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

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).

First, I'd like to begin with the reasons why you won't want to eat here. One, they close at 8pm. Two, they are way north in NE Portland, far away from anything trendy. Three, they have a limited Lebanese menu—no fancy names you aren't sure how to pronounce. Four, there is no atmosphere, and in cold weather, the dining room is cold. Five, they have some american food items which encourage people to bring children. Six, they have no liquor license. Seven, small dining room. Eight, location is hard to find.

So, that's the downside. The upside is that the food is so good, you won't want to tell anyone about it. It's so reasonable, that, well, you might feel guilty that you're not elbow to elbow with punk rockers. They've applied for the liquor licence, and they take credit cards.

The pita is heads and shoulders above anything in town. It's so flakey and delicate that it melts in your mouth. Pita arrives hot from the kitchen soon after you sit down. Oh! The mezza goodies (falafel, homous, baba ghanouj, grape leaves, labneh, and foul) are each under $5, with a mazza combo for $8.50. The roasted eggplant in the baba is coursely ground, not at all bitter, vibrant with the peppery olive oil that marks all of the dishes. The homous is creamy and smooth and wonderful.

The rest of the menu is sandwiches, soups and salads, safeehas (pita dough with toppings), and grilled things. Nothing fancy, but everything done at a reasonable price. Lentil soup is not soupy lentils as at many restaurants—it's pureed almost smooth, a nice lemony note, and quite possibly addictive. Cheese safeeha—yummy cheesy goodness without falling into cheeziness. The meats—oh! Lamb is tender, chicken is incredibly good, covered in spice and flavor, and the rice is unlike any I've had before, and that's in a good way.

We finished our meal ($26) with a baklava and a turkish coffee, both less cloyingly sweet than usual. This is worth going out of your way for!

Other Press:

• ExtraMSG


• Portland Food and Drink

The food and beer are reliable, nothing exceptional, but solid. (Except, of course, when it's not.) Fish and chips are one of the better options.

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

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.

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.

K7AAY, aka John, writes (5/18/2006)

It's fusion, but in a good way.

Bernie's, on rapidly gentrifying Alberta Street, is an alternate history restaurant, taking the basic theme of working class food from the Old South and raising it to astronomical heights of culinary achievement. Sadly, no Sundays, no Mondays, and no lunch, but for a moderate cost, you'll find crisply fried okra, black-eyed peas not boiled into oblivion, and tasty greens.

$3 happy hour features fried green tomatoes, mac and cheese, and po boys from 4-6 pm and 10-close Mon-Sat

Where else you gonna get a decent mint julep in Puddletown, annyhow?

WARNING: Impossible on 4th Thursdays due to Culture Vultures.

Press

• Portland Monthly

photo by Andrew Morton

I used to fetishize their grilled cheeses. They were made with whatever Grand Central bread they had in the kitchen, so every now and again you'd get a phenomenal one made with yeasted corn. But even the unphenomenal ones were really tasty.

The sad thing is, they do have food, and lots of veggie options, but outside of breakfast, I haven't had anything there that was noteworthy in a month of sundays. Which isn't to say it's bad—it just is. That said, hot and cold sandwiches range from $2.75-$8 and come with chips. They also have burgers ($6-$8), and plates that come with a green salad ($7-$7.75).

But let's talk about the interesting stuff. They have special drinks that are $4.50-$5. Beer on tap is $3.75 a pint. When I was there, they had:
-a rotator (when I was there, it was New Belgium Skinny Dip)
-Rogue Dead Guy
-Mt Hood Cascadian Pale Ale
-Anchor Porter
-Skagit Valley Scullers IPA
-Elysian the Wise ESB
-Anderson Valley Boont Amber
Bottled beers range from Session to imports, from ($2.50-$6)

And of course, there is a happy hour.

Other Press
• BarFly
• Gulch Guide

Happy hour is 4-7 everyday.

What this means for you: $3 micros & wells, with a dollar off anything on the menu.

