Ahoy!

Evoe at closing time

Portland, July 15, 2012—

YOU CANNOT PERSUADE ME, no you cannot, that the Latin shout of joy evoe! is not cognate with the word used in Czech when answering the telephone: ahoy! (Both come from the Greek εὐοῖ, according to Wiktionary.)

The Bacchanalian rally-cry is also the name of a restaurant we like here in Portland, where tonight six of us gathered for a feast:
Foie gras with fig-anise bread and gooseberry sauce;

roasted fave with red salt and pepper;

sweet delicious salmon made into gravlax in house;

two platters of charcuterie (of which only one is shown here) involving coppa, prosciutto, jamon de Serrano, various patés, and salume;

and cogollos, grilled halves of romaine, with soft cheese crumbles and a terrific anchovy sauce. Oh: And their marvelous gallego, a canned-sardine sandwich with piperade, which I loved exactly a year ago here.

This is a wonderful place, casual, comfortable, intimate: the only fault is its early closing hour. You want to hang out all night.

Prosecco; Albariño

• Evoe, 3731 Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard, Portland; (503) 232-1010