Holiday Dinner in the Pearl

This is what I had for dinner last night. Doesn't it look tasty? Roasted goose breast with porcini dumplings, goose fat roasted greens with wild mushroom cream sauce and lingonberry jam... Yum! Honestly I can't figure out which part was my favorite. I really love greens and greens roasted with goose fat are amazing. The porcini dumplings are heavenly dipped in the mushroom cream sauce. I'd never had goose before, but figured if I was ever going to try it now was the time. No one but Gilt was going to prepare the goose with such expert hands. It was rich, almost like steak; the steakiest poultry I've ever had. The flavor circle was completed when each bite was accompanied with a little bit of the lingonberry jam. If this sounds enticing to you I urge you to get to Gilt soon. This is part of a special Christmas Goose Dinner running now through the 30th of this month. All items are available a la cart or prix fixe for all four courses. :

First
Goose and duck terrine with pistachios, roasted chestnuts, buttered potatoes, greens beans and truffle jus
Second
Warm goose confit and giblet salad with walnuts, frisee, pears, oil cured olives and walnut dressing
Third
Roasted goose breast with porcini dumplings, goose fat roasted greens with wild mushroom cream sauce and lingonberry jam
Fourth
A choice from our lovely dessert menu

A nice wine pairing with the goose breast and dumplings would be a Côtes du Rhône, such as a glass of '06 Chapoutier “Belleruche”.

And since we're talking Christmas here, how about a wintery cocktail? Our seasonal right now is the Non-Coffee, Coffee drink - Chai liquer, Kahlua & brandy
with whip cream - hot in a snifter $7.5 w/coffee $8.5.

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Perfect Appetizers and Chardonnay in Downtown Portland

(are you enjoying my iphone photos yet?)

I was reading this week's Mercury review of Gilt Club and was reminded of my other favorite appetizer: Ricotta Fritters! According to Patrick Alan Coleman on the topic of our ricotta fritters, "The fine dining answer to fried mozzarella sticks are expertly prepared, and it's difficult to imagine how one gets ricotta to behave this way. The experience is like biting into a perfectly toasted marshmallow—thinly crisped on the outside and oozy within—the difference being the savor and slightly grainy texture of the ricotta. The little ricotta balls have just enough structural integrity to hold shape while being dragged through an accompanying chili sauce, which adds needed zing to the muted ricotta cheese." I really couldn't have said it any better myself. You must come in and try these! (see last week's post for a discussion of my first favorite appetizer: the humble-yet-perfect focaccia bread.)

Since it we are supposed to get a few snow flurries tonight I thought it appropriate to talk about a white wine, specifically the '05 Ramey Chardonnay. We have so many things on the menu that pair wonderfully with this deep, bold, flavorful white. The butter on the palate really goes nicely with oven roasted cod with saffron cream, slow cooked leeks, basil, shaved fennel, Yukon gold potatoes and mussels, for example. It is a good oak-y wine with some substance.

And finally, a discussion on scotch vs whiskey vs bourbon.
Whiskey: a common liquor produced all over the world, with each region doing so it its own way.
Scotch: the distinctive national whiskey of Scotland. Single Malt scotches are made entirely from malted barley and are the product of one single distillery. Blended scotch whiskeys are a mixture of several different malt whiskeys and grain alcohol, usually aged in older previously used barrels and take longer to mature, ie 10-30 years on average.
Bourbon: a distinctive product of the US distilled in Bourbon County, KY. It is made from a fermented mash of at least 51% corn. Must be aged in new oak 'charred' barrels for at least two years. The charred oak enables it to reach maturity faster than scotch, which uses old barrels. The bourbon is fuller bodies, owing much of it's taste to the corn and rye grains used in it's production.

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Oregon Bar Guild Champagne Event

Monday, December 7th, FREE S.I.N. night at Gilt Club!

