10.07.06
Pastiche Cider Dinner
Last Wednesday, some friends and I visited Bar Pastiche (http://portland.citysearch.com/profile/41544861/portland_or/bar_pastiche.html) for their ‘Cider House Dinner’. We had originally planned on doing the dinner the previous Wednesday but Pastiche cancelled out on us because they had not received a replenishment of Cider. The group was put off by a morning-of cancellation of a dinner that had been planned and reserved a good many weeks beforehand and of the original 9 only 4 made it to the re-scheduled dinner.
The menu consisted of salt cod in scrambled eggs, chorizo, a cod in pepper skins dish, a hunk-o-steak, quince and cheese for dessert and as much cider as we cared to put down with the dinner. I disliked both cod dishes and thought it a bad idea to repeat such a strong ingredient in a five-dish meal. My companions liked the cod with eggs but hardly anyone touched the cod with pepper skins. Both the chorizo and the steak were delicious. We all eagerly slurped chorizo juice from the plate with hunks of bread and ravished the steaks. The quince and cheese provided a nice end to the meal. The cider was good, but not great. It was appropriately dry but not very flavorful, which in some ways was good as it did not detract from continued consumption throughout the meal.
Overall I would recommend this meal to any interested in a meal meant to be eaten slowly and during a good conversation.