Welcome back to CascadiaWire, covering the latest restaurant news from up-and-down the Pacific Northwest corridor.
[BTU Brasserie. Photo: Avila/EPDX]
PORTLAND— One of Portland's most anticipated fall openings made it official earlier this week: BTU Brasserie, the city's first-ever hybrid Chinese restaurant and brewery, is now serving Peking duck and noodle dishes in Northeast PDX. As BTU's on-site, seven-barrel brewery kicks into gear, the menu is currently pouring guest beers from brewery friends like Burnside, 10 Barrel, and Occidental. Also newly open this week: a new place to score New Mexican green chile cheeseburgers, and a retail outlet for home bartenders seeking out vintage glassware. The latter, called Bull In China, might also be a great place to score mixology tips: It's owned by bartenders Lucas Plant (of Expatriate) and Daniel Osborne (of Teardrop Lounge). [-EPDX-]
VANCOUVER— Scandals galore this week: first up, a Naked Sushi business has come to town - operating under a legal loophole. Then the city's coolest dining district, Gastown, seems to have suffered a mini-meltdown with two of its hottest restaurants suffering chef and bartender switcheroos. Read all about Blacktail Florist's new chef and find out where Eater Young Guns 2014 semi-finalist Buck Friend (now ex-Bambudda) is now shaking up his innovative creations. Keeping up the scandal, it's been an uncharacteristic mellow summer of glowing reviews from the Globe and Mail's notoriously sharp restaurant critic Alexandra Gill, but this evisceration write up of the Donnelly Group's Blackbird shows that the 'Knife' still has it. [-EVAN-]
PORTLAND— Portlanders apparently can't get enough ramen, with two new ramen restaurants announced this week. Gabe Rosen, the chef behind popular restaurant Biwa, will open a ramen-ya on Portland's eastside, possibly as soon as December. Meanwhile, the Japan-based chain Kukai Ramen & Izakaya announced it'll open its first Oregon location in early 2015: The chain currently has locations in Seattle and Bellevue, Washington. [-EPDX-]
VANCOUVER— Vancouver can boast that it really does have the world's best gelato, thanks to Maestro James' award-winning creations - and now you'll be able to enjoy them with a water view at his super-hotly anticipated Bella Gelateria Yaletown which opened this week. Authentic Neapolitan-style pizzas, gelato desserts and booze-spiked 'gelatinis' are also on the menu. Over in what will surely have to be soon re-named the Brewery District, one more craft brewery has thrown its bottle cap into the ring to become the city's latest opening. Steel Toad is set to start pouring in the next few weeks with an impressive gastro-pub-meets-French-cuisine style menu. [-EVAN-]
