Restaurants in Northeast Portland

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).

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

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.

CLOSED 9/6/2007
for more information, see this OregonLive Breaking News story

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cash only!

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

Micha writes (10/2001),

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

Mirfy adds:

Andrea does a great job of having a good red wine available by the glass!

The Blue Moose has been in the old Leaf & Bean location now for over a year. Like Leaf & Bean, they concentrate on sandwiches, salads, soup and breakfasts. Unlike Leaf & Bean, they're fully vegetarian -- no meat, no eggs. These are the same folks who did the Dogs Dig Deli, vegetarian, natch, in Old Town.

I had read about the Blue Moose in Food Fight's description of Portland's veggie & vegan restaurants. I recall the review saying something along the lines of, "they really like cheese". And it's true, cheese does appear frequently in the menu, but if you don't care for cheese, you can sub in avocado. If you don't like sour cream, you can swap in yougurt, or tofu sauce.

We walked in, and the place looks much more restauranty than it did as Leaf & Bean. It smelled good too. We sat down, and our server immediately brought over glasses of water, and little ramekins of the two soups. I loved that gesture!

They have 8 different sandwiches, including a grilled PB & banana sandwich. They are mostly $8 and come with a mixed green salad, but you can sub a cup of soup for a dollar more. They're made with healthy breads as well: rye, grains galore, spelt, whole wheat double bran, and naturebake organic.

They offer a small and big mixed green salad with a number of options: cruciferous, beans & corn, soylent (hehe, baked tofu with red onion & sunflower seeds), mediterranean, and five others. These are $4-$7 depending on if you go small or large and with or without options.

Burrito and burrito in a bowl is yet another option. Swap out the brown rice for red potatoes. Or polenta. And spinach. $5-$8.

And finally, there are long plates: 4 different large plates, $9. My partner in crime selected the Puebla Long Plate: mixed greens, brown rice, pintos, jack cheese, corn & sour cream with a grilled cheese and salsa quesadilla. It was a platter, really.

I got the Children of the Corn burrito bowl, vegan-stylee: polenta, pintos, corn, sunflower seeds, tofu sauce, hot sauce and avocado.

I have to say that I enjoyed the meal a lot. The beans were well spiced, and nothing was overly salty or oily. It was like home cooking: except, neither of us had to cook, and neither of us had to clean up. It was exciting to have vegan options, and to have some choices that didn't make me feel like I was cheating.

Since Broadway has even more East African restaurants than MLK, we started there, and ducked into the Blue Nile. We weren't disappointed. Meat dishes come in at $9.99, vegetarian options start at $5.99, and our food was incredible. A paste accompanied my kitfo which was easily the hottest thing I have ever eaten. My one complaint is that the quantity of food varies a lot from item to item, and from time to time. My sweetie's Doro Wat was just a chicken leg in sauce, whereas my entree took up fully half of our shared tray of food. But that said, we both brought some home with us -- so it can grow hotter in the fridge!

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

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

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

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

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

Of course, she wasn't kidding. La Bonita is great for breakfast.

You basically have 5 options: 4 entrees for $6, and a breakfast burrito for $4.50. But what options these are! The egg dishes are heuvos rancheros, heuvos con chorizo, and heuvos a la mexicana, served with beans, rice, and warm tortillas. Chilaquiles round out the entrees, the luscious stale tortilla chips cooked in sauce, yum, yum, yum.

But for me, the breakfast burrito, while being atraditional, is the highlight. You have a large burrito filled with eggs, beans, hashbrowns and cheese. Add chorizo for a buck if you're a meat eater—you'll be glad you did. Talk about good. Add a little red or green salsa, and you have a tasty, filling meal.

But of course, La Bonita is not a slouch when it comes to other meals, either. If you haven't been there in a while, the interior has been updated with custom wooden booths and tables. Big upgrade from the orange fastfood booths! And as you might expect from Alberta St., they have bilingual staff cashiering.

They have menudo and pozole ($5-$7) every day!

Tacos are either $1.50 or $1.95 depending on the choice of meat (chicken, beef and pork carnitas are cheap; carne asada, tongue, fish, shrimp, machaca and al pastor are more pricey).

