from Chad Kennedy, Laurelwood's Brewer

Christian, Paul and I will be at Concordia Ale House pouring a few special beers for your enjoyment. As it now stands they'll have our UberAltus, Cask Strong Pale (aka Bunny Hop), and the last keg of Green Elephant (this was the lineup as of this morning). The last two beers aren't even available at the brewery so I hope to see you there. I believe the festivities start at 6 or 7.

All day long on April Fools, Amnesia will donate a percentage of all sales to the Oregon chapter of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Like you needed encouragement!

We have 40 different breweries on hand for this years festival, which means over 80 different beers to sample.

This event is all about educating your taste buds by sampling and comparing a variety of drink from hand-crafted beer, wine, cider, mead, and distilled spirits.

We encourage responsible drinking by featuring live music suitable for dancing or listening, food courts with gourmet items, and from the cooking stage renowned Chefs demonstrating cuisine using the "spirits" offered at the festival.

Our venue provides areas for sitting, strolling, and purchasing unique items offered by exhibitors and arts & crafts vendors. We have an attached heated outdoor smoker's tent offering a comfortable area where a cigar vendor offers additional beer and fine tobacco items.

This Sunday we will be featuring the Anchor Steam Brewery from San Francisco. We plan on pouring five beers, including their new Bock.

Cost of the tasting will be $6, including snacks. Time will be, as per usual, from 3 - 6pm.

labodegapdx.com/events.html

They are now doing their Sunday tastings every week, alternating between beer and wine. Pretty cool!

Pierogi Extravaganza at the Polish Hall

The "Pierogi Extravaganza" last week was a success, then we will repeat it this Sunday. Grandpa's Cafe is serving different kinds of pierogi - potato and cheese, sweet cheese, cabbage and mushrooms - this Sunday from 12PM to 2PM.

Which is your favorite? Mine are the sweet cheese pierogi.
A serving of pierogi is for $5.

More information about pierogi can be found at:

home.comcast.net/~dyrgcmn/Pierogi/pierogi.html

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierogi

Family Pictures at the Polish Library

Would you like a picture of your family, with your friend, or of yourself?

A professional photographer will take pictures at the Polish Library
this Sunday from 12PM to 2PM.

The photographer is Kirby Harris, (360) 574-7195, brideschoice.net

With easy access from the 4 busline (just cross the Failing Ped Bridge) and the yellow MAX, this is a no-brainer.

Saturday April 22, from 10am to 4pm, Hair of the Dog Brewing Company will be hosting their first Earth Day Sale. The postcard I received promises Blue Dot Double IPA in bottles! If that's not enough to get you there I'm sure Alan will have some other surprises up his sleeve. Last I heard, there was still some Rose Cassis, a special recipe Rose featuring black currants, which was brewed and bottled last fall.

(If you drive there, the googlemap will give you a good idea where it is, but it makes it look like SE 23rd actually goes through to Holgate. It doesn't! Hair of the Dog's How to get there will help you a lot if you are driving or bicycling.)

It's not everyday you have a potato holiday, is it?

here's what the flyer says:

$5.00 for serving of 4 potato pancakes with choice of
-applesauce
-sour cream sauce
-mushroom sauce
Come join us for this potato holiday, Saturday and Sunday, April 29 and 30, 12pm-5pm, 3832 N Interstate (at the Portland Polish Hall and Library Association)

Just a quick note to let you know about this Sunday's tasting. It does fall on Father's Day, but we will be doing the tasting anyway. Fortunately, it is something Dad might just love. Belgian beer! If you've spent any time at the shop here, you probably know that we view Belgian beer to be one of the finest products made on God's Green Earth. We will be showing the entire lineup of the Van Steenberge brewery — six different brews in all! They make a very diverse line of ales, including a few that are considered to be among the greatest beers made in the world. So come on down and taste the rainbow (is that a Skittles reference? — I'm not quite sure).

Time, as per usual, will be from 3-6pm. Cost will be $8 and will include the mandatory AmberSnacks. Every week she simply outdoes herself. I expect more of the same.

I go by AJA frequently, and it never seems full. Sometimes, it seems empty. Not a good advertisement. Yet, it's been at this location for over a year, so there must be something good going on, right? Asian fusion can't be too bad, can it?

We went for Sunday breakfast, at about 11am. There were two other tables in the place. We start by ordering coffee ($2) and iced tea ($1.50). The coffee was diner coffee; the iced tea, some sort of fruit tea, rather than the black tea we were expecting.

The menu only lists breakfast items: half a melon or grapefruit ($3), granola or oatmeal ($5), pancakes or french toast ($7), an egg-meat-starch plate ($8), 3 omelets ($8-$9), a scramble ($7), a hash ($9), 3 benedicts ($8-$9), and a traditional japanese breakfast with miso, koda rice, and fried egg ($6). So we order the Vanilla Crusted French Toast with Real Maple Syrup and the Chinese Sausage and Mustard Greens Omelet with House Potatoes.

Maybe five minutes after we order, the waitress comes back: they don't have any french toast. Huh? She has a new, different menu which has more and different breakfasts (6 different benedicts, 5 different omelets, 5 different egg dishes), plus a couple salads, soup, and sandwiches. So we order a Three Cheese Omelet with chedder (sic), swiss and manchego.

My partner starts to grouse; he would have liked to have ordered a sandwich, like the kobe beef burger, but wasn't given the opportunity. But his scone arrives: 'dry like the desert' he claims.

Then our omelets come. The chinese sausage omelet, with the contrast of the sweet slightly spicy sausage and the bitter greens, should be good, but we realize that in fact it's the chinese sausage, sauteed spinach and manchego omelet listed on the second menu. These things don't taste bad together, but there's no real zing to them, and the melted mess of sausage chunks, spinach and cheese lie beneath a puffy layer of eggs, rather than sandwiched lovely between two layers of eggs.

I'm not really a fan of puffy omelets, but hey. My cheese omelet is okay, just underseasoned. I wonder if the egg even saw any salt or pepper in the kitchen? The potatoes are chunks of yellow potatoes boiled through, then fried, but they don't show much browning from the frying. They too could use a little bit of seasoning. And the toast is like bruschetta. I love bruschetta when there's a contrasting topping, but there's no contrast here.

While everything was okay, nothing about the experience makes me want to go back again.

• Portland Food and Drink

Every now and again, I go to a place that I really want to recommend, and really want to love. But it'll have a fatal flaw. You know where I'm going...

Appetizers ($2.25-$3.50)

• hummus
• baba ghanooj
• ful madummas
• tabboule
• feta appetizer
• labne

Sandwiches ($4-4.50)

• falafel
• schawerma (beef)
• kafta
• chicken
• eggplant
• vegetable
• arayes

luncheon platters ($6.50-$8)

• shawerma (beef)
• chicken filet
• shish kebab (lamb)
• chicken kebab
• vegetarian kebab
• grape leaves
• mujadra
• munazle

My experience: I'm greeted by the owner who tells me to sit anywhere. All the two-tops are dirty, so I sit at one in the main room. After ten minutes, his wife notices me, and asks if she can help me. He immediately appears, apologizes, and brings hummus, pita, and a glass of water. He says the hummus is gratis.

The hummus is fairly standard Lebanese restaurant hummus, which is to say, perfectly fine. The pita has been reheated, and has the taste and texture of cardboard.

My shawerma with baba ghanooj arrives: the beef is yummy, though thoroughly covered in onions. The baba is smokey and richly eggplanty, which I love.

Too bad about the pita, I think. The owners are nice enough, the atmosphere is a combination of cloth table cloths and the acropolis meets star wars mural—I love that. The lunch prices are great, and the dinner prices just a bit higher. And, they make good on a mistake.

But the problem is, there are now a plethora of Lebanese places that make pita on demand, and it arrives to your table as a pillow of glory. Now, pita that might have been made earlier in the day, or came in a bag, just doesn't cut it.

And then, I get the bill. I can't read the writing (maybe it's arabic?) so I'm not sure what I was charged for, but the $8 meal I was expecting was actually $11. Looks like I was charged for the hummus. At this point, I'm late to be back to work, and I've lost patience—I don't want to argue with them, I just want to get out. So I pay and call it good.

If it weren't for the pita, I'd give them another chance.

We won a school auction of a Acadia gift certificate, so it was time for a splurge.

We were last at Acadia maybe 5 years ago. It was expensive and underwhelming. But, they had donated this gift certificate to a friend's elementary school, and it was time to give them another chance. After all, it's for the kids!

We ordered a decent bottle of wine which didn't seem exorbitantly marked up off the short but sweet wine list, and settled in to try a number of things. We started with the Barbeque Shrimp ($10.95).

Barbeque Shrimp is four large Louisana Gulf head-on shrimp in a butter, worcestershire, garlic, white wine, lemon and pepper sauce. It was terrific, and the sauce was decadent and lovely sopped up with Pearl bakery baguette.

Next was salads. I had the Bleu Note ($8.95), with fourme d'ambert (bleu) cheese, toasted pecans, and pears aside salad greens tossed in balsamic vinaigrette. My companion had the House Salad ($6.50), salad greens tossed in a creole mustard vinaigrette topped with crumbled egg. They both were gorgeously presented, perfectly dressed, and really really good.

My companion chose to do the 3-course $25 dinner. You get your choice of the house salad or a caesar, one of the starred entrees (which is everything but the barbecue shrimp, filet mignon, pork chop, or the taste of new orleans [crawfish etouffee and soft-shell crab]) and dessert. What a deal! It's available all night on Tuesday through Thursday, and before 6 and after 9 on Friday and Saturday.

So he had the Shrimp Acadian ($18.50), which was jumbo shrimp with shrimp and crawfish stuffing atop slices of crispy luscious eggplant. Oh, and there was a tomato beurre blanc sauce. Really really good.

I went for broke and had the Royal Street Filet Mignon ($29.95) atop grits. The grits were wedges of crispy-fried goodness, crunchy on the outside, smooth and creamy on the inside. The filet: well, that was incredible.

We finished with a slice of the gooey lemon cake which was really one of the most lovely desserts I've had in a dogs year. Wow.

Now, this wasn't inexpensive. Our bill was $119 for two, including a bottle of wine and a bottle of Abita Turbodog. Was it worth it? I think so. It was a really great meal, and for a special occasion, yum.

Now, if you want a cheaper experience, stay away from the sauce, go for the 3 for $25 deal, or better yet, go on Mondays when they offer 8 entrees for $10 each (as well as the regular menu).

More pictures of Amnesia Brewing

Looking out upon Mississippi Street, there's some good people watching. It's an unpretentious place to sit and have a beer. They have seven taps plus cider, with their Desolation IPA, Dusty Trail Pale, Slow Train Porter, and the ESB usually on. When we visited, they also had two seasonals (Copacetic IPA and Belgian Dubbel Whammy), and Caldera Pils filling out the beer menu. Pints are generally $3.50, with 50 cents off during happy hour (4-6 Monday-Friday).

They also have some food, which is pricey and underwhelming. But they do all their cooking on the grill under the tent; in fact, the smoke and charcoal-starter fumes was so thick that I couldn't even drink my beer—which is pretty darn thick. Obviously, the tent is wheelchair accessible, but I'm not sure about the pub itself. And, there is table service, but it's a bit 420 affected.

Other press
• BarFly

Okay, full disclosure: I know the owners socially. I met them after eating at their place several times and being wowed. That said, oh... my... g-d! This place, for me, is like dying and going to heaven! There's Anchor beers on tap, and wines by the bottle or glass—not cheap, but nothing outta line expensive. Bring a couple friends so you can order lots. Begin with a meat or veggie or combo plate. I haven't tried the veggie plate, but man, it looks good. And the meat plate is good. Salami (from Salumi, I believe) to die for. Next, the caesar salad. Garlicky, beautiful, and adorned with anchovy if you wish it. This is one of the three best caesars in town. And the plate is huge, an abundance of riches.

Hope you didn't fill up on appetizers cuz it's time for the 'za. Now, there are lots of arguments about what style pizza this is—is it Italian, is it Connecticut, or New York? I don't know from pizza, I just know that it doesn't get much better than this. Certainly not in Portland, at least. Thin crust that is perfection, crispy and wonderful, baked hot-hot-hot, topped with sparing amounts of exquisite ingredients.

Everytime we go, we order one pie (for two of us—it's good sized) and wish we had ordered a second. Because it tastes so good!

Drawbacks: parking can be a problem. And this place is popular—forget about going during restaurant prime time unless you don't mind waiting in line. The service is sassy and casual (which I appreciate). It's a small place, and it's easy to spend a lot of money because, gosh, you gotta get the caesar, and the meat plate is so good...

This tiny hole-in-the-wall is a welcome surprise. There are maybe 10 tables inside inside this old-stylee chinese-influenced thai place. First, you go up to the counter and order. Aroy has 8 luncheon plates, a curry special, and 43 different appetizers,soups, salads, and entrees. They also have Thai iced tea & coffee, and coconut ice cream with jackfruit and crushed peanuts! A luncheon plate is simply that entree, no soup, no eggroll, but the serving is significant and quite potentially firey. And if you want it hotter still, the proprietors are happy to supply you with hot sauce, hot pepper oils and other condiments to raise the heat level. They are only open 'til 8 pm weekdays, 6 pm on Saturdays.

Nobody would claim this is great food. But it's very edible, and you get lots of food.

Here's the set-up. Walk in and order from the giant board of burritos, tacos, tostadas, quesadillas, taco salads, nachos and combo plates. Choose from 4 types of chicken (chile verde, mole, asado & chile colorado), chile verde pork or carnitas, carne asada or ground beef. Then there's beans: black, pinto, refried (all vegetarian). There's grilled veggies, and the option to swap in spicy garlic prawns or mahi mahi.

Prices range from $3.50-$9.50, most in the more expensive range.

Just like in a Mission taqueria, you follow your food down the line, so you can specify none of this or more of that, as you wish. (Unfortunately, that's where the resemblance to a Mission taqueria ends) Pay up, and take it back to your table. That's it.

In spite of having a small play area, this is not overrun by children, so it's quite pleasant for the child-averse.

They have maybe a half dozen beers on tap, and, of course, many margarita options. It's non-smoking until 9:30 pm.

Of course, there are downsides. If you want a beer or a drink, you'll need to go into the bar and purchase it, separate from your food. Getting a seat on the sidewalk is hard during good weather—it's popular. There is exactly one table salsa, and it's nothing to write home about.

A craftbeer on tap is $3.50, and the taps include:

• Newcastle Brown
• Deschutes Obsidian Stout
• Shiner Bock
• Sierra Nevada pale
• Caldera Dry Hop Red
• Lagunitas Pils
• Lagunitas IPA
• PBR

• Hamms
• Rainer
• Guinness

• Bud
• Bud Lite
• Negra Modelo
• Hornsby's
• Pacifico
• Czechvar

They open at 4pm.

Other Press:
• Trendy East Burnside has a flip side, too: Bar of the Week: The B-Side Tavern
  Joseph Gallivan, The Portland Tribune, Apr 28, 2006

Join us for our annual Barleywine & Big Beer Tasting/Festival March 10 & March 11 (Friday and Saturday) from noon to 10 p.m. There is no entry fee, and drink tickets will be $1.50 each (good for a 4 oz. taste). Tickets can be purchased at the bar during the festival.

For an almost complete list of beers check out here oregonbeer.org/barley.html

Other beers featured include Hair of the Dog's Doggie Claws, Laurelwood's Organic Deranger Imperial Red Ale, and Lagunitas Imperial Red.

When it comes to taking visitors out to dinner, there are just a couple places I consider. Cafe Castagna, Ken's Place, and Bastas. These are my special occasion places, places where the atmosphere is good, the service is good, and the food, of course, is good.

Bastas is my favorite Italian. In a former Tasty-Freez. Yeah!

Though once you step foot inside, you might never know it. You enter into the sophisticated bar, and unless you're doing their excellent happy hour, you eat in either the garden room or the other room (I'm sure it has a name). They offer, of course, lots of wine, including by the glass, and a couple beers on tap.

Our downfall is the appetizers. There are quite a few, and they all appear to be yummy. The carpaccio is a full plate of raw thin-sliced beef dressed in olive oil and parmesan, with lemon on the side. The caesar is not as garlicky as I generally like but is still one of the best in town.

Entrees. Yum. The pasta is a little less spectacular than other dishes sometimes, however, it's good. But there is so much to love amongst the entrees. The $19 steak is the best $19 steak in town, cooked to order, nested with the most decadent mashed potatoes around. The crispy fried chicken (is that Italian?) is also so very good, crispy and moist and delicious. Their version of cioppin is a delight, with lots of broth to soak up. And the lamb chops cause my partner to go into fits of pleasure.

Desserts also are good, though a little bit of a let down for me after the whirlwind beauty of the appetizers and entrees. But the fact that you can park in their lot, right there around the restaurant, is pretty darn good.

Downsides: it's a former Tasty-Freez, so when it gets full, it's like a bus station. The chairs are fine if you don't spend too much time in them, but they're torture in a long formal dinner. And, I tend to spend too much money there.

more pics of Beaterville Cafe

Breakfast entrees are the usual cafe entrees, waffles, scrambles, and omelets, ranging from $3-$10. The Green Eggs and Ham, a frittata-style scramble with pesto, green onions and feta, and served with chunky seasoned red potatoes and toast or croissant, while devastating on the arteries, is a personal fave. Biscuits and gravy features one of the better sausage gravies in town. And huevos, a layering of tortilla, black beans, eggs, sour cream, salsa and green onions, is lacking the ranchero sauce, but it is really addictive all the same.

You can substitute tofu or 2nd Nature eggs, too—nice!

Lunches are the big triple S: soups, salads, and sandwiches, not a huge menu, ranging from $3.25 to $7.

The Berlin Inn is one of those places that I remember on the way to some place else, and think, I made the wrong decision. It's not terribly close to home, and I don't eat german all that often, so it's just not on my radar. Which is silly, because it's quite good.

This small place, stuffed to the brim with germanica, is popular with many, though it might be a bit much if you're claustrophobic. Stairs, small rooms, and tight turns make this definitely not wheelchair accessible.

The weekend (or should I say, wockenende) frühstück is a relatively small menu. There are several veggie items, including buttermilk and German pancakes, and blintzes, several meaty dishes like pork chops, chicken schnitzel, or leberkäse with eggs, 3 omelettes, and 3 benedicts. Everything but the pancake/blintze/North Sea Toast comes with your choice of bratkartoffeln (think, German home fries) or potato pancakes.

They offer three German beers on tap: today's selection was Allgaüer Hefeweizen, Spaten Premium Bock, and Salvator Paulaner. If you're interested at all in the local beer scene or German beer, be sure to chat with Marty—he's a wealth of knowledge and loves to share.

Prices range from $6-$12.50 a plate, and portions, as you might imagine, are huge. We got the Best of the Wurst omelet, and the leberkäse plate. Each was a gut bomb of food. Our potato pancakes were unlike any I've ever had: throughly, pan-fried until they were like crocquettes, but the omelet and leberkäse were both good. I needed a nap afterwards.

Unfortunately, I love banh mi 7 days a week. What's a girl to do?

Well, Best Baguette offers the answer. They appear to be a chain (at least, the place is designed down to the seams) that offers fast food banh mi, sandwiches, vietnamese appetizers, dim sum, gelato, and asian drinks, including bubble and milk teas. But wait, it gets better: they have a drive thru window!

Interestingly, the menu is entirely in english. They offer 15 types of banh mi which include all the typical ones, plus a Saigon Bacon sandwich, a Vegetable sandwich (greens and pickled veg), pork roll and egg (Saigon style), and the one untranslated sandwich, nem nuong (which is a char-broiled pork paste). The prices range from $2.25 to $3.50, and the sandwiches are foot-longs. They also have french sandwiches ($3.75-$5) and croissant sandwiches ($2.50$4.75).

They bake the bread on premises so your sandwich is all warm and freshly made. That said, the ficelles they bake appear to be commercial par-baked ones, like the kind you find that Safeway uses. It makes a very soft bread, and one with no tooth to the crust. Vietnamese baguettes and ficelles do tend to have a softer crust, but usually not this soft. The picked veggies come in a little baggie so you can add as much or as little as you'd like. They were stingy with the jalapeno.

Not realizing they were foot-longs, we ordered a half-dozen, including a parisian ham and cheese (ugh), a pate, a grilled beef, grilled chicken, and bbq pork. As noted, I hated the parisian ham & cheese. It used american cheese— that is so wrong! The pate had an unidentified white lump in it that might have been cheese, so while the pate itself was fine (a little thin, but hey), I shyed away from the white lump. But the grilled meats and bbq pork were fine. They weren't Binh Minh, that's for sure, but in a pinch, it's a banh mi, and it doesn't come wrapped in cellophane.

