Oregon Culinary Institute

Writing this review I have to be completely honest, I will be writing it with a bit of a bias. I am a graduate of OCI and can completely sympathize with the anxiety that comes when cooking on the line for some students, including myself, for the first time.  Luckily I went of the last day of the term so I think some of the rookie jitters had faded. Oregon Culinary Institute has to be the cheapest 3-course meal you can find in Portland. To start the meal you are given a breadbasket of 3 types of house made breads. You have the option of 3 different starters, 4 different entrees and 2 different types of dessert.  The menu changes seasonally and right now they are on a spring menu. For my entrée I chose the Grilled Pork Loin Sandwich, it came with asparagus and pickled pepper slaw on a house made herb potato roll and a side of roasted potatoes and spring onions. The pork loin was moist and tender and had a good amount of saltiness. There was sweet picked peppers that I enjoyed but wished that there were more, I can see how they would complement the meat very well. The house made potato roll impressed me, it was soft and toasted on the grill, the smokiness from the bread and meat really helped the meat to be the star of the sandwich. Overall I would give this sandwich a 4.

 

East Side Deli, pulled pork

As you have probably noticed by now I have a thing for pulled pork, and when I say a thing I really mean I have a slight obsession. This will be the third pulled pork I have reviewed on this blog. This pulled pork comes with tender shredded pork marinated in their BBQ sauce with secret sauces and spices, it comes with an option to add coleslaw or cheese, I added coleslaw. Just feeling the weight of this sandwich as I carried it to the table I knew it was going to be massive, and just like a pulled  pork sandwich should be it was a huge messy sandwich. The coleslaw was falling off of the huge mound of meat resting between a white toasted sturdy roll, the slaw added a nice crunchy texture contrasts and has a little Aardvark sauce(hot sauce) to contrast the sweet BBQ sauce. The meat was finely shredded, and very moist. The only problem I had with this sandwich was figuring  the best way to eat it. I ordered the small for $6.00 and cant imagine what the large looks like. Overall I will give the sandwich a 5, I could easily eat this sandwich everyday any time of year. Eastside Deli is defiantly one of my favorite sandwich spots in Portland.

 

 

 

East Side Deli, French Dip

Walking into Eastside deli around 7, I felt lucky because it was completely dead and right after I handed in my order several other people trickled in. the ordering is much like New Seasons, there are laminated menus, near the door, you mark your order with a dry erase marker and put on their counter. The first sandwich I tried was the  Fra-a-anch Dip it had  filet of roast beef, swiss cheese, and pub style hoarse radish on a toasted asiago bun, served with a side of hot au jus. I got the small for $6.00 but there was nothing small about it. This sandwich was loading with moist roast beef that was practically dripping even without the side of au jus. There was a nice thick layer of gooey melted swiss cheese. The hoarse radish added a nice slight heat to the sandwich as a whole and complemented the piping hot, very tasty, salty jus. The bread was of high enough quality to soak up the jus like a sponge, which made the French dip exactly what I expect and love a French dip to be; a soaking wet, messy, salty, meaty sandwich.  I give this sandwich a 4.5 year round and a 5 during the rainy winter months in Portland.

Guest Post by Sean Freeman

I wouldn’t know what number this is for eating at Big Town Hero, I go there alot, the fresh ingredients are great and the bread is awesome. They have quite an array to choose from, you can build your own, choose a signature sandwich or get some soup. I always order roastbeef with cheese, onion, lettuce, dijon mustard, lots of pickle and no mayo or tomatoes on 12 inch cheesy garlic bread(it’s pretty wide) for 7.95. The roast beef always tastes like it was freshly cut, juicy, still red in the center. the pickles, well they’re pickles, you can’t not love them. The mustard is good. The lettuce is fresh, but they use iceburg, it would be better if they used a lettuce like greenleaf. The cheese is always swiss and chedder, unless you say otherwise, always a good amount. The cheesy garlic bread is big and wide which is why I get it, because usually its lunch and dinner, but it’s fluffy and you can definitely taste the garlic and cheese, nothing overpowers each other. The only thing I would like is to have it toasted, which they don’t do, I usually take it to school and use the T3 Kitchen’s oven to toast my sandwich. Overall I would give the sandwich a 4 out of 5, minus a point for not toasting it and the lettuce.

This a guest blogger, you can find Sean’s blog at inyourfacecooking.wordpress.com 

Thanks for the post Sean!

 

 

 

 

Links I like

• review on Peoples Sandwich in Portland

• naan bread recipe made easy

•review on Big Lous Butcher Shop

• review on Tasty and Tons (Fred Egg and Cheddar Biscuit with Fried Chicken)

•review on Kenny and Zukes

• a food photographers take on Grilled Cheese Grill

• the #1 reviewer on urbanspoon.com, reviews Garden State

• a report on unique sandwiches across the U.S

• a review on Pambiche’s Croqueta Preparada

• a list of sandwich carts in Portland

The Blue Monk, Pulled Pork Sliders

This is my second visit to The Blue Monk for happy hour recently. Their happy hour menu has a lot to choose from; this time I decided to eat the pulled pork sliders. There are 3 on the plate for $5.50, they come with raw cabbage on top off sweet BBQ pulled pork. The cabbage is julienned, I was a bit disappointed that they didn’t take it a few steps further and make it into cole slaw, which would have added more juice to the sandwich. The pork was made well with a nice thin shred; it was coated in BBQ sauce, but still had a good depth of meaty umami. My friend eating with me said she wished there was a bit more BBQ sauce. I agreed with her, but also attributed some of the dryness, not to the meat, but to the generic white buns it was served on. Overall I give this sandwich a 3.5, the meat was good but the other components needed some work.

Meat Cheese Bread, B.L.B

The B.L.B, bacon lettuce and heirloom beets, aioli on toasted sourdough bread ($7.00). The bacon is thick cut Nueske’s smoked bacon, this bacon not just Fred Myers butcher shop bacon, its New York Times award winning bacon, and it lives up to its reputation on this sandwich. Cooked to a crisp chewiness, the fat to muscle tissue was perfect and the apple wood smoke was high lighted with buttery sour dough toast. In concept I loved the idea of the salt from the bacon complementing the sugar from the beet, unfortunately I found the beets to be completely overcooked, so the sugar didn’t show up at all in the sandwich. The lettuce was fresh and provided a nice texture contrast to the bacon and beet. For $7.00 I felt the sandwich needed a bit more than a few strips of bacon and poorly cooked beets. I would give this sandwich a 3 on my rating scale.