Of course, there are also quesadillas ($4-$6 depending on the filling), tostada ($3-$5), tortas ($5-$6), chimichangas (?)($6-$7), and tamales ($2: pollo, vegan, carnitas, and chile verde).

Meat burritos are $4.50 or $5 (with a chile relleno & meat sneaking in at $5 and fajita burrito sneaking in at $6), and meatless burritos ranging from $2.50-$5 for bean & cheese, bean & cheese & rice, chile relleno, veggie and fajita veggie. Get it enchilado (or a La Bonita) for another $2.

Platters include the three taco ($8 or $9), tamales ($8 or$9), carne asada ($10), chile relleno ($8), Mole (Friday-Sunday, $9 or $11), enchiladas ($8 or $9), and finally, a sampler with enchilada, chile relleno, and a tamale ($11).

Did I mention breakfast is all day?

I need to eat something other than breakfast there, but damn, I do love their breakfasts.

We decided, in the name of science, to order all the possible non-dessert items that you could have for breakfast. That with a cup of coffee rang in for less than $6.

There are, of course, multiple options. A small and regular breakfast. Swedish pancakes. And a cinnamon roll.

The small and regular breakfasts are exactly the same, except the regular breakfast has these french toast dipping sticks. The dipping sticks, of course, are deep-fried, but surprisingly french-toast-like. The little potato chunks are also deep-fried, and also surprisingly delicious, even cold. The eggs are perfectly scrambled, not dried out at all from the steam tray, and seasoned. The bacon was the only disappointment, being smoked and just okay.

The buckwheat pancakes are folded into wedges and served with whipped cream and lingonberries on the side. These are good, but the steam table is not as kind to them as it is the breakfast -- I'm certain they're better right off the griddle.

And then there is the cinnamon bun. It's not as gooey and luscious as some, but it's still sweet and a bit sticky and perfectly okay with coffee.

I love the fact that your food comes on porcelain plates, your coffee in a porcelain cup, your flatware made of some sort of real metal. And the bargain hunter in me loves the fact that you can get a perfectly decent breakfast, quite possibly better than your neighborhood place, for $2.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Almost a year after they opened, we thought it was time to revisit Cafe Wonder, in the daylight basement of the Wonder Ballroom. I'm happy to say that while there have been some shifts in the menu, it's still good, and still reasonable.

On the bar side (and realistically, the entire place is in sight of the bar) they have 4 beers on tap (Lagunitas IPA, Pyramid Hefeweizen, Fat TIre Amber, and Miller High Life). Luckily, they also have good selection of bottled beers, wine, and cocktails, including an afterschool special for welldrinks, $2, 5-6:30 pm, which packs the place.

The menu is short and simple: the east side's cheapest steakfrites (steak and fries, $14.50), mac-n-cheese, fish-n-chips, fried chicken, veggie risotto, caesar salad, a chicken sandwich and a hamburger, with a range of prices starting at $7.

We ordered the caesar, which was tasty and huge. It's not the city's best caesar, but it's quite edible all the same. We also ordered the fried chicken. According to the menu, it's a quarter chicken, so we were a little surprised to have it come as a breast and a leg. Still, I suppose those are probably the favorite parts of chicken. The chicken was fine, but the real standout was the tiny serving of greens, which may well be the best in town. Rich with pork, complex and slightly bitter, these are what greens are supposed to be.

Servings are generous and there is none of this well-intentioned but badly executed fusion cuisine one sees in other parts of Albina. And, the fries are great.

We also had great service: a waitress who seemed to have a degree in mindreading, always at the ready to get us more alcohol or more napkins. The room is quite lovely as well. Oh, smoke-free and free wifi, too. Now, if only it was also child-free...

Jim writes,

The Cameo is one of the better breakfast places in town -- pancakes by the "acre," and really good omelettes. Be sure to get an order of "strong bread" toast with your breakfast. It's great. The prices are reasonable, and the portions are generous and tasty. Avoid the house 'specialty' called (something like) 'Pandetuk' -- but the basic breakfast fare is of the best in town.