So, we ordered a half-dozen sandwiches, a couple viet coffees, and the total came to $18. I think they comped us a coffee and threw in an extra baguette.

They have a good selection of gelato, and a huge selection of drinks. Not just the avocado, jackfruit, and durian shakes, but a huge selection of Asian (and not Asian) sodas and the like. Jarritos, for example.

Anyways, this is a great option if you're jonesing for a banh mi after 5pm.

Ah, Biddy's. In spite of owner changes and venue changes, they've never forgot what makes them tick. It's a modest place, wood and smoke, covered with political posters and beer geegaws, but mostly political posters, some in Gaelic, most in English.

But probably what you're interested in is the beer, irish whiskey, and a smidge of food. We ate, it was nothing really to write home about, everything between $3-$8. They do offer cheese fries, served with steak fries with not quite enough cheese. But the fries were good.

They offer music every night of the week, a quite a bit of it free. Given that this is a reasonably small place, you'll probably actually want to like the music, but they keep the events calendar on the web site up to date.

Now beer, that's something. They serve imperial pints of
-Stella Artois
-Pyramid Hefeweizen
-Harp
-Pilsner Urquell
-Macs
-Deschutes Mirror Pond Pale Ale
-Deschutes Black Butte Porter
-PBR
-New Belgium Fat Tire
-Bass
-Smithwicks
-Full Sail Amber
-Bridgeport IPA

with

-Beamish
-Guinness
-Boddingtons

on a beer engine.

The beer we had was good, and as we were there early, it wasn't too smoky. With a Irish jam session happening in the middle of the room, it was tremendously pleasant.

• BarFly

Like any other type of sandwich, banh mi benefit hugely from being made fresh in front of you. You can frequently get banh mi at Vietnamese groceries and some restaurants as a grab-and-go, wrapped in cellophane, and they just are no where near as good as a fresh sandwich.

Bread makes a difference too—if you can find a place that bakes the bread fresh, you can bet the banh mi is going to be good. And Binh Minh is a bakery as well as a banh mi shop.

Binh Minh is a phone booth of a place around the corner from the Pacific Super Market. They have a couple tables indoors that aren't really designed to be sat at for more than a couple American-sized people, and a couple tables outside. You go to the coolers and pick up your beverage, a gelatin dessert, shrimp flavored chips, etc, and then step over a step and order from the sign board on the wall.

Foodwise, I'm told it's pretty traditional. There are eight sandwiches, most $2.50: the Vietnamese sandwich (banh mi cha thit nguoi, $2), meat ball (banh mi xiu mai), barbeque pork (banh mi xa xiu), lemongrass chicken (banh mi thit ga nuong), Vietnamese pork (banh mi cha lua), fish (banh mi ca), pate (banh mi pate), and shredded pork (banh mi bi).

There are five soups and stews: fish soup (chao ca, tom, $5), Vietnamese rice noodle with pork (bahn cahn tom, xa xiu, $5), egg noodle with beef (mi bo kho, $5), beef stew with french bread (banh mi bo kho, $3.95), and french bread with round egg (banh mi op-la, $3.25). You can add extra meat or vegetables for 50 cents more.

I haven't tried any of the soups or stews, but I've had all of the sandwiches, and, wow, there's not a bad one in the bunch. I particularly enjoy the pate, but the lemongrass chicken is also great, and an option you don't always find elsewhere.

In addition, they always have some stuff in the hot case: steamed pork buns, and spring rolls for sure.

The sandwiches, let's face it, aren't huge: they're about the size of a skinny hoagy, so plan on getting two or supplementing it somehow.

The staff aren't terrifically friendly, but they know english well, and they're really speedy.

Stopping in to Binh Minh is always a treat—I think their banh mi are the ones to beat.

Cash only!

• Vietnam's far, but tasty lunches are nearby
• Hot Chefs, Cheap Eats

Micha writes (10/2001),

"Limited ale selection although they pour Fat Tire Amber Ale which sits well with me. Their Indian chicken tandoori pizza is really tasty, although they use some weird pre-packaged crust. Also good salad with "African herb" dressing - that's what the waitperson called it. No idea what's in it. Lemon and then a lot of things which are not lemon."

Mirfy adds: "Andrea does a great job of having a good red wine available by the glass!"

For many of my friends, the allure of the place is the garage door. Binks is about as big as a gas station, but it's certainly an enjoyable hangout spot, with good salads, and pizza made to order. And, they have one of the best jukeboxes in Portland!

more photos, including the beer garden

So, of course there's beer (Terminal Gravity IPA, Sierra Nevada Pale, Widmer Hefeweizen, Fat Tire, and Guinness, among other things). Pints are $3.50 (Guinness, natch, is more). They offer free WiFi, video games, video crack, pool, and shuffleboard(!), as well as a spacious and excellent beergarden, open noon to dusk. I mean, I wish my backyard looked this good. And, you can reserve it for your party, and/or bring your own grillables, which is great since the food there is limited to snacks.

Oh, and need to take away some beer? They're licensed to sell beer to go.

• BarFly

We had heard that breakfast at Bob's was good, so we headed out there one Saturday. Their info isn't kidding: it is only about 15 minutes from Portland by car.

You go into the Whole Grain Store, and the counter to order food is back and to the left. Don't be surprised if there's a line and you have to slowly inch by the breads. Sooner or later, you'll get to the front and you can order.

After you order, you take your number and claim a table, either on the first floor, on the patio, on the second floor. Water, coffee, and pop are self-serve, and the stations also include maple syrup, butter and honey. Someone will deliver your food and make sure you have everything you need.

The breakfast menu is rather sparse: 16 items, omelettes ($7-$8), breakfast eggs ($4.75-$7), cereals ($2.50-$4), a fruit bowl ($6) and a kids plate ($3.50). There is also a vegetarian menu of 10 items ($4-$7), most vegan. All the menus are online.

So where are the carby things that you think of when you think of stone-ground whole grain goodness? It seems they are relegated as sides (or on the veg menu). After all, they offer vegan and non-vegan flapjacks made from buttermilk, 10 grain, or buckwheat, as well as buttermilk waffles, and vegan and non-vegan french toast. I would have liked to have a multiple carb breakfast, but building your own plate is expensive, or so it seemed at the time. We ended up having eggs and cheese grits with scratch biscuits. The grits were excellent, and the whole-grain biscuits were yummy, flakey, and a little messy.

The next time I go back, I'm definitely going to try the flapjacks. Maybe with a side of cheese grits...

The downsides are definitely that Milwaukie isn't so close for those of us who live in town, and it doesn't look like you have a lot of public transit options on Saturdays. And Saturday morning probably means a wait in line. The meat products are turkey based. And everyone from Clackamas County is there on Saturday. Including Bob and Charlee Moore whose grandparently visages appear everywhere, and they eat there too!

This is definitely worth the trip, especially during the week, for Bob's Red Mill fans, vegans, and whole grain enthusiasts.

I was attending an event at the Oregon Convention Center, and the "restaurants" in the OCC were closed. I couldn't bare the thought of going to Burgerville or Big Town Hero, nor could I stand the thought of seeing if American Cowgirls served lunch. The OCC was kind enough to provide a restaurant list, and of the three non-chains listed, I picked Bogarts.

Bogarts is a neighborhood bar, and it appears to have been here long before Metro and the State of Oregon built their buildings. It's tiny and dingy and redolent of stale smoke and the desperation of people playing video crack. I sat myself in the small non-smoking section (what a joke), looking over the giant grill that makes up the heart of the business.

It became immediately clear that its a family business: the daughter got me a beer, her mother cooked my burger, her aunt was doing something else. Micros on tap included Black Butte Porter, Fat Tire, Widmer Hefeweizen and Drop Top Amber.

Everything on the menu ranges from $6.50-$8: 1/3# burgers, hot and cold sandwiches, salads. Sandwiches come with chips, potato salad or cottage cheese. And while my burger was nothing to write home about, it wasn't bad—and I loved the option of cottage cheese!

I really appreciated the human touch there: the staff calling me honey, watching them interact, and give directions to someone who wandered in off the street. And in the end, I liked the quiet, the feeling I wouldn't be rushed out, the chance to sit and think and embellish my notes.

I hate to damn Bridges with faint praise, but it's a neighborhood joint. Mind you, they're reasonably friendly, generous with the food, relatively popular, so much so that there's frequently a wait, and their food is consistently not bad. It's just inconsistent about being great.

Bridges is a sunny little corner breakfast joint. There are a couple booths, and quite a few tables, but it's crowded enough that wheelchair access would be a hassle.

It's smoke-free inside, and they have an awning hanging over some picnic tables on the Russell Street side if you prefer the company of your dog, or want to people-watch the folks going in and out of the Nike Outlet store. There is some exposed bike parking, and a gravel parking lot behind for the motor vehicles.

The menu is split into Benedicts ($9.50-$10.25), Omelettes ($8-$9), and Specialties ($7.25-$9.25). There's a dazzling selection of food items: burritos, french toast, fruit plates. You can also get cocktails and mimosas ($4.50-$6.50), bottled beer ($2.75-$3.25, selection varies, though usually it's some Wolaver's Organic Pale, Deschutes ales, Fat Tire, and Henry's), and wine by the glass.

Most non-carboload dishes come with potatoes. These are garden variety roasted potatoes, and like most places in town that serve them, they're not very good. They tend towards mushy.

This morning, we ordered a classic Benedict, and the Eggs Fiesta. The latter seems like it should have an exclamation point—whadda name! But sadly, the Fiesta, while its individual components were okay, there was nothing about the combination to write home about.

The benedict was fine. No complaints. Local canadian bacon, nice sauce, eggs just right. If only the potatoes were better.

You know, there are some addresses where you just think, oh g-d, what rubbish is here now? You know, addresses that are cursed? The former location of Epicure, La Prima Pizzeria, Irvington Corner Table, Rustica, and probably a half-dozen other places whose names I've blocked out because it was such an underwhelming experience, is now the locale for an underwhelming brewpub. Or it will be a brewpub once they get the brewery properly licensed.

If you are familiar with Old Market Pub, and/or like their beer and food, well, there you go. I'm told that the menu is the same at Broadway. I'm not surprised at all that places like Old Market Pub survive on the west side; the west side is so underserved for any type of edible inexpensive food that places that have no excuse for surviving hang on for years.

The space is dotted by big screen TVs and has the ambiance of a bus station; except in this bus station, there's lots of unfinished wood.

Let us begin with the menu. Appetizers and the beer list make up the front page. There is an artichoke-spinach-cheese dip, onion rings, 2 types of fries, 3 quesadillas, hot wings, and nachos. Prices range from $3.95 to $9.95, with most things, including the corn chips and salsa, ringing in at $6.95-$7.95.

We didn't order the $6.95 corn chips and salsa. There's TOFTT and then there's sheer stupidity.

Soups & Salads range from $3.95-$9.95, that lowest price being a cup of pub-made soup, the latter being an entree caesar with a 1/4 pound of shrimp. Are they cocktail style or deepfried, prawns or bay shrimp? Who knows?

Entrees vary widely. There's a pasta ($12.95-$13.95), gyros ($8.95-$10.95), chicken fingers ($9.50), 10 inch pizzas ($9.95), fish-n-chips ($9.95-$12.95), burgers ($6.95-$9.45), and sandwiches ($8.60-$9.90. Vegetarian options (a garden burger, 3 veggie pizzas, and the gyros) are few and far between. Just about everything comes with potato chips, and there are up-charges galore: to sub in fries, to get dipping sauce, to add salsa (!) to your nachos.

Broadway Grill has about a dozen taps of Old Market Pub beers. We asked our teenage waitress for her recommendation, and that worked about as well as you might expect. We ended up with a couple of lackluster beers. Then we ordered food.

Now, honestly, I hadn't heard anything good about this place, but I was hoping in the way that I always do, that this would be a good place to get dinner. So with that inherent, unproven optimistism...

I had the "1/2-pound beer-battered fish & chips", halibut with the shoestring fries. The fries were okay, but the fish, yikes. It was an awful grade of halibut, if it was halibut; it had no taste, and a distinctly wrong texture. Halibut is a firm white meat fish with a fine texture. It should flake into chunks when you cut it, or put it in your mouth, and it should have a sweet mild flavor. The deep-frying and beer batter were adequate. Wait a minute, scratch that. At 12.95 for a half-pound, what a rip off!

My companion got a "big corned beef reuben" ($8.95), which he described as the worst reuben he had ever had. For one thing, it wasn't big. The sandwich had too little corned beef, and what little corned beef it had wasn't very good. It wasn't bad, it was just something you'd expect in a Denny's reuben, if they served reubens (do they? I have no idea). The overall sandwich was greasy. Well, at least we had our fries.

What I don't get is that when we were there, the joint was jumping. Lots of folks there, eating and drinking. Is NE Broadway this starved for pub grub? I guess so.

CLOSED

To all our customers

First, I'd like to thank each and everyone for dining with us for 16 long years. But the sad news is, we are being forced to close our business due to the owner of the building. He wants us to vacate the premises by July 31, 2007. We hate to close the doors to you at this location. But you may visit us at 3126 N.E. 82nd Ave. across from Madison High School (503-252-1343). We would appreciate it if you would not dine here in honor of El Burrito Loco. I feel we were robbed of our business and you continuing to dine here would support the building owner if he try's to open here with our same food recipes. Thank You once again. Hope to see you soon!!!

The Original El Burrito Loco owner's

I stopped by this evening to try to pick up a burrito, and saw the place emptied out, with the owners hanging out at the door. It appears, according to the owners, that they've been forced out by their landlord. They're asking folks to please:
1. Do buy food at the Burrito Loco on 82nd, across from Marshall High
and
2. Don't buy food at whatever goes into their new space.

The Mercury has more details.

(there's a thread about Burrito Loco's closing on Portland Food and Drink Discussion Forum)

more pictures of Byways

First, let's look at breakfast, which runs til 11am on weekdays and all day on the weekends. The coffee is good, and hot. The menu looks like the usual greasy spoon fare: eggs & protein, omelettes, pancakes, hash. In fact they serve four different types of hash which look beautiful and taste even better. Griddle fare includes buttermilk pancakes, but also amaretto french toast, and super fabulous blue corn hotcakes with pecan butter. Eggs are treated respectfully and are always tasty. Potatoes are well-cooked home fries—not my fav, but hey. And, I don't know that this is the best bacon in town, but it's sure the best bacon I've had in town for quite a while.

Lunch is more of the same, stuff that sounds unassuming and unexciting until it's in front of you. They have malts, brown cows (coke with vanilla ice cream), rootbeer floats, stewarts sodas and arnold palmers (lemonade & iced tea). The lunch menu is the three Ss: soup, salads, sandwiches. The prices range from $3-$9, and the salads range from tuna salad, chef, cobb, greek, back to chicken salad. French fries accompany all the sandwiches, and they're thick on one side, thin on the other!

The counter makes great seating if you're there by yourself, and the booths, by the display case of vintage travel souvenirs are great if it's quiet or you're in a small group.

This is a small place and popular, so on the weekends, bring the paper and plan on a wait.

Just saw this on extramsg.com:

Happy Hour or France on the Cheap
If a Paris café seems too far to travel for your evening repast, Carafe offers food and drink specials during happy hour —Monday through Friday from 3:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. Pair a Slow-roasted Pork Sandwich ($3) or Goat Cheese Spread on walnut crostini ($3) with a French Martini with vodka, crème de Framboise and pineapple juice or a Jupa Gin with gin, fresh squeezed lime juice, sugar syrup and tonic. Carafe's Happy Hour menu also offers beer, wine and aperitifs...and of course, pommes frites ($3).

Main (non-happy hour) review is in Food, downtown

Wallbangers (915 SW 2nd Ave), the bar with dueling pianos, appears to be no more. At least, there's paper over the windows, and not a lot left in the building.

And in Pho Van news, the Pho Van on Hawthorne (3404 SE Hawthorne Blvd) is now open as of lunch today (Wednesday, March 1, 2006). They're open everyday (but Monday!) for lunch and dinner, with the same menu as Pho Van on 82nd's lunch menu (eg, no Bo bay mon, or whole catfish).

Pho Van Bistro (1012 NW Glisan St) in the Pearl might be closing for remodeling. When? Hmm, not entirely sure. It may not even close. Who knows? Anyhow, the rumor is that they want to incorporate the popular dishes into a new menu for a new high-end restaurant called Silk.

via ExtraMSG and Pho Van. Thanks, Nick!

We ordered a couple of gorditas and a chile relleno burrito on a recent visit. Prices here are pretty reasonable as long as you stay away from the soup and meals. Burritos range from $3.75-$4.75, tacos from $1.50-$1.75, tortas in the $4 range (except the Cubana, $7), tostadas, sopes and gorditas from $2.50-$3.

They offer some meats that are a little out of the ordinary for most innercity taquerias: suadero, the tender beef from the lower-part of a rib; buche, pork stomach cooked in lard; and tripas, the tube that connects the two stomachs in beef cattle. They also make their tortillas for tacos by hand, which is always a good sign.

The telenovella was on the TV, so we enjoyed our Jarritos while waiting for the food. And then, out it came, along with some red and green salsas.

The chile relleno burrito was good. It has pinto beans, rice, cheese, lettuce and the chile relleno, and it's a filling meal.

The gorditas were a little disappointing. I like to pick my gorditas up and eat them, which I couldn't do with these, because the structural integrity wasn't there. They were a little crispy, but to my mind, gorditas should be just a little more gorda than these were. I had tinga in one, which is pork or chicken stewed in chipotle in adobado sauce. Chilango's uses chicken in their tinga, and while you usually find it shredded, Chilango's serves chunks of stewed chicken. It was tasty, but if I hadn't ordered tinga, I might just think it was pollo; it wasn't terribly very spicy or flavorful.

I had carne asada in the other gordita, which had very good flavor, but wasn't completely cut up, and was very chewy. Still, I appreciated the slice of fresh avocado in each gordita—a really nice touch.

So. I was less than wowed, but everything was okay really.

ExtraMSG has noted that they serve the food of the ethnic Koreans in China. The thing is, you don't see that much reflected in the menu. I'm told once you're trusted, or once you're persistent enough, you get some pretty damn incredible stuff that isn't on the menu.

This was our first time, so we ordered off the menu. We ordered BBQ pork, a good-sized serving with dipping sauce for $5, and potstickers. The potstickers were crunchy and thoroughly steaming hot when they came to the table—we inhaled them, in spite of the temperature.

The atmosphere is post-fast food. A couple of fridges are in the dining room, and everything is clean, but not showy. Signs in chinese and korean advertise specials, while crabs scuttle around their tank.

I had the seafood & bean curd in clay pot, which was excellent and very mild: a lovely flavorful sauce, fresh seafood perfectly cooked, lots of veg and tofu which had absorbed the sauce. My copilot ordered the seafood noodles with gravy, a new-to-us concoction of broth, egg noodles, more perfectly cooked, perfectly fresh seafood, egg, and of course, a moo goo gai pan-like sauce—very mild, curious, and quite good.

They offer two free refills on sodas as well as beer, wine and sake.

At the end of the meal, I offered that the kim-chi really looked good, and it was like I had said the magic words. Oh! Just ask for it next time, the waitress said, clearly pleased that I had some lick of sense. Next time I will ask about the signs, oh yes...

Chino Sai-Gon was formerly Saigon Kitchen, and like the old inhabitant, Chino serves from a Chinese, Vietnamese, and Thai menu. When we were there, the place was fairly quiet: a couple of families, us, a latina who ordered five or six entrees (they looked good, too), a parking garage attendent eating white rice and drinking hot water.

We ordered pot stickers (6 for $4.95), charcoal chicken ($7.50), a bowl of wonton soup (large, $5.95) and wonton egg noodle soup ($5.95).

The charcoal chicken came first. It's a classic play-with-your-food handroll experience, and one of my favorite things from the old Saigon Kitchen menu. This included a large oval plate of sweet and spicy grilled chicken covered in sesame seeds, a large salad plate with lettuce, cilantro, diced carrot & daikon, mung bean sprouts, and thin rice noodles, and of course, the rice paper circles to wrap everything in.

While some places (Pho Van pops to mind) have elegant hot water sleeves to soften your rice paper, Chino gives you a giant plastic bowl of steaming water. It works fine, it just takes up a lot of space... especially when you consider that the handrolls take up the whole table by itself.

So, you dip the rice paper until it's pliable, you fill it with stuff, and then roll it up like a salad roll (or a burrito), and dip it in the accompanying peanut sauce. Yum. If you like playing with your food, I definitely recommend this: it's generous and tasty.

