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We'll start with the full disclosure that we wrote half of the Best Restaurants 09 package for Portland Monthly, but we'll middle-and-end by saying that this city magazine's annual round-up of where to eat, now, is a crucial spotcheck marker of where, exactly, PDX's food scene is at. From editor-in-chief Randy Gragg's introduction:
Picking the 10 “best” restaurants from this rich stew seems somehow beside the point when menus change weekly—indeed, sometimes hourly—and food carts and sandwich shops casually compete (and even share chefs) with the city’s most refined eateries. So we took a different path, selecting 10 venues that best embody the diverse creativity at work, from the traditional downtown dining establishment to the coveted strip-mall find to the humble parking-lot food cart.Duh picks included Naomi Pomeroy's 30th + Killingsworth stronghold Beast, Jason Barwikowski's downtown Clyde Common, and Vitaly and Kimberly Paley's NW house Paley's Place. Slightly less obvious were the Simpatica crew's Laurelhurst Market, down on East Burnside by the Laurelhurst gates, the south park blocks' Park Kitchen, and SE Morrison's Nostrana. Slightly left fielder were Nostrana's neighbor Bunk Sandwiches, the almost-to-Gresham Lucky Strike, 10th and Alder carts queen Nong's Khao Man Gai, and Hillsboro's very own library basement sushi joint, Syun Izakaya.
This is where we turn to you. Were they (um, we) right? Or did we (er, they) miss a few essentials? Send in your thoughts, complaints, rages, and mash notes. We'll be sure to pass them along.
· Best Restaurants 09 [Portland Monthly]
