Biwa

Biwa Restaurant, 215 SE 9th Avenue, Portland
tel. 503-239-8830

DINNER TONIGHT AT a Japanese restaurant, Biwa, cool and industrial-elegant in a hip-pocket of eastside Portland. It's not my usual cuisine, Japanese, but I'm supposed to be getting into training. The menu was of course utterly unfamiliar, and I forgot to take my camera along, and it was a sharing situation among the five of us, and I didn't take notes.

I can report, though, that the beef tartare was absolutely delicious, nicely flavored, set on a bed of cucumber slices, and nestling a quail egg. The lamb skewer ("Genghis Khan") was also tasty, and the skewered garlic cloves, and the ramen, and the octopus chijimi (Korean griddle-cake with octopus and vegetables), and the pork-fried rice which seemed to me to have smoked pancetta chopped into it. There were many other things, too; but that's enough to give you the idea. Savory, pleasant, and fun.

Sapporo beer