Beulahland is one of my favorite hangouts--good beer on tap, yummy sandwiches and soup, a mess of veggie options, a friendly funky place with a pool table, a jukebox, some pinball, a giant dictionary, and a computer with internet access. Well, they also do a yummy breakfast. True to the Beulahland way, they are unpretentious, inexpensive, filling and yummy. We had Stumptown coffee, a brekkie burrito and the two-berry and ricotta pancakes. The burrito comes with cumin flavored potatoes, yummy and well cooked. Oh, and the burrito is just plain great. The berry pancakes are a delight, so large that they dwarf the plate. I think we paid less than $10 for breakfast for two, not including tip. Damn!

Other Press

• Bar Fly


• Gulch Guide

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

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 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.

Cafe Castagna is one of my favorite special occasion places, and I love to invent special occasions so we can go there. The triangular room can get a bit loud, but the service is attentive and good, and the food is just reliably great.

In nice weather, you can sit outside looking at the side street and the giant flowering artichokes. Wonderful!

The menu is made up of a dozen or so starters, priced from $5-$13, including salads (their caesar is one of the best in town), and everyone's favorite aranchini (fried risotto balls that are filled with melty fontina cheese).

The cocktail list is short (though you can get most anything that isn't blended) and fun, with inventive drinks with great names. The Reine de Saba (Queen of Sheba, get it?) is made with thyme-infused vodka, and is one of the most interesting things I've tasted in months (in a good way). A tart cherry fizz is about what you'd expect, and what a good idea! There is an extensive wine list, including ten by the glass, but no beer on tap. They do have about 15 beers to choose from, however.

There are always a couple pizzas, plate-sized, crispy-crusted and quite good (not Apizza Scholls good, but good all the same), around $11. Again, inventiveness is the order of the day: when we were in, they had a flammekuechen pizza—and our resident deutschophile enjoyed it alot.

Entrees range from comfort food to comfort food, $11-$21. I had their hamburger and fries with cheddar and bacon. Everything about the hamburger and fries is just great. They have a good bun from Pearl Bakery, a good-sized but not huge hamburger patty seasoned and cooked to order, it's a good balance of bread to meat (to cheese to bacon, if you choose), accompanied with tomatoes that taste like tomatoes and homemade zucchini pickles. And then there are the great french fries. Other standards on the menu include the baked penned with cheese, which is a huge serving and one of the better mac-n-cheeses I've had in a restaurant, and the flat-iron steak with fries.

There are always new things amongst the entrees and they're also really good. The hungarian goulash was delicious, perfectly cooked, though it came with a really bland polenta (which perked right up with the goulash sauce). Lamb with white beans was a casseroley dish, with lovely lamb (and I'm not a lamb fan), and the most luscious beans. As a testament to how good that was, that plate went back to the kitchen clean—all excess bean liquor was sopped up with the Pearl baguette slices on the table.

Drawbacks: hmmm. It's loud at times, it's popular, and some of the plates (especially in the starters) are smaller than others. Your server can be very helpful with this, letting you know what is tiny and what is generous—if you ask.

All in all, this isn't a cheap dinner -- for two, it generally runs us $50 before tip, but it's one of my favorites.

There is a Catalina, Virginia, and she, with her son, Eddie, oversee the goings on at Catalina's. Come in a couple times, and even if you speak lousy spanish, you'll be part of the extended family. When the Catalina's cooks are on, this is some of the best homestyle tex-mex in town. Other times, you feel like you're eating right in some one's kitchen. What they serve is solid tex-mex, with an emphasis on seafood. The pollo and carne asada are both strong, but if you really want good, go for shrimp. The prices are reasonable -- $6-9 for the non-seafood entries, $9-11 for seafood; portions are generous, and most important, everything is good.

The prices are similar to those at La Sirenita, but Catalina's offers table service, chips and (piquant, homemade, cilantro-y, not onion-y,) salsa, beer, and mixed drinks. Oh, and it's clean. A covered porch offers a nice place to eat in good weather and the takeaway window features $1.50 tacos, $5 tortas, and tamales, which aren't on the menu but are worth a visit. Which is enough to sway me. On the downside, there's video crack, which can make the parade of the poker-addicted an interesting feature of dining there.

