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

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.

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

Other Press

• Bar Fly


• Gulch Guide

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.

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!

My favorite mega-tapped tavern is the Concordia Ale House. However you've got to get there, it's worth it. They have 22 taps, and they have a really interesting selection of regional and international beers that you're not likely to have had on tap before. They also have the best pub grub in the city. It's nonsmoking, the wait staff know their beer and are free with the tasters.

Concordia is great, absolutely great, for us beer dorks. And, they have a weekend breakfast that's very good.

They have 20some taps—and they have nothing commonplace on those taps. You know, the stuff that's on tap consistently around town - Widmer, Full Sail, Deschutes - you won't find it at Concordia. But there is this constantly turning over selection of really interesting things. They almost always have a double IPA, a cream ale, a weizen, a couple strong beers - really interesting stuff! There have been times when there hasn't been anything on the menu that I've tried before!

Another great thing is that they give you a draft list, which gives you the name, the style, the brewery, the country. The wait staff seem really into the beer, so they can give you a good description but it's nice not to have to guess from the name. They are also very free with the tasters.

In the cooler, they have over 100 bottled beers, also described in some detail in the bottled beer menu.

Their prices are really pretty reasonable for what you're getting, and you can choose a glass, pint, imperial pint... I love that you can specifically order an imperial pint.

They also have pool tables! It's kinda noisy at times, but gosh, it's awfully good.

So we went back after maybe a year and a half away. Dear g-d! First of all, new owners. What was the restaurant side is now the bar side. You walk in, into the bar (because the restaurant door is locked), and the louvered doors to the restaurant are shut. Hmmm, looks like you can't eat in the restaurant, right? No, you can, if you don't mind being in an oddly unfinished room with no heat.

That said, I would have prefered that to sitting in the bar. Three TVs, with three different channels, compete with neon and the video crack addicts for your attention. And, it's smokey. Really smokey.

They of course have a full bar, a wall of wine, and maybe 6 taps of unexceptional stuff. Maybe half of those are micros you can get anywhere (Widmer, Redhook, New Belgium). The wonderful Widmer KGB imperial stout is no longer there.

Breakfast was reasonable and okay, which is to say, nowhere as decent as it used to be, and not recommended. The "sausage and pepper bacon" gravy tasted of neither (but there was a lot of it). The ragin' cajun omelette was completely overdone, with icky so-called andouille, lackluster overdone home fries, and not really toasted english muffin. Coffee—Denny's stylee. Service was friendly, however.

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

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.

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.

Kelly's is just what it seems: a smokey bar with breakfast served all day. And while it seems from the outside like a dive, it's just playing. New owners have taken the truism More neon is better to heart, and it's really rather an interesting tavern. And it gets the most interesting when we're talking about beer and appetizers. One in particular, Fried Macaroni and Cheese Bites, is so wrong, and so very right. With 20 taps devoted to micros, plus PBR and a couple other macros that your dad or your cow-orker prefers, everyone can be happy.

more photos

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Full disclosure: I know these guys.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

You could do a lot worse than Muddy's. Yummy and very reasonable breakfast all day. The best french toast in town, even beating out Henry's. Homemade chipotle hot sauce. Good, groovy coffee, groovy eggs, yummy baked goods and really good bread. Homemade strata on the weekends to die for. Our only qualm was that they don't do over-easy eggs. But hey, at least they are totally upfront about it. Lunch features the three Ss - soup, sandwiches, salads, along with a quiche of the day. Not that I've ever made it to lunch, but I bet it's good. It's like hanging out at home if your home is an adorable victorian filled with mix-matched furniture, and clean. And with good food, and good vibes. They now have bottled beer and house wines to make this an excellent, low-key place to hang out and get some work done. Or not.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• BarFly

First, let me say: this is a family restaurant. So don't get your hopes up about gourmet or really good. But this greek diner/lounge has a pile going for it. Among other things, if you live in the neighborhood, you'll see your neighbors there. The non-smoking restaurant side is busy, bright, and very diner-like, with an assortment of booths, tables and counter seating. Go at breakfast or dinner, and you'll find kids—not a lot, but some. The lounge side is dark, soothing, busy, and smokey, with its own counter, what seems like thousands of TVs playing sports, and two fireplaces(!). You don't have to drink on the lounge side (just be tolerant of smoke)—and at breakfast time, is about half full, though there's not a lot of folks in for their hair-of-the-dog.

What the Overlook does exquisitely is the diner breakfast. Lots of options, always some cheap less-than-$5 specials, and the food is reliably solid. Get the grits if they have them—you can doctor them up into something fantabulous. The two of us went a bit nuts and still got out for less than $15, not including tip, for breakfast.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

This is just a little corner cafe/diner: tiny, really, with a couple of booths, a few more tables, and counter seating. In nice weather, they have a patio as well. It's the sort of place that you can ID from the street because the windows are all fogged up, and there's a line of people reading newspapers.

Yes, they did trademark "You eat here because we let you", so there is a bit of attitude, theoretically. Sometimes, there's enough folks staffing; sometimes, it's just Denise (who's worked there since the beginning of time) and someone else working the entire place. So yes, your (Portland Brewing) coffee cup and water glass won't stay full.

As noted, the coffee is not what you come here for. They do serve expresso, or drinks if you need some hair of the dog.

And they do serve lunch. Not that I can speak to that.
The breakfast menu is huge, and there's always more on the chalkboards. If you can't see them, ask, or just make a point to check them out.

There are traditional breakfasts ($4-$8.50) which are egg, protein, potatoes, toast, including some absolutely excellent scrambles. If you fear you aren't getting enough pork in your diet, try the meat lover's scram. It has, of course, ham, bacon, and sausage in bite-sized chunks with a little jack cheese—delicious and easily two meals.

Potatoes are big slices, fried on the griddle—they don't do it for me, but they are a good excuse to have some homemade salsa.

The ala carte menu ($3.50-$7) has favorites like a decent biscuits & gravy (which you can get as a half order), and the Tichenors (Tichenor's choice, the dilemma, the other dilemma), which is home fried hash browns covered with all manner of things.

The griddle menu ($2.50-$6) includes pancakes, french toast, waffle, and blintzes. The pancakes are huge, covering an entire huge round plate (and you can get real maple syrup for a surcharge).

And finally, there are 3 egg omelettes ($7-$8.25).

With a big menu and a lot of specials, you have choices, and they all seem to be solid. The heuvos rancheros are a favorite, a delicious (and completely inauthentic) carb-fest of corn tortillas, refried beans, ranchero sauce, eggs, potatoes, and pickled jalapenos. Yum! And you can add avocado.

Whenever I have friends staying in NW, this goes on top of the list for what to do for breakfast.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Other reviews

• Portland Blog

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Definitely recommended for vegetarians and vegans.

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.

This is really just a neighborhood joint, smokey and friendly and overly bright. There's pool and pinball, beer and liquor, and food, natch: both bar-snacky things like taquitos and poppers, and meals. This includes a 2 for $7.95 breakfast which was quite edible and quite cheap (and quite smokey).