Island Burger at Ate-Oh-Ate | Reviewing The Dish
Ate-Oh-Ate Island Burger
Restaurant reviews are inherently problematic. With so many dishes on the menu at many restaurants, it's almost impossible to give a fair assessment of the breadth of food a place offers. Restaurants have their good days and their bad days. As a writer, it's hard to take one visit and one dish as a complete representation of what a place has to offer. To do it right, you really need to revisit a place over a long period of time, sample many of their dishes and see how they do.
With sites like Yelp, Facebook and Twitter, there is also a need for instant coverage. I know when a place opens its doors, I want to know RIGHT AWAY if it's good or not (as unreasonable as that is). So, in an effort to strike a middle ground and try a little something different, we decided to launch a new style of food review. Rather than giving a holistic view that sums up a place, we're going to review a dish. We'll try to hit both new restaurants and ones that have been around a while, the hope being that we'll discover some good dishes and help cross some not-so-great ones off the list to help narrow things down to the real winners on a menu. Read more…
Mike Daisey The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs – TBA:10
Mike Daisey - The Agony and The Ecstasy of Steve Jobs
I'm always surprised when I mention the TBA (Time Based Arts) Festival to friends only to find that it isn't really on their radar screens. It's a real shame as the ten day festival brings to Portland such a wide range of talent and is so well produced that it' almost inconceivable that so many people aren't even aware that it's going on.
This year, the festival brings back Mike Daisey one of my favorite monologists with a piece dedicated to all things Apple (both good and bad) in "The Agony And The Ecstasy Of Steve Jobs. Daisey follows in the line of great monologists like Spaulding Grey and performs a style of of monologue called extemporaneous monologue, where he tells a story based on a loose outline of notes. His work has an unique mix of the almost electric buzz of complete improvisation combined with a strong wire framework of something totally scripted. Read more…
Burn The Floor Interview with Creator Jason Gilkison
Burn The Floor
Dance has become a huge part of popular culture. Between TV shows "Dancing With The Stars" and "So You Think You Can Dance", more people are familiar with a wide variety of dance styles than ever before. Jason Gilkison, Director and Choreographer of Burn The Floor (as well as choreographer for So You Think You Can Dance), captures the excitement of dance into a show that's fresh off a successful run on Broadway and London's West End.
We spoke to Jason Gilkison about the impact of dance moving into the popular culture, the challenges of putting together a huge dance production, and his experience with Pasha and Anya from So You Think You Can Dance.
Hidden Gems on Oregon's Wine Trail
Dundee Hills, Oregon's Wine Country
Oregon's wine industry has seen some explosive growth over the past few years with Oregon Pinot Noir making some serious waves internationally. A drive down 99W through Newberg and Dundee is now so littered with blue signs pointing to a plethora of wineries, it's hard not to be completely overwhelmed. The dizzying number of choices often leads people to pick out the more well-known wineries to visit like Argyle, Ponzi or Archery Summit and miss some of the smaller, more hidden wineries. Unfortunately this often results in tasting rooms with wine enthusiasts packed elbow to elbow trying to sample Oregon wines.
On a recent trip to the region, we set out to find a couple of lesser known wineries worth seeking out on the Oregon wine trail. Read more…
Portland By Air – Holmes Helicopters
Holmes Helicopters
Sometimes something comes up on Groupon that is simply too good to pass up. The Groupon deal for Holmes Helicopters was one of those amazing deals: a 45-minute helicopter tour of the Dundee Hills for two people for under $200. To put this in perspective, it's not uncommon for helicopter rides to cost several hundreds of dollars per person. The reason helicopter rides cost so much is the fuel. It costs $200 per hour to fly a very small helicopter in good conditions, and considerably more for larger helicopters.
Holmes Helicopters is based in Newberg, Oregon, a quick 45-minute drive down the 99w from Portland. The company operates out of a home office and a tent by its hangar at the Sportsman Airpark, very much a mom-and-pop operation. Read more…
Recent Comments