September 1, 2013 Portland Lunch -- Pai Men Miyake and Dinner – Enchiladas

September 1, 2013 Portland   Lunch -- Pai Men Miyake and Dinner – Enchiladas

We got up late and after watching the first half of the Liverpool/Manchester United soccer game, Willy, Suzette and I drove to Portland.  We first went to the inside Flea Market, where Willy bought a shirt.  Then we called Drew and asked him to meet us at the Portland Art Museum.  We parked bout one block away and walked up the hill to Congress Ave. to the Museum.  Suzette and I started viewing the art.  I also bought us all tickets to the Paley Collection on loan from the Museum of Modern Art.   After a few minutes Willy said he was hungry and wanted to eat Japanese, so we walked up Congress Ave to the Pai Men Miyake restaurant (http://www.miyakerestaurants.com/pai-men-miyake/) at the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow square.  We sat outside and ordered from the Brunch menu and the regular menu.   I ordered the pork buns; two steamed buns with braised pork belly, gouchujang mayo, & pepper relish and  hamayaki; crab & scallop on sushi rice, coated in spicy mayonnaise, broiled, & finished with truffle oil & eel sauce.  Suzette, Drew and Willy all ordered off the Sunday Brunch menu, Willy, an egg sandwich in a steamed bun with roasted vegetables, Drew, eggs and pork with seasonal roasted vegetables and Suzette a stirred egg dish with pork belly.  Miyake is part of a chain of restaurants that have their own farm that raises its own pork and its ingredients are exceedingly fresh. 

The dishes were small but exquisite.

We then went back to the museum and saw the Paley collection which included the great Paul Gaugin painting of washerwomen in Arles, a great self portrait by Cezanne, several wonderful Fauxist paintings including the best Vlaminck, I have ever seen 

 and several stunning Picassos like Boy with a Horse from his Rose Period

, a great Braque Automatic Cubist Mandolin  

several more cubist Picassos,

and lots of others including a wonderful Degas charcoal and two Toulouse Lautrec pastels


and a great Mattise  nude. 


The Museum had lots of other great paintings, such as Winslow Homer’s “Windbeaten” of a craggy Maine coast in a storm and another killer Fitz Henry Lane of a harbor.  Winslow Homer lived and painted in Portland and the museum has restored his house and painting studio.   His father encouraged his painting as a way to sell the beauty of the area his family bought and developed outside Portland; another real estate success story.

 

 

 Finally after the museum we said goodbye to Drew and went back to Arundel.   Cynthia heated up the two reserve dishes of enchiladas, one green and the other red and Ricardo’s beans and the rice and we ate another wonderful Mexican food meal with sips of champagne.   For dessert we ate slices of the PPI berry pie with scoops of the wonderful Gifford’s vanilla ice cream. 

At 8:30 we started watching Breaking Bad and at 10:00 we all went to sleep.  Ricardo did not work on the season five that we were watching tonight but some of his sets were in the episode we watched.

Bon Appétit