all the kids are doing it

guest blog post by seth eli goldstein:
if you are a culinary nerd you have heard about the food truck craze.  food trucks have become hugely popular in cities like LA, new york, and even boston (this week's tv diner was devoted to boston food trucks).  sadly, there are no food trucks in portland, yet...  however, with the recent opening of gogi you can feel like a trendy LA hipster while munching on korean/mexican fusion.
gogi (653 congress street) is in a space right next to local sprouts on congress.  i admired the black painted tin ceiling on walking into the restaurant.  i was hungry on this particular friday afternoon so i went for the proverbial "it."  one pulled pork taco, one beef short rib taco, and an order of fried dumplings, whose filling i cannot remember.  my food was ready in two shakes of a lambs tail and at $3/taco and $6/order of dumplings, a great value.
the tacos were wrapped in a single corn tortilla and topped w/ lettuce, cilantro, bean sprouts, and thin slices of radish and cucumber, with a wedge of lime on the side.  both variations were super tasty.  of the two, i enjoyed the pork more.
the dumplings were wonderfully fried and crispy and came with a vinegary soy dipping sauce that i could have consumed as a beverage.
my only complaint about the whole meal is that i had a taco "blow out."  you know what i mean, right?  all the taco stuffs busted through the tortilla, forcing me to rely on my fork to finish.  if gogi doubled up on the tortilla, like a traditional mexican street taco, they could reduce the risk of such blow outs.
given the affordability and uniqueness of gogi in portland, i think this establishment is a great addition to the portland food scene.  what is really cool is that gogi is open late night so if you need some korean/mexican fusion at 1 am, and who of us hasn't, you have a great option.
here is an article from the portland daily sun on gogi for a little more back ground.

lazy mo fo and chinese food

if i was a good blogger i would have posted about the article my very significant other had published in the bollard as soon as the paper hit the news stands in march.  instead the entire month passed by and i didn't post anything.  so here it is, april and a new bollard will be hitting the stands soon and i am only now telling you about the amazing piece on all-you-can-eat chinese buffets my husband wrote.
my devoted following knows i am not a good blogger.  what can i say?  i am lazy and that is a big part of it.  there are multiple things each day that occur and i think to myself: "random people want to know this pointless thing about me."  but i don't write about it.  also i have a job in which i spend the whole day on the computer without any real down time to fuck off and surf the web or write a blog post (a slow morning has provided me with a free lunch to post this entry). 
so i can say i am vowing to write more about food and mundane occurrings in my life.  but i probably won't.  and you probably don't really care either way.
in any event, check out the online version of seth's article: from super great to super soggy.

no name thai restaurant

guest blog post by seth eli goldstein:
Well, this is embarrassing.  Jenner asked me if I would guest blog for this round of Pad Thai-o-rama.  Sure I would, and so I headed down to the Thai food restaurant located in the food court at Monument Square.   The embarrassing thing is I can't remember this place's name.

                The food court is a nice clean space and there is excellent people watching when all the suits downtown are released for their one hour recess.   The restaurant, whose name I cannot remember, is really a counter place.  The cool thing is that you can watch your food cooked to order before your eyes.  My Pad Thai went straight from the wok to my Styrofoam container and was piping hot.   It was a large portion and I felt like I got a pretty good value for the price.  I would have tried a couple of appetizers as well but I was all by my lonesome and although I am in the Guinness Book of World Records for most crab Rangoon eaten in a single meal I just went with the Pad Thai. 

                I thought that the spice was pretty mild, particularly as I requested a spice factor 2 out of 3.  Perhaps a tad bland as well, but still passable Pad Thai with wide noodles served with scallions and mung beans.  Sometimes pad Thai can be a bit on the sweet side.  The Pad Thai, from the restaurant whose name shall remain a mystery, was not too sweet, and that was nice.  If you need a quick and affordable Thai fix for lunch (I'm pretty sure this is a lunch only joint) that will leave you with leftovers for dinner, hit this place up.  It won't knock your proverbial socks off but it does the trick.

this was a guest posting brought to you by seth for the 12th round of thai-o-rama. the unknown name of this restaurnt is siam orchid and it is located at the one city center food court.