Pot stickers were another big success. These came straight from the pan, toasty brown on several sides, and really rather big, stuffed full of some unidentified meat, probably pork. They were the best pot stickers I've had in recent memory.

So, of course, we hadn't even finished our appetizers and the soup comes, and at this point, I'm almost full. Our table is completely full of dishes.

Now you might be wondering, what is the difference between wonton soup and wonton egg noodle soup? Well, the former has a spicier broth, and a lot of iceberg lettuce. Both have the wonton and the bbq pork and the occasional shrimp. The wonton egg noodle had a nice chickeny broth and thin egg noodles, and it came with its own small salad plate of cilantro, leaf lettuce, sliced jalapeno and quartered lime.

The soup in the end was fine, just nothing to write home about. It really could be a meal in itself.

So. The menu is huge, with over 150 items on the Chinese-Vietnamese menu, with just about everything under $10. The thai menu has an additional 17 items. Menu items are in English, overwhelmingly, so don't bother looking for pho or bun, look for beef noodle soup or vermicelli noodles. Still, some things are unclear: hot & sour soup: Vietnamese or Chinese?

We will definitely return, especially for those potstickers and charcoal chicken. But the rest of the menu is a crap shoot. I'll update this entry as we try new things.

Clays is a little place, with a couple picnic tables out front, and a number of tables and booths built for people who tend to routinely overeat. It's not fancy, and everything is nicely mismatched and vaguely, humanly, kitschy.

The menu is impressive: smoked BBQ hot wings as a starter ($8), chowder/chili/gumbo ($3.75-$4.75), salads ($3.75-$10.25), sandwiches ($7.75-$9.75), BBQ platters ($10.75-$14.75), and even veggie delights (their words, $7.75-$9.75). BBQ purists will freak: there's catfish and salmon, and that's wrong. But I'm not a purist—I don't care unless someone makes me eat it.

When I was there, they had a bunch of beers on tap:

• Bayern Doppelbock
• Widmer Hefeweizen
• Amnesia IPA
• Anchor Steam
• Bud
• Jamaican Red

I ordered the brisket platter, and my companion the BBQ sparerib platter, and naturally, these are huge portions, piles of meat smothered in a sweet, not terribly hot sauce, with chunks of potatoes in ranch sauce (aka, home fries with garlic sauce), a vinegary slaw, and not-quite Texas toast.

My brisket seemed a bit lean, and the sauce bugged me, but it was nicely cooked. It just blanches before fattier, crustier briskets like Campbells or LOW. The pork ribs, however, were sweet, juicy, and moist, very tasty ribs. The slaw was sharp and complex. The potatoes—eh. Value for the meal, though, was very good.

Our service was incredible. Our server was the sort who was there when you needed him, and if he was there when you didn't, you sure didn't know. It was the sort of effortless seeming service that you should get with a very good meal, and here in Portland, frequently don't. So that was a tremendous pleasure.

I'm curious about the wings, and I've heard great things about the cold smoked seafood platter (like a lox platter, just not), and the turkey in the garden salad.

The highlight for me was the dessert. We got the apple crisp ($4.75), topped with vanilla ice cream and whipped cream, and wow! It was just a modest crisp, nothing fancy, but so very good, a combination of soft and crunchy and creamy. Next time, I'm gonna leave more room for that!

Do you like fish? Or are you celiac (gluten-allergic to you, bud)? Or pining for the northern midwest? Need to feel that Green Bay Packers spirit? Get thee to Corbett Fish House. If you don't like fish, you could have chicken, a gardenburger or a salad. But if you like fish, well, you could sure do a lot worse than here.

The menu online isn't up to date, sadly. Appetizers include a number of seafood you'd expect, plus sweet potato fries, packer fries and deep fried cheese curd. Now, the latter is just plain wrong, which explains why it disappeared off our table as soon as it arrived. Packer Fries are their great french fries covered in melted cheddar and pickled jalapeno. The jalapeno is easy to pick off, for those who chose to. Prices range from $2.50-$12.

They offer soups, salads, sandwiches, which I'm sure are great ($3.75-$13). But the fish and chips are the thing ($10-$18). For those of you who care, they follow the Monterey Bay Aquarium guidelines. They have:

• prawns
• oysters
• yellow perch
• walleye
• halibut
• chile-fried catfish

They also have fish tacos, three different types made with halibut and chile-fried catfish, which are yummy, huge and filling.

Everything that is gluten-free is clearly marked, and that is most of the menu, so celiacs have lots of choices here. It's also wheelchair accessible (though there is a lip at the front door).

Of course, fish and chips requires beer, and Corbett offers a full bar. When we were there, they had on tap:

• Mirror Pond
• Alaskan Amber
• Fish Mudshark Porter
• Widmer Hefeweizen
• Terminal Gravity ESG
• Walking Man IPA
• PBR
• Michelob Light
• Pilsner Urquell
• Guinness

Happy hour is 3-5 daily; no drink specials, but they do offer 8 items for $3.95:

• deep fried cheese curds
• fried oysters or chicken strips & fries
• a catfish sandwich
• calamari
• a caesar
• bay shrimp cocktail,
• oyster shooters.

CLOSED

I mention to the barber that I'm hungry, and immediately, Du's is mentioned. Have I been to Du's? OMG, Du's is so good, blah blah blah. And I admit that I've smelled Du's when I've ridden my bicycle by. The aroma of grilled meats coming out of that place is incredible, the sort to make you hungry again when you've just eaten. And suddenly, Du's sounds like the best idea EVAR.

They claim they have the best grilled teriyaki in town. They may just be right. They have 9 menu items, not counting sides or drinks, each between $5.50 and $8. Mostly, it's chicken, beef or pork teriyaki, though they also have a tofu bowl and yakisoba. I didn't see anyone order the tofu bowl or the chicken teriyaki salad; the resounding favorite was the chicken & beef teriyaki.

In no time flat, and I mean, less than five minutes, I had a groaning container of salad, rice, and teriyaki. The salad is dressed with a poppyseed dressing that I had been warned about— it's good, though all iceberg lettuce. The rice was rice, and the teriyaki was steaming hot grilled meat, a little dry but really tasty with the rice and a bit of teriyaki sauce. You can also get hot sauce, or a side of kim chee ($2.25).

The dining room has nothing going aesthetically, but hey, do you need that really? Especially since it appears they stuff even more food on the plates, and two people can eat and drink pop for under $20? No beer, but hey, you don't come here to hang out. You come here to eat teriyaki.

A little girl glued herself to the counter, watching a woman cleaver chop up pieces of chicken with big eyes. "I've been coming here since before you were born", a business man said to her, obviously just having pulled himself away from work at 8 o'clock at night. And even at 8, there were a steady stream of customers.

more photos of Echo

Let's start with the restaurant itself: with brick walls and an insanely high ceiling, a beautiful wood bar, and some nice wood accents. Wood booths line the floor to ceiling windows. The atmosphere is cozy. The outside eating area is in a space between two buildings, with bamboo at the end that faces MLK, heaters, and homemade lanterns and a fountain. It manages to be shady and breezy and thoroughly pleasant.

When we went for brunch, there were two folks working the front of the house: the bartender, and a waiter. This was fine initially, but as the patrons started streaming in, they were in the weeds.

The menu is varied and inexpensive: biscuits and gravy, french toast, pancakes, eggs & meat, frittata, as well as small plates, salads and sandwiches, most in the $5.50-$8 range. Some of these things seemed to be different just to be different, like the french toast, made from zucchini-carrot bread in an orange juice-rum batter. We ordered a cup of coffee (a bad idea: stick with espresso or alcohol), the dos heuvos (2 eggs, bacon, potatoes or grits and biscuit or bagel) with grits and biscuit, and the frittata with salad.

While we waited for food, the staff kept our coffee and water glasses full. The water carafes have slices of cucumber floating in the water—nice.

About a half hour later, out came the food. The frittata was overdone, browned, on the outside, and too thin. The crab filling tasted fishy, and the hollandaise that topped it was gelatinous and had a muddy flavor. The accompanying salad was almost dry, with very little sign of a dressing, nonetheless balsalmic vinagrette.

The dos heuvos were good, cooked to order, though the biscuit was drier than dry and didn't really taste like anything. I opted for grits, which were made with a white sharp cheddar and thyme: my dining partner thought they tasted weird, but for me, they were the highlight of the meal, and some of the best grits I've had in Portland.

In the end, I think the recommendation that I've heard for dinner at Echo also applies to brunch: keep it simple and you're likely to be happy.

more pics of Fat Albert's

I asked for a suggestion, and was told to order the Kim's Fav, an omelet with cheddar cheese, bacon, and avocado with sour cream and salsa. Which is how I ended up with a breakfast that should have quite rightly killed me. I felt like I should feel like I had participated in a Roman orgy while eating it, and truth be told, it was very good, but didn't feel very decadent (which I quess just tells you how low I've fallen).

Biscuits and gravy should have been better. The biscuits were fresh and huge, but the gravy was bland and barely tasted of sausage. I remember it being better, so maybe its just an off day.

The salad eater omelet, filled with veggies, comes sauteed on request, and man, that was good. The veggies were perfectly cooked, right on that line between raw and overdone. Hashbrowns are shreddy and nice, especially with the Special Aardvark Habanero sauce on all the tables. Coffee was good, not exceptional, and breads are from Grand Central. Oh! And, they have a housemade raspberry jam that is addictive.

All in all, a solid breakfast joint with some real care put into it. The downsides, of course, are how popular it is, how chock-a-block full of tables it is (while it probably is wheelchair accessible, I wouldn't try it during primetime on a weekend). But, once you get seated, the kitchen is fast, the staff sassy and constantly bringing coffee and water, and it's a fun funky place.

I admit, I was drawn in by the offer of free waffles. This last Saturday, they had a free waffle day.

I told a friend who lives in Arbor Lodge about it. "Oh, I've been there", she said. "It's good, but $3 is a lot for a waffle."

Hmmm. So I go early on Saturday morning and am pleased to see a clump of folks standing and sitting outside who are clearing enjoying their waffles. Neighborhood folks who are regulars, who have no idea that today is free waffle day, are ordering waffles and $1 coffee, or lattes, americanos, and mochas. The atmosphere is pure neighborhood.

So here's the deal: it's a waffle stand in a parking lot. You go up to the window and order. A few minutes later, you get your espresso drink, if you ordered one, and your steaming hot waffle. The waffles are folded in half and wrapped, its contents safely tucked inside, perfect for one-handed eating.

So, fresh baked waffles, made to order, range from $2 for the butter & powdered sugar to $4 for the ham & cheese or sausage & maple. The majority of waffles are $3.50: sweet cream & jam, peanut butter & jelly, s'mores, nut fluffer, peanut butter & nutella, nutella & raspberry jam, and lemon curd with whipped cream. You can also create your own waffle with one ($3) or two ($3.50) toppings.

We saw, and heard raves, about the ham & cheese, black forest ham with either cheddar or smoked gouda. We ordered the way-over-the-top sausage & maple, and the simple elegant butter & powdered sugar. Both were excellent.

The sausage & maple is just that: pork sausage patty and maple spread (100% organic—it appears that most things are groovy with obvious exceptions like nutella) tucked into a waffle, and it does taste like waffles with syrup and sausage, which is to say, one of the great joys of breakfast.

The butter & powdered sugar showcased the waffle itself—slightly sweet, crispy, lovely. A perfect carrier for all sorts of foodie delights.

You can call ahead to order, and, they take credit cards. They even have wifi. And, a $1 cup of coffee.

Now, of course, it's not without problems. There's limited seating, and no roof. And, presenting a waffle as a thing you gobble down like a hamburger means it doesn't seem like very much food. But, make no mistake—these are filling, even if they take a little time to register in the belly.

This little hole in the wall is part of the big high-end Elephants Deli in NW. With grab-n-go coolers, you can get salads, sandwiches, and take away meals, as well as yogurt, and every possible type of chi-chi pop, water, beer, wine, bubbly, etc. Baked goods and deserts wait at the center island. Hot sandwiches and soup can be ordered straightaway in the back. The cost for any of the food items tends to come in shortly before $7, so as long as you can restrain yourself at the drink cooler, it's not an expensive meal.

The drawbacks of the place is that it's popular, and the table situation is tight: like Paris-cafe-tight, not built for our supersized American bodies. Still, you can get lucky and score a table on the sidewalk and watch them tear up the parking lot right in front of you.

Fubonn is named for the Cantonese phrase for wealth and health, and they are a full service SE Asian grocery along the lines of Uwajimaya, just on a slightly smaller scale. They have a deli with $1.75 bánh mì sandwiches as well as hot and cold prepared foods; huge and beautiful produce and meat areas, and just about everything you'll need for Vietnamese or Chinese cooking. For example: fresh noodles. Fubonn stocks bánh canh, bánh bot loc, hu tieu xao, and bánh tam—and that's just the rice noodles. There's also yakisoba, udon, mì hoành thánh (egg wonton noodles) and mì trung gà (thin egg noodles). Need a stewing hen? Duck heads? Bung? They've got 'em.

The live seafood selection is better at Uwajimaya, but Fubonn is clearly still gearing up.

more photos of Fuller's

Fuller's is an old school coffee shop, with a double horseshoe shaped counter. It's all counter. Everybody, except the folks that sit outside in good weather, sits at the counter.

The breakfast menu is short, with the general breakfast stuff: eggs and meat, omelets, pancakes, french toast. Prices range from $5.25 to $8.50.

But there are a couple interesting things. Heuvos rancheros at Fuller's is the most interesting and not even vaguely authentic interpretation of the dish. It's so wrong! A disk of egg is topped with cheese, then a mixture of stewed tomato, onion, mushrooms, and bell pepper. Refried beans with cheese, and salsa are served on the side. No tortilla! Georgia's Potatoes Deluxe takes hash browns and covers them with the stewed tomato mixture, plus spinach and cheese. And, german pancakes are an eggier version of the American ones.

How was the food? Good, simple, delicious. The coffee sucks, though they do have espresso. We had the pig in a blanket, which is a german pancake surrounding link sausage, and the aforementioned heuvos rancheros. Both were great.

The hash browns are absolute standard-bearers. Shredded potatoes (seemingly freshly cut, could that be?), are perfectly cooked, crispy on the outside, creamy on the inside.

Egg dishes have toast on the side, from bread I believe they make themselves.

As good as the food is, the people watching is also superb. It's easy to pick out the tourists with their Powells walking maps and Pearl shopping guides, as well as hungover locals.

• Road Food

photo by Molly Holzschlag

airport & Washington Square locations still open.

Is it disengenous to have a open a restaurant in the same location, with a very similar name to a restaurant that got great national reviews but went down in flames? I'll just leave you to mull on that while I talk about the new incarnation.

This incarnation is not related to the RIPE empire; the owners are from the Speakeasy. And full disclosure, to my incredible amazement, I know the bartender. Obviously, I go out too much.

Anyways, we went to visit during the soft opening. If you want to compare it to the GBT, you're going to be disappointed, in spite of cloth napkins, bowls of pepper and little sauciers of kosher salt. However, if you compare it with a tavern, I think you'll be pleased, or at least, not disappointed.

They have a full bar, and three beers on tap. Those were, on our visit, PBR, Mac & Jack's, and Roots IPA.

The menu is short. Burger, prime rib sandwich, polenta, soup, salad. We ordered the burger and the prime rib, with some special directions. As they were working on this stuff, I could look into the kitchen. The prime rib sandwich comes on ciabatta rolls from New Seasons; the burger is grilled and then placed atop a toasted oroweat bun.

They come with homecut fries, nicely done. The burger isn't exactly as I ordered it, but it's still juicy and delicious. The prime rib sandwich is actually two small, tall prime rib sandwiches. My sweetie, who finishes everything, brings one whole sandwich home.

These are the sort of sandwiches and fries that I am happy to eat at a tavern. Indeed, the fact that my burger is not incinerated makes me heart sing.

Our waiter is the only one on the floor, so we have great service at one point, and lousy at others. But the waiter is trying hard, jogging across the restaurant at points.

I get the impression that they're not sure what they're aiming at either. So, at hard opening at the end of the month, it'll be interesting to see what they are like.

They serve Stumptown coffee. They have excellent baked goods. They have the best breakfast sandwich in town, and some really yummy soups and sandwiches. Oh, and they even have salads.

When I heard about Henry's the first time, I thought, right, 100 beers on tap—how likely is that? I had all sorts of expectations that it would be suburban and sportsy and not serious. And you know, I was totally & completely wrong.

The bar has several different levels, including a lovely outdoor patio. You can watch sports on the huge flatscreen tvs, or, you can sit so you don't even know that there are giant flatscreen tvs. The volume is on mute, anways. It's a classy place, and hooligans are asked to leave immediately. Really. I saw some guys come in who were obviously already inebriated, they treated a waitress badly, and several managers went over and helped them out.

You can sit well away from the bar, but if you're serious about beer, you want to sit at the bar. They have a cool ice ring to set your beer on, and their bartenders know the beers well and serve them in appropriate glassware. (The wait staff haven't a clue).

Be sure to ask if the beer is old, and if you can have a taste. Somethings don't move so fast at Henry's.

For your friends who don't get beer: there's mixed drinks. Though I wouldn't know anything about that.

I wouldn't expect a lot from the food (this is a Pacific Coast restaurant, so solid but unexceptional chain fare), but if you order during happy hour, at least it's cheap.

If you look at the microbrew movement in Portland, Horse Brass is right there at the beginning. According to their website:

Established in 1976, many of Oregon's own craft brewers have been regulars here, enjoying the likes of Guinness and Fullers ESB well before the craft beer movement.

The food menu is stocked with sausage plates, scotch eggs, ploughman's lunches, fish & chips, and pasties, all of them good.

Terran writes,

I think the Horse Brass deserves a listing in food as well under beer - their Bangers & Chips is one of my favorite low-budget lunches in town. Two tasty sausages dipped in sweet hot mustard with greasy potato chips, and a pint of hard cider on the side...mmm.

The breakfasts, particularly the english breakfasts, are a groaning board of food. They do offer American breakfast as well as everything ala carte, but if your cardiologist will allow, do try the full traditional english breakfast with its fried eggs, Irish back bacon, baked ham, English banger sausage, Heinz beans straight from the can, tomatoes, fried potatoes and fried bread.

They pull out the big screen to show English Premier League Soccer live.

If you're a craft beer lover, you've got to go to Horse Brass. Unless, of course, you can't stand smoke.

This is similar to shabu-shabu. You get a broth, in a pot, on a burner, and you get to toss various protein, starch and veggies in, as you wish. Once you've chosen from their 7 asian broths (vegetarian, Ma-la [herbs and red pepper], Thai-style hot sour, pao-cai [pickled cabbage Korean style], xiang-cai [Chinese cilantro with egg], and meat [yes, I know that's only six, but there is another, really]), you can go and load up on soda, dipping sauce, and goodies for your broth.

The goodies vary, naturally, but include frozen shaved meat, meat balls, stuffed wonton, k-crab, frozen and fresh tofu, a couple types of noodles, and then a bar of vegetables. You choose just what you'd like. Then go plunk yerself down in front of your steaming pot of broth, and start cooking. The best thing: you can go back again and again.

If you have questions, just ask. The Tsais are very helpful, funny, and very real.

Lunch is an amazing $7.50, with dinner $12.50 (I think)—dinner has more seafood, and just more stuff.

I love this place. It's fun people-watching and you get to play with your food. And, you can eat so virtuously, and it's so good.

• Adventure to Hot Pot City (::space:.TUNA:..)
• A hot pot on a cold winter's day
  Dan Cook, The Business Journal of Portland, December 13, 2002

Hunan used to be known as one of the best Chinese restaurants in Portland, back before everyone was so concerned about authenticity, etc. Today, they still make a mean hot and sour soup, and very tasty potstickers. Otherwise, a recent lunch there was an exercise in frustration at worst, and okayness at best.

At lunch, there is the special lunch menu, which is a la carte. Want the General Tso's chicken, which is probably this place's claim to fame? Well, you'll have to order it off the dinner menu. Main courses on the lunch menu range from $6.25-$8.50, and aren't terribly generous. Dinner prices are a bit more, and are quite a bit more generous. Want that Hot & Sour soup? You'll have to order it separately, for another $1.75.

You get an hour for lunch right? Unless you get a half hour, of course. Most places downtown get that, hustling the food out in record time. Not so here. The soup comes out, then the appetizer, then the food. One of our group had to get his to go because it took so long.

