PDX Breakfast

Next #PDX Breakfast: February 22nd, 8:30am at Tom’s Diner Restaurant, 3871 SE Division St.

Tom’s Restaurant has been on the corner of 39th Cesar Chavez and Division as long as I can remember (I have been here since ’88) and I have yet to step foot in it.  @RabbiDavid has been there though, and he described their breakfast as “standard greasy-spoon diner fare.”  Although it is not my thing, there really is a place for a classic greasy spoon breakfast in every city.

I will be missing the next #PDXBreakfast on February 22nd because I have a doctor’s appointment (which seem increasingly difficult to get these days which is the only reason it is trumping #PDXBreakfast).  This seemed like a perfect opportunity to let folks get their greasy spoon fix without me missing a choice location.

Save the date: The March 6th#PDXBreakfast will be at Spielman’s on Division. Spoiler alert: excellent coffee & house-made real bagels.

That’s more than just a blog post title, it is the story of my life.  I get it from my father.  He hated driving back the same way he came (FYI–he is still alive, he just can’t drive anymore) and he refuses to eat the same meal twice in one day or on 2 consecutive days.  I have been known to take longer routes just to switch things up.  My abhorrence of eating the same food too frequently has always made cooking in bulk a problem for me. And it is why I struggle picking #PDXBreakfast locations.

The one thing I never imagine changing is my complete and utter adoration of my twin niecelettes.  Ask me again when they hit puberty, but even then I can’t quite imagine myself turning down an opportunity to go visit them.  Thanks to a fabulous @Southwest Airlines sale, I am heading to New York today.  For those following along at home, that means I won’t be here for Thursday, January 26th’s #PDXBreakfast.  Neither will @RabbiDavid because of his new gig as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Willamette University.  Nor will @BryanStearns because he has to take @GinaBean to a doctor’ appointment.  Missing critical mass means that I am cancelling this week’s #PDXBreakfast.

@RabbiDavid teaches classes Tuesday and Thursday mornings, which precludes him from joining the #PDXBreakfast crew for all of Spring semester. For purely selfish reasons, I am moving #PDXBreakfasts to Wednesdays for the foreseeable future (I just like hanging out with the guy). That makes out next #PDXBreakfast on Wednesday, February 8th at Delphina’s Bakery Cafe at 4200 NE Wygant St.

That will also be the @EvaCatHerder Birthday Edition because this year my Hebrew birthday, Tu B’shvat, falls on February 8th.  My secular birthday is on Friday of that week, so I guess this year I will just have a double-plus good birthday.

At the end of the last #PDXBreakfast, @BryanStearns asked if we could have our next breakfast at the Blue Pig.  I happily agreed because it meant that I wouldn’t have to decide where to have this week’s #PDXBreakfast.  But, as it turns out, I met @BryanStearns & @GinaBean at the Blue Pig for breakfast that very weekend.  Bryan ended the meal by telling me that all he wanted to do was make sure I had breakfast at the Blue Pig, so I was now free to hold the next #PDXBreakfast at the location of my choice.  While I very much appreciated the gesture, that was a bad move on Bryan’s part, since it left me way to long to mull over where to hold the next #PDXBreakfast.

A normal person probably would have left well enough alone and stuck with Plan A. While I am many things, normal is not one of them.  I kind of blame my father for this (take that Freud!) My father doesn’t like repetition. He had a rule about always taking a different route home (he no longer drives, so this is now a tough rule to enforce) and he refuses to eat the same food twice in one day.  While I don’t always need to take a different route home, I do like to mix things up.  @RabbiDavid thinks it is very weird that I will sometimes take a longer route if it means I get a break from the routine.  This also applies to restaurants.  I try to avoid going to the same restaurant on two consecutive occasions.  Thus the crux of my dilemma.

I have spent the last week debating revisiting the Blue Pig vs. any other breakfast place in Portland.  We have yet to try Toast. I wasn’t impressed with the Blue Pig’s biscuit, which led me to think fondly of Bakery Bar’s homemade pepper biscuit (yum!!!!). I finally made it to the Rocking Frog, and while their breakfast menu is very limited, their made-to-order donuts were awesome!  This morning, I finally came to a decision driven by behavior rather than decisiveness.  Since it is now Wednesday morning and I have yet to post a location, I figure I should stick with what we all agreed to a couple of weeks ago.  But, since I still can’t stop thinking about Bakery Bar’s biscuits, I am going to schedule the next 2 breakfast locations now.

