Portland’s 5 Best Breakfast Sandwiches
Egg and brie sandwich at Vivienne Kitchen and Pantry
Image: Kelly Clarke
Vivienne Kitchen & Pastry’s Breakfast Sandwich
Yes, we are obsessed with Vivienne’s breakfast porridge. But not every day is a porridge day. Thankfully, their take on the handheld egg sandwich is one of the city’s best. Out of the small eatery’s open kitchen comes a multi-dimensional creation, slathered in tarragon aioli and with layered baked eggs, Mama Lil’s peppers, prosciutto, and oozy, tangy brie on a seeded roll.
Meat Cheese Bread’s Breakfast Burrito
Okay, okay. This isn’t technically a sandwich. If you’re dead set on two slices of bread, get MCB’s “Maple,” a bread pudding monstrosity with sausage and cheddar. But the breakfast burrito, rolled with scrambled egg, hash browns, green chile salsa, and cheddar, then toasted on a flat-top, is, at the risk of sounding hyperbolic, capable of taking you to a new astral plane. (Insider tip: to reach nirvana, get it with sausage.)
Milk Glass Mrkt’s Cheddar Biscuit Sandwich
A love supreme—fluffs of herby omelet folded and tucked with meaty bacon into the jaws of a tender, tangy cheese biscuit full of crispy edges. This is the sandwich that drove us to Moxie Rx, owner Nancye Benson’s pioneering North Portland food cart, years ago. Now she serves the sandwich at her rockin’ retro-mod café-market on N Killingsworth.
Image: Bunk Sandwiches
Bunk Sandwiches’ Egg and Cheese Sandwich
Some mornings demand a simple, steaming bundle of fried egg, melted cheese, and sausage. For these days, there is Bunk. Co-owner Tommy Habetz considers the breakfast sandwich he foundation of his mini-empire, built on a poppy-seed “hard roll” developed by Fleur de Lis Bakery for Bunk. The proof is in the production: Portlanders scarf some 700 to 1,000 of these bad boys a week.
Lauretta Jean’s LJ Classic
Kate McMillen’s buttery beauties (we’re talking about biscuits here) bracket everything from pulled pork and apple barbecue sauce to an over-easy egg shouldering shaved Brussels sprouts. But the LJ Classic sandwich ($6.50) is a special treat. A light topping of strawberry jam provides a sweet counterpunch to savory bacon, gooey, over-easy egg, and melted pepper jack cheese.
