Neighborhood Notes

50 Plates serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They even have Wi-Fi!

The bar area has a nice array of seating (and drinking) options. Happy Hour? Hell yeah! Try the pulled pork sammies or hot-spiced peanuts ($1.50); Castroville artichoke rolls or R&R salad ($2.50); or clams and mussels from the hearth oven or peel & eat shrimp ($4.50). Wash it down with "this afternoon's wine" ($6) or "this afternoon's draft" ($4).

Did you think we were done? Um, no. If you like cocktails, there is a happy hour special every day of the week:

Manhattan Mondays: Manhattans & Cosmos ($6)

Fat Tuesdays:Sazerac or Pomegranate Martini ($6)

Whiskey Wednesdays: Old Fashioned or Whiskey Sour ($6)

Thirst Days: Moscow Mule or Margarita ($6)

Thank God it's FRY Days: Oregon Classic Martini ($6)

Tip: There are daily food specials and complimentary snacks served during happy hour.

We attended the 50 Plates media dinner and were able to try quite a few items from the menu. Here are the dishes that we felt really stood out:

Dirty Rice Beignets

(andouille, vegetable, and rice fritters served with cajun dipping sauce)

Victory Garden Salad

(whatever's at the Farmers Market, splashed with house lemon, black pepper, & maple dressing)

R&R Salad

(Radicchio and Romaine, toasted filberts, apples, Rogue blue cheese, honey-sherry vinaigrette)

If you're a salad lover, you will be THRILLED at the selection. Delicious!

Pan Roast Fish on a Clam Chowder Mash

(potatoes cooked in clam juice, mashed with butter and cream, and studded with auteed bacon, onions and celery. The fish is seared in a hot pan, finished in the hearth oven, and finished by a few shell-on clams steamed with thyme and cream)

Molasses BBQ Boneless Beef Shortrib & Horseradish Slaw

(Beef shortibes are cut off the bone, rolled in house spice, slow cooked with a little smoke for 10 hours, then doused with a molasses & rum BBQ Sauce. Served on smooth mashed sweet potato, with a crunchy horseradish spiked slaw, and fried "tobacco onions" sprinkled on top. The finishing touch? Deliciously white trash cheap yellow mustard BBQ sauce on the side.)

Devil's Food Chocolate Cake

Inspired by the "black magic" cake that graced Hershey's containers for decades—enhanced with sour cream and Stumptown coffee. Served with brown sugar ice cream.)

I've dreamt about this cake. Seriously.

We went back for lunch recently—admittedly, it took a bit to get over the media dinner—and had an equally great experience. The service was phenomenal. Lunch is served with your choice of cornbread or a biscuit—definitely bring a dining companion and get one of each!

Shooter ordered the Media Noche Sandwich

(Miami's "midnight special" sandwich of slow-roasted mojo pork, ham, gruyere,and jalapeno pickle relish)

I ordered the Notso Po' Boy

(fried shrimp on bagette with lemon herb aioli, lettuce and tomatoes.)

As the granddaughter of a Gulf Coast shrimper, this was NOT the po boy of my youth—but, it was a really great interpretation. Not to mention, I didn't have to clean 300lbs of shrimp to actually eat one. Woohoo!

Executive chef Randal St. Clair and chef de cuisine Patrick Miller are two, of many, reasons for the successful development, and execution, of the ambitious menus at 50 Plates.

Lance Mayhew, the rockstar author of 'My Life on the Rocks" and the current President of Oregon Bartenders Guild,is your go-to-guy for balanced and delicious cocktails.

Okay foodies, here are two shots of the inner-sanctum...

On a final note, you won't find more gracious hosts than the folks at 50 Plates. Why are you still reading this?

Get thee to 50 Plates—that's a commandment!