Besaws: Est 1903, and here's to a hundred years later...

Besaws was started by George Besaw and Medric Liberty, they dreamed of starting their own beer parlor and gambling hall. Their dream finally came true and Besaws got pretty popular. It was a cafe that became the most popular meeting place in the neighborhood.

They serve 7 days a week, and they are pretty popular for their egg benedicts that they offer on every weekend from 8am to 3pm. They are located in Uptown Portland.

Weekend Specials!

We decided to try Avocado & Bacon from the Weekend Specials

Bacon - Avocado (US$ 13) Bacon, avocado, potato wedges, Hollandaise sauce, and some English muffins. I checked Yelp and there were so many people saying that this is so good. It was a little disappointing because I actually expected something more special. It was definitely good, but it was not something memorable. I loved the potato wedges, but for a Egg Benedict dish, I wish it's a little bigger and more sauce please! It was definitely a little dry, but the potato wedges were great! (3/5)

Chicken Fried Steak (US$ 15) two eggs, scratch biscuits, and roasted potatoes. It was definitely something new. This chicken fried steak dish is actually "ground chicken fried steak". It has such a nice soft texture, with a mix of crunchiness, with an addition of gravy. Yum! I personally liked this dish, simply because it was something new to my tongue. (4/5)

Chicken Fried Steak - you get to choose how you want your eggs cooked. We decided to go with sunnyside up, definitely no regret.

Croque Madame (US$ 12) Buttered Pullman brioche, shaved ham, gruyere cheese sauce, two over-medium eggs, chives, rosemary-garlic potatoes. Yum! It was good but nothing special, I actually liked their specialties courses (that they serve everyday) compared to their weekend specials. I am not a fan of ham, but this was not bad. The egg was delish and I think it actually tastes better compared to the benedicts, probably because I liked over-medium eggs better. (4/5)

We shared these 3 dishes for the 3 of us, it was a little too much, but if you are hungry, you can definitely go for one course each.

Check out their menu here!

Hours:

Dinner: 5 nights a week

Lunch: 7 days a week

Breakfast:  7 days a week until 3pm

Monday: 7am - 3pm

Tuesday - Friday: 7am - 3pm // break // 5pm - 10pm

Saturday: 8am - 3pm // break // 5pm - 10pm

Sunday: 8am - 3pm

Besaw's

2301 NW Savier St.

Portland, OR 97210

(503) 226 - 2619

Kaihomaru: One of the Best Fresh Sashimi in Jakarta!

Definitely one of the best sashimi-eating experience I've ever had, here in my own hometown - Jakarta, Indonesia. No regrets! Located in Jakarta's so called Japan Town (Blok M). Kaihomaru is a small Japanese restaurant, not too big, not too small, it can probably hold around 50 people in a restaurant.
Stated on Jakarta100Bars.com that Kaihomaru is one of the best Japanese Restaurants. It's sad that maybe not a lot of people know about this place and they don't have website or anything like that.

This is Tairyo Mori, 10 different kinds of sashimi moriawase.

Hotategai Butter Scallop, Japanese type of mushroom on a shell.

Uni, BEST OF THE BEST OF ALL // Sea Urchin

Shishamo, it is a Japanese fish that is grilled and fried as a whole and served with its roe still intact (pregnant fish)

Unagi, tender and just nice. 

Dashimaki Tamago, Tamago means egg and this is some kind of egg omelette. TASTES SO GOOD!

Agedashi Tofu, it was crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside, yum!

Mochi Ice Cream, Matcha

Mochi Ice Cream, Ogura

Inside the mochi ice cream, it has these little white pearls that is sweet and crunchy.

It was definitely a great experience after all. Will definitely come back for the Tamago! SATISFIED and no regrets!

Kaihomaru
Jl Melawai VI 23
Melawai, Jakarta Selatan - Kebayoran Baru
021-7398-741

Potato Head Garage: Steakhouse Led to Disappointment

This is going to be my first post full of rants, complaints, and disappointments. I've always wanted to try Potato Head Garage simply because of the interior, it looks so grand. Pretty gold chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. Magnificent furnitures and table settings. A lot of my friends came here and they said it was nice. I guess different people have different preference, I was curious about how the food tastes and it was definitely the worst food experience I've ever had. It was one of those days where all you want is eat decent food, pay for what you deserve, and get the best piece of meat served and sizzled by great chefs. 

"It was the day when all I wanted to do was spend the night with the family, this place totally ruined it."

When we called for reservation, they told us to just come in. Once we arrived at Potato Head Garage, they asked if we have any reservations and of course we said no. It was really heartbreaking, they told us they have seats for us, and yes we explained the whole story about the reservation thing. After 15 minutes or so, we decided to go somewhere else. When we reached the exit, they told us that they'll prepare us a table. Mixed feelings between disappointments and curiosity, we decided to give it a try.

Bread on the House

Green Beans Salad, it was this mix of green beans with garlic and some kind of spinach. (7/10)

Merlot Red Wine

Cute coasters!

Txogitxu Beef Astigarraga, Spain. It was such a regret that I ordered this. It was not tender at all and it was such a waste of money. A 1 kg of meat, it was recommended, but definitely not the best I've ever eaten. Definitely not a recommendation. (2/10)

Txogitxu Beef Astigarraga, Spain. The sauce was bone narrow butter, it was a little bland, but a great mix for those who love butter. It has little bits of, I guess it was the bone narrow. It tastes like little bits of potato.

Wagyu Ragout Papperdelle, this might be the best food I ordered here. It tastes a bit like Bolognaise, but the sauce is thicker. It also has some bits of cheddar. (8/10)

Putanesca Rigatoni, this is a little more tomato-ish. Very similar to Papperdelle, the only difference is this is more red which means the tomato is stronger and there's more sauce on this. For those who don't really like tomatoes, I wouldn't recommend this. (6/10)

More cute coasters!

