Kinta

Today my mom and I went to Kinta for a late lunch/early dinner.  Kinta is on Belmont, across the street from Paradox, and features “new Malaysian cuisine.”  I started with mint soda, which was made with fresh mint and kind of like a virgin mojito.  And I love mojitos.  My mom got ginger ale which I believe was made with fresh ginger and was also very tasty.  As an underage person who does not particularly enjoy Coke or Pepsi products, I love seeing inventive non-alcoholic drinks on menus.  We got the battered vegetables as an appetizer– the batter is chickpea-based, so they were a little bit like pakoras, but I would have liked them more if they were less greasy.  They also had sort of a weird bitter aftertaste, which was odd.  They were still good because they were deep-fried vegetables, you know?

I ordered the curry noodles for my entree.  I love that you get to pick any four vegetables you want for the dishes– I got tofu, bell pepper, broccoli and mushrooms.   You also get to choose which kind of noodles you want.  I chose rice noodles.  I always feel like I make food sound really bad when I’m trying to communicate that it just wasn’t quite as good as I wish it was, so let me say that my food was good, ok?  I ate it happily, I enjoyed it, and nothing was majorly wrong with it– nothing was overcooked or otherwise gross.   I think my issue with the curry noodles was that I feel like rice noodles need a wetter sauce, and that I could sort of feel the the graininess of the spices, and also that I feel like there was too much of a spice that made the noodles kind of bitter, and maybe not enough of other spices.  I’m sure I’m making it clear that I am not a professional food critic.  I wish that I had gotten another dish, maybe one of the noodle soups, because I have heard such awesome things about this place, and I think I just ordered something that wasn’t really to my taste.  My mom actually really liked my noodles so maybe it really was just me.

Anyway, I want to go back to Kinta and try some other things, and drink a million mint sodas.

Restaurant Reviews: Bay Leaf and Paradox

Bay Leaf is in my old neighborhood, but back when I lived there the area wasn’t cool enough to have things like Chinese vegetarian restaurants.  Now it’s one of the many areas of Portland that people say will be “the next Hawthorne” which just means that hipsters will continue to move there.  The truth is that in a few years I think there will be very few places in Portland where hipsters don’t live.  Gentrification sucks but it does mean more vegetarian restaurants.

My experience at Bay Leaf was probably affected a lot by how ridiculously shitty I felt.  I’ve been sick and last night was the worst– I cringed every time I swallowed because it hurt so badly.  I had to run to the bathroom because I needed a few minutes to cry and feel sorry for myself before digging into my food.  So I might have enjoyed it more had I been in a better mood.  We started out with some appetizers– the seasoned spinach was great.  For my main dish I got sesame tofu, which was just ok.  It was big cubes of fried tofu in a citrus sesame sauce.  I thought the sauce was pretty bland– it really just tasted sweet and could have used some tanginess and spice.  I also ordered a cup of hot and sour soup, which felt nice in my throat but was otherwise unimpressive.  I mostly ordered it because I wanted some soup, though, not because I am a huge fan of hot and sour soup, so a hot and sour soup aficionado could probably give a more informed review.   Most people at my table said their dishes were really good but I wasn’t really that excited about eating food so I didn’t try anything else.  I’ll probably go to Bay Leaf again but I’ll definitely order something else.  They have a lot of mostly vegetables dishes that sound really good, like their tangy eggplant.

This morning I went to Paradox for breakfast, like I often do.  Even so, I cannot really review Paradox as a whole, because I have only ever gotten one thing there.  I always mean to branch out but I just love the Paradox Benedict so much.  It’s sourdough bread with veggie sausage, fried tofu (or eggs if you swing that way), creamy gravy stuff, tomato and lots of potatoes on the side.  I really don’t need the sausage– I actually like some vegan breakfast sausage a lot but the kind they have isn’t that exciting– but I love the way the gravy soaks into the sourdough and it’s just so good and the potatoes are awesome.  Paradox has the slowest service ever, but the Stumptown coffee is bottomless if you can get your server to notice that you finished your coffee an hour ago and would like some more please.