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!

Breakfast all day. Same day service. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, beer and bar. I'm trying to get excited about this, honest. We went in for dinner, and the best part was the fresh draught beer. We ordered a couple burgers, one with a side of chili, the other with a side salad, and an order of cheese fries. The burgers were nothing to write home about. Chili, thick and unspectacular. Side salad, almost inedible. Cheese fries were pricy, soggy, unseasoned and thoroughly underwhelming.

A lot of people love C&S for breakfast.

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.

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.

And, it's also a great lunch place. On weekdays, breakfast is served all day (which is to say, until 3pm), and you also have a selection of sandwiches and entrees like meatloaf with mashed potatoes and mac-n-cheese.

I had their excellent, unpretentious, burger. It's substantial, but not too much—maybe a third of a pound, cooked to order. The bun is squishy but not bad squishy, and the burger is dressed with the usual lettuce, tomato, onion, and.... whole-grain mustard aioli. I was a doubter, until I bit in. It's a good burger—one of the best in town.

It comes with fries or salad. I can't speak to the salad, but the fries were thin, double-fried, a slight hint of batter, perfect.

Another argument to come in on the weekdays is the Heuvos Rancheros. It's just an wonderful combination of eggs, tortilla, nicely-seasoned beans, and sauce, the sort of good meal that sticks in the corner of your mind for a long time.

Some people like the cocktails, ranging from $4-$6, including the EmergenC Elixir (orange vodka, EmergenC, muddled lemon, and a splash of cranberry juice). There are coffee and champagne cocktails too. Beer in bottles, and Caldera pale in cans, but no beer on tap.

I first fell in love with the roasted potatoes. Potatoes can be the most lovely food, but so often at breakfast they are lackluster, undercooked, underloved. Not these potatoes, oh no. Little wedgelets, crispy, tender, delightful, I could eat a bowl of these plain.

But no reason to do that with all the wonderful stuff on the menu. There are 19 different egg-variables, from the traditional eggs, potatoes and toast to omelettes to scrambles to benedicts, $5.50-$9.25. The basic ingredients are good, even free-range groovy, stuff, and it's all kept simple enough so there's some semblance of balance.

Take for example, the classic benedict. The hollandaise is lemony and luscious, topping the soft poached egg, the local canadian bacon (yumm!), the crispy english muffin, and begging to be draped over the potatoes.

Another example of being caught off-guard is the white chocolate chip & toasted hazelnut pancakes. One, you could feed several people well with one plate. Two, the white chocolate serves as the secret agent taste that makes the pancakes irresistable. Three, real maple syrup and a bowl of butter bricks wait on your table.

They also have some sandwiches, which I may never try. The menu is amazingly vegetarian friendly, with 14 different options, and you can sub in tofu for eggs for a buck. Oh, and they serve Stumptown coffee. No espresso.

The two dining rooms are a little cramped, with the back one like a basement bar, and the front like a bright and cheerful diner. The rooms have both booths and tables, and there are a couple of outside tables for good weather as well.

Just know, you'll probably be waiting a bit to get in, and you'll be waiting outside. But you can have some coffee while you wait.

After having been there for lunch, I am so bummed that they aren't open for dinner. But I guess that's good for my wallet.

Press:

• BarFly
• Portland Tribune
• Willamette Week

photo by Molly Holzschlag

airport & Washington Square locations still open.

Brock writes

Has really decent food as well, and nice atmosphere. I think they're even doing some sort of breakfast now.

This strip mall location means there's always parking. While it looks like an Asian Sheri's inside, and there is the unfortunate name, this is a very decent neighborhood viet-chinese restaurant.

The menu here is very extensive. Lots of appetizers, variants of pho, and other soups, as well as bun (noodle dishes with protein). They also serve beer, and bahn mi (vietnamese sandwiches) all day. Breakfast is definitely of the vietnamese variety. It's bright and cheery too.

