California Grubbin'

food: 5/5 experience: 5/5 overall: 5/5 A friend of ours moved to Oregon City in 2016 and we hadn't seen her since. We remembered she was a fan of tapas, though, so I suggested a couple tapas places and we landed on this one. Taste on 23rd. It's in a kinda bougie part of town that is reminiscent of Carmel, with lots of boutiques and yoga studios and stuff. The restaurant is inside what looks like a townhouse, on top of a tea shop (yes, also a lot of these around here). We seated ourselves at a high-top table. Our friend started off with a tall blackberry hard cider. Their wine list is extensive. It is a wine bar, after all. The small plates are secondary to the wine. They were holding a wine tasting while we ate, as a matter of fact. Their food menu is small but executed perfectly. We tried some of the highlights. Two types of bruschetta, burrata, and mac & cheese. We finished off with a dessert. The cherry jam brie bruschetta came out first. The sweet yet ta...

food: 5/5 experience: 5/5 overall: 5/5 Fah-bulous. Our last dinner stop in Vancouver before we headed home. So many Japanese restaurants in this city. So many. Why this one? Well, it's different, because it's tapas. And it seems to be really popular. I don't know what "guu" is but I want in on it. I'm thinking Japanese tapas? There's a few Guu's in Vancouver so I'll say it's that. Because that's what they serve. So you're gonna wanna get more than one item. We got a salmon potato gratin, duck salad, and beet/pumpkin/green bean dish. The gratin was a daily special. Mashed potatoes, smoked salmon, scallops and cream cheese. All sounded delicious. It was indeed delicious, and nicely portioned. Duck salad was another interesting combo. I love duck but it is usually too fancy to be put in salads. I'm glad they did it because this too was a great, somewhat healthy combo. And then another daily special: pumpkin, be...

food: 5/5 experience: 4/5 overall: 4.5/5 To be clear, someone else  suggested we go here. I merely brought it up in conversation. So the bill of over a hundred dollars including tip was not my fault. Not my fault I say! Kru is a restaurant that specializes in Japanese tapas. Yes, this place is pricey as hell. Yes, it is in East Sac. It is definitely not casual dining fare, though you can come dressed as casually as you'd like just so long as you got your wallet with you. Their main specialty is nigiri, which the waiter took a while to explain while he described the whole menu to us. This is a nice custom in general but I was damn hungry and wanted none of that. With my food allergies (ahem, soy) being present in nearly every dish, the waiter said I was all but limited to getting the sashimi platter for count 'em, forty buckaroos. Nigiri at four bucks a slice simply was not gonna cut it (is that a pun?). Lovely presentation, complete with edible flowers. And since I...