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

Not that there haven't been complaints, particularly about service there. I've ordered drinks and had them appear in a flash, and ordered drinks, and waited about twenty minutes for them to appear. That's frustrating, when the food is so damn good.

Let's begin by talking about dinner. The last time we were there, we had great service. Our waiter was congenial and quick, and had the liberty to really serve us in a subtle, excellent way.

The menu (thanks, Food Dude!) is divided into seafood cocktails, soups, small plates, salads, and large plates. Thursday night is pasole blanco night, a more subtle pork pasole than what you might be accoustomed to.

If you're a fan of ceviche or octopus, you have to try them here, because they are among the best in the city—Taqueria Neuve and D.F. have nothing on Autentica. Seafood cocktails range from $7-$9.

There are three soups ($7-8) which come in a good-sized bowl, and three salads ($7-8). The cream of corn soup is vegetarian, as is two of the salads, and another one each features shrimp. I tried the tortilla soup which was delicious and well-worth ordering.

Small plates range from $2 for a taco, to $7 for the queso fundido, a fondue of oaxacan cheese and chorizo, served with fresh corn tortillas, which is just plain wrong, it's so good. I tried the tostada con tinga de pollo ($5) which was really lovely. The tinga, or shredded meat (it can be chicken or pork, traditionally), is cooked with chipotles and guajillo peppers, and it has a really lively pepper taste without being too hot. Add the crispy tortilla beneath, and the lettuce, tomato chunks, queso fresco, and radish on top, and you have a really lovely combination of textures and flavors.

I also tried the vegetarian tamale with poblano peppers ($3.50), which was quite possibly the best tamal I have ever had. It was tender and moist, but tremendously flavorful. The poblano is also subtle, not hot, but mostly I was aware of how delicious the corn masa was.

The large plates range from $12-$17, with two vegetarian options and three seafood options. The shrimp in mojo de ajo (garlic sauce) were also gorgeous, subtle and garlicy, and accompanied by rice ($16). So good! The whole roasted fish ($17) came, and it was gorgeous as well as humongous. It was delicate and sweet, its skin so beautifully brown, and its flesh so pearly white, marinated with dried chili paste. I'm not a fan of fish, but I'm ordering that next time.

But even the less expensive plates are excellent. Take the platillo mexicano ($13), two enchiladas, in red and green moles, with a chile relleno. It sounds like your regular combo plate at your corner mexican joint, right? Wrong. If you're a fan of mole, you have to try this! The green mole is made from pumpkin seeds, tomatillos and serrano peppers, really rich and complex, over a simple chicken in tortilla. The red mole is made from 8 kinds of dried chiles and nuts, and is better than any I've tasted anywhere. And the chile relleno is stuffed with cotija cheese, in a rich tomato sauce. We were glad to have some extra, handmade, fresh corn tortillas to sop up all the extra sauce!

Now, for brunch.

The menu (thanks again, FD) ranges in prices from $2-$13, and ranges from little antojitos like tacos ($2) and sopes ($3), three salads ($7-$8) (two vegetarian), and a pile of delicious brunchy goodies ($7-$13), 5 of them vegetarian.

Brunch begins, first of all, decent coffee and fresh orange juice. Our waitress brings out molletes to try while we were mulling over the menu: soft bolillo rolls with refried beans and fresh housemade mexican cheese. Over time, we've tried just about everything: huevos rancheros con jamon, frijoles y salsa, chilaquiles con salsa picante y bisteck, fish soup, shrimp in spicy broth, quezadilla, menudo, potato omelet, eggs or chicken in red broth, eggs as you like them, enchiladas caseras, pork in chile sauce, and a flat iron steak. Huevos rancheros (eggs ranchero style with ham, beans, and salsa) was pretty darn traditional, with a good ranchero sauce, eggs done right and thin grilled ham. Chilaquiles, fried tortillas in a spicy sauce, served with a little steak and refried beans, was also traditional, lovely, and the steak was small but buttery and good. Really, everything has been so good. I was less than crazy about the fish soup, but fish fans loved it.

More photos of Autentica

I was disappointed to not get fresh, hot molletes (soft bolillo rolls with refried beans and fresh housemade mexican cheese) right off the bat. But we did start with fresh, good coffee.

