Mr. Panda is Here to Stay

It’s Official. Mr. Panda is the new mascot for Portland Food Coma!

After facing stiff competition from Mr. Neglected Plant, Mrs. Microplane Grater, Captain Scallion, Ms. City of Portland 30 Gallon Trash Bag, and Admiral Wine Cork, Mr. Panda has emerged victorious and to celebrate, Gemma (tattoo artist responsible for the Bacon Cross) and I decide to take him for ice cream.
I was already covering local ice creams for an upcoming magazine feature, so we decide to make the epic journey from Portland to Brown’s Old Fashioned (232 Nubble Rd.) in York Beach, over an hour away.
The original plan involved very loud music and a mini-car-dance-party on the way down, but due to both of us being brutally hungover we just settled for pleasant conversation. It was all smooth sailing until we got to York, when fucking Google Maps almost got us kidnapped by Carnies.


It seemed strange that we were being instructed to enter York’s Wild Animal Kingdom (still closed for the season) but I figured “hey, seems like a reasonable place to have an ice cream stand!” As we drove through, we began to feel like pilgrims in an un-holy land. Google Maps said to continue down the road, but the Carnies eyeing us suspiciously made me think otherwise. It was a lot like the scene in the movie “Goodfellas” where Robert De Niro is trying to convince Lorraine Bracco to go down the alley and pick out some Dior dresses but is secretly planning to have her murdered. This may have been due to the fact that we were driving through the animal kingdom with an enormous Panda Bear in the back seat, but either way we decide to get the fuck out of there and reassess the situation.


I call Brown’s, and it turns out we were way off track. It’s funny how 90% of the time the iPhone GPS is spot on, and sometimes you just end up in the middle of nowhere. I accidentally admit to the person on the phone that we’d come all the way from Portland to have ice cream, which makes me feel like a shithead. His advice to us is to “drive towards the lighthouse,” which we found about twenty minutes later. Gemma and I agree on two things:
1. This is the longest journey either of us had ever made for ice cream.
2. Never to go near York’s Wild Animal Kingdom Again.
We both decide that Frappes would be helpful for our hangovers, and we were right. The quality of the ice cream is excellent, although they did not offer a bamboo flavor for Mr. Panda.

Mr. Panda Comes To Dinner

Nothing livens up a Sunday meal like setting a place at the table for a giant stuffed Panda Bear.
Mr. Panda had been living on the third floor of our house for about a year and a half, and I felt that that a dinner party revolving around two head-on ducks would be a great time to re-introduce him to the world.

You may be asking how we were lucky enough to have this magnificent creature as a roommate, and it’s actually a pretty funny story involving an ex-girlfriend, a yard sale, and the gay pride parade. I think she could probably tell the story best…


I had purchased the birds with the heads on with the intention of doing Peking Duck, which, like Buddha Jumps Over the Wall, is another classic and labor-intensive Chinese feast involving multiple courses. One of the steps is to use an air pump to separate the skin from the body to make it extra crispy. My proposed solution to this was to bring the ducks down to the Mobil Station and hook them up to the air pump for tires while taking multiple pictures, but this idea was quickly shot down and we decided to just roast the fuckers and improvise.


My kitchen partners in crime for this venture were Dietz, who was in charge of roasting the ducks, and Drew, who tackled sides. I decided to put together a hot and sour soup using a much different method than I was accustomed to, one of the major deviations being the use of Chinese red wine vinegar instead of the Chinkiang variety. Other interesting elements included Sichuan mustard pickle, dried bean curd sheets, and dried tiger lily buds.


As of late I’ve been obsessed with the Chinese method of making chicken stock, which involves ginger, wolfberries, scallions, white peppercorns, cilantro, and fried onions. Frying or grilling vegetables adds an incredible amount of depth to a broth, and is essential for creating dishes such as Pho.


To prepare the duck Dietz marinates it in a mixture of Sichuan bean sauce, brown sugar, soy, cilantro, and white pepper. The cavity is then filled with scallions, ginger, star anise, and Ceylon cinnamon, and roasted, turning occasionally, at 400 degrees.
Drew cooks fried rice with the duck hearts, livers, and Lap Cheong (Chinese sausage) and stir fries mustard green stems to round everything out. At this time we realize that a few cans of Lion Imperial Pilsner from Sri Lanka, coming in at about 9% alcohol, can get you pretty fucked up on an empty stomach. I transition into wine and quickly get my head back on track and ready to murder a few bottles, such as the Chateau Des Tours VDP from the Rhone Valley that paired perfectly with the duck.


We decide to serve the duck in dough wrappers with hoisin sauce and julienned scallions, and improvise by making these out of Pillsbury biscuit dough in the bamboo steamer. As you can imagine, fatty, crispy duck served in rich buttery biscuit dough wrappers was utterly ridiculous. No, not remotely traditional but utterly fucking ridiculous…


Dinner conversation drunkenly descends into an argument about old kid's toys, such as Pogo Balls, Power Wheels, and My Buddy. There is a debate about the relationship between Pound Puppies, and Gund, and we try to figure out what kind of fucking person actually collects Beanie Babies and where are they now. It ends with Julie trying to describe a toy that had two big wheels and a seat that you could ride around into which I reply: "I believe you're thinking of a WHEELCHAIR."

photos by Julie Smith