So, we ordered General Tso's, beef with snow peas, shrimp in chili sauce, and kung pao chicken. The General Tso's was awful, the meat tough and difficult to chew, though the sauce was nice. The kung pao was referred to as kung poor. The shrimp and beef were okay, no complaints. All in all, they might have been having a bad day.

I knew Fong Chong had changed hands since last winter, which might be good, but might also be bad. And I hadn't heard from anyone who had been there lately.

We had had an impressive dim sum at Wong's King, but I hated the fact that if we didn't want to wait, we'd have to be there early (and even then, we'd wait), and I hated the fact that some carts never came near us. Last easter, we had a large party, and about a third of the group showed up late, which seemed to displease our servers. So was that why we were repeatedly only offered congee? Just kidding, but there were lots of carts that never made it near us. It was good, but still.

So when GC has said that he had liked Jin Wah, I was excited. I looked at the Portland Food Archives, and on dim sum crawls, Jin Wah had also been favorably reviewed. Okay!

Which wasn't to say there wasn't resistance. They're in Beaverton, after all.

So, on Christmas day, we arrive, are promptly seated, given hot tea and water, and then the choices begin. You can order off the menu, or off the carts, or both. A cart with hot savory items was at our table immediately, with a huge variety of things: chickens feet, shu mai, beef balls, sticky rice, fried rice, shrimp noodle, and many more things that were just a blur of pork, shrimp and mushrooms.

And so we had just got there, and we already had a lazy susan full of things to nosh. Hurrah!

And that's only the beginning of the good news. Everything that we had, save the BBQ pork, was as good or better than we had had elsewhere. My partner grumbled that he didn't like the sauce on the chicken legs as well as at Wongs King, and I'll be honest, I don't remember the sauce. I just remember that I liked them there, and I liked them here.

Stealthily, the staff would refill waters, tea, pop, and empty dishes got whisked away. New carts came by with new treats: shrimp & taro, deepfried in a ball, sesame balls, strange little balls made with shrimp or pork, rolled in sweet sticky rice. Tofu stuffed or combined with pork, shrimp and/or mushrooms. Shrimp dumplings. Another dumpling with shrimp and scallops. Several types of congee, rice porridge; grilled noodles; chinese doughnuts; plates of bok choy and salt & pepper calamari; tropical fruit jello desserts with umbrellas.

There are cons, of course. It's not like eating in a diner, or a banquet hall. The surroundings are quite elegant, sophisticated. You'll have to pace yourself, because, if you want to get everything you want in 5 minutes, you can have it. You won't get the opportunity to stack the empty metal steam pots. You won't get to wait in line, or to wait for food to come. There is no ginger chicken or lobster pie... or if there is, we haven't seen it. And it's in Beaverton. On the MAX line. With parking.

So, obviously, I'm sold. It does seem like it might be a smidge more expensive, though it may be that we're just too excited to stop when we should stop. But we're not talking hugely expensive. In our small groups, we've eating like kings for $15 a head or less, plus tip. We've ended up spending less at WK or FC. Course, there was that one time at WK where we only were visited by the sesame roll cart...

I'm hugely impressed by the service. The staff is friendly, and helpful.

Karam has always been a foodie's wet dream, but I've never been convinced. Sure, it's a nice atmosphere and they have alcohol, they make pita to order (and whole wheat if you ask nicely), and they have a huge, unusual menu. Maybe it's just because I've been such a fan of Ya Hala. Who knows?

We went for lunch, and I was pleased to see a big breakfast menu (15 items from $3.50-$7) also available at lunch. Then I ignored it. Did I mention the lunch menu? With 17 ala carte main courses ($7.50-$19.95), 11 sandwiches ($5-$6.50), 10 pizza/calzoney things ($6-$8.95), 8 salads ($4.50-$9), and 4 stews ($8-$9.95), it might take a while to decide. We ordered the meat mezze, which has one of everything, a falafel sandwich with baba ghanouj, Fatte with lamb, and the lamb shank. The hummus and baba ghanouj are excellent. The Fatte, a layered dish with pita, roasted eggplant, garbanzo beans, pine nuts and yogurt was beautiful and yummy. The lamb shank came in a broth with vegetables, also gorgeous. Portions were huge, and everything was very tasty—we were all moaning over our food. We were groaning, but still ordered dessert (6 from $2.25-$4.50) (katayef bil-ashta and katayef bil-jos) which were also really good.

While there are lots of vegetarian choices and ways to eat cheap, the menu is kinda pricey. And the service—leisurely. Our lunch took over an hour and a half, making all of us late, and for three folks going a bit overboard, cost us $20 each. It's certainly easy to eat under $10 if you show some self-control, but you might as plan for it taking a while. It's worth it.

It's hard not to really like Ken's. It's just an unassuming diner with a tiny staff, including Ken Gordon who's behind the stove most the night, but the food is simple, and at the best of times, transcendent. The starters are a great start: the caesar is garlicky and one of the best in town—but only if you like garlic. Other salads are also fine, as was the chile rellano app.

Now a friend of mine claims she's found better chicken in a restaurant, but I still believe Ken's is the best I've had outside of my own kitchen. If the buttermilk fried chicken is on the menu, you've got to have that. But it's hard to go wrong. Their burger is one of the best in town, and giant. But what really stands out for me there, as well as at Cafe Castagna, are the vegetables. I'm not much of a vegetable eater, but I am always certain to order them there -- they are always excellently prepared. Oh. And the pecan pie is to die for.

• Ken's Place
  An Exploration of Portland Food and Drink
  

more photos

Still, when I noticed the Kennedy School does breakfast, I knew I'd be heading over there sooner rather than later.

Kennedy School is a former school, built in 1915, retired in 1975. Its one-story modular design was a model to others and got national recognition. In 1997, the McMenamin Brothers worked their magic, transforming the school into guestrooms, bars, a theatre, brewery and restaurant, all with a smirking reference to the school it once was.

And note the year: 1997. Before Alberta was happening, before New Seasons even existed. Before Nature's Northwest went bad. The McMenamin Brothers took a big chance on a property in an area that a lot of folks saw as a bad neighborhood. Good or bad, the Kennedy School project was a huge force in the area's gentrification.

The Courtyard Restaurant is the former cafeteria, right on a courtyard, and I was surprised as we walked in the room how I wanted to linger. The room is full of mismatched light fixtures, huge wood booths, a gorgeous bar, and of course, a whole wall of windows onto the courtyard which is gorgeous: lots of tables, chairs, benches and small pews surround beautiful plantings, and a huge fireplace.

In a word, the place is beautiful, and comfortable, eccentric but in a thoroughly pleasant way. It's so thoroughly Portland, and the acid-trip stuff that makes me gag about McMenamins (men wearing overalls with a hammer for their head, women who look like some SCA witch, stars and moons, so many stars and moons) is so very subtle if it's there at all. I love this room.

We had coffee that they roast themselves: not bad at all. The breakfast menu ranges from $4.15-$9.40, from eggs to flapjacks to biscuits & country gravy to cereal. The waitron recommended the benedict, which is significantly more expensive than everything else. So we ordered heuvos rancheros and biscuits and gravy, along with a side of sausage.

The menu is tremendously vegetarian friendly, just as Kennedy School is tremendously wheelchair friendly.

Anyways, the food: bland. There was plenty of it, but nothing had much of any flavor.

The biscuits were like mutant dumplings, absolutely huge, covered in a white sauce. There was plenty of gravy, but it tasted really more like a white sauce than a sausage gravy. Mmmm, white sauce over giant biscuits...

The heuvos rancheros, of course, did not have anything resembling ranchero sauce, just warmed corn tortillas, bland black beans, unmelted shredded cheddar cheese, poached eggs, a bland salsa, and sour cream. Even the sausage didn't taste like much of anything.

This bummed me out so much. By the time we had gotten our coffee, I had decided that I wanted to spend as much time as possible in this room, or once it stops raining, in that courtyard.

June 2nd is the last day in the SE Hawthorne location.

Full disclosure: I know these guys.

If you've had Pastrami King's pastrami in the last couple weeks at the Hillsdale Farmers Market, you know it's sublime. Well, they've given up on the market and moved their operation back to Ken Gordon's restaurant, Ken's Place, and it appears to be an unqualified success.

Before a couple weeks ago, I didn't understand why people get so excited about pastrami. I was thinking it was a waste of a good brisket. But now I understand, and now, I crave it.

It's a true brunch menu: pastrami & eggs, corned beef hash, latkes, a big salad, handmade bagels with lox, reubens, pastrami sandwiches, and baked knishes. We sat at the counter watching everything get made, and, wow, everything looked better than the last!

We began with a toasty warm potato knish ($2), which could be a meal in itself. One of my favorite things to do in NYC is go to Yonah Schimmel on Houston, and Nick's knish is even better than I remember having at Yonah Schimmel's.

We ordered a reuben ($10.25) and the pastrami & eggs ($8.75). Watching the reuben being grilled was almost painful, it was so beautiful. And while I would have preferred having eggs with sliced pastrami, the frittata was delicious and quite addictive. The guy next to me ordered the hash, which I would have liked to eat off his plate, and his daughter the bagel and lox. Whoa! Even the big salad looked like a decadent treat. We washed these down with Dr. Brown's cream and cel-ray sodas, the latter tasting like celery without the annoying strings. They also serve Stumptown coffee and eggcreams made with Dagoba chocolate. Yum!

Meals run from $6.75-$11.75, and we brought half of ours home. You can also get pastrami by the half pound, chopped liver, potato salad, cole slaw, and full or half-sour pickles.

The downsides here is that with everything looking and sounding and tasting so good, a nosh plate with little bits of this and that would really help. It's not a cheap endeavor, especially if getting breakfast there also means bringing a half pound home to nosh on later—and you practically have to! And the service, while friendly, is a little uneven at this point. Still, I'll be back.

Tuesday is the grand opening of K&Z. I've been a couple times during the soft opening, and while they've been working the kinks out, the food has been right on target.

I've got more photos online if you care to look.

Laurel writes, "Incredibly cheap but very tasty food, good service, and they have far more than the usual stuff: everything from steak fajitas to tripas to tongue burrito. Very tasty."

The original Pasta Veloce location, which became La Terrazza, has reopened as La Capanna.

This tiny place with sidewalk and balcony seating has seen better days, but they still make pasta, panini and salads to order, serving the same dishes that PV and La Terrazza did. Prices are in the sevens for panini, $8-$9.50 for salad, and $6.75-$10 for pasta.

The lunch servings aren't bad: a pasta bowl fullish with a couple of pieces of grilled bread, quite attractive. And quite underwhelming. With the Pesto E Pollo, the chicken is dried out (nothing new there, unfortunately), and while the cream-pesto sauce is green, it's not terribly basilly. The artichoke hearts tasted freshly plucked from the can, with the brine still on the interior leaves. And, the pasta was gummy.

I don't want to claim that the original Pasta Veloce was incredible, because it wasn't. But sauces were simple and tasty.

Mind you, it's edible. But for $9.25, it should be a bit better than edible.

Well surprise, surprise, in spite of the sign, the new shop is called Taqueria y Restaurant Las Nayaritas, and there is no sign of a buffet. Indeed, it's just a sparse hole-in-the-wall filled with fastfood molded plastic booths and tables, and the sort of place where the dishes listed on the walls are just suggestions, really.

They have all the usual stuff: tacos, burritos, tamales, enchiladas, but weekends are really the time to stop by, because they increase their menu almost two-fold, making delicioso caldo de cameron, rico menudo, rico pozole, carne en su jugo, and birria. They also serve Desayuno Classico starting at 9am!

So after some consultation, we ordered the pozole ($4.99) and a quesadilla ($2.99), and grabbed some sodas out of the cooler. I asked for the quesadilla without onions, and I was happy to hear the cashier tell the cook to hold the pico de gallo and any other onions en espanol. As we sat down, I immediately regretted ordering something as pedestrian as a quesadilla.

Maybe we looked hungry, I don't know. One of the ladies brought out tastes of their sopa del dia, Carrot Soup, which was seriously rich and luscious. Then she brought out chips and salsa -- no great shakes, but I appreciated getting them in a taco stand. Then, out came our food. The pozole was a pho-sized bowl, with lots of shredded pork on top, accompanied by a plate of cabbage and several slices of lime. The quesadilla was huge, a giant flour tortilla griddled, filled with a little cheese, and a lot of chicken.

The quesadilla was good, especially with the homemade salsa; the pozole was great. It was full of hominy with a yummy broth, very definitely homemade, and such a huge portion.

When we were finishing up, one of the ladies brought us tastes of their carne en su jugo which was wonderful: lots of broth and smaller pieces of meat. Yum.

With the cheapest thing on the menu being tacos ($1.25) and the most expensive being the filet minon ($11.99), it's hard to imagine you could go wrong here. No alcohol, no smoking, cash only.

Really, I don't get a kickback from Concordia Ale House, I just end up there fairly frequently. But I noticed the other night that they offer a late night menu after 10 til close. Most nights (other than Sunday, I believe), close is 2am. They have about 15 items on the menu, including a burger and a chicken sandwich, and just about everything off the appetizers menu, including their yummy and hot buffalo wings.

Still, the space is very pleasant: 3 garage doors that open onto the courtyard and Mississippi Street, ceiling fans to keep the air moving around, and an assortment of interesting art and dinosaur statues. And, like everything else on Mississippi St, they have wifi.

This evening we went, and I took a closer look at the menu. Let's begin with beer. They have 4 taps, with Laurelwood Red, Terminal Gravity IPA and Golden, and usually an Amnesia on... though tonight it was Walking Man's Barefoot Brown. They have a selection of bottled beers, bottled drinks, iced teas, etc.

The menu is divided into Appetizers, Bowls, Burritos, Salads, Quesadillas and Add-Ins. I had never spent enough time with the menu before to see that they encourage customization. They're largely groovy and organic. Okay!

Prices range from $3.50-$9. The menu is largely vegan and vegetarian, with protein items like groovy chicken, smoked turkey, tofu or tempeh as add-ons. But it's not just protein: you can add spinach, broccoli, mashed potatoes, brown rice, shitake barley-quinoa pilaf, greens, corn, plantains, grilled veggies and/or romaine. And/or guac, sour cream, jalapenos, tillamook cheese, vegan rice cheese, and vegan sour cream.

We ordered the Amaizin' Grace Quesadilla and Grilled Chicken burrito. The Amaizin' Grace has corn, green chilies and cilantro pesto in addition to jack cheese and pico de gallo. In the spirit of customization, I ordered mine without the pico.

The grilled chicken is a basic mission-style burrito, with pinto beans, brown rice, lots of jack cheese, and pico de gallo. That was ordered with guacamole.

So. Both dishes came without their customization. We sent the quesadilla back, and they comped us a bowl of chips and salsa. The burrito was also missing its rice. The chips were lackluster, but the medium roasted tomato-chipotle salsa was warm enough to keep us drinking our beer.

When we got to eating, it was all good. My quesadilla was super-cheezy, and a nice flavor combo. The burrito had nice, carmelized chicken in it in chunks, quite tasty.

In the end, this seems pricier than going out for a burrito at a taqueria, but part of that may be the fact that there's no beer generally. I 'm excited that I can bring veggie and vegan friends here, and they can have a range of ordering options. The beer on tap will probably be enough to draw us back.

But the fact that they encourage customization, and then are a bit sloppy about actually customizing isn't encouraging.

• EAT: Laughing Planet Cafe (Alisa's Adventures in Sustainable Living)
• Portland Blog
• The summer sun brings a bloom of fresh eateries (Portland Tribune, undated)

The best way to learn about beer (or wine) is to go to tastings, or to go to places where it's taken very seriously.

I'm a newbie to savoring craft beers. While I was lucky to be exposed to different beer styles in France, Belgium and Germany in my 20s, I tended to drink lawn-mowing beers until very recently. Part of this is economic, but part was also the fear that I wouldn't like what I ordered and I'd have to drink it anyways (cuz that's just how I am).

So, attending beer festivals is a good way to being exposed to new and different styles of beer, and new brewers—however, they tend to be too busy to get real good information about what you're drinking.

You have to watch for beer tastings, but it's worth your while.

Places that offer beer tastings include La Bodega, Belmont Station, Liquid Solutions, and Woodstock Wine and Deli. There are other beer related events that happen elsewhere, like local beer luminary Fred Eckhardt's beer pairings with cheese or chocolate, or brewer's dinners at various restaurants around town.

There are just a few places where craft brews are taken very seriously, and where there are enough different beers to make it worth your while.

Be sure to ask questions, and tell them what you like. You'll find that many barkeeps, restaurant managers, and the like will be sure to send something special your way.

But what if you're starting, really, at a beer festival? You just need to do your homework.

You can learn a lot about a brewery by checking out their web site. For example, Dogfish Head pushes everything to an extreme. Is that good? Depends on what you like (I love some of their stuff and hate others).

A site like Rate Beer (ratebeer.com) can be helpful in determining what you might like. Look up a beer you like, and then a beer that looks interesting. Admittedly, the site isn't as easy as it could be to use, but, it can be helpful.

Trust your intuition.

Of course, the same can be said of Session, though it does actually say in the fine print that it's brewed by Full Sail.

There are smaller names whose brewery names I'm blocking out, but they're easy to spot at the grocery: they're craft brews, and they're cheap. Usually, they're cheap because they aren't consistent, or just aren't so good. Your mileage, of course, may vary. They might be contract brewed, they might be brewed by a bigger macrobrewery. Who knows? Just remember, you get what you pay for.

When you go to Legin for dim sum, you want to be seated in the dim sum dining room, usually Dining Room C. Sit elsewhere at your peril.

You can't complain about the quantity and variety. We were seated and there were lots of carts with lots of steamer baskets of goodies, so we began with shaomai (pork dumplings) and hargau (shrimp dumplings). These were warm, but not hot; the shrimp fresh, the wheat starch wrapper a little gummy.

We tried many things. Tripe (okay, I didn't try that), taro dumpling, cheong fun (rice noodle rolls), a dumpling with shrimp and chinese greens, and chinese broccoli. For the most part, these were okay, though I've had better versions elsewhere in town, in particular at Wong's King and even at Fong Chong.

While enjoyed a great variety of dishes, only one was served hot, the very last plate of shaomai. There were several dumplings that I usually enjoy (like scallop, or shrimp in rice ball, or the fried meat dumplings) that tasted mostly like library paste.

And yet. The humbao was light and fluffy, really much better than what you usually find in Portland.

Consistency is an issue here. From week to week, you may find things better or worse.

Prices appear to be higher here. We were a bit restrained and it cost $13 a head.

So, in the end, do you have to wait in line, or have a hard time finding something to eat? These aren't likely at Legin. You may find better dim sum elsewhere in town, but this, for the most part, isn't bad.

Libbie's subtitle is The Home of Comfort Food. This is certainly true, at least at breakfast, which is served all day long. Actually, breakfast, lunch and dinner are all served all day.

The menu is simple: 10 large omelettes ($7.50-$13), purely starchy things ($1.75-$7), and 11 egg specials ($6.25-$12). Coffee is a buck seventy-five, and it sucks.

The omelettes are all your favorites: farmers, vegetarian, denver, spanish, and they all come with either pancakes, biscuits and gravy, or potatoes and toast. Potato options are home fries and hashbrowns.

For starches, they offer pancakes, french toast, and waffles (though waffles are only available until noon), oat groats, and hot cream of wheat.

The egg specials include the usual cafe breakfast, biscuits & gravy, corned beef hash, chicken fried steak and two other steak & eggs variants.

We ordered two of the egg specials: the number 5, biscuits, gravy & hashbrowns; and the number 11, Rick's special, home fries grilled with tomatoes, mushrooms, onions, bellpeppers and ham, topped with cheddar cheese and 2 eggs any style.

These are giant plates of food, far more than anyone should eat at breakfast. The gravy is mild with small chunks of sausage -- it tastes fresh, not floury, but not well seasoned. The biscuits are buried but appear to be tender and fresh. And the hashbrowns are at the top of their game: two crusty, golden brown sides surrounding the soft warm potato inside.

I think the Rick's might have worked better with hashbrowns rather than home fries, for that contrast in text, however it was awfully good with the home fries.

If you're looking for an old-school greasy-spoon breakfast, Libbie's is pretty darn good. Just stay away from the coffee.

more photos of the Little Red Bike Cafe

I've been obsessed with this place for a couple of weeks now, and it's only been open a week.

Lelo in NoPo wrote about the sweetest little restaurant ever, and how the owners were blogging about it. So like a good reader, I followed the link to the Little Red Bike Cafe Blog, and absolutely fell in love with the owners, Ali and Evan.

So I was thrilled and excited when they did finally open and I could finally make it there.