The menu reflects some of the strong points of dinner—the cocktel con pulpo y camaron, for example, but it also reflects the owner, Oswaldo, listening to his customers. Folks wanted more vegetarian options, and now there are quite a few.

The menu is made up of appetizers and antojitos like ensalada con pacotilla aquacate pepinos y lima (bay shrimp with avocado, cukes and lime, $8); ensalada de berros con queso panela (watercress salad with panela cheese and spicy peanuts, $8); fruit salad ($7); the aforementioned cocktel ($8); sopes ($3 each), a couple different tacos ($2 each), quezadilla ($7), menudo, and several types of soup ($8-$10).

Entrees range from an omelet, eggs in a dried chili broth, huevos rancheros, huevos al gusto (eggs any way you'd like them), chilaquiles, enchiladas caseras, bisteak ranchero, and carne enchilada ($8-$13).

While the menu may have changed, the food is still incredible. We started with the ensalada de frutas: papaya, honeydew melon, cantaloupe and pineapple, with a wedge of lime and a monkey dish of chili powder—everything totally fresh and with vibrant flavors. Next came the sopes: you can order them with chicken or chorizo, I always get chorizo. The handmade grilled corn disk is topped with a hash of diced potatoes and your meat, topped with fresh cheese and crema, and slices of avocado & radish. These are just addictively delicious.

Then came our main dishes. The omelet con papas is indeed an omelet with oaxacan cheese and diced potatoes, with pico de gallo on top. It comes with refried vegetarian black beans topped with fresh cheese, and the beans are as runny, rich and comforting as any of the best mexican refrieds, even without the lard. And, the omelet came with blistering hot homemade corn tortillas. Huevos rancheros (eggs ranchero style with ham, beans, and salsa) was pretty darn traditional, with a good ranchero sauce, eggs done right and thin grilled ham.

Other yummy things include chilaquiles con salsa roja, bisteck o heuvos. Now you can order them vegetarian, with eggs, or with a little steak. This is just fried tortillas in red sauce, and it is some supreme comfort food. The eggs in dried red chili broth is soft poached eggs and nopales (brined cactus paddles) floating in a spicy and intensely flavorful broth that begs to be sopped up with tortillas. The enchiladas caseras are homemade enchiladas with chicken or cheese, a red or green sauce, and casera cheese and crema—it's not the cheeseball production you usually get with enchiladas, but a light and delicious (though filling) version.

Our waitress was having the pollo en consome rojo, chicken in a dried chili broth, which I got a good look at and whiff of. Yum. I'll be ordering that next time.

The food is amazing. And the price: two entrees, an antojito and an ensalada, and two cups of coffee for $30 before tip: also amazing.

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.

I wasn't expecting much with this cute space just outside of Hillsdale. You can eat downstairs, or in the more bistro-like upstairs. They offer a weekend brunch, of about 12 breakfasty things and 11 lunchy things, as well as champagne, coffee nudge, bloody marys, and mimosas.

So it all started well: greeted at the door, immediately brought menus, coffee and water. The coffee, eh, okay, nothing to write home about. We order, and as we wait to eat, the upstairs fills. And still, one waitress. So, I wasn't terribly surprised when my meal came to the table cold, or that I never got a coffee refill. I watched as the folks behind us waited to get the tab, then waited for the waitress to pick up their credit card, then waited for it to come back—all in all, about 20 minutes!

Unfortunately, the food was similarly lackluster. My cold ham and cheese omellette was very overdone. It was accompanied by potatoes (a handful of smushy pan fried potatoes) and "fresh fruit" (three very thin, very dry slices of melon, one of starfruit). The Hillsdale Heap (potatoes with veggies, egg, and cheese) had eggplant mixed in with the veggies—just not the most harmonious combination. To add insult to injury, I was still hungry afterwards!

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.

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

This restaurant is closed as of 4/29/2006

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

Carrie writes (7/2001),

It's one of my all time favorite restaurants! Its friendly, intimate and a treat to all in the pdx community, both queer and straight. They seve cocktails and have a brief yet quality wine menu, and offer vegetarian options. Favorite dishes include polenta with portabella mushrooms, seafood pasta and even the filet mignon!

Everyone I know loves this place. Yet the one time I went there, my meal was inedible. I keep meaning to give them another chance, but the thought of spending the money just isn't appealing.