So... the name of the place is changing. As is the menu. The owners, however, remain the same.

No more BBQ -- I guess the award-winning stuff wasn't cutting mustard, if you will. They will now serve pasta as well as pizza.

Here's my experience back in December 2007:
We just went back to see how things are this last weekend, and it wasn't really that great.

You might remember that the first time we went, we had a pretty decent pizza, and the second time, not so good.

This is the new restaurant by the former owners of the Sellwood Public House. I really wasn't impressed so much by SPH's food under their ownership.

It's a small place, with 14 tables, and maybe 6 beers on tap. They offer wifi.

Half salads are 4.50, whole salads are 8. There is a caesar with what tastes like salty, stale Pepperidge Farm croutons, a garden, and a blue with toasted almonds and gorgonzola. We've had the caesar now several times. It comes on full leaves of romaine, a nice touch, but it's overdressed, and the dressing is really rather lackluster, with not enough garlic, lemon or anchovy.

The aforementioned pizzas come as 12" only, with limited ingredients, ranging from $8-$12. "We proudly present hand-crafted American artisan pizzas made in the manner of legendary pizzaiolas.... topped with the best ingredients available then baked in a 1000 degree oven."

The pizza is a mixed bag. The sauce is good, not too sweet, with about the right amount. But the mozzarella and other ingredients sure don't taste like the best ingredients available. And putting grocery store tomatoes on a pizza should be a crime.

And let's be serious: a 12" pie is too big for one person, but not quite enough for two people.

We ordered a meatball pie (with sage, huh?) and The Bones, the smaller order of BBQ pork ribs. They are still very stingy with ingredients on the pizzas, but somehow too generous with the sage. The meatballs were small, and fine, but the pizza itself lingered on the pie plate. Nobody was happy about the sage being there, and even when you brushed most of it off, it still haunted the slices.

Now, Wildfire's owner has won awards for his BBQ, but we were deeply disappointed with it. First of all, everything on the plate was way too sweet: coleslaw, beans, and the sauced meat. The coleslaw was creamy, bitter, sweet and vinegary -- a combination that meant that that stayed on the plate. The beans were like canned Boston baked beans, except you'd need to add a lot more sugar. Both the meat is the real issue, right? The ribs themselves were overcooked, and both the rub and the sauce were cloyingly sweet. Even with the sauce scraped off, we had a hard time eating it.

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.

A friend mentioned Cha! Cha! Cha! the other day, that she and her vegetarian husband loved it. I hadn't gone because I just haven't been that excited about Cha! Cha! Cha! in the past, but I decided I needed to see for myself.

And after going there, I'm still not very excited. The Fremont store has table service, and it's quite pleasant inside, in spite of a lot of 2-top tables that are very close together and easily tip, and fiesta-colored plastic chairs that are very uncomfortable, and the very loud music. Okay, so maybe it wasn't that pleasant. The menu seemed promising: not much over $10, beer, wine and margaritas, and the place seemed good for both young families and grumpy DINKs.

I was there with my pal who can't bear sour cream. The menu mentioned sour cream only briefly, so we ordered taquitos with mashed potatoes, mama (an enchilada), tamales, and two tacos. I ordered mine without onions or pico de gallo, he mentioned that any sour cream should be on the side.

So, I'm drinking my excellent margarita, feeling very optimistic when the taquitos arrive... covered with raw onions and sour cream. My companion makes the best of it. I make the best of it. They're taquitos, dang it!

Our entrees come covered in a salsa verde, topped with sour cream and raw onions. So we sent them back. And they come back to us, obviously scraped. That's fine, I don't care, until I realized that no one had bothered to scrape the raw onions off the bottom of mine. Sigh!

Our tacos ($1.50 each) are good. The pastor is sweet, maybe a little too sweet, but tasty. The chorizo is full of onions, but the meat is good, spicy, not greasy. There was a lot of meat in those tacos.