This is the only place I've seen on the menu that they will switch out fish sauce for soy sauce if you ask. Still, I don't know that this is a great vegetarian restaurant unless you're willing to not ask any questions.

We tend to get pho, with its rich fragrant broth and lovely fresh salad plate (avoid the brisket—they ain't kidding about the fat). But if you're up for an adventure and you have a bit of time, try out the specialty dishes. Last night we tried the Banh Khoai Tom, special crispy fried sweet potato & shrimp. It was excellent—though it would have been nice if the owner had mentioned that it would take a half hour.

This is not a date place though. It tends to sound like a bus station even when there are only a couple of tables, and when the busser rolls around her huge rubbermaid bussing cart, people in the Pizza Hut next door probably know it. Still, a bowl of pho soothes a lot of woes...

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.

Helser's appears to be about to implode due to its popularity. But it's popular for a good reason: a good breakfast at a fairly reasonable price. Cheap eaters will want to get there before 9 (probably, quite a bit before nine, as it seems to fill fairly early), and order off their early bird menu. The scotch eggs are insanely good, as are the occasionally offered potato pancake sandwiches. And while I'm still waiting to find a place that does french toast as good as my own, this is the best I've found in a while. Decent coffee, and the opportunity to start the day with alcohol are other bonuses. On nice days, there are tables outside as well.

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.

An acquaintance raved about the cheeseburgers at Hope's Deli. As I sat, hungry and weak, watching a documentary on cheeseburgers yesterday, I was ripe. Hope's serves breakfast and lunch, with a small cheeseburger combo coming in under $5. They serve american and asian style food. And, boca burgers!

So, my cheeseburger was small, dressed with pickles, shredded lettuce, tomato slices and thousand island dressing. French fries were crickle-cut. No-name ketcup on the tables. All and all, nothing to write home about, but cheap, emphasis on cheap, and filling, complete with its own indoor tables.

This is one of my favorite restaurants in town, and I hate to even bring it to your attention, because what if you love it like I do, and suddenly I can no longer get in for my caesar and pasta fix? Justa Pasta started out as a pasta maker, and they still supply many high-end restaurants with noodles and ravioli.

The menu is made up of salads, pastas, raviolis, and specials. If you're being careful, you can easily get a small salad and a small pasta and come away owing less than $10. The caesar is one of the city's best, garlicy and sublime. Soups are consistently fantastic. But really, this is all about the pasta—a couple types of pasta, a couple types of ravioli, a handful of sauces, all housemade. It's great. Specials, always including several lasagnas... great. Cheesecake and other sweets... great. And, the owners are really good about posting the day's specials (as well as a current menu) on the website (imagine!).

Okay, so what are the downsides, then? One, you queue up for food. Grabbing a table before you order and get your food is really frowned upon, and seriously not cool. They have a couple of bottled beers, a couple of wines by the glass, or you can select a bottle of wine while you're queued up. Otherwise, find a seat in their remodeled restaurant/lounge, enjoy a sip of whatever you're drinking, and relax. Pearl Bakery baguette comes almost immediately. The service is efficient and friendly, but you'll have to get your own water refill or fresh glass of wine. (See? Why would you want to go there, really?)

Ken's is one of a couple bakeries in town making excellent bread products. That said, Ken's is my absolute favorite. Everything is handmade, using the best organic flours and ingredients, the slow way. The breads are incredible—if you like French-style breads, this is the place. It's a bread-lover's paradise—and an Atkins dieters' nightmare.

In addition to bread, they have yummy sweets—a pain au chocolat to die for. They have awesome sandwiches—the best croque monsieur in town, and they have beer and wine as well as espresso.

They also have a mean pizza night, Mondays, from 5:30-9:30, serving bistro-style pizza.

Downsides? They're often packed, and finding parking on 21st is a pain (though if you're there before 3pm, you can park in Basta's lot). Tables are tiny—great if there's two or less of you, not so great if you're coming in a pack. And, it's a small place. Service can be quite brusque (though it's always markedly better when Ken is around). And, they close early (7pm T-F).

