to call before you drive, next time.  On the way here I noticed Dodgers just before we went over the bridge.  I had heard of Dodgers but had never been to one.  I decided to head for Dodgers restaurant, which I thought would be your typical, fried fish shack.  Boy, was I wrong.  Yes they have fried, clams, shrimp, oysters, etc..  But the rest of their menu was quite a surprise.  They have a full dinner menu that has Pasta, Calamari, Petrale sole & steamer clams, just to name a few.  They also have a fairly good assortment of burgers & sandwiches.  My wife started off with the clam chowder, which she said was infinitely better than Moe’s, big chunks of clams & potatoes & tasted like the clams were just shucked.  I had a plain house salad.  Plain is not the right word for it, unlike other restaurants, the lettuce was cold & crispy, the tomatoes looked & tasted like they had just been cut & the honey mustard dressing, which was served on the side tasted like it too was homemade.  My wife then selected the clam strips, the server, & I’m sorry that I don’t remember her name, told Marlene “if you’re not that hungry I would suggest ordering from the lunch menu as it’s a little less expensive” even though it was about 4:30 in the afternoon.   The clams were small, tender on the inside & crispy on the outside, with french fries that were hot & crispy when they came to the table.  They offer 3 kinds of fish for their fish & chips, Cod, Salmon & Halibut.  They only offer the Halibut when it’s fresh.  I ordered the Halibut fish & chips.  What can I say… nothing beats the taste of FRESH CAUGHT fish.  The inside was white, firm & sweet, while the outside was crispy.  The fries were also still hot & crispy when they arrived at the table.  The pricing is very reasonable & the service was great.  The restaurant is on the South(?) side of Rte., 101, just before you go over the bridge to Astoria.  I guess that I am now a Dodger fan, restaurant, that is.

The other night my wife said that she felt chilled and would like to go for some Pho soup.  So, we headed to our favorite Vietnamese Bistro Bambuza.  When we got there and she started reading the menu, everything sounded so good, she decided “not to Pho“.  We both ordered from the menu.  The chicken Satay skewers were delicious.  he only problem (?) is there are only 3 in a portion and there should be 4.  We then had, one of our favorites, the Vegetarian Salad Roll.  They are HUGE & such a melange of textures and flavors, you don’t even have to dip them in the peanut sauce that comes with them, although I really like the sauce and use it for a lot of the other dishes.  My wife had the Garlic Glazed Pork Chop with noodles an I had the Honey Glazed Chicken with noodles.  Both dishes were so tasty that we hardly needed any of the dipping sauce that came with them.  Also, there was so much food that there was enough for a second meal, which my wife had boxed up to take home.  Would we come here again?  You bet your sweet bippy we would.

This Bambuza is at 19300 NW Cornell Rd, Hillsboro 97124.  Just opposite The Streets of Tanasbourne & in the Whole Foods parking lot.  Not necessarily a great place for kids but a terrific place for adults who want some delicious & different Vietnamese food.  They take all major CC’s, have a take out menu & have platers for catering

My wife is retired & I am Semi-retired, so we eat out a lot. We are members of their rewards club. We live less than a mile from the Tanasbourne Newport Bay & Stanford’s. Tonight we decide to eat at Newport Bay. We got there at about 7:45 PM and the the dining room had about 2 or 3 other tables full. Our server, Whitney, came over fairly quickly to take our orders. My wife ordered a bay shrimp cocktail & the deluxe fried fish platter. I ordered 2 Oyster Shooters a house salad & Hazelnut Crusted Halibut. It was downhill from that point on. It took the longest time until they finally brought out my wife’s shrimp cocktail & my salad, I was told that my oyster shooters would be out shortly. After they cleared those plates away it took another 1/2 hour before our entrees arrived. The Clam “strips”, on my wife’s platter, turned out to be big chunks of fried clams that were very tough & chewy. The Garlic mashed potatoes, on my plate, turned out to be some type of fried “cake”. We really used to enjoy both Newport Bay and Stanford’s. I’m sorry to say that we will probably not go back to Newport Bay anymore.

Again & again & again, the Black Ber Diner continues to provide the best service, the best quality & the largest portions for a reasonable price.  We went there to celebrate my birthday on Sunday.  It was sooo packed that they actually ran out of pagers to give the people that were waiting on line.  We had a group of 5 & had to wait a little longer because I requested to sit in either Ann or Lynda’s sections, as they are 2 of the best servers in the business.  As busy at it was Lynda, as usual, did a terrific job for our group.  I had the Corned Beef Hash & eggs.  The CB was NOT out of a can, but rather shredded with just enough mix of potato & onions to make it really interesting & flavorful.  I also ordered Country Fried potatoes (instead of hash browns) really crispy & their cooks actually made them REALLY WELL DONE.  Kudos to Lynda for letting the kitchen know how I wanted them & kudos to the cook for knowing how to honor a request in spite of how busy they were.  The other 4 diner’s were equally impressed with the service & the food to the point where we actually started to talk about us applying for a franchise to open in another state.

     For the BEST comfort food in Oregon you can’t beat the Black Bear Diner.

In Portland, Asian restaurants ARE.  You want Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, Korean, Mongolian, Philippine or even Chinese vegetarian… You got it.

It’s a good philosophy, to try a restaurant 3 times before you make any decisions about it.   Taste of Sichuan 16261 NW Cornell Rd., Beaverton, OR (503) 629-7001 is a perfect example.  The 1st time that we tried them was right after they opened.  The menu wasn’t finished & the service was not there.  It felt like they had relatives that were just helping out.  We tried them again about a month later and the service was a little better but the menu still left a lot to be desired.  I was really not too excited about going back there.  A while ago my son Gabriel was visiting & suggested that we try the new chinese restaurant, down the block.  I asked him if he meant Taste of Sichuan and he said yes.  I thought of our last 2 experiences and was about to tell him no.  Then I thought about my 3 try philosophy.  Am I glad that we decided to try them again.  The service, the menu, the taste & the quality are all excellent.  The menu is so varied, with dishes that I have never seen in any other restaurant, that it’s hard to choose.  Even the “standard” dishes, chow mein, BBQ pork, won ton soup, etc., are so flavorful that you may not want to try any of the “different” dishes.  But please “take a walk on the wild side” and try some of their specialties, hand shaved noodles, shredded potato w/sliced green chili peppers, Stir fried pork in hot garlic sauce, ants on a tree, crystal prawns sauteed in white wine sauce, I could go on & on & on.  But please do try many different dishes.  BTW my wife thinks that the won ton soup is “to die for”.  About the only thing that’s not to cool is that they charge for the steamed white rice & I’ve never seen that done before.  The prices are moderate & the portions are fairly large.  they have plenty of parking, take all major credit cards, have carry out & do catering.  They have a lot of seating but come early, for dinner, as they fill up pretty quickly.  I’ve seen 45 minutes to an hour wait, but believe me it’s worth the wait.  Taste of Sichuan has become our favorite Asian restaurant for dinner.