I had ordered the mama, a tortilla covered with chopped carne asada and mexican rice. This was topped enchilada style with the salsa verde, which didn't have any strong flavor, but was very rich. The mama was fine, particularly for $5.50. The tamales were okay too. Nothing to write home about necessarily, just okay.

Service, however, was awful. I'm not sure about the whole onion or sour cream thing: was there a language issue? The ticket was written in english. But why didn't our server check for these things, before she brought them to the table? A request to turn down the music brought a similar rolling of the eyes, like she just didn't want to deal with it. But you know, I didn't want to deal with acoustic guitar that was so loud that I'd have to shout at my companion.

Within ten minutes of leaving the restaurant, both my companion and I had some fierce heartburn. I can only blame the salsa verde which (like it was made with a lot of cream or pepitas) had flowed around all of the food save the tacos that we had eaten.

So. It is really cheap, and if you don't need to make any special requests, you'll probably be fine. But if you're expecting any level of service, or you do need to make a special request, forget it.

I understand why people eat here. It's hard to find a place that accomodates children, offers food that isn't challenging, and pours stiff drinks. However, the food here is on the pricier side, and really rather underwhelming. It's also not the greatest place to go if you're not up for being surrounded by people with their kids.

That said, I really liked their black bean soup.
very child-friendly cal-mexican

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lori says:

Best Chinese food in town. *MY* favorites: sizzling rice soup, General Tso's chicken, dry sauteed green beans, Szechwan Eggplant, and pot stickers.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Once upon a time, County Cork was great. The food was great, the beer was great. Now, not so much. And it's overrun by neighborhood parents desperate for a beer with their wailing offspring. No one will mistake it for Laurelwood.... there are more kids, and the food and beer are better there.

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.

So, this place is no Superdog or Zack's. This is not going to be a culinary experience you will swoon over. But, if you're hungry for a dog or sausage, served as you wish, but without fanfare and having to find parking, and at great speed, The Dog House may be for you. It's literally a stand -- there are some tables out on the deck, but that's all she wrote. Realistically, on a beautiful day, what else do you need?

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

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

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

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

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

more photos of Echo

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Excellent Japanese style sushi and meals in a quiet serene setting. The prices are right too. With no nigiri above $5 (most is $2.95), and no rolls above $9 (with most under $5), it's easy to have a meal without taking out a second mortgage. They offer lunch as well as dinner, Tuesday-Saturday. Excellent, reasonable bento boxes, too.

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.

Diane writes:

Good burgers and fries in historic old trolley stop. And cheap!

It's true. Everything here is cheap and good and unpretentious. This is one of my favorite joints for a fast diner breakfast.

So, in spite of my claims of the past, Horn of Africa is Ethiopian. It's just not like any other Ethiopian in town. Sure, it's spicy, eaten with teff-flour bread, and there are some similar flavors. But different names because it's a different language. And the flavoring leans more towards the Indian subcontinent than any of the other Ethiopian/Eritrean restaurants. A recent dinner there featured more food than I have ever seen at an African restaurant, with the entrees being huge, and the owner devoted to seeing no one leave hungry. Check them out for their lunchtime buffet. Yum. Good, and cheap. Limited menu, and not as firey as Jarra's, but yum. Mmm.

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.

I am tremendously charmed by Lanvin. First of all, it's tiny -- the floor space is about a third of the tiny NE Binh Minh's, and it really is primarily a bakery of all sorts of yummy french-viet sweets. The front area is full of bakery cases of cream-filled goodies.

We were coming to Lanvin for the banh mi, vietnamese sandwiches. These are generally your choice of meat, pickled carrot & daikon (and jalapeno, though you may have to ask for it) on a hoagie-sized french roll, with a texture that is very similar to a baguette.

Lanvin has (apparently) six types of banh mi: Vietnamese ($2.50), BBQ Pork ($2.50), Meatball ($2.50), Fish ($3.50), Special (the Vietnamese with extra meat, $3.50), and G/LL Pork ($3.50 -- I have no idea what that is). While we were deciding, one of the many ladies behind the counter started offering us tastes: of the bread, and then of the banana bread. Yum!

Once we got our sandwiches, the place cleared out, so we sat at the one tiny table, and one of the counter ladies brought us an extra stool -- so sweet!

