We generally keep news items concerning Seattle South to ourselves in the hopes that one day the powers that be will scoop up a handfull of clay and fashion Portlandist.com to blather on about it, but so far no luck. The thing is that there's a question of journalistic ethics arising down there and Seattlest is a sucker for stories about journalistic ethics (uh, the ethics of others, of course. Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.) Willamette Week, generally regarded as a rather stand up sort of alt-weekly, has had a conflict of interest charge levied against it in its own 'letter to the editor' section. It seems that a restaraunt reviewer at WW freaked out about the lack of salt at an area eatery in a recent issue. As the owners of that establishment point out in their letter, that reviewer also imports food items for restaraunts in the area. Some of his biggest sellers? Olive oil and, of course, salt.

The owners at Castagna have apparently been resisting Jim Dixon's salt cartel and they're under the impression that they're now experiencing some fallout from that. It's hard to ignore the opportunity for impropriety. A restaraunt's potential salt vendor reviewed them in a local paper and came to the conclusion that their food was lacking in salt. Hilarious. If you don't find that hilarious take our word for it. It is.

From the Portland Tribune:

Poor Dixon. He’s in a terrible bind on this salt thing.

Because inevitably there will be those restaurants that use enough salt to suit his tastes — such as Michael Hebberoy’s Family Supper operation out on Interstate — where Dixon says “you’ll eat well, sometimes incredibly well.”

On one visit there, as Dixon noted in a review for WW, he enjoyed a salad of “fresh tomatoes drizzled with good olive oil and sprinkled with chunky sea salt.”

Makes you hungry just thinking about it.

Unfortunately, however, as most food people in town probably know already, Hebberoy, whose company caters the Family Supper, is owner of Clarklewis and the Gotham Building Tavern — which, as Dixon notes on one of those Internet chat sites for foodies, are “two of my best customers.”