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Sure, Shaker’s Cafe, Big Bear Bagel, and Cafe Lena are gone, and hippies Jim and Patty no longer helm Coffee People. But that indie spirit is still alive and well in Old Wives’ Hungarian mushroom soup, Annie’s apple fritters, and Fujin’s Chinese takeout. To put it simply, there’re still plenty of places that make Portland […]

Sir Loins Restaurant 8025 NE Sandy Blvd. 284-7107 I have two food fetishes, and both are kind of dirty. The first is my fetish for weird meat: goat, sea cucumber, quail, rabbit, tongue, frog, alligator, duckling, buffalo, whatever. The second is old people restaurants–places that serve weak coffee, strong drinks, and steak for lunch. I […]

While my ravenous coworkers urged me to include Izzy’s and Chang’s Mongolian Grill in this quick list of lunch buffets, I refused. Why? Because those places are filled with contagious, diseased children. If I’m going to stuff my face with plates of food, I prefer it to be delicious, and lovingly prepared and served in […]

If you’ve spent any significant portion of your life in bars, you know the dark side of humanity hangs out where the light is dim, the air is smoky, and fresh fruit means dried-up pieces of lime. As Halloween approaches, the pull to the dark side gets stronger, and us boring common folk look for […]

Hama Sushi 4232 NE Sandy Blvd 249-1021 Sushi restaurants are something like Britney Spears–trendy, and sort of over. That doesn’t mean, however, that either is entirely irrelevant. A decent piece of Spears gossip can spice up a middling conversation (or People magazine cover), and a trip to a good sushi bar can be the spark […]

Lots of places have crepes on their menus, but only a handful can call themselves creperies–magical places where you’ll find little but thin pancakes stuffed with a myriad of delicious ingredients. “Creperie,” what a romantic word… Seduce your mouth with these, the cutest creperies in town. Fold, Streamline Trailer No. 43 2921 NE Alberta, Official […]

As Portlanders, we’ve all heard the story of magical hippies who gather fallen chestnuts from roadside trees, wresting the nourishing nutmeat from their spiny purses like patchouli-dipped squirrels. Some locals say they’ve witnessed this strange fall occurrence firsthand. Others say it’s all a buncha’ hooey. Fact or fable, let’s heed the lesson of these resourceful, […]

Romano’s Macaroni Grill 300 SW Yamhill 546-3040 Every time I go home to Chicago, my parents pick me up from the airport and we drive straight to the Cheesecake Factory restaurant–a two-story corporate monolith with a chintzy, fake sense of elegance, that granted, serves a decent piece of cheesecake. I don’t understand why this restaurant […]

Ahh, autumn. As I savor the brisk, clean sensation of early fall air in my lungs, and delight upon the peaceful drift of brilliantly colored leaves as they descend from tall trees, spinning and dancing like tiny ballet dancers, I find myself yearning to do one thing: Get delightfully drunk off of seasonal beer. Local […]