Basically, this is an adorable, charming Portsmouth coffeeshop with light breakfast food and sandwiches, coffee and espresso, milkshakes and housemade ice cream.

On our visit, we tried a breakfast sandwich (the paperboy, $5), a tuna sandwich ($6), a cup of "regular" coffee, an americano, a pot of french press coffee, and a chocolate malt($5).

First of all, the coffee is excellent! This was the first time I've had Courier Coffee and I am a believer! We are so lucky to have so much good coffee in this town and here they serve it strong. If it's too strong for you, ask for a little water added. Yum.

The milkshakes are made from ice cream from Eugene (not with their housemade), and that malt was easily the best I've had in recent memory. Unlike some other malts I've had recently, this was not super-sweet, and not overly chocolately, but it was a perfect meeting (to me) of chocolate, malt, sugar and fat, and it was like the milk shakes I remember (and covet) from childhood.

The paperboy, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways. It's a simple sandwich: fried egg, american or cheddar cheese, on ciabatta. It comes with a cup of coffee or tea. You can add veggie bacon or bacon for a buck. And it is delicious, just simple perfection. Grand Central, you are no longer my favorite breakfast sandwich.

The breakfast menu is simple and inexpensive. Three different egg sandwiches for $5 or $6, a bowl of yogurt, fruit, and granola for $5, and various baked goods and doughnuts from Fleur de Lis, Dovetail and Voodoo Donuts. All the breads come from Fleur de Lis as well, and are excellent.

The Tuna sandwich is albacore tuna salad with cheddar, green onions, and apple slices. It usually comes on ciabatta but this time it came on multigrain bread. Other lunch options include turkey, curried tempeh salad, roast beef, BLT and avocado, 2 different grilled cheeses, and two peanut butter sandwiches, with prices ranging from $4 to $6.50.

If you're not a fan of coffee or milkshakes, they do have old-fashioned sodas like Bubble Up, Coke in glass bottles, Sioux City Cream Soda, Nesbitts Strawberry, some Izzy's, Bulldog Root Beer, Vernors, and Yoohoo.

Housemade ice cream can be had for reasonable as well: 95 cents for a double shot in an espresso cup, through 2 scoops for $4.50. I haven't tried the housemade ice cream, but I'm looking forward to it.

They have a couple outside tables, bike parking, and pretty ample parking nearby. They have a bike up window open after 3pm, and they have an everchanging bike-in incentive. But mostly, Ali and Evan are sweet, their space is comfortable, and their food and drinks are divine. I'm so happy to have a destination, now, in Portsmouth!

Lorn and Dottie's has been one of my favorite places for breakfast for a really long time. Favorite is probably not the right word, as there are better places, and cooler places, and places we end up more frequently, but L&D has consistently good food, and consistently short waits. It's very reasonable, very nice, and the city's best kept secret for weekend breakfast downtown. So what's not to love?

So imagine my surprise that we end up there on Labor Day (because all the places I wanted to try on the west side were closed for the holiday! Sheesh!), and find out that they're not open weekends any more.

Hmm, I think. New owners? New cooks? The menu is the same, the prices are the same, and it appears the family that runs it is the same. But all our favorite waiters and waitresses are gone. And it appears the crowds are too, as the place has plenty of open tables and the entire counter is empty.

We order with some trepidation. At this point, we're taking one for the team. It seemed like they had so much more business on the weekends, why would they be closed for them? It doesn't make any sense.

Remembering the old rule, we stick with the starches. This is where Lorn & Dottie's excels. Hot cakes ($6-8.50), plain or with blueberry or banana pecan, dutch babies, german potato pancakes, and the yeasted waffle... oh, the yeasted waffle ($6) is so light and airy and wonderful. But the dutch babies ($9-10) are too. And the potato pancakes ($6-8.50) are great with applesauce, or ask for sour cream.

They offer Banana-Nut Bread($3) and Jalepeno Cornbread ($3), too, both really good. They also have steel-cut oatmeal ($5) everyday, Cream of Wheat ($5) on Wednesday & Thursday , and Zoom ($5) on Fridays.

Not that the eggs are bad; they're not. Really. But the starches are the thing.

So we order a yeasted waffle with Canadian bacon ($8.50) and 2 eggs with potato pancakes and sausage ($9), along with two coffees. Now, this is Starbucks coffee and not really great Starbucks coffee at that, but they do keep your cup full.

The food comes, and it's as good as ever. Delicious, filling, everything we ask of breakfast. So why are they closed weekends? What gives?

No really, we went last night and the manager begged us to tell everyone we knew. Okay. It's a cute former industrial building, complete with interior garage doors and a hoist(!). It's funky and wide open and loud like a bus station, and just dripping with that Lucky Lab je ne sais quoi. The 5-ton strong ale is worth going out of the way for, even if they do only serve it in an 11oz glass. Multiple garage doors, and a partially enclosed outdoor area are going to make for a great place to be in good weather.

And, some of the light fixtures are made from kegs. Beat that! Sorry about the fuzzy pictures, though.

Fancy this: it's Saturday afternoon. You go into MacTarnahan's Taproom, and while there are only a couple tables occupied, there is a Wait to be Seated sign. The beautiful porch overlooking industrial NW Portland appears closed in spite of it being a nice spring day. We are seated and given menus, listing all sorts of pretentious sounding food. We order some beer (an imperial pint is $3.50) and some fries ($4). They do have all their beers on tap, and the room is both airy and Germanic with wood and beer signs, and the taps at the bar are beautiful. The fries are very good.

• about the brewery and beer
• happy hour

Mama Mia's, in spite of the name, has got some serious bordello going on. You shouldn't go in expecting the new Tuscan cuisine that is touted as Nouvelle Italian—this is the Italian of your childhood, redolent of cheese and red sauce, perhaps lacking in subtly, but... I'm not complaining, please!

Huge menu. Starters range from $4-10, with the standouts being the chopped salad, the zucchini, and the calamari. Individual sized 10" pizzas are $11-$12.

16 pastas come in huge portions, from $8-$16. The sunday gravy and gnocchi are crowd pleasers. The Losta the Pasta Lasagna has been uneven: perfect and well balanced one time vs eggplant undercooked and tough. Entrees range from chicken, beef, veal, and seafood, $14-$19, featuring all your childhood favorites: scallopine, parmigiana, milanese, alla marsala. Three of us got veal and loved it, though it was interesting to see how serving sizes varied on the same dish. (The veal, by the way, is free-range and naturally fed)

There are quite a few veggie options and the menu indicates a willingness to accomodate vegans as well.

The mixed drinks are impressive, and about the usual price. They do have 8 taps, with Widmer Hefeweizen, Widmer Drop Top Amber, Newcastle Brown, Moretti, Stella Artois, Lagunitas Censored and Bridgeport IPA. The pints are $4, unless they're Guinness, and then they're $4.75.

We finished the meal with about one of everything off their dessert menu. While dessert is not their strongest course, that didn't stop us from devouring almost everything before us.

You can make this a cheaper meal, or as we did, go completely overboard. I love coming here, it's like coming back to a childhood memory, except it totally doesn't suck. It's really a pleasure.

Mash Tun is just a little brewpub, just a little off Alberta, behind Office. It has a nice little bar, a small room, and a nice covered patio which easily doubles the space. In addition to brewing a few house beers, they have a nice, concise selection of craft beers and imports, and they offer food: not the best food, but the sort of stuff that can prolong your drinking.

Now, brewpubs or taverns that offer undistinguished, inconsistent food isn't that unusual, of course—it sadly seems to be the law (with exceptions like Widmer). But how many of them offer vegan options next to their more meaty third-cousins? I can think of only a handful of places, but Mash Tun is one.

On tap, they have 2 house beers, 3 imports, and 7 craft beers. They also have a handful of things in bottles and cans (brother, clap your hands). None of this is terribly cheap: for imperial pints, the house ales are $4, craft beers are $4.25, and imports are $4.50, with non-tap options ranging from $2.25-$4.50.

I haven't been so crazy about their house beers, but they are very drinkable. The tap selections rotate, so there is always something good on. Last night, for example, there were 4 or 5 different craft beers that I would be very happy to drink. Nice!

In recent times, the place has changed up a little bit. You can still smoke at the bar, or outside, but you have to vacate outside by 10. The jukebox is still there. But the pool table has been replaced by table-tables. I don't know about the wi-fi, but I hope it's still there. We got there shortly before 6, and the place was pretty full.

The new food menu is about a month old, and made up of appetizers, a small collections of soups and salads, and pub grub (which means sandwiches). No more of their wildly erratic fish and chips. Appetizers range from $2.75-$7, with all of the usual deep fried subjects. Tots and fries can come cheesy if you like. There's also vegan red lentil puree & tempeh things, and nachos.

They offer house, caesar, spinach, and a roasted beet salad, a soup de jour, and a chili con carne, $2.95-$7. And for sandwiches ($7.50-$10), they have a burger, and a variety of other things that are served on rolls. Vegan options include a vegan burger & a BLATO (fakin-lettuce-avocado-tomato-onion with veganaise), and there's falafel and roasted eggplant for veggies.

We tried to order cheesy tots, but alas, no tots this evening. So we ordered a cheesesteak and a meatball sandwich, both with their hand-cut skinny fries. And both sandwiches were very edible. The cheesesteak had a nice balance of cheese to meat to cooked yellow onion, and came with a side of good, but not great marinara. The meatball sandwich was dosed in both marinara and melted cheese, but the meatballs were plentiful, tender and tasty. Unfortunately, neither of the rolls the sandwiches came on had been toasted, and the fries are soggy and greasy. Why do some taverns insist on hand-cut fries?

So. Nice patio, nice ever-changing selection of beers, and deep-fried appetizers rock... unless they're fries.

Watching England vs. Paraguay at 7 AM, by Audrey Eschright

Like a real British Isles public house, the M&S is really visually interesting. Or overwhelming. I prefer to think the former. Beer signs elbow photos elbowing bookcases and chalkboards and beer towels.

They have wine, and obviously the full bar (specialty drinks are $4.75-$6), but this place is about the beer on tap. Though the last time I was there, there was a large group of guys drinking Kokanee ($2) from bottles.

There are 20 taps, served generally in imperial pints. These are listed on a chalkboard behind the bar with name and alcohol by volume. Here's what they had when we were there.

• two Belgians (Lindeman's Framboise and a rotator, $5.50 a glass)
• 2 casks (North Coast's Red Seal and a rotator, $4.50)
• imports ($4.50)
  • Smithwicks
  • Bass
  • Newcastle Brown
  • Stella Artois
  • Strongbow Cider
  • Boddingtons
  • Guinness
• and of course micros ($4)
• Terminal Gravity IPA
• Deschutes Inversion IPA
• Boont Amber
• Mirror Pond Pale Ale
• Anchor Steam
• Elysian ESB
• Amnesia Porter
• Pelican Cream Ale

They also have bottled beer, sorted by style, ranging from $2-$12.50, including 22 classic belgian and farmhouse ales, and 6 trappist ales.

They do have food here, but it's british pub food, and not gastropub food by any means. Things like the fish and chips (these being not-quite steak fries) and sausage rolls are reliable and tasty. Snacks are under $5, cold sandwiches under $7, entrees under $9.

The specials board rarely if ever exceeds $6. Now this is a special I can get behind! They have a pretty standard breakfast menu, but with a sense of humor. You can get the classic bene, or a country bene (biscuit, sausage, egg, gravy). You can get the veggie omelet, or the hobo (all the meats plus onions), or the combo, which is described as veggie + hobo = smiles. And you have your choice of the best hashbrowns in town, or O'Briens. The most expensive item is that combo omelet/scramble at $8.

The sausage gravy is better than a lot of places (though the winner is still the Overlook for sausagey taste). I wouldn't drink the coffee there. But when you consider that PBR ($1.75), Hamms ($2), and micros (Sierra Nevada Pale, Terminal Gravity IPA, Full Sail Amber, and Widmer Hefeweizen- $3) are on tap, who needs coffee?

The Nite Hawk is a funny little place. A recent advertising campaign seems to be bringing in a younger than 70+ crowd to this time capsule from the early seventies. Dinner and lunch here are okay, serious family restaurant fare, but breakfast is the real deal.

This place is all about booths and a counter. The restaurant is non-smoking; you can smoke on the lounge side, and perhaps the only way to tolerate the lounge side is by smoking. They have their own parking lot as well as street parking, a little bit of bike parking, and they're located at a MAX Yellow Line stop.

Breakfast is served all day. They list breakfast specials on the board, usually about a half-dozen of them with the most expensive being $5.95. When we were in, they also listed a prime rib & eggs, which was significantly higher.

The coffee is awful. But they're lavish with it.

Menu items lean heavily towards meat, eggs and potatoes, and run from $3.95-$8.95. We had pigs in a blanket, biscuits and gravy, and the standard eggs-sausage-potatoes-toast with hashbrowns rather than the default cottage potatoes.

The pigs in a blanket was a huge plate of four long breakfast sausages tucked into pancakes, then sprinkled with sugar. It came with garden-variety "pancake syrup", and it was just fine.

The gravy on the biscuits could have been more hearty, but it was the first gravy we've had in months of eating out in Portland that actually tasted like sausage. It even had some visible sausage particles! It was easily doctored with pepper and hot sauce. The biscuits were hidden, but were fine.

And the standard American breakfast was just that. The hashbrowns were great diner hashbrowns.

If you get bored, there's Keno and scratch-offs, and the lounge features video crack and pool.

Most patrons, if they're in a for a hair of the dog, prefer a red beer (a glass of lager with a tomato juice chaser), but with a full bar and a couple of beers on tap (Bud, Coors Light, Fat Tire, Mirror Pond Pale Ale, Widmer Hefeweizen, and Black Butte Porter), you can have whatever you'd like. Or RC.

• BarFly

More photos from Nutshell

NOTE: 10/10/2007: Chef Sean Coryell has left Nutshell. What this means for the food remains to be seen.
(this according to aidensnd at PortlandFood.org)

I just had the most phenomenally delicious dinner. It was delicious and innovative and beautiful and not outrageously expensive.

Nutshell is brandspanking new, in the suddenly happening neighborhood at the east edge of NoPo, on Williams Street. It's casual and sophisticated in the same breath. Concrete floors, painted cinderblock, and beautiful wooden booths. Books for exchange located near interesting beers and wines for retail. And carnivorous plants, gorgeous carnivorous plants.

I've had people I know rave about the food here. My neighbor, who isn't a foodie, told me he wanted to lick the plate. So I was excited to finally get to eat there.

Looking at the menu, I felt a bit of panic. What to order?!? It's a little overwhelming. Salads are $5-$6, a bowl of soup $4, stews $8, veggies & starches $4, featured entrees $9-$11, and pastas and tandoor skewers $8. Even if you decide to order bread ($2) with extra virgin olive oil ($1) and salt (50 cents to $1 each). you have to choose between 5 bread selections, 8 olive oils, 18 basic salts, and 6 premium salts. Thankfully, the staff are helpful, and we ordered the Jamaican Choco Escovitch with a Pearl Bakery assortment, olive oil, and a couple salts to start.

The name, Choco Escovitch, is just so much fun to say, I had to order it. It was one of those salads, like the Singing Pig Greens at Toro Bravo, that really elevates your expectations of what a salad can be. The greens in question included herbs, and were lightly dressed with a creamy dressing made from angostura bitters (but not bitter at all). Thin slices of merlatan squash, with a taste and texture similar to granny smith apples or jimaca, were fanned over the greens, with a tiny edible pansy on top. And on top of that—genius!—what appeared to be tempuraed cucumbers. Yum! The flavors were so bright, flavorful, slightly floral, and dare I say, dynamic.

The next to arrive was our selection of breads with olive oil and salt. This is such a simple thing, and generally so pedestrian. But it was a revelation to try the various breads with the oil, with the oil and salt, with the oil and the other salt. One salt was slightly piquant and showy, the other more subtle and slightly smokey.

The shot of soup is just that—a shot glass full of soup. In our case, it was a chilled creamy french lettuce & chervil soup with lemon, which was so rich and creamy that I was glad to only have a shot -- but again, so flavorful. So yummy.

The Nutshell Jamaican barbeque includes four of the starches (peas & rice, aka the traditional Jamaican red beans and rice; crispy shredded yucca pancakes; Jamaican cornmeal fritters that look just like cheddar puffed cheese balls; and, an orange stuffed with yam, coconut, and mace), house made jerk, fried okra, and grilled eggplant and lilies, as well as a shot of the Marley family drink.

The peas and rice were redolent of coconut, fresh coconut, and the yam had the fruitiness of habanero without the heat. The grilled onions were delicious and sweet, the okra crispy and not at all slimey. The only just okay part of the meal was the eggplant which was grilled, not at all bitter, just not a lot of flavor. But combined with the rest, it was delightful.

My neighbor had raved about Karen's raw living lasagna, and so that's what I ordered.
The lasagna contains no pasta, just a stack of vegetables and sauces. The heirloom tomatoes are easily the best tomatoes I've eaten this year, the sort that need nothing but a shake of salt and pepper (though these wanted for nothing). There were also marinated mushrooms and very thin slices of zucchini, separating the layers of pinon ricotta, pistachio pesto, sun dried tomatoes.

The pesto and tomato sauces along with the creamy pine nut ricotta say lasagna, but everything element of the dish just sang. Beautiful, again, and wonderful balance of flavors. I was really glad they had been so generous with the bread so I could mop up that extra sauce.

Our bill, with two beers, was $33, and walking out, we were both stuffed. I can't wait to go back.

Making food taste good using dairy and meat really isn't that hard. But someone who can do that just with vegan ingredients is a real master. We finally have fine-dining vegan food in Portland, and it's really good. This is vegan food that really anyone could love... and will, I bet.

Update:: The menu has been simplified. But the service in our last couple visits has really gone downhill. We've had servers who seem annoyed that they have to take our orders, servers who expect us to eat soup with our hands, and no sort of concern that we might not be enjoying our meals. We've had naive servers who appeared to have never tried the foods in question. I am hoping these are blips. Sean, Tabla guys, please make the service match the incredible food!

Jim Parker, former Oregon Brewers Guild director and general indicator of good beer, and Jerry Fechter (of the Lompoc empire) have opened this tiny, comfortable pub in the former location of Tartine and the Jones Public House. Lights are comfortably low, yet it's not dark. Boothes line one wall (a wheelchair ramp the other, yay!), and biggish tables designed for sharing. They have a full menu of food, and I'm assuming they'll be working the kinks out of that. Two words to remember: tater tots.

But let's talk about the important stuff: beer. They feature 6 Lompoc taps, and 6 guest taps. Last night that meant Caldera Pilsner, Bend Brewing Big Eddy ESB, Amnesia Double Whammy, Terminal Gravity Porter, Walking Man Sasquatch Imperial Red, and Pelican IPA. They have hard alcohol as well, and a Sunday Bloody Mary special.

There are some outside tables, and I'm not sure about bike parking. Last night, the place was full to the rafters.

And then once I'm there, I remember. You walk in, and there's a crowd of people, but where does the line end? There's an english menu with tacos and combo plates, and then there's a wall of photos with faded labels. What meats are available? What about nopales? I see barbacoa (a huge steamed cattle head). Everyone is speaking spanish, and I'm wondering if my awful tourist pidgin is up to this.

Still. Our cashier can pidgin English so we order. Huaraches are one of the reasons to make the trip: masa "sandals" the size of an NBA player's foot that are grilled, spread with refried beans and then topped with some sort of meat. I chose carne asada. I also got sopes, masa disks covered with refrieds, meat, fresh mexican cheese, crema, avocado, and lettuce, and a combination plate with more carne asada.

This and two jarritos cost $18. My sopes were most expensive at $5.50! The combination & the huaraches were both $5.

While we wait for the food, we explore the salsa bar. 5 salsas: a pico, two reds, and two greens, and the red and green we try are both blistering and addictive. Free chips await—help yourself. While we watch people around us get food, I make mental notes of things to try next time. The 7 Mares (7 seas) soup looks wonderful, as does a Cocktel de Camarones—good-sized shrimp, topped with good-sized chunks of avocado. I watch a man tuck into a torta, which seems about the size of his head. I watch someone from the kitchen come out and trim out some barbacoa for an order.

You'll notice there's no photos of the food: it's because we fell into it! The huaraches plate came with two giant huaraches, plus rice, beans & guacamole. The sopes: three to a plate, no sides. And the combo plate: rice & beans, and freshly made tortillas. Everything was delicious, both hot, and as leftovers (we brought lots home).

On the way out, I asked about to-go menus. The cashier said, yes she had them, and then I repeated the question in spanish: she gave me a scowl and said, no, of course, no! I wish I had a road map. But I think I'll be back there soon, saying, give me what he's eating.