Sandwich-wise, it really wasn't a bad sandwich, but still not as superlative as Binh Minh's. The sandwiches featured long thin slices of cucumber along with the pickled daikon & carrot, which gave a nice contrast. But we had just had the same sandwich at Binh Minh, and it really won out. But one of our party loved the bread and thought it was superior to Binh Minh's.

They do supply their bread to other banh mi shops, and it is solid. I loved the meatball sandwich there, and I can easily see myself having pho at Pho Oregon, and then saving a little room for a meatball banh mi at Lanvin.

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.

A sweet Vietnamese neighborhood place with an extensive and very reasonable menu. Most dishes are around $7-$8, with the most expensive entrees (seafood and specialities) at $9. Vegetarians, meat lovers, and phoaphiles can eat together. Your favorite Asian coffee, juice, exotic smoothie or beer can be had as well. In fact, microbrews are a mere $2.

A recent meal was $24 including tip, for two beers, salad rolls, pho and bun. Nothing knocked us off our feet (both the pho and bun were fairly subtly flavored), but everything was good honest food, great service, decent atmosphere.

This may be the best cheap lunch or dinner in town.

Of course you can buy groceries at New Seasons. But at their deli, you can also get hot food. Yay!!

We've been long time fans of the New Seasons deli, ever since we figured out that eating before shopping means we spend a lot less. But really, the food prices here can't be beat.

For example, tonight we tried the hot wok ($6.95 and up). Yum! You get a metal bowl and fill it as high as you can with goodies: noodles, rice, garlic, ginger, tofu and veggies. You can also add chicken, beef or shrimp, or white or brown rice to your wok bowl for a little extra. Now, choose from the 8 different sauces: most are vegan, a good number are gluten-free, so you have options. You can also get them to ratchet up the heat. Just a few minutes later, you have a huge hot meal on a plate. Grab a drink from the cooler, stop at the cashier, and then make your way to the dining area, stocked with condiments and magazines and lots of tables.

You can get a huge salad for $6.99 from their salad bar. Or if you prefer, they can make a caesar for you ($3.95 and up). They have 2 pastas each day, one veggie, one meat for $4.95 (and up). And two soups a day, one veggie, one meat.

You can get a bagel with lox, or cream cheese, or whitefish spread, or tofu paté (warning, not vegan!), or hummus, and veggies. You can even get your bagel toasted!

And then there are sandwiches. You can build your own from coldcuts, or tuna or chicken salad, or even grilled veggies. They have hamburgers, turkey burgers, veggie burgers, chickenwiches, even groovy hot dogs. And there's some specialty sandwiches as well.

If this isn't enough, there's always rotisserie chicken and chicken quarters, always pizza, always some type of roasted potatoes, and always some other yummy stuff. Chips and sweets are close at hand.

While the chicken and pizza leave me cold, the hot wok, salad bar, and sandwiches are consistently great, as good as you'd get in a restaurant -- but cheaper.

The only drawback is, if you're hungry and you're having them make you a sandwich or some other type of non-instant gratification, waiting may make you crazy. But no crazier than shopping with an empty stomach.

Sickie food in my household is amerochinese, the unchallenging chinese food of our youth. But, the things you really want when you're sick: hot & sour soup, eggrolls, maybe some kung pao chicken—well, why is it so difficult to find decent food close to home?

The Orient is not the sort of place I'd recommend you eat at. It's odd. The bar is bright and undistinguished, and the dining room is essentially a long hall with booths on both sides. And rails in front of the booths, just, I guess, so customers don't get out of line. Or something.

Take-out is a mixed bag. Hot & sour soup is actually spicy, and while no one will confuse it with Wong's King Seafood's or Sungari, it's not bad (and the best, sigh, I've had from NE). They show a bit of care with their foodstuffs: a garlicky dipping sauce for potstickers, crab puffs actually taste a little like crab and contain scallions, and deep fried items are separated from their sauces (dude, so they're crispy still!). Still, the entries were no great shakes and may well have come from Panda Compress for all I know.