No Almond Roca was used in the making of this Almond Roca Cake.

I sampled every brown, red and organic beer Saturday at the Oregon Spring Beer and Wine Festival in Portland.

But it was Almond Roca Cake that was the day's top memory -- mostly because there is absolutely no Almond Roca in this cake.

In fact, the cake's toffee candiness comes from Heath Bar crumbles.

Ian Farquhar of Dessert Noir Cafe & Bar in Beaverton said he calls his creation Almond Roca Cake because it resembles a giant piece of the candy that made Tacoma famous.

Roughly the size of an over-inflated rugby ball, the cake features three layers of pound cake, two layers of dark chocolate ganache frosting, Heath Bar crumbles, more frosting and more Heath Bar crumbles. It paired deliciously with Black Bear XX Stout from Alameda Brewhouse.

PORTLAND -- Beer was in the air this morning at the Northwest Food Service show. Restaurant owners, servers, bartenders and a restaurant critic soaked up advice from Oregon brewers about how restaurants can boost their bottom lines with beer.

Here's the bottom line of the session, in the words of Jim Parker, publican of Oaks Bottom Public House: "Beer's a high-profit item."

Here's some more insight:

BE DIFFERENT
'Most people ask their distributors, 'What sells?'' Parker said. "My philosophy has always been to go to my distributor and say, ‘What can’t you sell? I’m going to make them drink it.”

Parker refuses to sell Oregon flagship beers. It's not because he doesn't enjoy Widmer Hef or BridgePort IPA or Mirror Pond. It's because all the taps in town look alike.

"Beer can be a selling point," Parker said. "It creates excitement. It makes people come back."

EDUCATE
Hold regular beer tastings for service staff.

"Servers don't have to get a Ph.d in beer talk," Parker said. "Describe beer like people. I’m a bald, goofy guy. You can figure out its personality one or two sips: Hoppy. Pale. Floral. Dark. Chocolatey. You don’t have to become a beer expert."

But, he noted, "If servers are beer experts, tips go up."

Tastings also raise staff morale, said Jamie Floyd, brewer at Ninkasi Brewing Company in Eugene. Floyd, who was a brewpub chef at Steelhead for 10 years, holds beer tastings and food-and-beer pairing sessions for culinary students at the community college in Eugene.

For restaurant owners and managers who want to know more about the beer they buy, contact the brewers, Floyd said.

"You’re the customer," he said. "The people you’re buying products from owe you an explanation about that product."

HOUSE BEER
Restaurants slap their labels on wine. Floyd recommends putting your name on someone else's brew. He does it for restaurants, and even gives them a price break. It's all about building relationships and cross promotion, Floyd said.

(At this point in my note-taking I drifted away, thinking of the South Sound restaurants with contract-brewed house beers: Rosewood Cafe, Trackside Pizza and Paddy Coyne's.)

Floyd then told the story of how Portland chef Greg Higgins had his staff peel hundreds of pounds squash while collaborating with Hair of the Dog brewery on its squash beer, named Greg.

(At this point in my note-taking I drifted away, thinking of the pint of Greg I'd enjoyed with Higgins' buttermilk donuts with lemon verbena ice cream last night, but more on that later.)

SHOT OF CLASS
Position beer like youposition wine. Make a nice menu. If you use beer in any of your dishes, note that on the menu. Make food-and-beer pairing suggestions.

"It’s a lot easier to upsell beer than wine," Floyd said. "A couple of glasses of beer cost as much as a glass of wine. For the working class, that upsell is easier."

SERVING SIZES
Smaller serving sizes, from 8 to 10 ounces, let diners try different beers with different courses.

"It's difficult to get people off the perceived quantity of a pint," Parker said. However, "You can make more money off of a glass than a pint."

Twenty-two-ounce bottles also offer variety over multiple courses. Diners are more inclined to share three $12 bottles of beer than three bottles of $30 wine.

As Parker said: "More variety, bigger profit, customers learn more."

PANDER
"Brewers are rock stars to beer fans," Parker said. He suggests inviting brewers to your restaurants for tastings and beer dinners.

PORTLAND – If a cookie, cake or French fry contains partially hydrogenated oil, then it can’t be labeled trans fat-free. However, if those same cookies, cakes and French fries have 0.5 grams or less, per serving, of the man-made fat that’s linked to heart disease and other unhealthy conditions, then they can and will be labeled “trans fat-free per serving.”

That Three-Card Monte marketing mumbo-jumbo was among the interesting nuggets of trans fats information at afternoon panel at the Northwest Foodservice Show today.

