Bamboo Sushi

Our friend Charlie is on a mission to discover and try as many different restaurants in the shortest amount of time possible - measured by his own personal clock. We use to think he only did this while on vacation (he once tried 13 different establishments in a single day while visiting us in New York) but it's apparently the case here in Portland as well, as made obvious by the happy hour run we made on Wednesday evening.

We started off at Tapalaya... but as I just discussed and agreed with a business owner friend of mine - if I don't have anything nice to say about an establishment, better to not say anything about it at all, so I guess we'll just leave this one at that :)

We then headed a few blocks down to Bamboo Sushi, the first certified, sustainable sushi restaurant in the world (they use 100% renewable resources for power, sustainable chopsticks, biodegradable to-go containers and even energy efficient toilets and hand dryers)! And with the growing demand of fish consumption in restaurants leading to over-fished waters, Bamboo Sushi has committed to serving the best and freshest fish while fostering partnerships with respected organizations to promote marine stewardship and oceanic sustainability. How cool is that?

Charlie and I were already full and intended to just swing by for drinks (their lychee martinis were made with muddled lychees - yum) but we ended up snacking on a spicy scallop handroll and grilled kobe flank with sweet potato,sauteed garlic greens with bacon, pickled mushrooms and herbed momiji sauce.

Both were on the happy hour menu (from 5pm to 6:30pm) and both were very well made buttery goodness. They have these specials called "Flights," which is their signature way of allowing diners to enjoy a specific variety of their in-season seafood. Currently, they have a crab flight consisting of six types of sustainable crabs ranging from king crab, snow crab, dungeness crab, all the way to stone crabs, all from Alaska, Canada, Oregon and Florida respectively. I am definitely heading back to Bamboo Sushi and dragging Michael with me since there were so many other things I wanted to try! Stay tuned for Michael and his experience with their uni flight!