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Northeast

The Portland Tribune, Apr 25, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009

KATIE HARTLEY / TRIBUNE PHOTO

Shucked oysters nestled around a tart dipping sauce lend a fresh perspective to a coming meal at Alberta Street Oyster House.

Alberta Street Oyster Bar & Grill

Even when the economy founders, talent will succeed. That’s one lesson to take from the tale of chef Eric Bechard at Alberta Street Oyster Bar & Grill, which found new owners after a two-month closure last fall.

The uncluttered space, like an extremely elegant garage with a hard floor and pleasantly noisy din, provides a clean backdrop for some seriously creative twists with aquatic-based protein.

Plenty of Portland restaurants offer bar seating and a bar menu; few make the experience as welcoming for solo diners.

The happy-hour bar menu is a steal (all day Sunday, otherwise 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. to 11 p.m.) with choices like a fried oyster salad for $6 and steamed mussels for $9.

Unlike other medium-size eateries, Alberta Street is appropriately staffed, so that no one seems harried.

Oysters are the obvious starter, and the selection is as lengthy and well-considered as many restaurant’s wine lists. Another first course appeared as a pond of vibrant squash soup surrounding an island of hearty rabbit-sausage cylinders.

Expect to spend about $25 for your main fish dish, unless you choose the popular blue cheese and onion burger, which at $9 makes a great bargain option (add bacon for $2 more).

The surprising entree couplings include rare tuna accompanied by artichoke wedges, meaty shrimp, tangerine segments and a smear of tapenade. Cornmeal-crusted escolar receives a gentle boost from the creamy crab fritters and a brussels-sprout hash.

Reservations are accepted for parties of any size. Do make one, unless you’re prepared for a lengthy wait.

— AVB

When: 4:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday, 4:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday

Where: 2926 N.E. Alberta St.

Contact: 503-284-9600, www.albertaoyster.com

Entree prices: $9-$25

Autentica

There’s little question that a niche was available for this upbeat Mexican eatery off Northeast Killingsworth Street.

Yes, there is plenty of Mexican food available in the vicinity: the long-popular family joints La Bonita and Sirenita on Alberta Street, and newer purveyors of solid, inexpensive fare like Taqueria Ortiz near Cully Boulevard and Chilango’s on Prescott Street.

Here, owner and executive chef Oswaldo Bibiano, a Guerrero, Mexico, native schooled at several upscale restaurants downtown, brings a higher-end approach to the staples of Mexican cuisine in a far more polished environment.

Perhaps not the level of wizardry of a Nuestra Cocina, the superb Southeast Division Street establishment, but a comfortable middle ground.

The rootsier intentions are tipped off by small dishes of black beans with cotija cheese and slices of soft bread, which come as a kind of bonus. Don’t fill up.

Menu offerings have the same sincere, well-crafted appeal: tasty sopes, tender enchiladas, the hard-to-find breakfast favorite chilaquiles.

And unlike the simple taqueria, this place has a bar, one that features 17 tequilas ranging from the economical Sauza blanco to the $12 Corralejo añejo.

— Eric Bartels

When: 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday and Sunday

Where: 5507 N.E. 30th Ave.

Contact: 503-287-7555, www.autenticaportland.com

Entree prices: dinner $14-$19, brunch $8-$13

Beast

Unless you come with a big group of friends, you’ll most likely be sitting with some strangers at Beast. There are two communal tables in the cozy dining room/kitchen. (One seats 8, the other 16.)

But don’t fret, you’ll be so busy relishing the food you probably won’t even notice your neighbors.

Naomi Pomeroy (previously an owner of Ripe, the now-defunct restaurant group) is Beast’s executive chef. And here she’s landed in a kitchen where her style of cooking and menu development shines.

Local, in-season ingredients shape Beast’s mostly French inspired bill of fare.

There’s one set menu per evening. Substitutions, as it says on the menu, are “politely declined.” You may opt for the five-course meal, in which you choose between cheese and dessert to end your meal, or go for the gluttonous six courses and eat both.

Every meal starts with soup (French onion and potato leek are two recent examples). Then comes the charcuterie course, which includes items such as duck liver mousse, steak tartare and pork pâté.

Up next is the entree. Recent examples include rabbit confit with spaetzle, pork loin wrapped in pancetta, and seared duck breast with whipped potatoes.

A salad such as radicchio and parsley, or arugula and fennel, arrives next. Then there’s a small cheese course comprising both local and imported cheeses. Finally, a fancy dessert such as chocolate soufflé or lemon chiffon cake arrives on your table.