Here’s another: While everyone and their fry cooks are scrambling to inform diners about healthful menu plans, some participants in the battle against trans fats play don’t ask / don’t tell.

When Nabisco kicked trans fats out of Oreos, the snack conglomerate didn’t say anything for six months. Meanwhile, consumers continued eating Oreos, largely unaware of the reformulation.

“Smart. Smart. Smart,” said Paul Cosby of Morton and Associates, a firm that sells cooking oils. “We had already adjusted ourselves before they told us Oreos were different.”

Vancouver-based Burgerville switched to trans fat-free frying oil about two years ago. Last year, the chain started advertising the switch.

“Most of our guests didn’t even know,” said Debe Nagy-Nero of Burgerville. “I still have guests who ask if we’ve even switched.”

Burgerville’s fries still contain trans fats; a trans-fat-free version of the fries, which arrive par-fried from supplier LambWesson, didn’t taste right, Nagy-Nero said. But she said, “Trans fat-free is here to stay. There’s no going back. It’s about management and profitability now.”

Managing the message is the advice of Margo Kraus, who works for the PR firm Fleishman-Hillard.

“Younger males may not be interested in trans fat-free,” she said. “They may possibly be turned off by the perception of health food. You don’t want to turn off your customers by making them think something contains carrots instead of meat.”

PORTLAND -- The sign said Beer & Wine Tasting. The beer won't be at the Northwest Foodservice Show until tomorrow. So I ordered up a few tastes of wine today.

"It's a good barbecue wine," one of the Amity Vineyards' vintners said of the 2007 Gamay Noir, grown from French vines in McMinville, Ore.

She was right: Its fruity and peppery notes held up to the baby-back rib I filched off another vendor's tray. Amity's Gamay Noir is also light enough to be drunk long into a summer night.

And as another vintner noted, it won't close up when chilled.

EdenValley's Claret disappered too quickly. However, Dalla Vina's '05 Cabernet Franc, made from Columbia Valley, Washington grapes, still coats my throat, or perhaps just my memories. Rich, intense and unforgettably complex.

Making an effort to switch from red wine to white wine, I tried a sappy Riesling from Vitis Ridge. It wasn't too sweet and had plenty of body to make me forget that Claret.

PORTLAND – If you’d heard what I said when the digital camera I checked out of the TNT’s camera pool belly-flopped – must have been the vegan chicken breast -- you’d have heard the most interesting utterances of the day.

Here are some random snippets I overheard today while cruising the trade show floor of the Northwest Foodservice Show:

“We’re trying to make it a bed and bistro instead of a bed and breakfast.”

“The price point is very simple. Everything after that is profit.”

“My wife irons them for me. I’ll wear this one and one tomorrow and that’ll be it.” – vendor in a wrinkled polo shirt.

“I don’t touch my wife’s iron.” – a fellow vendor

“Haven’t we already been down this aisle?”

“I couldn’t find the chicken fries.”

“She is the muffin princess.”

“I need a drink drink.”

This one occurred silently, but I saw it with my own eyes: an Oregon Convention Center custodian walking into the men’s room with a plunger. It’s a food service show, folks.

PORTLAND --- Food and wine are a terrific pair. But how and why?

Frederick Armstrong, an Oregon wine consultant, discussed wine and food pairings in an education session this morning at the Northwest Foodservice Show.

Rule No. 1: There are no rules.

Rule No. 2: If the customer wants white wine with red meat, the customer gets white wine with red meat. And vice versa. For instance, Armstrong said, pinot noir and salmon are a great combo -- the light acid in the wine balancing the fat in the fish. Meanwhile, the ripe, fruity acidity of a German Riesling rubs pork belly the right way.

To figure out which wine works with which food, Armstrong recommends considering dominant flavors in both the food and the wine and finding a balance. Take a bite of food. Don’t swallow. Take a sip of wine. Don’t swallow. Which taste dominates? The food? The wine? You want balance, Armstrong said.

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PORTLAND -- There's something for everybody at the Northwest Foodservice Show today and Monday at the Oregon Convention Center. I just cruised the exhibition floor. There are slicers. There are dicers. There are smothiess. There's cheese. There's meat. And then there's mega-puveyor Sysco's new Vegefarm vegan and vetetarian chicken, hot dogs, meatballs and teriyaki chunks and sauces.

While the chicken looks like chicken -- it's formed in a mold that imitates a real chicken breast/wing combo --it tastes decidedly like a tasty soy product, from which it's made. So do the hot dogs and meatballs and teriyaki chunks. The accompanying teriyaki, sweet & sour, curry and black bean sauces are some kind of soy-sations as well.

Stay tuned for more posts throughout the day from the Northwest Food Service Show.