There are also some pleasant tables out on the sidewalk.

The menu lists giant tiger prawns, halibut, salmon, true cod, catfish, and chicken tenderloins as fried options, and ahi (is it fried? is it roasted? is it grilled? is it poached? Who knows?), crab cakes, an unfried combo, chowder, corn on the cob, shrimp cocktail, and key lime pie. It seems initially quite straightforward.

All of the entrees come with skin-on fries, and all come as a half or full order.

Every time I come into Halibuts, I think, mmm, I'll have the halibut ($9/$14). Now, should I get a half, or a full? I can never remember if a half is enough food, but then, at $9, it seems like it should be. And then I get the half with its two small pieces of halibut and think, shoot, I should have splurged.

This is the thing: it would be helpful to know that a full order of prawns is 8 pieces, and a full order of halibut is 4 pieces. But the menu doesn't specify and most of the staff seem to not want to chat or explain: they just want to take your order.

Half baskets range from $5-$10, while full baskets are $3-$5 more. $6 will get you a very small bowl of very good clam chowder (though, at that price, it ought to be).

We've had the halibut, the prawns, and the true cod. All very good. The batter is tasty, and the result isn't greasy. This is probably the best fish and chips in town, though that comes at a price.

When we were in recently, the owner stopped by our table and started with the, oh, you got half orders schtick. "For ten dollars, you get 4 prawns", he says. "For four dollars more, you get four more shrimp. It's a no brainer."

Unfortunately, we've heard this speech from him every time we come in. Unfortunately, his menu claims a full order is $5 more, not $4. Does he not realize that it sounds like he's telling his patrons they're cheap while he's bragging about his food?

They have some beer on tap,

• Anchor Steam
• Fish Organic IPA
• PBR
• Widmer Hefeweizen

There are plenty of other places that do fried fish well. And have beer on tap. Alameda Brew Pub and Corbett Fish House come immediately to mind. And I think that's where I'll be spending my money, the next time I'm jonesing for fish.

Other Press:
• Metroblogging Portland
• Portland Food and Drink

Oh man, do we have some press releases. I still have a backlog, there will be more...

• The Tragedies Theater Company to Perform The Butler Did It for Live DVD recording
• The Hazzards are playing Fez Ballroom on Thursday, April 27th
• New spa with Old World concept opens in southeast Portland
• Willamette Valley Wineries support New Orleans
• 5/7 Deli Night at Ken's Place

This bar can be quite cosy. Ten taps, three with a beer engine, and the largest selection of spirits in the state of Oregon. Just recently had the worst lunch in recent memory there, with abysmal service to boot. They have a new chef, and supposably will have another one in a month.

Now, you might be familiar with them already. Up until recently, they were simply Sunset Deli, a shack-like building on MLK across from Sheridan's, and next to Taco Del Mar. I admit, it seemed a little too divey for even me.

But with a new paint job, Pho Green Payaya looks almost respectable. A covered deck on the side would be nice in warm weather, and it would be removed from the hustle and bustle of the tiny, newly painted interior.

The original Sunset Deli menu (teriyaki, salads, sandwiches) is still in place, and for vietnamese lunch, you've got some limited, not terribly cheap, options. We started with vietnamese iced coffee and their salad rolls, which they call fresh spring roll: filled with bbq pork (xa xiu), shrimp, vermicelli noodles, & mint. The presentation on these was gorgeous, and they really were the highlight of the meal. Though definitely not the best salad roll in town.

Next came our entrees, beef pho and lemongrass chicken. Like I said, the viet menu is short: 3 pho variants (beef, chicken or vegetarian, with no choices for meat), udon (huh?), curry, fried rice, papaya or mango salad, and lemongrass chicken or tofu. The presentation on these were also really lovely. And for a $6 small bowl of pho, it ought to be lovely.

The pho was disappointing. It came with a very small salad plate (though the broth was studded with lots of herbs), and the meat and rice noodles clumped to themselves. By the time the pho got to the table, the meat was an unidentifiable grey mass. And the broth was salty and thin, not rich and robust.

And the lemongrass chicken was also underwhelming. The sauce was tasty with that nice lemongrass citrusyness and slightly spicy, but the chicken itself tasted plain. The green beans were nice and crisp though. It seemed overpriced.

So, beautiful presentation, a little expensive for what it is, and okay but not memorable food.

More photos here

We went seeking pho, soup and bun. Pho Saigon is a pleasant restaurant with booths and tables, a large flat-screen TV, and a lot of lobsters on the wall. The menu is Vietnamese and Chinese, with most items given in English, Vietnamese and Chinese. I was a bit surprised at the prices: a small pho was $5.50, and a large was $8. But no matter.

We ordered salad rolls, fried prawns, a pho with meatballs and rare steak, BBQ pork wonton soup, BBQ pork bun, a thai iced tea, and a Vietnamese coffee with condensed milk.

The drinks, of course, came first: small, strong, and not terribly sweet. I prefer doing my own sweetening, so that was right up my alley.

Next, the salad rolls, which were very decent, stuffed with shrimp and BBQ pork. The dipping sauce was very thin, which made for a drip hazard. I decided to get okay with a drip (or three) on my shirt.

The fried shrimp were, well, not the best example of the craft. The shrimp were firm, sweet, and mediumsized, covered with a thick batter, which was still doughy and undercooked. They came with a classic chinese sweet and sour dipping sauce. The person who ordered them didn't end up eating them in the end.

Then came the entrees. The BBQ pork wonton soup was totally full of wontons and chinese BBQ pork—it was the winner of the table. The wontons were filled, it seems with BBQ Pork, so they were at the bottom, covered by an impressive array of BBQ pork slices. The person who ordered that slurped happily, ignoring the glares from the other side of the tabel.

The pho was a small bowl with both meatballs and sliced eye of round. I had ordered it children's style, without onions, but that had been lost in translation: they may well have given me extra onions. There was a salad plate that was small, but with very fresh ingredients with a full salad plate. The beef broth was okay, though definitely mild and a little underspiced, not the rich broth that I relish.

And the bun, or vermicelli bowls (a rice noodle salad with a fish-sauce dressing), was deemed okay, but terribly mild. It came with adorably cut carrots, and pickled daikon. And while it was deemed okay, the eater picked at it.

Now it could be that we just got lucky, and came in on a bad night. In spite of the parking lot being full, there were only a few tables full in the restaurant. Friends, with better palates than mine, certainly, have liked it. Next time through, I'll stick to the chinese noodle dishes.

Let me start right up front with my biases. I love Pho Van on 82nd, and would eat there every night of the week if I had the cash and someone to go with me. It's certainly not the only vietnamese restaurant I go to, but I love the combination of good food and serene atmosphere. And, they have a vespa and a bike rickshaw inside!

I had heard some less than steller reports about the new Pho Van on Hawthorne, so I went to check it out. Parking was a hassle. We get inside the doorway at 5:15, and there's already a crowd of people standing there. The space in front of the host/hostess stand is small, cramped, and dominated by a giant palm which is totally in my face while I wait. There's one host, and he's taking a phone order from some indecisive person.

After maybe 5 minutes, we get seated. Not too bad. The menu is the same as Pho Van's lunch menu—so an assortment of pho and other soups, appetizers, hand rolls, rice dishes, and bun. The place is close to full, and loud, with sound bouncing off the concrete floors, reverbing off the walls.

First comes the crispy vegetarian rolls, stuffed with all sorts of goodies including taro. They're greasy. But we're hungry, so we don't say anything, and it's not like anyone is checking up on us other than to come and shake our partially full beer bottles to see if they're empty. Yeah, thanks.

Then the main course come. I ordered one of the handrolls, with shrimp and chicken grilled on sugar cane: it's wonderful, but it's all cold. Is it supposed to be cold? I don't remember.

The bun, however, is supposed to be a constrast of cold crunchy vegetables, warm soothing rice noodles, the brace of fish sauce. It's all cold as well. My meal partner, who has worked at viet restaurants in the past, is very displeased with the bun. The noodles are clumpy, the beef is weird, etc. And so, ten minutes or so after the food is delivered, the waitress comes by to ask if everything is okay and gets an earful. She says, well the noodles are supposed to be cold. Hmmmm. She comps his meal, but it's clear she thinks we're PITA. My meal partner claims it's one of the worst vietnamese meals he's ever eaten, and leaves most of it there.

Maybe it was a bad night. Maybe we just had bad luck. Admittedly, I'm totally charmed by the 82nd Ave Pho Van. And while I'll go back to see if it was just bad luck, I'm not terribly motivated to make that soon.

When we went by on a Sunday afternoon, the lot was full. After we found a parking spot down the block (the neighbors must love them), we came into the restaurant and were greeted by the host/traffic director who authoritatively directed us to a table.

About half the restaurant was full, with about half Asian families, the other half speaking Russian, Spanish and English. That's a good sign.

The restaurant looks completely unchanged from when it was Pho Hung. It's a respectable, but not fancy, pho joint. The menu is similar to Pho Hung's as well: pho, noodle soups, bun, and rice plates, except it's all doublespaced and in large print. We ordered our usuals: salad rolls, 2 small pho with meatballs and eye of round (one children's style), and 2 iced coffees.

Immediately, the salad plate arrives. It's basil, sprouts, sliced jalapeno, and some lime quarters, and the basil and sprouts looked a smidge past their prime. No cilantro, no sawleaf. Almost as quickly, the salad rolls appear, with no side plates. We divvy up napkins. The salad rolls are okay, not great, again seeming a little tired.

We've just solved the napkin problem when the coffees arrive, old style: two glasses with ice and spoons, two cups with vietnamese drip filters. I'm not sure why, but both cups are covered with coffee grounds.

And then, the pho arrives. The entire process, from ordering to pho coming, probably took five minutes -- pretty normal. To my great pleasure, my pho did come without onions (children's style), but it was also without the eye of round.

The broth was the highlight. It's not the best in town to be certain, but it's certainly tasty enough. The small size is a pretty healthy serving, with a brick of rice noodles on the bottom, waiting to be teased out with your chopsticks.

In the end, for this speedy, filling meal, it was under $20. Then again, as I look at the receipts, I paid the wrong bill, so maybe... uh, who knows.

In front of the house, there's the pizza by the joint place, where you can get a slice or a sandwich and a beer or soda and sidle up to the counter. In the back, there's a lovely, tiny dining room that looks out on the back parking lot, but in spite of that, manages to be charming. There in the dining room, you can have table service and order off a menu.

Pizza by the slice has at least 4 pies ready for munching. The prices are in the $2-$3 range for slices. They also have 4 salads ($4-$7), 4 panini, 4 heros, and 4 cold sandwiches ($6.50-$8.25), and out of each of those categories, one is vegan, and most offer a lacto-ovo veg option as well. All the sandwiches come with soup (a good vegan minestrone or a soup of the day), the house salad, or a pasta salad. They have 13 different wines by the class ($5-6.50), and 6 different beers on tap ($3-$3.75).

We ordered the Italian Job, a huge cold sandwich made of sopressato, capicola, provolone, roasted peppers, pepperoncini, tomato, red onion, lettuce, oil and vinegar on ciabatta, with the minestrone. Also, the Maspeth: fresh mozzarella, tomato, basil pesto with prosciutto on como, with a side caesar, and a pepperoni slice.

The pepperoni slice was pretty good. Pizza by the slice always tastes worse than a fresh hot pie, and that can't be helped. But the crust was crunchy and crackery, the sauce was not overabundant, but prominent, the pepperoni was good, and the cheese was okay. Still, for pizza by the slice, this was mighty good.

The Italian Job was one of those sandwiches that is so tall, it ought not fit into your mouth. Everything in it tasted zingy, tasty and fresh. The ciabatta roll from Grand Central was the perfect foil: crusty but not too crusty.

The caesar was good. Slightly undressed, which I'd rather, and some restraint with the shredded parmesan and the croutons. The Maspeth was Caprese-esque in ingredients only, though the gooey, stringy mozzarella was a delight, especially with the pesto. The roma tomato was okay, it wasn't as bad as most sandwich tomatoes out of season, though I'd rather just wait til summer. The proscuitto kinda disappeared into the sandwich.

Brunch is served on Saturday and Sundays, with prices from $5.75-$12.50, and with entrees ranging from breakfast pizza, panini, a scramble, some omelets, a tofu scramble, and polenta with buffalo brisket!

The sitdown menu has a pile of yummy-sounding Italian appetizers ($3.50-$9), a handful of pastas ($7-$13.25), and some specialties ($9-$10) like lasagne and ravioli and risotto. Of course, there are also pizzas ($9-$23), including the most decent sounding vegan pizza I've ever heard of: a white bean & roasted red pepper spread topped with tempeh (I'd pass on that) and veggies. They offer red sauce, alfredo, garlic & olive oil and pesto as bases (as well as the white bean/roasted red pepper spread), and they even offer a clam pie.

So, we went back for dinner. This was not as good of an experience.

Now, before I go any further, let me say that I know folks who have had great experiences on the sitdown side of the restaurant. It just sounds like I got unlucky. But lo, this could happen to you!

Right off the bat, we order drinks, and my Fino Fizz comes back to the table with Chambord rather than limoncello. We placed our order, for a large spinach salad, a pasta carbonara, and a house lasagne (not to be confused with the special lasagne). Our salad came quickly, lightly dressed and quite good. The fresh baby spinach leaves were tossed with tiny tiny bits of candied walnuts, cubes of roma tomato, and ricotta salata. Then began our long wait.

It appears, if you order a pizza, it will come out quite quickly. We watched two tables who had ordered well after us get their pizzas and finish them before we got our pastas. I'm estimating a wait of about 40 minutes between ordering, and pasta arriving at the table.

It should be noted that the pizzas looked really good.

As noted on the menu, the carbonara was cream-based, and was fairly garlicky. That's not traditional, but I didn't mind it. The pancetta was well carmelized, and the peas were peas.

The lasagna was made with housemade sausage, which were all the size of really small hail, or smaller. It really didn't taste unlike lasagna you can get at the grocery store.

Both pastas were accompanied by several slices of really stale Grand Central bread—so stale that I could barely bite through it.

Several times during the meal, someone would haul trash or recycling through the dining room. At several points, I could smell cigarette smoke, even though the dining room is non-smoking... maybe coming from the bar?

Service was an issue the entire meal. For the majority of the meal, there were three tables and two servers, which I suppose explains why my water glass was dry for twenty minutes. At one point when the server did come into our orbit, I asked for a glass of beer and she asked if she could take the remainder of my drink (I had maybe a quarter of it left). I had asked for the beer then because it had been about 15 minutes since she had been at the table, and it wasn't unreasonable to believe they'd leave me there with both an empty water and empty drink glass.

I watched as this same server brought tasters of red wine out to a neighboring table and then couldn't remember which was pinot and which was chianti.

This was a big disappointment after our great lunch the day before. Our dinner experiment cost us $55 after tip. So my recommendation to you is, go for pizza or sandwiches. The pizzas are really tasty.

Rodney Muirhead, of LOW BBQ fame, is back. You better believe it. In this tiny storefront next to a taqueria, a subtle, unpretentious and sometimes chilly dining room awaits. So, okay, wear long underwear. Or get your meal to go. It should be fixed soon, if not already.

The menu, these days, is pretty simple. Openers include their wedge salad and Texas style chili. The wedge is just that: a wedge of iceberg lettuce dressed in homemade bleu cheese dressing and scallions. Simple and so very delicious. The chili reminds me most of red pozole, made without hominy, and with lots of brisket. Delicious, and very spicy. My one complaint is that it comes in a very small cup.

The entrees are what you might expect: brisket, pork ribs, beef sausage, pulled pork, and more, with two sides. The sides are cornbread, coleslaw, beans, and potato salad.

The meats, for the most part, are exquisite. Okay, so the sausage is not as good as you'd hope, but the brisket and pulled pork are really scrumptious, with a little bark and very tender. The sides are a work in progress: on two different visits, we had different styles of cornbread and beans, so maybe I shouldn't comment on them? The initial beans were borracho style, in a decious meaty broth, and the second time, they were more like baked beans.

Lunch has some sandwiches: whatever meats were smoked the day before: probably pulled pork, brisket, smoked turkey, plus ribs and the wedge salad. For $8, you can get a sandwich, a side, and a pop.

The lunch—well, there's nothing not to love. The sandwiches are piled high with slow roasted meats, and they come plain, with a side of pickled carrots, jalapenos and onions, and another side of sauce. And they are really good enough to eat without sauce.

You can wash all of this down with some pop, some fancy soda, or beer. They do have some on tap. And follow up with some pecan pie.

So... great BBQ or greatest BBQ? Arguably, the sides are better at Ken's Place-LOW BBQ. The issue of meat is going to require some investigation. But of places that serve BBQ more than one night a week, Podnahs is above and beyond anybody else in town.

Podnah's is one of my favorite places for lunch or dinner. And now, it's one of my favorite places for breakfast.

Beginning Saturday, October 6, Podnah's will be serving weekend breakfasts from 8am - 1pm.

I was lucky enough to get a preview and man, this is some mighty fine grub. The menu is short. The copy I have has four entrees plus drinks. But, man, I love the fact that he's narrowing in on what he's good at.

Here's the menu (current last week, your mileage may vary):

Biscuits & Gravy $5.50, with 2 eggs $7
Smoked Trout Hash $7.50, with 2 eggs $9
Ham, Grits & Eggs $8
Kolaches $2 each
Coffee $2
Fresh OJ $3
Mimosa $4.50

Both biscuits & gravy and grits are foods that are often really fantastic at home, and really underwhelming in restaurants. There are really very few restaurants in town that do either well. But if anyone can do these well, I think it would be Podnahs. And they do.

We ordered the Biscuits & Gravy, and Ham, Grits and Eggs, and each of them were excellent. The biscuits and gravy were your classic country gravy, studded with big pieces of breakfast sausage. The gravy was excellently seasoned, and honestly, it's the best gravy I've had outside my own. The biscuits were simultaneously crisp and flaky. As well as golden brown and delicious. Yum.

The Ham, Grits and Eggs, were a big slice of really decent ham, with really wonderfully creamy grits, and eggs any style. I ordered them soft scrambled, and they were quite creamy too. The grits were just plain great -- rich, and humble and wonderful -- one of the better grits I've had in a restaurant.

We sat next to someone who was having the Trout Hash, who said that he just couldn't order anything but the Trout Hash because it was so good. I would have asked to have a bite, but I think that he might have assaulted me.

Anyways, who knows what Rodney will have this weekend, except I expect that biscuits & gravy and grits will play some sort of role.

I didn't come up with this definition, but when you hear family restaurant, you need to abandon hope that the food will be anything better than edible.

When I first moved to Portland, my ex used to drag me to Poor Richard's in Hollywood. We'd sit in the bar, order a stiff drink and a steak, and each time I'd realize that I had blocked out the previous visits and how awful it was.

Similarly, recently, I was thinking that it wasn't all that bad. Sadly, I was wrong.

Poor Richard's has a dining room and a lounge. The dining room is shabbily colonial, with tables here and there of large family gatherings and elderly folks. We didn't visit the lounge, but I'm sure it was probably a little less comatose.

The claim-to-fame for Poor Richard's is their two-fers: order two of the same thing for one low price! You have a choice of tenderloin ($21.95-$32.95), top sirloin ($20.45-$27.45), cod fish & chips ($21.95), pork loin ($19.95), and three different styles of chicken ($19.95). Admittedly, you save a buck or two off the menu price, but realistically, these aren't incredibly cheap prices. Even the single menu prices aren't cheap.

We ordered a couple beers (the hefeweizen was fine, but less popular beers weren't quite right), an appetizer of Teriyaki Grilled Chicken Strips ($5.95), and the 8oz top sirloin. The chicken strips were speedy and quite tasty.

Dinners include your choice of

cole slaw, tossed salad or soup of the day, garlic bread, choice of baked potato (after 4:00pm), seasoned french fries or rice pilaf, coffee and tea and soft vanilla ice cream. All dinner items are cooked to order.

We were quite hungry and our waitron quite accommodating—we consumed multiple small baskets of garlic bread. The cole slaw arrived, a perfectly round scoop with a big round slice of pickled beet laid against it. The cabbage was cut into tiny tiny pieces and the dressing was too sweet.

Not long afterwards came our steaks. I ordered a loaded baked potato and they took me at my word—it was the highlight of the meal for me. The steaks—eh? Tough, gristly, overcooked. Admittedly, when a steak costs $15, I'm not expecting much, but there are plenty of great steaks at the $20 mark, and good steaks at $15. Just not here.

I'm usually a good eater, but the potato was all I could finish.

