By: Tammy Lynne Stoner | September 01 2011
Posted in Portland - Find It - Portland

A spicy Radio Mary! Will this beverage win the competition? Photos by: Tammy Lynne Stoner

With so many restaurants to choose from that serve similiar fare, The Local Dish has decided to start a "Showdown" series to determine which places have the best eats. Please join us as we pick dueling dishes, put them through strenuous tastebud testing, and pick a winner!

Radio Room Vs. The Country Cat

In a blazing victory for underdogs everywhere, The Country Cat – a down-home diner on 79^th and SE Stark in Montavilla, toppled Radio Room – the modern diner of grooviness on Alberta, in Portland’s Bloody Mary Showdown!

Radio Room wasn’t always the contemporary, fire-pitted joint it is today. Six short years ago it was a dilapidated Texaco station. With similar renovating flare, Radio Room adds new twists on standard food fare – the horseradish zing on their beet salad, their vegan shepherd’s pie, their elk meatloaf – and Radio Room’s Radio Mary is no exception. Here the secret ingredient is none other than Portland’s beloved Aardvark Sauce! Combined with their three-pepper vodka and their well-attended weekend Bloody Mary Bar, we assumed Radio Room would be the winner of the Bloody Mary Showdown. We were wrong.

The winner! The Country Cat's unbeatable Proud Mary.

In one of the biggest upsets of the Portland Showdowns, unimposing Country Cat Dinner House & Bar won, presenting a more delicate yet fuller Bloody Mary whose spice was an afternote, not the screeching trumpet solo. 

Country Cat’s Proud Mary is served in a beer mug with a salted rim, topped with a slice of beef jerky and a toothpick of pickled zucchini, pickled green bean, and olive. It’s not too boozy, not too peppery, not too tomato-y. The flavors merge, presenting a drink that pairs with your meal rather than burning it to the ground.

The Radio Mary, on the other hand, leads with its spice, crushing many of the standard Bloody Mary flavors: the robust tomato, the surprise of pepper throughout, the depth of the Worcestershire, the bright celery, the hint of lemon. For those who prefer a hot, impatient date to an evening of unfolding surprises, the Radio Mary may be a better choice, but we like a little more sass with our spice.

Winner: The Country Cat!

Catch up on all TLD's Portland Showdowns here, then visit the winners and tell us what you've been enjoying!

Tammy Lynne Stoner has written for HGTV, Food Network, and Fine Living, among others. She is a novelist, Law & Order junkie and Fiction Editor for Gertrude Press. Her websites are TammyLynneStoner.com and StonerWrites.com.

 

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