On Monday Dec 7th at 5:30pm, the Oregon Bartenders Guild and will be hosting a complimentary Champagne Cocktail party for all members of the Service Industry. If you have an OLCC card you admittance is free, all other parties are $20. Please come and share in the Festivities at Gilt Club, 306 NW Broadway. Champagne supplied by Bollinger.

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Vintage Classic Holiday Cocktails

Bartenders mood this month is the Gilt Club Holiday Drink of the day! We're picking out drinks from our 1951 Pauper Press Holiday drink guide of classic cocktails to roll through the month of December. Follow our twitter feed @giltclub for the drink of the day.

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Special Spirits Christmas eve Dinner

We couldn’t pass up the chance to play on the theme of the spirits of Christmas with a Special Christmas Eve only dinner. We’re offering three courses of items from the past, present and future paired with optional cocktails from the ever talented bartenders at Gilt. Menu $35 per person. Cocktail pairings $20.

Reservations for the menu required.

Choose a course from each Ghost.


Ghost of Menus Past
1
Prawn cocktail
With Dungeness crab,
Cocktail sauce, and iceberg lettuce
2
Steak Diane- tenderloin medallions, with wild mushroom cream sauce, Brussels sprouts, and whipped mashed potatoes
3
President Roosevelt’s birthday cake- chocolate coffee cake with espresso and chocolate frosting


Ghost of Menus Present
1
Ricotta gnudi with truffle butter, fried sage, and Cinderella pumpkin puree
2
Grilled focaccia with roasted wild mushrooms, topped with taleggio, pickled red onion, herbs and finished with a truffle-porcini jus
3
Huckleberry financier with crème fraiche ice cream and huckleberry compote


Ghost of Menus Future
1
White miso soup with instant sesame noodles, scallions, fried shitakes, and black trumpet mushrooms
2
Seared escolar with white soy glaze, shiso leaves, Satsuma mandarins, Meyer lemons, dikon radishes, pea shoots
3
Salted caramel ice cream, with chocolate and peanut butter dirt, almond tuile

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A Goose dinner!

Not one night only, but for the two weeks before Christmas, every night, you have the opportunity to come in and try four courses featuring the festive bird. Starting this Wednesday December 9 and running though the end of the month.

First
Goose and duck terrine with pistachios, roasted chestnuts, buttered potatoes, greens beans and truffle jus
Second
Warm goose confit and giblet salad with walnuts, frisee, pears, oil cured olives and walnut dressing
Third
Roasted goose breast with porcini dumplings, goose fat roasted greens with wild mushroom cream sauce and lingonberry jam
Fourth
A choice from our lovely dessert menu

50 for the menu or 27 for the entree

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It's the simple things in life...

(please excuse my poorly lit iphone photo)

I've had an abundance of delicious meals at Gilt Club, but one of my personal favorites is the warmed focaccia with arbequina olives and extra virgin olive oil. One friday night we stopped in for dinner. I was ravenous and ordered this as a starter, just a little something to get me through to when the main course arrived. I wasn't expecting much. I mean, how remarkable can bread be, right? Wrong. It is made in-house and is just amazing. It has herbs and onions baked into the top and is drizzled with extra virgin olive oil. Simply perfect.

Maybe you're in the mood for a full meal, but you don't know what wine to sip with it. I'd like to recommend the ‘05 Vietti Barbera “ Scarrone” from the Piedmont region in Italy. The vines are 60 years old, so they're practiced at producing good quality grapes. This wine is made to go with food. It is round, versatile and asks you to have a feast.

I've written previously about the Brooklyn cocktail, and we've all enjoyed a Manhattan or two, but what about the other boroughs? There's the tasty Bronx, which is a mix of gin, vermouth and oj, but do you know what the Bronx becomes when some orange bitters are added? No, it's not another borough, but instead something you'll want to drink between January and April 15th. I guess it only makes sense that a drink called the Income Tax would have bitters in it... Drink it while doing your taxes and then have one more to celebrate dropping that envelope off at the post office.

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