With tip, it was over $50, which is straying into special-occasion territory. And while the people watching is excellent, I can't recommend this for a special occasion.

• BarFly

Nick Zukin, aka ExtraMSG, has created this great restaurant and market resource for newcomers and townies alike.

The tip sheet breaks restaurants down by style (American, Bakeries, BBQ, Breakfast, Chinese & Korean, Chocolates, Desserts, French, Greek & Middle-Eastern, Hamburgers, Ice Cream, Indian, Italian, Latin-American, Mexican, Mexican-American, Northwest Cuisine, Pizza, Seafood, Special Occasion, Sushi/Japanese, Thai, and Vietnamese) and by neighborhood (downtown, the Pearl, NW, NoPo, Inner NE, Restaurant Row/28th/NE, Sunnyside SE, Division/Clinton SE, Sellwood/Westmoreland/John's Landing, outer SE [82nd & Montavilla], Vancouver, and Westside/Washington County), and markets by category (Asian, Farmer's, Gourmet/Organic, Latin, Meat, and Wine).

He has links to online resources, listings of under- and over-rated restaurants, and perhaps the best thing: a list of Sunday and Monday options. The latter I go back to again and again.

Here's how he describes it.

This tip sheet is primarily intended for people who are new to Portland or just visiting and want a few quick recommendations. It may also be useful to people who are looking to explore a cuisine for the first time or who don't get beyond their own neighborhood often. It's not meant to be comprehensive. Nor is it intended to always give the best three in each category. Some restaurants may be both among the best American restaurants and the best breakfast restaurants, perhaps. However, they will only be listed in one category. Also, there is some attempt to add variety in each category, giving both upscale and downscale options, for example, or variety in location or style. However, each should be among the better, and possibly best, choices in Portland for that category.

Okay, so I didn't eat in the dining room. I had a catered lunch at a meeting.

When I think of catered meals, even from nice places, I think of premade sandwiches wrapped in saranwrap and steamtable fare. My expectations are lowered. I'm happy if anything tastes at all like the original foodstuff.

But I was much impressed with the Red Star. I'm writing this from the standpoint of if I had eaten in the dining room: those were my expectations. And they were met, ably.

Much to my surprise, we were offered a smaller version of the lunch menu. Appetizers range from $6-13, and we tried a clam chowder, crab-salmon cakes, a beet soup, grilled asparagus salad, a caesar, and a roasted beet salad. The presentation was gorgeous, and everything I tried was excellent and nuanced.

For the entree, there were a range of choices: salmon, cheeseburger, fish and chips, quesadilla, chicken breast sandwich, prime rib french dip, new york steak, and mac-n-cheese ($10.50-$24)—we tried all but the first two. Again, beautiful. The mac-n-cheese was as good as a homemade version, with a nice crust. The steaks were thick and grilled to order, and so flavorful. Everyone else raved about their food, and everything looked so good, enough to make you think, maybe I should have ordered that.

We also had dessert—also lovely and tasty.

My lunch, if I had paid for it, would have been $30. Was it worth it? Yeah, I think so. The atmosphere of the place is definitely business lunch, but the food was good. And was beautiful. I don't know that I'd be going there every month, but once every year or so? Why not?

Like other denizens of the east side, I'd go past the space at 1000 SE 12th, just up the block from the Basement pub, and wonder, WTF? Is it a cult headquarters? Gastronaut told me it was a tavern, but I was still sure that it was like a Chunk666 World Headquarters with some cash.

It was clearly open for business so we went in.

The patio is nice and funky. They had tons of umbrellas and other shady things out so no one was broiling in the sun unless they wanted to be. There were beautiful plantings next to beautiful junk, and a bike rack. We had just spent way too much time outdoors, so we went inside. That was also comfy and funky.

They appear to just have a tavern license -- wines by the glass, and a couple beers on tap. The taps rotate, but when we were there, they had PBR, Deschutes Mirror Pond Pale Ale, Mt. Hood's Ice Axe IPA, and Lompoc's LSD. We helped ourselves to icy cold water, and each had a beer. The food menu appears to be mostly grilled meats and veg on a stick.

Our beers were $3.50 each, and the food menu appeared pretty reasonable: you could spend $10 on something but you'd have to work at it.

CLOSED 12/31/2006

I was drawn to Rose & Thistle by the patio. They have a lovely patio out back, just round patio tables with umbrellas and plastic chairs. There's lots of greenery around though—it's quite pleasant.

As Portland's only Scots pub, Rose & Thistle is quite a bit like you might except, and you would be right. There's draft beer, single malt scotch, darts, and scottish food, most frighteningly the Authentic Scots Egg (hard boiled egg wrapped in pork sausage, then deep-fried). You can hear your arteries slamming shut when you bite into one of those babies, but they are yummy.

Know this: when the Scottish gentlemen come into RaT, they don't order food.

They serve their draft beer in 20 oz imperial pints. Last night they had:
-Guinness
-Boddingtons
-Stella Artois
-Blackthorn Cider
-Mirror Pond IPA
-Amnesia Porter
-Widmer Hefeweizen
-Drop top Amber
-Lagunitas IPA
-PBR
-Miller Lite
and they have two rotators, which last night were
-New Belgium Skinny Dip
-Widmer Broken Halo IPA

Service is quite friendly but can be glacial. In addition to the scotch egg, they also have sausage rolls and haggis on the starter menu. The sausage rolls aren't the best in town, but they are a decent snack. Most mealy things are in the $8-$13 range, but I've had nothing worth writing home about.

People speak fondly of the burger here, and it is beautiful. However, if you like it cooked to order, don't bother ordering it here.

The HVAC system keeps the smoke away from the non smokers fairly well. There is also a video crack closet.

Rose's is an ice cream parlor that has been in the same family for the last 35 years or so. They used to have a shop on NE Fremont, right about where Fife is now. They make their own ice cream, and what's not to love about that? I knew they had burgers on the menu, and I knew they had applied for an OLCC license, so we headed on down.

They are in where Chan's Palace used to be, and I was surprised to see both neon and a banner for video crack. You walk in and order at the counter. Or in our case, we waited at the counter until an adult came up to operate the cash register.

The menu is simple. Burgers, sandwiches, baskets, with the vast majority comprising of at least one deepfried element. We ordered the bacon cheese burger basket ($6.25 on the menu, we were charged $7.50), a side of mini corn dogs (7 in the order, $2.25, or about 32 cents each), and a fish sandwich basket ($5.75), as well as a chocolate malt ($4.25) and a Mirror Pond (beer and wine prices not posted). The bill was $23.

Now, I think this is as far as I have to go. The food was on par with Dairy Queen, or maybe a little worse. The square fish in the fishwich reminded me of my high school cafeteria.

But ice cream is really what shines here. The malt was great -- not as good as Little Red Bicycle's malted, but really a very good malt, an excellent example of the style.

I won't be going back for dinner any time soon unless I'm really broke. But for ice cream, sure thing. They have about 2 dozen flavors, most made with 6% milkfat, but about a half dozen of them are extra rich, at 14% butterfat.

entree range: $3.50-8.05
median entree cost: $5.75
vegetarian options: grilled cheese basket ($4)

It's a large place, so unlike some other wonderful brunch places, you are much less likely to have to wait in line. Once seated, coffee and other beverages, like their beautiful bloody marys and champagne cocktails, are brought with amazing efficency.

This is the thing about Roux: the service aims high. And for the most part, succeeds.

A version of the menu is on their website (sadly, not up to date). It's made up of oysters; starters, soups and salads; benedicts; eggs and omelettes; brunch & morning treats. If you really want a treat, try their 4 course French Quarter brunch for $25: bread & fruit, oysters or shrimp fritters, benedict or omelette with a side of meat, and beignets.

While I appreciate in theory the idea of that sort of decadence, I don't have the necessary restraint to take part in something like that.

So we start with shrimp fritters with spicy remoulade ($8). It's shrimp, it's fritters, what's not to like? 5 light-as-air fritters make up the serving, golden brown and no sign of grease. Mmm.

I don't know what they do with their eggs, but if you are an egg fan, you've got to have them here. It doesn't matter if you get them over-easy, scrambled or in an omelette: they are just amazingly good. The best we've had anywhere in a month of Sundays: really fresh, really tasty, just incredibly eggy. We had them over easy and scrambled soft and that's the way they came. The scrambled eggs were so creamy. We asked the waitress what was in them, but never really got an answer.

Two free range eggs with home fries, toast and meat is $8. My consort loved the home fries, while I couldn't be bothered with them. The toast comes with a little homemade-tasting jam (yesterday's was strawberry). The andouille was house-made and very smokey—in fact, it overwhelmed the other seasonings.

The chicken fried steak ($12) was tender and melt-in-your-mouth good. The sausage gravy was easily the best sausage gravy I've had in town in a restaurant, but it was salty.

The mushroom omelette ($9) was loaded with mushrooms and little cubes of bacon.

I really liked the white cheddar grits there. A serving is $3, generous, and just really good.

The wait staff kept our coffee and waters full. We sat a table down from an Oregonian photographer so it was great fun to watch the dishes come out, and watch her work. Presentation is really nicely done here. And the drinks: especially the bloody mary and the sparkling wine with a douced sugar cube made me wish I had an excuse to drink in the morning.

The place filled quickly -- by the time we left at 11:45 or so, the place was almost totally full. The prices are so reasonable: if you stay reasonable and don't order 5 things, like we did, and don't order alcohol, you can easily get out of there for under $15 a person. I totally didn't see the 4 courser, but if I had, well, yikes. As it was, I brought well over half my meal home.

So, it's not totally perfect, but it's awfully good, and the service was really really lovely. I love the Simpatica gang, but I also loved never running dry on fluids at Roux.

I'll admit, I've been a little, um, reluctant to try Russell Street BBQ, the barbecue joint where Doris Cafe was. I have all sorts of wonderful memories of meals at Doris, back in the olden days when Doris was good, and children respected their parents... My friends assured me that there was good fries, and a fried chocolate pie, and Citysearch assured me that the mac and cheese was good. So what was I waiting for?

Russell Street is all about the groovy ingredients and a dining room that's kinda kitchy-generic. Many smiling pigs. Rubbed, smoked, grilled tofu. They have Laurelwood beers on tap, as well as a decent list of bottled/canned beers. So we ordered our beer and an appetizer of hush puppies.

This is when I should have known that this was not going to be a good meal. Our waiter forgot one of the beer orders on the way from our table, right next to the kitchen, to the kitchen. Sweet tea, however, was refilled on a hourly basis.

We each ordered the meatapalooza, a selection of three meats and two sides. Between the three of us, we covered a bunch of the bases: pulled pork, pork ribs, brisket, beef ribs, and smoked sausage; macaroni & cheese, cole slaw, greens, fries and potato salad. In spite of asking for one plate saucefree, they all came doused in sauce when they came some 40 minutes after ordering. Maybe 20 minutes after ordering, our waiter came back and—wait for it!—asked what one of us had ordered. Which makes me think that perhaps he had forgotten to turn in our order.

While they gave us lots of food, this was nothing to write home about. The brisket came chopped—what is that about? The smoked sausage, a quarter pound link from Yoakum, Texas, tasted like a giant hot dog. I like hot dogs, but, umm.... The ribs, unexceptional. The sauce, eh. The fries were good, but not the best in the neighborhood. The mac & cheese was nothing to write home about. The greens were salty and had a bitter edge, almost an off flavor. The cornbread was southern style, and cakey. And where was the white bread?

I asked for a box, so the waiter boxed my food, then dropped the boxes on the floor, and asked if I still wanted them. I don't know why that bothered me so much. I ordered the fried chocolate pie. Yes, it's deepfried, so it ought to be good. And it's filled with bittersweet chocolate ganache. And it was deepfried, and it was filled, though it seemed filled with Hershey's syrup. I'm sure it was more than that, but that's what I tasted.

So. Food, okay though underwhelming. Service, laughably bad. Will I go back—nah.

And really, that's a good thing. It makes that meal a special event, which is nice given that I, and perhaps you, eat out entirely too much.

So. Simpatica. I've only been for brunch, but it's one of those things that stands out. Not only is it the best breakfast you've had all week, it might be the best meal period.

First of all, all the meats come from Viande, which conveniently enough is their meat shop. Yum.

Every week, the menu changes. Prices range from $8-$10. Some things stay, like belgian waffles, chicken and waffles, and biscuits and gravy. So, with something like chicken and waffles, where the fried chicken is the best in town, and the waffles come with a fruit or berry based syrup (or regular maple syrup if you'd prefer), it's easy to get into a rut, and order it every week. A wonderful, magical rut!

But you are rewarded for trying the new stuff too. There's always a frittata, a hash, and crepes. There's always the breakfast sandwich, the cheeseburger, and the philly cheese steak.

I've had the cheese steak: best in town. The cheeseburger may well be the best too—if only it came with french fries. And, I've tried everything else that was close enough for me to stab, and everything, everything has been superb. Every meal there has been memorable and delicious.

They serve Stumptown Coffee, bloody marys, mimosas, wine, beer and cocktails, to ease your way into the morning.

So what's the drawback, other than it just happening on Sundays? Well, Bon Appetit named Simpatica one of the Top 10 hot new restaurants in the US for 2006 (June 2006), and so the lines waiting for breakfast have just increased. Now everyone knows about it. Gee, thanks!

The room is loud, and in the best of circumstances, you have your choice of a 4-top or a communal table. That said, you may meet some new folks.

Slow Bar is a sophisticated small room, with some tall womblike booths, a comfie seating area, a couple tables, and of course, a lovely long bar which dominates the room. It can be smoky, but early on in the evening, it's not too bad for those of us who have given up the cancer sticks.

Originally, the focus at Slow Bar was hard alcohol, and I think it's fair to say that it's still important, but us beer drinkers have been recognized as well. Taps now include:

• Widmer
• Droptop Amber
• Deschutes Buzzsaw Brown
• Deschutes Mirror Pond Pale Ale
• Deschutes Inversion IPA
• Lagunitas Censored
• PBR
• Murphy's Irish Stout
• Pilsner Urquel
• Stella Artois
• Widmer Hefeweizen

In honor of the bar's heritage, I got a strawberry margarita, made with house infused tequila. Yum. The drink menu had prices from $5-$7.50.

The food menu is short, irreverent, and fairly inventive. I have to love a place that offers fries with "melted stinky cheese". They have appetizers ($3.50-$7), and other stuff like ceviche, pizzetta, pasta, and sandwiches ($5-9.50). A handful of the options are vegetarian, and another couple involve fish.

But the best part, really, is happy hour. 3-6pm. $2.50 off well drinks, $1 off beer.

Happy hour also has a short food menu, with prices ranging from $2.50-$5.50. That includes olives, spicy mixed nuts, hand cut fries (with or without stinky cheese), green salad, ceviche, asparagus tempura, southern fry, and 3 pizzettas.

We ordered a couple of southern fries (hushpuppies, buttermilk fried chicken, a spicy honey butter, and a dijon dipping sauce), a ceviche, and a plate of fries.

The southern fry ($7.50, or $5.50 happy hour) is not a huge plate, but there's enough artery-clogging food here to at least slow you down. The chicken is all white meat, and in tenders-like chunks, then batter-dipped and deep fried, and honestly, I felt like I was eating fancy chicken fingers. Which isn't a bad thing. The hushpuppies were a little leaden, but they were nicely made inhalable with the spicy honey butter.

The ceviche ($7.50, or $5 happy hour) was a success as well—nothing that would compare, say, with D.F. or Taqueria Neuve or Andina or Autentica, but tasty and generous. And the hand-cut fries ($4.50, or $2.50 happy hour) are just that. They're obviously hand-cut into small planks and single-fried, so they aren't crisp, but in spite that, they're really tasty.

And because everything on the happy hour menu seemed so cheap, we just kept ordering, and that is how we came to spend $35 on a happy hour meal. We had a great experience, however, and we'll be back.

The one weird thing is the music situation. They have a great punk rock jukebox, and they'd be playing something cool off it, and then suddenly some other "music" would cut in. WTF?

Other Press:
• Bar Fly
• Isaac Laquedem
• Portland Picks
• Willamette Week

Our 9th Annual "Last Rite of Winter" Beer Tasting Event! Friday March 17th 6 P.M.

It's time to say good-bye to the most special beers of the season, that traditionally throughout the world, brewers originally made to share with their friends and family. I'm beginning to sense a trend that many of these rare, small, seasonal brews are too much trouble for wholesalers to bring in; I hope this not the case. We'll taste around 30 brews with beer sausage (slow simmered in winter beer) on a bun, plus all you can eat chips, popcorn, and pretzels. $20 Cover.

Berlin Inn is on its last day (today, Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!) of its Stark Bier Fest. They are offering tastings of:

- Ayinger Celebrator Dopplebock
- Doppel-Hirsch Dopplebock
- Aventinus Wheat Dopplebock
- Paulaner Salvator
- Weltenburger Kloster Asam Bock
- Castle Eggenberg Urbock
- Amnesia Dubbel
- Spaten Optimator
- Bayern Dopple
- St Martin Dunkler Doppelbock

We tried tasters of the Amnesia Dubbel and the Bayern Dopple with breakfast. Those are both on tap, natch, (everything else is bottled, me thinks) and wow -- really nice. Really really nice. May have to go back this afternoon for more.

There are several things that divide Takahashi lovers, and Takahashi haters. One, they're out way out east. The fish quality isn't phenomenal. And finally, they make some Americanized sushi.

That said, the Takahashi is adorable. It has, of course, the sushi bar, where you can watch Mr. Takahashi and a collection of younger men at work, and that is definitely the best place to sit if there's just a couple of you. There are also tables, of course. A miniature train runs (sometimes) on a track above the dining room, and Japanese gee-gaws are everywhere.

The real high points of the Takahashi are the ala carte tempura choices, cooked sushi (for folks who don't care for raw fish), and low prices—especially on Wednesdays, when everything is discounted.

When you are seated, you'll get your tea and hot scented towels. I'm never sure what to do with the towels, but I like the idea.

You have your choice of three menus. The first is the goofy, hand-written laminated menu of appetizers and entrees. There are fried, rice, yakisoba, pot stickers, miso soup, sukiyaki, udon, a number of combo plates and ramen—I admit, however, that I come to the Takahashi for tempura and sushi, and it's those menus that I pay attention to.

As you might expect, the tempura and sushi menus are forms to fill out, on your table. The tempura choices are many: 16 different vegetables (including tofu! who knew? $1-$1.50), 10 types of seafood and fish ($2.50-$3, softshell crab, $8), and chicken ($2), and beef ($3). So if you'd only like to order, say, kabocha (japanese squash), onion ring, nasubi (japanese eggplant), lotus, several types of mushrooms, banana, kisu (japanese whitefish), snapper and chicken, that's what you get—two pieces of each.

The sushi menu is a great primer for Japanese food newbies: everything is spelled out. They offer nigiri (sushi on pillows of rice, $2.50-$5 for 2 pieces), and maki (sushi wrapped in rice, and then rolled in nori, $2.50-$7), and the menu indicates if the fish is raw or not. Nearly half the menu is cooked maki or nigiri.

There are also specials, which generally top out at $3.50.

Purists will be upset, surely, about the use of sweet chili sauce, Sriracha, chicken tempura, mayonnaise, and especially cream cheese. But, hey, you can get natto here.

Vegetarians have a lot of options in the tempura menu and 9 options on the sushi menu (tamago nigiri [egg & sugar omelette], kappa maki [cucumber], avocado nigiri, inari [fried tofu pocket stuffed with sushi rice], natto handroll [aged soybeans], picked daikon radish maki, shea maki [avocado, cream cheese & cucumber], spicy daikon radish sprouts, and su maki [avocado, cream cheese & asparagus].

They offer hot and cold sake, naturally, Japanese and American beers, and wine: plum or white.

The downside to the Takahashi, other than the drive, is the service. It's really erratic, going from great one visit to awful on another. The other night when we visited, it took 45 minutes to get our sushi and tempura, and from the guilty look we got from the waitress, it wasn't the kitchen's fault. It gave us lots of time to try origami (directions and paper are on each table) and learn it wasn't our style.

This is why it's best to sit at the sushi bar. You always have entertainment and your food comes faster.

The prices are great, but it still ends up being expensive unless you show some control. This last visit cost us $50—not the most we've spent here, and not the least.

The place is small but cute, and obviously professionally designed. Lovely art lines the bright walls, and the glassware and china and nice and unexpected.

The breakfast menu is short: one page, made up of Huevos a la Mexicana, Huevos Rancheros, Omelet Poblano, Omelet de Carnes, Desayuno (typical american breakfast), and Burrito de Desayuno, ranging from $5.75-$6.50.

