Punchbowl Social

During the Christmas Party season, D and I found ourselves somewhere in downtown Portland, looking for supper. The "Find Me Gluten Free" app suggested a place called Punchbowl Social, and it wasn't too far away, so we parked at Pioneer Place and went up to the restaurant. 

Several company holiday parties were going on. Several area of the restaurant were roped off for private parties, and there was a wait for the rest of the dining area.

I like a busy restaurant. 

That tells me the food is probably pretty good. 

Our waiter came over and I went through my polite song and dance about needing to be GF and DF, and he was really cool about it. There wasn't much I could safely order, unfortunately, so I had a burger. 

Don't get me wrong, I like burgers, but I end up only being able to order a burger at half of the places we go to, so I eat a hell of a lot of burgers. 

It gets old. Really old.

On the other hand, I consider myself a sort of connoisseur of GFDF burgers. 

Which is why I started this blog.

...that and it was getting hard to keep track of who gives good beef.

(That came out wrong. You know what I mean.)

SO... onto the burger. I ordered a basic burger, to be safe, with a GF bun and fries. I didn't ask about cross contamination in their fryer and assumed there was cross contamination. I wanted fries dammit, and preferred to not know. 

Drinks were served up in Mason jars, dinner was served up in a frying pan. Cute.

My GF "bun" was two slices of GF bread, and they disintegrated about 2 bites in. I flagged down the waiter and asked for a fork, I also showed him the problem and suggested he tell the manager there are better GF buns out there. I even went so far to tell him how much better WOW Burger is (I'm ballsy like that) and that what makes Wow so great is their bun. (Wow uses Jensen's buns. They're like buttermilk biscuits, only better. And they hold up. Do you hear that Slide Inn? They hold up!)

The Verdict: 

It was a burger. I ate it.

The atmosphere seemed really fun. If there were more options for me to eat, I'd love to go back. 

But a Meh Burger with a fally-aparty bun doesn't get me really excited about the idea.

Here's their menu, anyway.

I'm writing this post a few months after the fact. Maybe there's slaw or kraut on the burger. I don't remember. 

Apparently it didn't blaze itself in my memory as the best burger I've ever eaten. 

That trophy goes to Bend Burger Co. 

Only 168 miles away from my home. 

Sigh. 

I'd like to go there today. 

A burger sounds kinda good right about now.

Kinnikinnick K-Toos Cookies

Today we're on a day trip to Newport, Oregon to see the sea lions and find some tide pools to explore. On the way there, we stopped in the little town of Toledo to grab some coffee at the local Thriftway.

Of course, coffee needs cookies... (actually, I was eyeing the doughnut case and wishing I could safely have one.)

I asked a lady who worked there if they have anything GF, and was thrilled when she said, "Oh yes! We just put in a big GF section, and we have several cookies for you."

Yay!

I bought a package of Kinnikinnick K-Toos. Never had them before, hoped they weren't too bean flavored. (Like soy flour or sorghum. Bleh.)

My verdict: Very tasty. I love how light and crisp they are, like the melt in your mouth feel of eating shortbread. Yum.

Ding ding ding! We have a winner!

Lugano Cafe

Today, I arrived early in Tualatin for a PT appointment, so I decided to grab breakfast at Luganos, the new cafe across the street.

The friendly barista greeted me and offered me their menu.

"Do you have anything GF?" I asked. It was a crap shoot, and I expected nothing. Well maybe fruit, but honestly I had low expectations.

"Oh sure, we have GF scones," she offered. Inside I yelped "Yay!" as I mentally did my happy dance. Yeah, calm down, I still needed to ask about dairy.

"... Oh wait," she paused, "I think they're sold out. In that case, the only other GF item we have on the menu is one of our scrambles, but you'd have to get it without toast."

At 9:45 am, they still had half a dozen each of other beautiful baked items, so either they had a run on GF items, or they bake less GF than the other items, or they don't carry any GF and she was making it all up.

I didn't want to go into the whole dairy-free song and dance regarding the eggs, and cringed at the $9 price tag for some scrambled eggs, so this is my breakfast: a vanilla soy latte.

Ho hum.

Daiya GF Cheeze Pizza

This "pizza" can be described this in three words:

VOMIT-FLAVORED VELVEETA

The whole story is brief -
I was craving pizza one night and grabbed this at the local Freddy's. Wanting more than just "cheese" on it, I added my own pepperoni, which turned out to be the only edible thing on this pizza.

It was disgusting; probably the worst thing I have ever eaten. The crust was tasteless and the "cheese" was like vomit-flavored Velveeta. When I returned it to get my $8.50 back, the lady at the service desk said, 

"Yeah, I hear these are pretty gross."

Apparently mine wasn't the first return.

Next time, I'm going to try assembling my own with a GF crust and began cheese from Trader Joe's. I hear theirs is much closer to real cheese.

Silk Plain Unsweetened

My go-to creamer is Silk Plain Unsweetened. The flavor took a little getting used to at first (I am now used to not having the cheesy cow dairy flavor of real half and half in my cup.) I like how it's the right creaminess without being syrupy, and the neutral flavor lets the roasty coffee flavor come through.

I'm intrigued that this is sometimes hard to find in stores. My local Fred Meyer and Winco both carry it, but are occasionally sold out. Sometimes I can find it at Albertson's, but it's not guaranteed. The grocery store closest to me is Safeway, and they do not carry it, despite multiple requests from me to do so. They carry every other kind of unsweetened plain alternative milk, and all varieties of soy milk, including unsweetened vanilla in the blue box, and sweetened plain in the red box. 

I don't get it. 

When I run out of my Silk, it can be a pain in the butt to quickly run to the store to get another one. We are now in the habit of buying two cartons at a time to make sure there's always a backup in the fridge, but sometimes life gets busy and we can't get to the store once a week to replace the backup carton. 

This is why I keep the Kikkoman Pearl on hand in my pantry. Just in case.

Kikkoman Pearl Plain Unsweetened

My favorite coffee creamer product is Kikkoman Pearl Plain Unsweetened. I'd use this as my everyday coffee creamer, but it only comes in smaller boxes, and I go through so much per week that I'd rather get the larger Silk and be done with it.

I do like that it doesn't have to be refrigerated, so I keep several boxes on hand in the pantry as my emergency backup. I keep a box of this in the fridge at work, and like that I can keep a spare box in my desk, ready to go when I've used up the one in the fridge.

Unsweetened Plain Cashew Milk

Not a fan. The texture is very similar to the bottles of super sweet, flavored coffee creamer that I dislike, only there was zero flavor. It was weird, being so syrupy but lacking any flavor whatsoever, so drinking it was like drinking syrupy coffee. It was just wrong in my mouth.

I added sugar to the cup, as is my habit when choking down bad coffee, but then dumped it down the sink. The texture was just awful in coffee. 

No thank you