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.

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.

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)

For a brewpub, the food is some of the best in town. Which is to say it's uneven, but still; there's a reason this place is full at meal times. There's a good-sized, and diverse, menu of salads, sandwiches, and full entrees. And they have killer fries. Also, a great weekend breakfast.

But my beef with the Laurelwood is that it's wildly popular too. At least, most of the times when I've been there, it's so loud that I couldn't hear anything my companion said. But, if you don't like kids, really lots of really little kids running about willy-nilly, just as if they've been drinking beer and own the place, don't bother.

more photos

Breakfast is served from 10-3 on the weekends. The menu is pretty straightforward: a handful of omelettes like the Super Protein (stuffed with bacon, ham, sausage and cheese), the Ham and Cheese (which is big chunks of ham in a cheese omelette) and the Green Eggs and Ham (a pesto version of the Ham and Cheese); a handful of scrambles; a breakfast burrito; egg, meat and carb combos; and a couple kid's options (leggo my Eggo!).

We've been there several times now, and it's a good honest, tasty breakfast. Two omelettes and a coffee rang in at $16. While the roasted potatoes aren't quite as good as Genie's, they're still pretty darn good, topped with raw garlic, parsley and parmesan. If you're familiar with Laurelwood's garlic fries, it's not quite that garlicky, but if you don't like (raw) garlicky potatoes, you probably won't like these.

Toast products come with little commercial jam tubs, but it's actually good.

It's a good, satisfying breakfast with the option of letting your children run free, or having a bit of the hair of the dog. Of course, if you're allergic to children, sit in the bar—or go somewhere else.

If you don't like kids, don't bother with this. Beer, some organic, a bar, and plenty of space and toys and other kids to distract your little ones while you suck down a cold one.

Dude, I just got the best festivus present ever! The New Old Lompoc project on N Failing, aka Failing Williams, aka 5Q, is open! They have all the Old Lompoc Brewery beers on tap, natch, including an insane five (5!) winter seasonals, as well as hard liquor. Two nitro thingees. They have this sophisticated space, not as self-consciously cool as Pix next door, but lovely in an astere, calm sort of way. They have—wait for it!—a garage door (thankfully not open this time of year). They have these crazy huge long booths which practically demand interaction, and appear to be built for beer lovers. And real adult food. The macaroni & cheese of the day yesterday was a rib-eye in a red wine-cream sauce over penne—a lovely stroganoff of sorts. The steak was delicious and a steal at $14, presented over the rich, creamy and thoroughly homemade mashed potatoes, and perfectly done veggies. Meatloaf, well damn, I loved that, too. They have a healthy list of appetizers, salads and sandwiches too, and the fries look great. No wi-fi yet. They'll start brewing in the spring, and distilling in the summer. Damn!

Regular house pints are $3.50. There's a happy hour, too.

Other Press:

• Like a breath of fresh air, the Fifth Quadrant beckons
  Liz Colie Gadberry, the Portland Tribune

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

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.

The Mississippi is as comfortable as they come with its painted floors, mix-matched furniture, and post-collegiate feel. They have a couple taps, too, salads, and much improved, store-made pizza (which they'll deliver if you live in the neighborhood and they have a spare person). We had good salads and slices. Not the best pizza in town, but a comfortable place with good ambiance, decent pizza, good beer, and quite frequently live music.

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.

This mellow, unassuming brewpub has great beer, reasonable food, a rooved, heated back porch, and well, what else do you need? The pub interior is studiously geeky, including a pool table with the right number of balls -- just not the right combination. Did I mention great beer? Giant baskets of small fries for cheap?

Small and smokey, but with a devoted following. The outdoor patio in back is friendly to dogs.

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

more photos

Reedies and other Woodstock denizens can happen by during the week, but for the rest of us, an Otto's visit means Saturday. And if nothing else, you can identify Otto's by the crowd of people in front.