We ordered the ranchero and the Omelet Poblano. Everything on the menu (except the burrito) comes with potatoes and toast, but when we saw the owner having his breakfast with rice and beans, we asked for that on the side of one of the plates. Meanwhile, we drank good coffee out of smallish cups, and had okay orange juice.

As usual, we drained the coffee and water quickly. I didn't wait long before they were replenished the first time. The next time came as we were paying the bill.

The ranchero was fine. Not the best we've had but at least more typical than most in town. A round two sunny-side up eggs topped a tortilla and then was covered with a tasty pureed sauce. The eggs and sauce were good, but the tortilla was this knife resistant thing on the bottom of the plate, which didn't want to be eaten with the eggs.

However, the potatoes. Not seasoned, not browned, tasting of nothing.

The omelet was also fine. It was topped with the aforementioned diced poblano, and the interior of the omelet was the mild chili-onion-tomato stew that the menu says gives Mexican food its characteristic taste with some mushrooms and cheese. Of course, we were expecting more poblano, so that was a disappointment. The rice and beans, also fine, though not exciting. I learned after the fact that the beans are vegetarian, which explains why they weren't unctuous, but doesn't explain why they were underseasoned.

We finally flagged someone down to ask when they open, and we didn't really get an answer. 10am, maybe? Sorry!

The menu also has a reasonably priced lunch, with many vegetarian options, and a much-more expensive dinner ($10-$16 for entrees), with no vegetarian entrees. The menu that I have shows the usual beers, though I'm told that they don't have beer yet.

In the end, I'm not sure I'd go back. Autentica is yummy, and while they also have service problems at times, they're yummy. With 21st, there's the parking issues, and the food just wasn't that exciting.

Thai Noon is the oldest Thai restaurant on Alberta Street. When you consider that Alberta was all but deserted a dozen years ago, you know it hasn't been there so long. But it appears to be holding its own against Thai newcomers like fancy Siam Society, and newbies Halo Thai and Monsoon.

They don't have the hugest menu, and like a lot of Thai food in Portland, it's sweet without the balance of heat. However, they're fast, generous, and consistent, and just about everything on the menu can be ordered vegetarian.

Tonight we ordered chicken salad rolls ($2 for $3.75), which came immediately. They were premade, but not old, and they actually did have a bit of spice to them.

We had barely finished these when our noodles came. Their pad thai may not be the best in town, but it's sure not bad—a generous portion dotted with protein. Pad Kee Mao was also large, and yummy even if it wasn't hot and spicy enough.

You can get a cocktail ($4.50-$8) from the connected My Thai (groan!) Lounge, most with super cheezy names. There is also beer on tap: Widmer Hefeweizen, PBR, Bridgeport IPA, and Black Butte Porter.

There is a special Specials sheet that comes, along with the menu, which also has specials. Seven appetizers range from $3.50-$7, two soups (tom yum and tom kha—$7.50-$9), and three salads for $6.25.

Entrees include a dozen curries and stir-fries, three noodles, and two fried rices, for $7.50 vegetarian, $8 with chicken, beef or pork, and $9 with shrimp. You can swap in organic rice for $2 more. And the eight menu specials include a couple salmon dishes ($7.50-$12).

Finally, there are lunch specials (M-F 11:30-3) too—10 different entrees served with chicken or tofu for $5.50.

I'm not sure whether to be reverent or adolescent about this. While I am a great lover of cheese, this just... well, of course there's a cheese conference. Of course there is. The especially great thing about this for Dairy Queens like myself is that a number of high-end restaurants in town are getting in on the competition. Should be interesting, if you like cheese. (and admittedly, I could like it a little less)

The American Cheese Society Annual Conference and Competition offers a unique opportunity to learn the latest about cheese in America and indulge your cheese fantasies by tasting more than 700 American artisan and specialty cheeses.

If you are a specialty cheese professional - a cheesemaker or cheese retailer, a distributor or marketer, a food writer or chef - or an enthusiastic cheese-lover, you can't afford to miss this conference!

This almost-daily blog focuses on beer: home brew, brew news, brewpub and beer reviews, if it's about beer, it's here. And, because Jon lives in Bend, he talks about the wealth of good beers in these parts. It's a must read.

I tend to focus on Oregon a bit because, well, in addition to living here, Oregon has some fantastic beer.

more photos of Toast here
It's exciting that all these new breakfast spots are opening SoHo (south of Holgate. C'mon, it's better than FoPo, you've got to admit), and I've been spoiled by how good they are. So we walked into Toast: a Neighborhood Restaurant with some high expectations.

Reports are very good on the dinner there.

We were in for breakfast. Note one: it's small, and there was a wait. It opened a week ago, and there's a wait! I guess the neighborhood was ready for them.

But soon enough we were seated at the counter. I had my jacket under my butt and my purse hanging from my knee because there were no coat hooks, or stool backs. That's fine, as long as you don't have a coat or a purse. But there are foot rests on both the stools and the counter itself, so it could be much worse.

One thing I noticed right away that I liked. They offer beer, wine and mixed drinks ($5-7) to go with your breakfast... and some of the mixed drinks don't have alcohol ($3). That's brilliant! Why isn't everyone doing that? I mean, that's seriously a great idea.

So we ordered a Zero Gravity (ginger ale, OJ, splash of cranberry and orange zest) and a Conscious (pomegranate, lemon, lime, OJ and soda water). Both came in pint glasses, and both were very good.

Our waitress brought us by a monkey dish of two mini scones to munch as we looked at the food menu. And that's where my trouble began.

The menu has 12 entrees, and nothing really suited me. There were lots of mentions of members of the onion family on the menu, and I know most folks love onions. It's just not my thing. But just about everything that isn't vegetarian has pork: pork belly, griddle ham, cured pork, which seems kinda promising.

So we order a sausage turnover, the Benedict oh ($9), and the Golden Pig ($8.50). We're immediately told that they're out of the sausage turnovers, sadness.

The Benedict oh is soft poached eggs, housemade sausage patties, chard, and housemade english muffins with a bit of bearnaise sauce.

The Golden Pig is pork belly with three basil scrambled eggs & crispy shallots on a slice of toast.

So the food comes, and my first response is, what is this? I'm used to seeing breakfasts including some potatoes or some salad or some fruit. This is just the entree, by itself, seeming dwarfed by the whiteness of the dinner plate. It looks very small and spare. So I order a potato rosti ($2.50).

My benedict is an interesting idea, really. The housemade sausage is something I'd never order again, but I can imagine the benedict with chard and pork belly or cured pork could be really good.

The pig is tasty, but nothing out of the ordinary.

The rosti comes, onion-laden. Oh well.

$26.00 later, and we're out. And I have to wonder, with prices like those, if it will remain a neighborhood restaurant. True, breakfast entrees at Bar Carlo and Arleta Library are similarly priced, but just about everything is excellent at both, and your entrees will fill you up at either. And while I'm really not opposed to the small plates idea applied to breakfast, I want that small plate to be really good. Is that too much to ask?

Don't bother with the salads - proceed directly to the protein: chicken, cooked to order sirloin, lamb, roasted pork, salmon, prawns, or tofu. In addition to grilled meats, they now have a roaster, and yesterday's specials included roasted pork and rosemary roast chicken (which was really good). Add some perfectly steamed veg and white or brown rice, or—la pièce de résistance—garlic mashed potatoes. Maybe add some potstickers if you're feeling greedy, and you have enough food, delicious, luscious, wonderful food, for two meals. This, all, for usually less than $10.

The surroundings are fine, clean, cheerful, though tending to be full of business folks talking loudly on their cell phones. A condiment station has sauces (including a spicy peanut sauce that occasionally zaps ya) and seasonings, to-go boxes, and just about anything else you'll need. On nice days, you can sit outside at tables on the sidewalk, and the garage-like door opens and lets the fresh air in.

Drawbacks: this place is popular. It's not cheap. Getting to the ordering area involves stairs and there is no apparent wheelchair access. And those porcelain plates laiden with piles of food are heavy!! Still, the folks that work there are masters of customer service. I, who eat there maybe 4 or 5 times a year, was greeted like a regular; I dropped a fork and one of the guys runs over with a new one. Generally, you just feel a bit coddled: good food, nice service, a respite from work.

Veganopolis is an all vegan cafeteria in Portland, Oregon. For those of you who perhaps aren't clear about vegan cuisine, the method is simple: No animal products whatsoever are used in the kitchen; Our emphasis is on flavorful and nutritious soups, salads, sandwiches and vegan baked goods. We will also be serving fresh Illy coffee and espresso, juices, iced green tea and organic sodas.

Veganopolis is a nice combination of fake meat and fake cheese, and actual vegetablish entrees. This place is a gold mine for the lactose intolerant as well as raw foodies.

But how do omnivores who aren't crazy about vegetables do with it? Well, obviously enough, fine.

First, the web site. There are menus and they are up to date. The specials for today are posted in HTML. They have a weekday buffet from 11-3 of an entree and sides for 6.95 per pound. And a Saturday breakfast buffet for the same price.

Drinkwise, there's espresso, a cooler of drinks and beer, and fresh squeezed OJ. There's a selection of soup, salads, sides, and sandwiches, made with just about any type of fake meat you can think of. Prefer your protein in the form of tofu or almond pate or housemade cashew ricotta? Well, duh!

It's a lovely space with great light, wide open, wheelchair accessible. A couple tables outside allow you to enjoy the ambience of the neighboring Subway. There is also seating on the mezzanine, which gives you the opportunity to be secretive (or to look down upon the front kitchen/counter area).

With the exception of the daily raw platter, everything is under $7. I'm addicted to their seitan caesar sandwich on a ciabatta roll, which won't convince anyone that it's meat, but it's really tasty all the same. And I love the idea of the vegan BLT. Next time...

more photos of Vendetta

The interior is sleek and cool. There's a shuffleboard along one wall, and the two parallel glass garage doors make a pleasant dogtrot. Free wifi ensures at least a couple of laptop users.

There are three beers on tap: Rainier, Mirror Pond pale ale, and Lagunitas IPA. They have a number of bottled beers there as well. And of course wine and many options involving hard liquor.

They also have food: some snacks that are available anytime, between $2-$5, and main meals that are available between 4-11pm. We got the nachos ($5), mac and cheese ($5), and the sloppy joe ($6). None of this is pretentious, and indeed, all of it could use a little more seasoning, but it's perfect, filling food, when you are in need of inexpensive filling food.

The best part about Vendetta, however is its back porch and garden, also known as the smoking area. They have a rooved back porch that is big enough for a row of tables, and that of course looks out on the garden, which has paved areas with tables, and lots of benches for hanging out and socializing.

Vita Cafe is all about groovy for breakfast and lunch. The cover of the menu expresses their earnestness forthrightly: common meals, fair price, organic and local, free range, hormone free, dairy-, egg- and wheat-free.

Vita was the sister cafe to SE Belmont's Paradox Palace Cafe. Now they both have new owners and it will be interesting to see what the future brings.

The Vita is back, and you'd never know they were ever gone. We went in early on Sunday afternoon and the place was packed. Folks were even sitting outside in the sprinkles.

Vita has made its name for being vegan & carnivore friendly. You can get any number of animal-free dishes, or you can get a groovy hamburger. Breakfast can consist of eggs and potatoes, or tofu & rice, or really anything in between. Vegans and vegetarians love it: the food is plentiful and cheap, and you can have it with beer, wine or liquor.

Breakfasts range from $3-$9, and include corn cakes, scrambles, french toast, heuvos rancheros, & biscuits and gravy. 15 of the 24 breakfast items can be made gluten-free.

We ordered a couple old favorites: biscuits & gravy, heuvos rancheros, and NW corn cakes, plus a cup of black bean soup with homemade herb and onion bread.

The black bean soup was excellent and flavorful: a basic rendition, but a very nice one. The bread was a hit, with its slightly sweet crust and herby-oniony filling.

The heuvos rancheros were particularly creative. Fried tortillas curl up on the plate, covered by what tasted like vegan chili, eggs (or tofu), salsa, guac, and a cilantro-y vegan creme. If you were looking for something closer to authentic, well, you'll be disappointed, but the contrasts between the smooth and crunchy, the spicy and the bland, was very nice.

Biscuits with almond gravy has always been a favorite, and they just didn't taste as wonderful as I remembered. Maybe my tastes have changed? If I wasn't working from sentimentality, they probably would be fine, though the biscuit was a little heavy.

But the NW Corn Cakes do stand up to memory. Corn cakes, as big as a pancake, covered with toasted hazelnuts, and served with organic maple syrup. Yum.

Most folks around us were having lunch, and that looked good too. The fishwich, a deep fried square of tofu with lettuce, pickles and vegan tartar sauce, was very popular, as was the free range, hormone-free beef burgers and fries. Mac and cheese, made with vegan cheese, also appeared to be a big hit. Lunch prices top at $8, and dinner at $12 (with most entrees ringing in under $10), and nicely, the full up-to-date menu is online.

They have four beers on tap. And they have a Wednesday special, 5pm-close: $2 well drinks, $2 drafts, $5 cocktails, and $5 food specials on the fishwich, mac & cheese, grilled cheese, tofurky sandwich, or thai pasta. And, from 5-7pm, they have a $1 kids menu.

Definitely recommended for vegetarians and vegans.

Walking Man is a kickass brewery out of Stevenson, WA. They, like many brewpubs, have a number of selections that only get poured at their brewhouse. Except, the brewmaster is bringing some selections to Concordia Ale House for us! Including a oak-aged barrel of something good. Can you say firkin? Thought so. It's not going to last long so get there early.

We will be having a tasting on Sunday March 12th, from 3-6pm. The featured company will be Weltenburger from Germany, which is the oldest monastic (Kloster) brewer in the world, dating back to 1050. I think only Weihenstephan (at 1040) is older. We will be pouring five different styles of beer, from their Helles Lager to their Asam-Bock. The cost will be $7, which includes food. Very informal, walk-around tasting; hopefully, weather permitting, we will be able to have the back patio open.

Cost of the tasting will be $7. Time will be, as per usual, from 3 - 6pm.

more info: labodegapdx.com/events.html

I think all reviews of Wong's King are obligated to begin thusly:

There are other Wong's King, owned by the same family, but the only one you have to take seriously is Wong's King Seafood on SE Division in the new Chinatown. The ones in Sellwood, Sandy and Estacada? You'll get a decent American Chinese meal. But if you are looking for serious high-end Cantonese, get thee to WKS.

Dim sum, a competitive sport.

Word to the wise: have your whole party there when you're seated: if you hold seats for your flakey friends who don't show, you'll be personas non grata in the dining room. I know this sadly from experience. You can get away with this stuff at Fong Chong, but not here.

Within 10 minutes of being seated, every table in the large banquet hall is full. And the carts have already begun. I would have loved to have one of those picture menus so I could accurately name what we had. But everything we had was really good.

Some of the things we had:
-shumai
-shrimp dumplings
-chicken paws (feet)
-congee
-BBQ duck
-sesame balls
-han sui gok (pork in sweet sticky rice then deepfried)
-sticky rice in banana leaves
-spareribs
-ginger chicken
-humbow
-wu gok (mashed taro in sweet sticky rice then deepfried)
-shrimp dumplings with chives
-BBQ pork pastry
-shrimp paste on sugar cane
-deepfried shrimp balls
-shrimp in rice noodle
I admit being too greedy with the eating to take notes.

Whenever we needed something, be it a fork, 10 glasses of water, a glass of 7up, more shrimp in rice noodle, soy sauce and chili oil, we just asked one of the cart ladies, or one of the staffers gliding around the room, and our wish appeared in a matter of moments.

So we ate to a Mr Cresote level, all of it delectable, and for ten people, it was $86. So it was $10 plus change per person.

Eating off the dinner menu is a little more intimidating.

A great start to a meal is ordering a BBQ plate (we've had the duck, pork and duchess chicken and they were all good) and some soup. Even old standbys like wonton and hot and sour soups are really something altogether better.

We ordered several seafood dishes, one a suggestion and another a memory of another meal at WKS, and they were both very good—not what we had expected, but something better entirely.

Most entries ring in within a couple bucks of $10 and portions are generous. For $50 including tip and a beer, two of us ate to bursting, and brought some food home.

Other Press:

• Hidden in Plain Sight: Wong's King Seafood
• Portland Food and Drink
• Royal Dumplings: A new Southeast Portland outpost of Chinese cuisine does dim sum right
  Nancy Rommelmann, Willamette Week, 1/26/2005

more photos

The hot dog here is all-beef with a satisfying snap, served on a toasted bun. You can substitute veggie and turkey dogs for no extra charge; or a red hot, cheese filled, or sausage of the day for a buck more (when we were there, it was linguisa). The red hot is a nice variation, with enough spice to make you take notice. You can get the usual salad dog, chicago stylee, or a Coney Island, as well as more unusual toppings like olives, salsa, cucumbers, sour cream, and cream cheese. Try a red hot St. Peppers if you are a bit of a tiger. Prices range from $2.50-$4.50.

So, fries. With cheddar, big chunks of jarred jalapeno, chili—yum. The fries are krinkle-kuts, and not a huge serving. The chili—ah, it's okay, not great—more like a chili sauce than chili. The cheese fries aren't as good as others in town, but still, cheese fries! ($2.50-$3.50)

Of course, a frosty beer is the best side to a dog. They have four beers on tap (when we were there, they were Lucky Lab's stout, Sierra Nevada Pale, Lompoc's C-Note, and Pelican Kiwanda Cream Ale, for $3 a frosty glass. Bottled beers are also $3. Happy hour, from 4-8 everyday, means drafts are 50 cents cheaper (and PBR a $1.25).

You can eat on the Hawthorne sidewalk, inside, of course, or on their back patio. Non-smoking until 10pm.

Sadly, the quality tends to dip when Zach isn't around, but if he is, this is a great cheap eat.

Bold Sky Cafe on Mississippi is no more. That took long enough. More info and opinion (which I share) from dieselboi at Metroblogging Portland. And thanks to ExtraMSG for the heads up.

I appreciate all the feedback I get here, and I'm trying to incorporate into the site. In the meantime, there are a few changes I've made that I hope will make the guide more useful to you.

1. You may have noticed more events. I'm trying to find and list cool things. So, there's the Action Items that appear on the front page. Not all of these get entries on the front page, natch. Full listing for the Action Items are on the Events page, altportland.com/events as are links to more specialized Portland event calendars.


2. There is now a complete list of recently reviewed (ie, since last summer rather than from 7 years ago) restaurants on the Food main page, altportland.com/eatdrink/food/. My next project will be doing the same type of thing on the beer main page.

Thanks for the feedback, and keep those cards and letters coming! -vickijean- at -gmail- dot -com-

Whew, I feel like I'm really behind as far as new stuff for this past week or so. So without further ado...

Beer
Deschutes Brewery of Bend is discontinuning their Quail Springs IPA. Today, a new hoppier, more assertive IPA, called Inversion, will make its debut. Chris of Belmont Station has more details on the new IPA. And if you haven't checked out Belmont Station's blog, you should. They're the premier in-town bottle store, with over 500 different beers, and their new blog covers new stuff, as well as whatever strikes their fancy. http://www.belmont-station.com/newbrewblog.html

Wine
Sunday 3/26, 3pm
La Bodega Wine and Beer
1325 NE Fremont
(503) 943-6099
labodegapdx.com
googlemap
get there via trimet

German Rieslings from Ewald Moseler's collection will be featured at La Bodega's Last Sunday tasting. There will be four wines poured of varying levels of sweetness and weight, from QbA to Spatlese.

The cost of the tasting will be $11 and will include snacks.

Farmers Markets
Vancouver's Farmers Market is already open at the northwest corner of Esther Short Park, Saturdays from 8am-2pm.

Hillsdale Farmers' Market ends its winter market season this Sunday, 3/26, 10am-2pm. Their regular season begins May 7.

Portland Farmers Market opens April 1.

A perennial fixture at the south end of the city's Park Blocks on the campus of Portland State University, the Saturday farmers market operates from 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., April 1 through December 16, 2006.

Vegetarians
PETA's survey concludes:

Other cities might be bigger, but beautiful Portland, Oregon, reigns as the most vegetarian-friendly large city in the United States. From food-cart vendors who hawk vegetarian eats on the street to restaurants that offer more upscale cuisine, Portland sure caters to every vegetarian's wallet and palate with a seemingly unending array of choices.

Et cetera
Speaking of ExtraMSG, he just got back from the Far East, and he just wrote up the first installment of his Portland Mezza series, featuring Aladdin's Cafe, Al Amir, La Villa, and Nicholas Restaurant. Damn maniac.