Jimmy John's

Rating: OK
Meal: Dinner
Price: $14
Payment: Credit cards accepted
Dishes: Two turkey avocado "unwiches" (lettuce wraps)
English Menu: Yes
Smoking: No

My wife and I needed a quick bite and I was trying to stay low carb, so I stopped in this sandwich shop in a strip mall and asked what they could do for me.  The lettuce wrap (unwich) was suggested with the turkey, avocado, tomato cucumber topping combination.  I ordered two, and we ate them, not expecting much.   We were pleasantly surprised with the results, and they did the trick. 

The Coffee Cottage

Rating: OK
Meal: Dinner
Price: $12
Payment: Credit cards accepted
Dishes: Breakfast burrito, decaf sour mocha
English Menu: Yes
Smoking: No

The Coffee Cottage is an old college hangout in Newberg that serves really good coffee.  I was walking back to our airbnb the other night and decided to stop in and order my favorite coffee (decaf...because night), a sour mocha (aka bitter mocha, aka mocha using chocolate powder light on the sugar).  I saw they had some food options and I was hungry so I ordered a breakfast burrito, which they then kind of grilled and brought to eat.

It was...not very good.  I only ate half and tossed the rest.  Still, I think the food there is better than that generally, so I gave it an Ok.  Plus, the coffee was really good. 

Black Bear Diner

Rating: Very good
Meal: Breakfast for 5
Price:  $57.00
Payment: Credit cards accepted
Dishes:  Various breakfasty dishes (see below)
English Menu: Yes
Smoking: No

My sister-in-law and her husband wanted to take us out to breakfast in Newberg and recommended the Black Bear Diner.  It's a sort of all-american rustic woodsey type place that's new since we lived here.  The menu is expansive and the portions are truly stunning.  Luckily, we saw this ahead of time and ordered smaller portions on purpose.

The results were delicious and quite cheap for the portion sizes.  Definitely a Very Good.

Panaderia y Taqueria Gonzalez

Rating: Very good
Meal: Dinner for 3
Price:  $25.23
Payment: Credit cards accepted
Dishes:  3 tacos lengua, 1 chicken burrito, 1 bean and cheese burrito, 1 horchata
English Menu: Yes
Smoking: No

We finally reached my hometown in the US (Newberg, OR) and for dinner we stopped by the Panaderia y Taqueria Gonzalez, my favorite Mexican restaurant in town.  There are other places that do certain things better (i.e. the "wet" sauce of Marthas Tacos in Lafayette, if it is still open, is better), but for your basic burrito supreme, this place is hard to beat.  However, since we weren't that hungry and I am trying to watch the carbs, I ordered 3 tacos with lengua, thinking it would be smaller.   Ha!  I could only eat two, and am having the 3rd for breakfast!  My wife ate about 2/3 of her chicken burrito, and even my son gave up after a heroic effort to eat his bean and cheese (Mexican white cheese, natch) burrito.

Putting the "bakery" in "Panaderia"

Of course, because this is a Panaderia in addition to being a Taqueria, I had to take a picture of the baked goods section, of which many a customer partook as we awaited our food.  A pity I don't care too much for Mexican baked goods.

3 enormous tacos lengua

Oh, my son begged for some horchata, which is a favorite, and we capitulated.  It's still delicious, though still stupidly sweet.  There must be a way to make a healthier version...

The burrito, possibly the least photogenic food in existence.

Ditto...

Phở Hùng

Rating: Excellent
Meal:  Lunch for 3
Price:  $40
Payment: Credit cards accepted
Dishes: Beef pho, lemongrass chicken, teriyaki chicken, fresh spring rolls, taro root bubble tea
English Menu: Yes

Smoking: No

Wow...so this was unexpected.  We arrived in Portland were picked up by my brother, who currently lives on the east side of Portland.  As we discussed lunch options, he suggested Vietnamese, as they are apparently now popping up everywhere like mushrooms.  We were like, yes!  Bring it on!  Because finding good Vietnamese in Japan has been liking looking for a needle in a haystack.

So he took us to a spot nearish by and as we entered the place, BAM! it hit me in the face:  the strong, rich smell of beef broth and those special spices you only seem to find in an amazing pho broth.  We tried several different dishes, but sadly only one pho, thought it was more than plenty to feed two people.  My son and I had some of the chicken dishes, which weren't that great, but the pho truly blew us away.  Even the little dishes of broth that came with the chicken dishes were incredible.

Now I know that there may be better pho in Portland, but for us, this first taste of excellent pho in years places it at that category and deserving of that rating.

First Class Rice

Rating: Very good
Meal: Lunch for 3
Price:  5240 yen
Payment: Credit cards accepted
Dishes:  3 teishokus plus an egg and salmon roe
English Menu: Yes
Smoking: No

Well we are off on a trip back to the US and had to fly out of Narita, sadly.  We tracked down this "first class rice" restaurant consisting of Kyoto style teishokus.  All of our dishes were delicious and we'd eat there again in a heartbeat

Suehiro

Rating: OK
Meal: Dinner
Price: 950 yen
Payment: Cash only
Dishes: Kalbi cheese mock, Chicken curry cheese mock, sesame balls
English Menu: Yes
Smoking: No

This is a very odd place.  It was very popular with the neighborhood kids, that's for sure...had a kind of 50's neighborhood diner vibe going on.  Their specialty is "cheese mock" which I could find zero references to on the Internet.  So maybe this is an original idea?

Not very photogenic food

What is a cheese mock you ask?  Well, it starts with a thin, crep-like base (slightly sweet) within which is placed any combination of sweet or savory items.  How is this different than a crepe?  I'm not sure...but apparently it is.  I had a kalbi beef and chicken curry cheese mock.  It took forever to make them...and it was stiflingly hot in there.  When they finally arrived, I found out that he apparently thought I wanted them to go, so I ended up with everything in a to go bag.  I proceeded to eat them there, very carefully, as the temperature of the cheese inside was molten.  In addition to the cheese and meat, there were other things:  mayonnaise, lettuce, fusulli noodles, camembert cheese.  It was surprisingly tasty, though I wish the base crepe wasn't so sweet.  I also got some sesame balls, which were very homemade and tasted great.

While I'm rating the food an Ok, I still really liked the place for its unique qualities.  If I lived in the area I'd probably be a regular.