In the Market

You don’t have to live in a big city to enjoy the benefits of an Asian market: Eugene and Springfield have a smattering of markets full of the best and most unusual ingredients Asian cuisine has to offer. Some have been here since the ’90s and some are only a few years old, but if you have a recipe (Asian or not) that you’re dying to try out, make sure to stop by these locally owned grocery stores first.    Sunrise Asian Food Market 70 W. 29th Ave.; 343-3295 Continue reading 

Cambodian Cuisine

If you’re not sure what Cambodian food is like, Horn Nov, the owner of Angkor Cambodian Cafe, offers some tantalizing clues. “Next door to Thailand, next door to Vietnam,” he says about Cambodia’s closest neighbors. “A lot of fresh ingredients, lemon grass, turmeric, ginger.”  The curry, for example, is served with noodles, Cambodian-style. Nov tries to describe it and then decides to bring out a bowl of the colorful dish instead.  Continue reading 

Two Dolla Holla

Though perhaps not the salmon nigiri you’ll rave to your friends about or the most amazing Cali roll you’ve ever had, 541 Sushi Bar’s conveyer belt-style fare really isn’t half bad — especially at a consistent $2 a plate. And the restaurant, which opened Dec. 10, doesn’t aim to be fine dining, anyway. Owner Wookyn Lee would be the first to tell you this. Continue reading 

Word Is

• Want fresh-ground hazelnuts mixed with chocolate? Head over to South Willamette's Market of Choice bulk section — they’ve struck gold with a make-your-own-Nutella contraption. Just resist the temptation to position your mouth under the spigot and pull the lever.  Continue reading 

It’s About Time – April 2015

Do birds return to the same nest year after year? All winter, when the deciduous trees are bare, I look at clots of debris high in their branches and try to pick out which are just clumps of leaves and which are nests. The obstacle to solving this puzzle is that the old nests are obscured by leaves by the time birds might come back. The trees leaf out before most birds begin nesting. It’s hard to tell if the nests are used again. Continue reading