I just looked at the calendar and realized that our first #PDXBreakfast in January is the day before @RabbiDavid’s birthday. And since I know that he loves, loves, loves Zell’s, I will postpone fulfilling my desire for a Bakery Bar biscuit for a bit longer (knowing that my birthday is in February) to give @RabbiDavid a birthday treat. It also means I am creating a new #PDXBreakfast rule:

Hear ye, hear ye. As of December 2011, any member of the #PDXBreakfast cohort (and we define membership as showing up) gets to choose the #PDXBreakfast location for the gathering closest to their birthday.  So say we all.

Thursday, December 29th – 8:30am Blue Pig at 2028 SE Hawthorne Blvd.

Thursday, January 12th (2012–eek!) – 8:30 am Zell’s Cafe at 1300 SE Morrison St.

In case you were living under an imposed news blackout, you have probably heard that Kettleman’s was sold to Einstein Noah Bagels. Ownership has already been transferred as evidenced by Kettleman’s receipts.  Rumor has it that Kettleman’s will be keeping their own bagel recipe, but I have to wonder how long Einstein/Noah’s will let 4 5 Portland locations have different recipes (not to mention boiling rather than steaming).  Once the signage changes, I also wonder how those of us not in the know will be able to distinguish which location sells what bagels without physically going into the store.

I survived a couple of decades of living in Portland without decent bagels and I will be able to do it again. Admittedly, I did bring home a couple dozen H&H Bagels every time I went back to New York. But before we lose our treasured bagels, #PDXBreakfast will pay homage by dining at the location that started it all.

So, this Thursday, December 15th at 8:30 am meet me and my fellow breakfasters to partake of some bagel happiness, at the original Kettleman’s at 2235 SE 11th.  Maybe you will even be inspired to bring some home with you.

I have been getting alumni emails from my socialist summer camp (I completely filtered out the zionism, but did seriously drink the socialist kool-aid) which just makes me wistful for an idyllic socialist nation.  However, the pragmatic side of my brain keeps loudly reminding me that socialism sounds great on paper, but has some serious flaws when implemented.  And eating Cuban food is a tasty way to remind myself of the issues*inherent in socialism?

If I haven’t already convinced you that I am a socialist, then I will let my library addiction speak for itself.

Havana West is a Cuban restaurant that is located in what used to be Hal’s Tavern (next door to Zell’s).  They are still relatively new and somewhat untested, but #PDXBreakfast will help remedy that.

If you look at a calendar, you might (or might not, depending on how much attention you are paying) notice that the next #PDXBreakfast is scheduled for Thanksgiving (aka Exploit the Natives Day, Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade Day, T(of)urkey Day or other moniker of your choice).  That didn’t seem like such a good idea, so we have elected to bump it back a week.

That puts the next #PDXBreakfast on Thursday, (gulp!) December 1st at 8:30am. Havana West 1308 SE Morrison Ave.

*However, for all of it’s political and economic issues, Cuba has a 99.8% literacy rate,^[3][13] an infant death rate lower than some developed countries,^[14] and an average life expectancy of 77.64.^[3] In 2006, Cuba was the only nation in the world which met the WWF‘s definition of sustainable development; having an ecological footprint of less than 1.8 hectares per capita and a Human Development Index of over 0.8 for 2007. –Wikipedia

Before our failed trial of moving #PDXBreakfast to OMFG early, I had planned for us to go to Juniors, but they don’t open until 8am.  I have been avoiding Juniors for longer than I would like to admit. Not for any rational reason.  But simply because I know the founder and original owner.  A new owner meant change.  Some change I embrace, but because Portland has such a plethora of great breakfast places I found it so very easy not to give the new owner a chance.  So now I am using #PDXBreakfast as a way to break me out of my routine and embrace change.

But before I fully embrace change, I need to thank Junior’s original owners for opening up my breakfast world  a little bit.  Until I went to Juniors I never ordered oatmeal when I went out for breakfast.  Restaurant oatmeal always seemed to be a gummy, unappetizing mess.  But Junior’s oatmeal was a bowl of delicious steel cut oats served with a plethora of fresh fruit.  Without Juniors oatmeal, I would never have ordered Gravy’s oatmeal brulle, which is probably the best oatmeal I have ever eaten.

So please come join me embrace change on Thursday, November 10th, 8:30am at Juniors: 1742 Southeast 12th Avenue.

Due to the extremely pathetic turnout after the time-change to 7:30am, we are moving back to our normal schedule of Thursdays at 8:30am. Due to challenges with the space-time continuum (and the fact that I was on the east coast with my niecelettes), there was no #PDXBreakfast last week, so we are now off-schedule.

But, by special request of @donpdonp, we will make up the missed breakfast tomorrow, Thursday, October 27th at 8:30am at Fullers on 136 Northwest 9th Avenue. We will then resume normal #PDXBreakfasts, Thursday, November 10th at 8:30am.