Sweet Potato Caramel, the sweet potato tastes ordinary. The ice cream was vanilla, it was okay, not my favorite. (4/10)

Overall, I was really disappointed with the whole experience. Bad food, overpriced (obviously), and bad service. The only thing I like about this restaurant is probably the interior, sure it was inviting, but it was so not worth it. I will not recommend this restaurant to anyone.

Potato Head Garage
Jalan Jendral Sudirman Kav 52-53
Jakarta Selatan 12190
Jakarta, Indonesia
(021) 57973330
WEB

Altitude: Enmaru - Japanese on 46th

I am so glad to home. Yes, Jakarta is my heaven. After 1.5 years of leaving my hometown, I'm finally back for Summer holiday. The day I arrived, we decided to have a family dinner since we haven't really had one in a while. They were talking about Altitude and said that it's a really nice restaurant, I was quite curious and so we all agreed.

There are a few restaurants managed by Altitude and they are both right across from each other, Salt Grill, Gaia, and Enmaru. From what I know, Salt Grill serves Australian cuisine, Gaia serves Western, and Enmaru serves Japanese. They're all located on the 46th floor of The Plaza.

source: Metaphor - Interior Architecture

source: Metaphor - Interior Architecture

Pre-Thanksgiving

It's not even Thanksgiving yet, but my tummy is already in holiday mode. My cousin came for a visit to Portland, Oregon and so I took him to a few popular restaurants here. I yelped, googled, and researched on some popular places for breakfast and dessert. When I typed in 'Breakfast' on Yelp, I was attracted to Tasty n Sons, which was on the top results of my search. I ate here before, I believe it was last year and this time, somehow the food tastes better. It's either I was starving or it was really good.

Tasty n Sons located in North Portland, around 10 minutes from Downtown Portland by car.

We waited for around 15-20 minutes, googled their dishes and finally got our seats. After we ate at Tasty n Sons, we went to a dessert place called Papa Haydn in uptown Portland. In total, we had 6 meals before sundown today, definitely one of the best food culinary experience in Portland!

Tasty n Sons food menu!

Tasty n Sons drinks menu!

 Here's a clear look of the menu from their website.

After several minutes researching on what we think is good on this place, we decided to try 4 different dishes, for two.

We tried the Griddled bacon wrapped date with maple syrup & almond, it was $2 each and one was not enough for me. Yum! I actually thought it would tastes weird, but it surprisingly was delicious. Usually dates have seeds inside the fruit, but here they replaced it with almond. I almost threw them away, then the waitress told me that they're almonds. (9/10)

This is Burmese red pork stew with short grain rice & eggs two ways, it was really good. It was recommended by the waitress. We googled it to see how it looks, then it was so mouthwatering that we decided to order that right away. (9/10)

To me, the over and easy egg was the thing that makes this dish even better. The barbecue sauce was just enough to add flavor to the rice. It was pork, over and easy egg, and rice. I usually don't like pork, but this is one of those 'yummy pork' exceptions. (9/10)

This is how the place looks like. Kitchen near our tables, it was interesting to see them cook. It made me hungry, especially when I saw them preparing the food while I wait for my seat.

Another look of the place. There are shops out from the glass door and a butcher shop called Chop that I found quite interesting. You should check them out while you wait.

This is, Polenta & Sausage Ragu with mozarella & over easy egg. I was quite disappointed of this dish because it looks good when I googled it, but it didn't tastes as good as it looks :( The egg and sausage ragu was alright, but the polenta was a little too much. According to Wikipedia, Polenta is coarsely or finely ground yellow or white maize (cornmeal). (6/10)

When we waited for our meal, the table next to us ordered this and it looks so good! This is Potatoes Bravas with over easy eggs and aioli. It was hard for me to judge this meal. It wasn't that good, but it wasn't bad either. The sauce was something new to me, something like tomato based sauce, but also a little sweet and a teeny bit spicy. I wouldn't count this as my favorite though. (6/10)

We finally finished our meals at Tasty n Sons. I've never been so full for quite some time, but there's always place for desserts, right?

Next stop, Papa Haydn! Located in Uptown Portland, but they also have another branch on Southeast Portland. I personally liked the one in Uptown Portland better because of the location and the atmosphere of the place is very... I want to say 'fine'.

The first sweet treat that we tried was Six Layer Glace. This is an ice cream cake with layers of vanilla, chocolate, banana, and gianduja ice creams with fudge and hazelnut croquant with an addition of a few blueberries. It was not bad because I actually needed something cold, but not just plain ice cream. (8/10)

This is a Chocolate Cube, I personally thought that the display was too pretty that I didn't want to start digging into it. A bittersweet single origin Cordillera Cocuy chocolate shell filled with dark chocolate mousse. Served with vanilla ice cream. I actually liked this better probably because of the dark chocolate mousse that they served inside the cube. It literally was bittersweet. The outer part of the cube was really thick and hard, try knocking on it. (9/10)

DIG IN! :')

The price per person at Tasty n Sons is around $10 to $15. On Willamette Week, they were awarded for "Restaurant of the Year 2010"

The price per person at Papa Haydn is around $8 to $12.

Tasty n Sons
Hub Building
3808 N Williams Ave, Ste C
Portland, OR 97212
(503) 621-1400
YELP

Papa Haydn
701 NW 23rd Ave
Portland, OR 97210
(503) 228-7317
YELP

Another Branch:
5829 SE Milwaukie Ave
Portland, OR 97202
(503) 232-9440
YELP