You can just stay outside, grab a soda from the tub and buy a sausage, but it's worth it to go in. First of all, they have beer on tap:

• Sierra Nevada Pale Ale
• Otto's IPA (made by Raccoon Lodge)
• Deschutes Buzzsaw Brown (a seasonal)
• Pilsner Urquel
• New Belgium Skinny Dip (a seasonal)
• Deschutes Obsidian Stout
• Thomas Kemper Root Beer

• Vernors (in glass bottles!)
• Thomas Kemper sodas
• Stewart's
• Red Rock
• Cricket
• Henry Weinhard's
• Green River
• Boylan's
• Crush
• Big Red

The menu will list the sausages on the grill. There's usually wieners, smoked pork sausages, and chicken sausages, with regular, potato or whole wheat buns. For $1.50-$3, you have lunch. Or half a lunch. Whatever. Load up on the limited condiments and take a seat outside if there is one. Cuz there aren't any tables indoors.

I know far more esteemed critics have called Otto's one of the best 10 hot dogs in the U.S., but I don't think it's quite that good. They're tasty dogs but they pale compared to others in SE.

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.

Produce Row Cafe has 15 taps, over 200 bottled beers, and a full menu, including an abbreviated happy hour menu M-F 4-6PM. It's also a bit chilly when it's relatively empty. They offer wifi, pool, a huge deck, and that beer selection is pretty exciting. I just wish I was a bit more excited about the food. We tend to get burgers and fries, and the fries are great. The burger is just okay. They offer live music almost every night.

There are so many places that are better than this. So many. But Rock Bottom, a national chain, does okay by their beer. Their regular taps are drinkable but underwhelming. Food at its best is pedestrian, at its worst inedible. The seasonals are frequently worth seeking out.

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.

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.

But I've been motivated to get over there lately, now that I am completely infatuated with grits, and I know Tin Shed's got 'em. Unfortunately, I was a little undercaffeinated, so I didn't take a lot of notes.

The inside is a nice, but small and crowded space. The outside, under a giant roof, and backed by a giant fireplace, is almost twice the size of the interior, and really pleasant on a nice day. That patio is a great place to dogwatch, as many folks bring theirs with them. Inside or out, you serve yourself coffee and water.

They have a big new breakfast menu that debuted 4/29/2006. We ordered Huevos Ranchitos, Roll Over, and two sides of cheese grits.

Now, we habitually order the You Gotta Have it, which is eggs any style, meat, toast or homemade biscuit, and potato pancakes or grits. I love potato pancakes (really, I just love carbs), so that's what I always end up ordering. It's good, solid, great biscuits—what's not to love?

Huevos Ranchitos is just like the ranchero version, except there is no ranchero sauce, there are 2 layers of tortilla, as well as jalapeno-stewed black beans and rice, scrambled eggs, homemade salsa, sour cream, and green onion (they own stock in green onion). It was tasty but it would have been better if everything if the things that should be hot: like beans, rice, and eggs, actually were. The rice was all clumped as if it had come out of the cardboard carton in your fridge. The beans were not spicy at all, but they did have a nice cumin flavor.

The Roll Over starts with a layer of potato pancakes, then a layer of scrambled eggs & sausage, then a layer of bacon gravy. I expected this to be a conflict of interest, what with the sausage and bacon, but it tasted great. However, nothing on my plate was consistently hot either. The gravy was the warmest element, but it had hot and cold spots (ooogh).

The grits were most disappointing. They're plain grits with grated cheese added almost as an afterthought, and the grits were so not hot that the cheese wasn't melting. Butter, also not melting. I finally sent them back to be nuked.

To their credit, we complained, and they comped us for one meal. We saw some other plates going back to the kitchen, so maybe someone was having a bad bad day?

Unfortunately, we had a really lackluster dinner there recently as well.

Other reviews

• Portland Blog

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.

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.

Pizza by the slice. Pizza by the pie. Microbrews on tap, and wine. Huge salads. Now expanded, so... there. And obviously, it's good -- in my top three favorite pizza places in town. And reasonable -- a slice for under $3, a salad for about the same, a beer for about the same.

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.

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.