Favorite
A dollop of spit clings to the old man’s grin as he hands you a note. He’d tried to convey the awesomeness of your rendition of “Burning Love” with words, but his toothlessness muffled everything in gummy gibberish. You squint down at his chicken scratch: “No Obama! Damn! What soup!” You assume it’s English. You also assume it’s a compliment. Read more...
Favorite
If you’ve just kicked back in a turquoise, tuck-and-roll captain’s chair at the bar, you’ve lucked into a prime spot for viewing the five flat-screens flickering overhead. During a commercial, however, it’s acceptable to swivel around and soak up the rowdy, clubhouse caterwaul hurtling out of the mouths of pizza-and-beer-slurping blue collars. What was that mother-scratching idiot referee thinking? Kobe, Read more...
Favorite
The seat of Lucy Brennan’s diminutive but influential cocktail empire is perched on a slight rise on N Russell St, hemmed in by the tumult of freight trains rumbling through the Union Pacific yard below and semis plying the elevated Interstate roaring above. Despite its industrial surroundings, the lofty warehouse ceiling and the exposed brick walls that frame the interior, Read more...
Favorite
With a name like the Driftwood Room, one might imagine a bar with a nautical theme, its walls coated with ship’s wheels and fishing nets. But this darkly lit (dare we say cavelike?) bar, set discreetly off the lobby of the Hotel Deluxe, is more like a rendezvous locale for vintage-clothed hipsters or a posse convened by David Lynch. Pale-yellow Read more...
Favorite
As if the dark wood and art-deco tile work weren’t clue enough that you’ve just stepped into the oldest bar in town, there’s the distant aroma of mustache wax lingering like ghostly potpourri. Turkey dinner, the house specialty, is served in abundance all-year round.As befits a gentlemen’s club, roving mixologists whip up flaming Spanish coffees with the flourish of magicians Read more...
Favorite
Your New York driver’s license doesn’t expire until 2009, and despite having lived in Oregon for two years, you refuse to trade it in. Because to do so would mean never again hearing bartender Andrew’s sing-song welcome: “New York City?! What in the dog shit are you doing here?” As if he didn’t know. The Skyline is like a summer Read more...
Favorite
If you’ve grown tired of just “shootin’ stick,” then reserve a private table over at Uptown Billiards Club, where a 250-label wine cellar and five-course dinner menu harkens back to the distinguished days when pool was the game of kings and presidents. Uptown Billiards Club also has one of the greatest happy hours in Portland with a five-course sampler that Read more...
Favorite
The Sanford and Son-like atmosphere of A Roadside Attraction’s cluttered front yard is made just a hair classier by freestanding heaters and a few tables that don’t wobble. (Feel free to pass judgment on everyone who walks by.) Read more...
Favorite
Thank God there are no windows here. Nobody wants to gaze out at the used car lots, the seedy loan shops and all the other reasons not to leave the city limits that threaten to beat down the Tilly’s rusted metal door and smother the joint’s soul. It’s worth a journey through the wasteland, though, if only for the chance Read more...