Lunch; then dinner.

Lunch: Ciabatta from Pearl Bakery, olive oil, salt;
oysters on the half shell

Dinner: Butter lettuce salad with blue cheese and hazelnuts; pork cheeks braised with red wine and prunes, with polenta and spinach

Lovely Hula Hands, 4057 N. Mississippi, Portland, Oregon;
tel. 503.445.9910

DINNER TONIGHT AT LOVELY HULA HANDS in Portland, a neighborhood restaurant, cozy and unassuming as to the decor, with an unusually (even for this eating town) attractive menu. After a perfect Martini, a fine salad, with local lettuce, blue cheese, and hazelnuts, with a glass of white; then pork cheeks, the flavor and texture reminiscent of a soft mature confit, the polenta supple and delicate, the spinach just assertive enough (with garlic) to cut through the mounting unctuousness of the rest of the plate.



Afterward, a fine grainy cheesecake with another confit, this time of dried fruits. Today's lunch had been perfect enough, God knows; you can't beat good bread, good olive oil, good salt, and all the oysters you want. But the dinner, eaten with good friends in a gezellig setting, was even better.

Cheverny, Domaine Philippe Tessier, Loire, 2005;
Eprove rouge, Sangiovese-Grenache, Domaine Maestracci, Corsica, 2003