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.

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.

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.

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.

Clay recommended this cute tiny cafe with "great panini!". First of all, they have a mirror ball. Portland Roasting provides a decent cup of coffee, and there is espresso as well. The breakfast menu is short: panini, bagel, fruit bowl and yoghurt. Lunch offers a variety of panini ($6.25-$7.25), cold sandwiches ($4.25-$5.75), and salads ($4.75-$6.50), as well as sandwich and soup or salad combos, and beer and wine. And yes, the panini are tasty. Service is not the speediest in town, but it's friendly. Seat yourself insider or out— with the only traffic being the MAX trains, it's pretty pleasant. And, they have WiFi.

Serves Stumptown coffee, and has breakfast goodies, sandwiches, WiFi and a fun vibe.