At Beast you’ll feel pampered and full. And, as long as you’re not a vegetarian, you’ll feel content.

— LCG

When: 5:30 p.m. to closing Wednesday-Saturday, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday

Where: 5425 N.E. 30th Ave.

Contact: 503-841-6968, www.beastpdx.com

Prix Fixe prices: dinner $45-$52, brunch $28

Lovely Hula Hands

Lovely Hula Hands is a quadruple threat. It has great drinks, excellent service, a relaxing ambiance and most important, superb food. Since Troy MacLarty became executive chef in November 2006, dinner here has only gotten lovelier.

MacLarty’s experience in the kitchens of Ripe, Saucebox, Simpatica Dining Hall and Chez Panisse clearly paid off.

Starters and entrees at Lovely Hula Hands are both consistently terrific. Take, for instance, the perfect salad that was on a wintertime seasonal menu. Thinly sliced, sharp-tasting fennel was tossed with small sections of pink grapefruit, meaty green Lucques olives, creamy feta and delicate chervil. The balance of textures and flavors was exquisite.

The menu usually includes at least one seafood dish plus a vegetarian option, such as leek and goat cheese soufflé or North African vegetable stew with couscous, harissa and yogurt.

Meat eaters will be in heaven tasting tender beef short ribs braised in red wine and served with sautéed chard, mashed potatoes and horseradish cream. Or how about duck leg braised with pork belly and dried cherries and served with mashed celery root.

Hula Hands also serves an excellent, big, fat juicy burger.

The restaurant doesn’t skimp on desserts either, like recent warm and sticky banana chocolate beignets served with coffee ice cream.

Throw in a sweet little patio during the summer and it’s hard to imagine choosing to dine anywhere else in Stumptown.

— LCG

When: 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday

Where: 4057 N. Mississippi Ave.

Contact: 503-445-9910, www.lovelyhulahands.com

Entree prices: $16-$26

Pause Kitchen and Bar

At first glance, Pause Kitchen and Bar may seem like an average, neighborhood restaurant. But look closely at the menu and you’ll find evidence of a kitchen that takes food pretty darn seriously.

The meat for Pause’s superb (and enormous) juicy hamburger is ground fresh everyday from Strawberry Mountain aged chuck. The fat, salty, peppery fries were never frozen. They’re cut fresh in the kitchen.

And the tortilla chips, served with addictive spinach and artichoke dip or creamy, hot crab and shrimp con queso, are not out of the bag. They’re fried fresh. Thinly sliced sweet pickles and spicy hot links also are prepared from scratch.

Toss in fair prices, diverse beers, friendly servers and a big patch of grass next to the patio where the kids can do somersaults in nice weather, and you’ve got a recipe for a really good time.

Not everything on the menu shines: The pulled barbecued chicken sandwich is a sloppy pile of too-sweet shredded chicken, for example, and the salads could use some work.

But at Pause there are far more hits than misses.

— LCG

When: 11:30 a.m. to 1 a.m. Monday-Saturday, noon to midnight Sunday

Where: 5101 N. Interstate Ave.

Contact: 971-230-0705

Entree prices: : $8-$12

Podnah’s Pit

The best barbecue I’ve ever tasted — served on brown butcher paper — was at Kreuz Market in Lockhart, the barbecue capital of Texas. Kreuz has a motto: “Good barbecue doesn’t need sauce,” and those who dine there are converted.

If you’re in the mood for Texas-style barbecue locally, mosey down to Podnah’s Pit, where former Texan Rodney Muirhead smokes meats six days a week at this straightforward, unpretentious box of a restaurant.

The pork ribs — dry rubbed and slow smoked for more than five hours — are obviously drier than those slathered with sauce at other rib joints, but the flavor is in the meat, tender and pink, and they grow on you.

Fiery pulled pork, nicely spiced with a bite of vinegar, is available either as an entree or on a soft, delicious bun as a generously sized sandwich.

Beef brisket — often tough but tasty — is tender and chuck-wagon smoky here. Pair it with a side of brothy pinto beans and peppery collard greens, flavored with bits of pork.

Those in the know come for the Cattail Creek lamb ribs, fed on Willamette Valley grasslands. Don’t risk reducing the number of tender bites by opting for a two-meat combo (and thus reducing the number of each kind of rib).

Barbecue plates and combos come with a choice of two sides, which render unnecessary the addition of an iceberg lettuce wedge slathered with dressing. The potato salad is crunchy with celery and scallions. The black-eyed pea salad is superb, and the cornbread, sweet and coarse, is a credit to its kind.

Beer and wine are available.

— RB

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