Thanks you for the kind words Mandy! Belly Timber is indeed delicious and worth a stop, but do it soon as David Siegel is leaving for a year of global traveling at the end of February. Bradley Dawson left the building some months ago and now holds down the bar at Blue Hour, so I can't speak to what the cocktail program is like these days. I love the half-order concept, makes it viable to try two entrees instead of one. Let me know how it goes!

I was waiting for someone to call me out on the 4:1:1. Yes, it's a bit too heavy for everyday drinking (although I do enjoy it this way from time to time with a good long shake), but I settled on that ratio for this part of the testing for a few reasons: - This being the tequila tasting I wanted to bring the tequila forward as much as possible. - If the winner could hold up under 4:1:1 conditions then it should be flexible enough to stand up to future abuse in the next two rounds of testing and tweaking. - Though a tequila might taste better at a more traditional 3:2:1 or 2:1:1, I'm not sure that it would make such a difference as to rise in rank vs other Margaritas at the same ratio. (eg the El Tesoro will still have a bit of 'dirt') That said, I'm really curious to try the El Tesoro at 3:2:1 to see how it plays. Thanks for all of the recommendations! I'm especially interested in the Arette Blanco, not a bad price either. Is there an orange liqueur you prefer apart from the standard Cointreau? We'll get together soon, swap booze, debate the finer points, and represent our booze nerdiness loud and proud!

I tried Mystery Tap #2 and enjoyed it quite a bit. My notes read: sour, stonefruit, prosecco. Maybe I was a bit dazed by then ;)

Inhibition best describes it. Even though Ten 01 has a bit of a classy feel I don't feel overly compelled to be so myself. But yes, this typically leads to inebriation...

Haha, yeah, the sake list doesn't seem as approachable to me as Tanuki where even pricey pours feel fair. I instead feel kinda hustled at Biwa. The Yakitori IS great at Biwa (recently had the liver there and especially enjoyed it, and always the pork belly), but I think Tanuki does a damn fine job considering the lack of a fancy charcoal grill. In fact I still prefer the beef onglet at Tanuki after multiple samplings at both joints. Might just be the kimchi manipulating my senses though.

It's already back with a hell of a force, for good and for bad. I'm getting really tired of the smell of everyone's shampoo when I'm on the MAX...

Welcome John, sorry you had a bad experience there. 1. Hm, Janice has always been nice to people there when I've been around and I haven't heard any other reports of her being rude to customers without reason. 2. She couldn't have known I was a blogger that first night, but I'm flattered to sound so important :) 3. I go back almost every week (taking the bus no less) and know bloggers in that neighborhood that go 2-3 times a week. 4. Although I empathize with your situation, it does say this right at the bottom of the menu: "Sorry we do not split bills. One check, one credit card per table. NO EXCEPTIONS PLEASE." I hope you at least had a chance to enjoy your meal there! If you comment again in the future, please try to temper your tone a little bit, I try to keep this place constructive and don't like deleting comments.

My usual hot toddy is: - Brandy - Plenty of Lemon Juice - Clover Honey - Strong Black Tea steeped for ~30sec Originally I tried the snot toddy with honey, but because the orange liqueur was so sweet already the honey pushed it over the top so I omitted it, but you're right, honey is great when you're sick, especially with any sort of throat bug. I was going for an orange-spice sort of thing here. ...I made a 'Margarita Toddy' that night that was delicious with honey...better than it sounds too!

Yeah, I'd love to spend some more time with Biwa. I sampled quite a bit of the yakitori and really enjoyed it, aside from the radical differences in the pork belly across visits. Get ahold of me if ya wanna introduce me to your favorites :)

There's some hot stuff behind that link - those lotus root sliders are beautiful

Ha! Thanks for calling me out, I'm not sure what kind of strange lapse cascaded through my brain there: MCB=Meat Cheese Bread, another famous Portland sandwich joint that happens to serve a BLB - bacon, lettuce, beets IMHO=you'll have to ask a younger bunny about that one...

Thanks for the suggestions! I'm looking forward to coming back in and doing a full review. I went in with the intention of peppers but then completely forgot...I blame my hangover ;) Tim