I am now the proud owner of Breakfast in Bridgetown, 2nd serving. I won it from Daily Deals for Mom’s. But wait, you ask, you’re not a mom. True ‘dat. But anyone who knows me knows that I dote on my twin niecelettes, and I actually subscribe to several parental discount sites to find deals for my brother and some of the other parents I know. Ok, so now that I have restored my legitimacy, the next obvious question is why someone who runs #PDXBreakfast didn’t already own the book. The only thing I can say is that I was clearly a fool in assuming that I could get by just reading the Breakfast In Bridgetown Blog.

What makes the book better than the blog? Imagine it is Sunday morning and you and some friends have decided to go out to breakfast. Somebody suggests a restaurant, but someone else in the group says he/she doesn’t want to go there because the line is always too long.  A few more suggestions are made and all of them are shot down for a variety of reasons.  Eventually, at least one member of the group decides to seek help from the interwebs.  An hour later, nobody has moved and everyone is cranky from low blood sugar and caffeine deprivation.

Now, run the same scenario with the book in hand.  All of the ideas have been shot down, but the group has determined that they want a cheap place with no line in their neighborhood. Just flip open the book, locate a place to go and you’ve got a hot cup of coffee in your hand in no time.  I know, I know. Wasn’t the internet designed to do have the exact same power that I have attributed to the book? Well, yes. But sometimes having a well sorted and finite group of options just makes life simpler.

I was actually feeling kind of desperate to find places open at our new meeting time of 7:30 am. I spent some time looking on the web, but all I found were the same-old, same-old that I already knew opened early. But just flipping through Paul Gerald’s book, I now have 4 places, that I had not previously known about, bookmarked (you know, the old fashioned way–with a ripped up subscription card that fell out of a magazine).

I selected this week’s #PDXBreakfast location by my “who woulda thunk it” reaction when I saw that the Hollywood Burger Bar opens at 7:30am for breakfast.  It would never have occurred to me in a gazillion years that they were open for breakfast.

And for you lazy folks who just scroll to the bottom for the scoop, we are meeting this Wednesday morning, October 5th at 7:30am at the Hollywood Burger Bar located at 4211 NE Sandy Blvd.

And Paul Gerald, should you ever decide to join us for a #PDXBreakfast, your coffee is on me.

The survey results indicated that folks wanted more notice for #PDXBreakfasts, and since there was no good reason for me not to put up the posts earlier, I decided to just go for it. Now I know why I always put it off.  I was waiting for the muse to strike when I wasn’t in the shower, on the bus, in a meeting or anywhere else where it is inconvenient to write a blog post.  So, you are getting what is left in my brain at the end of the day. Which, sad to say, isn’t much.

And speaking of “isn’t much” I am having a hard time finding places that are open at 7:30am.  We did get a new attendee at last week’s #PDXBreakfast, so I am optimistic, but if you early birds don’t start showing up, I will be tempted to move it back to 8 or 8:30 to increase our options. But, I did stumble on a place I had never been that also opens at 7:30, so that is where we will be meeting on Thursday, September 22nd at 7:30am.

The place? Via Delizia at 1105 SW Marshall. 7:30am on Thursday, September 22nd. Be there or be a rhomboid.

A hearty thank you to all of you who responded to the #PDXBreakfast survey.

61% of respondents had never been to a #PDXBreakfast.  The Horror, The Horror.  However, one of those 61% was clearly lost as I am quite clear that I know no gentlemen. His comment?: “A real gentleman resists the urge to eat breakfast more frequently than twice a day.”

More notice and dietary restrictions were also raised as issues.

So based on the results, we are trying an experiment.  Starting Tomorrow, 9/7 (yeah, sorry about the complete and utter lack of notice) we are moving #PDXBreakfasts to every-other Wednesday at 7:30am.

Please join us for the inaugural new #PDXBreakfast feasting at Utopia Cafe, 3308 SE Belmont St at 7:30am.  Look forward to seeing you there.

And the answers to my favorite question on favorite breakfast or food related song:

• “St. Caffeine” by John Gorka
• “Sunday Morning” by the Velvet Underground.
• “Morning Song” by Jewel
• “Dinner Bell” by TMBG”
• “You’re So Vain” by Carly Simon
• “My Bologna” by Weird Al Yankovic
• “A Little Priest” from Sweeney Todd.
• The song my three year old niece sang about bacon being awesome (please note, this is not Eva’s niece) (:
• “C is for Cookie” by Cookie Monster
• “Drink, Drink, Drink” by Mario Lanza
• “Peaches” by The Presidents of the United States of America
• “Eat It” by Weird Al Yankovic
• “Food, glorious fooooood” from Oliver Twist