According to Portland Picks for Men, the Heathman is debuting a new brunch menu as of tomorrow, Feb. 28. From the PPfM weekly email:
… the already excellent brunch menu has been redesigned with new highlights, including homemade pastries, mix and match vodka with fresh-squeezed juices, bacon salmon, and Portuguese sweet bread French toast.
There’s no mention of this on the Heathman website, but I might have to hustle down there, as soon as I win the lottery.
I have this thing I call the Cadillac List. It’s not a list of places that are like the Cadillac Cafe. It is a list of places where the line is so ridiculously long that I really don’t care how good the food is. I ain’t going on the weekends, except under extreme circumstances. And by that I mean, getting there when they open or planting (hiring?) somebody to go over there and put our names in, so I can come over like 45 minutes later.
I got to Screen Door Saturday at 9:15 a.m., and there was already a 45-minute wait. And the waiting area was somewhere between cramped and claustrophobic. At 9:15 a.m.!!!!
I mean, let’s all take a deep breath here. The Screen Door is a perfectly good restaurant. But it’s on the Cadillac List for me now. The reason being that it’s not worth the wait because there are other places, just as good or better, with almost no line.
Case in point: The three of us went instead to Simpatica, abot a five-minute drive away. We got there at 9:35, waited inside (another advantage over places on the Cadillac List) for 10 minutes, then sat down to food that Screen Door would have to work pretty damn hard to compete with. And maybe they do; I haven’t been to Screen Door in almost a year, and now you know why. If they were open during the week, maybe I’d go then.
And that’s another element of being on the Cadillac List: I’ll go to those places if they’re open during the week.
Wondering what those places are on the Cadillac List? Here you go:
And by the way, speaking of Simpatica: The food there is so good that it still amazes me, every time. I forget how good it is. Like I always say, Stepping Stone is my favorite place, for sentimental reasons, but Simpatica has the best food.
Not to mention a wait about one-third that at the places on the Cadillac List.
One thing I’m glad people don’t ask too often is, “Why isn’t (so-n-so) in the book”?
Usually, it’s just a matter of I didn’t know about the place, which in turn is because I have some blockage in my head. Or it was too expensive for me to find anybody to go with me; this is known as the Beast Corollary. Or I knew about a place but didn’t know about it, ya know?
Such is the deal with Equinox. I knew there was a place called Equinox, but somehow I had it in my head it was a coffee shop. Or it was so hippie-granola that I didn’t want to go there. And somehow it just slipped through the cracks. Bottom line: I’m kind of an idiot sometimes.
So now I have a question: Why the hell is everybody waiting in line at Gravy when Equinox is less than a block away?
Daily Market and Cafe, the obscure little place at 53rd and Halsey is now bigger and with a new name.
Still the same folks, still the same look and feel, basically the same menu. But they got rid of the market and replaced it with more tables. They also added a couple sandwiches, and they’re now doing breakfast all day — well, until 4, which is when they close.
I never thought the name was a good idea, since it invited confusion with Daily Cafe. New Deal is a better idea, and you have to think there’s some timely political commentary going on, right?
Anyway, a pleasant, friendly place with decent food. Check ‘em out.
I was visiting a friend in Seattle the other day, and I insisted we head out for breakfast. I had heard of a few places but told her I was looking for a classic Seattle breakfast. Not the place with the 12-egg omelets that was on the food show. Nothing fancy. Not the place in Fremont where everybody wears sarongs and the food is all organic and vegan and happy. And yes, there is such a place.
As she went through the options — Mae’s, Julia’s, Beth’s, I guess it’s all women up there — she kept returning to a place called Dish. And she kept saying it like, “I mean, I guess we could go to Dish.” And, “Everybody likes Dish.” So that was all I needed to hear — and also, I hate drawn-out decisions about where to go. Dish it was.
Good news from the wonderful people in the little RV on Mississippi Street. As of Thursday, Feb. 12, we can all get our Moxie mojo again. Details here.
I did not write this piece, but somebody with talent did — and it’s exactly the kind of thing I like to read and write about breakfast. Because it’s not really about breakfast.
So, without further ado, and with thanks to Jane for telling me about this, we take you now to the website of The Dalles Chronicle, for a story called “The Regulars.”
The Crew took over the community table at Sub Rosa this morning, and it’s hard to imagine having a better time. I just love seeing my friends meet each other, exchange stories, and laugh out loud. The place is charming, the staff is nice, the sun was out, and most of the 10 of us were there for two full hours. In fact, I can honestly say — and most of the crew would agree — that the worst thing about the experience was the food.
Okay, that’s harsh. The food wasn’t bad. It just wasn’t very good. Does that even make sense? Most of us had a frittata, and I think it was Rick that came up with the right word: pedestrian. Mine, for example, had eggs, parmesan, caramelized onions, mushrooms and spinach. And that’s all it had. It was a little overcooked (somebody said the same thing about their poached eggs), and it just kind of fell flat. Pretty much everybody shrugged when I asked about their food, then talked about how much fun Crew breakfasts are.
For the record, a couple of folks thought it was great. Also, one person said it was the worst she’d ever had. Do with that as you will. We all agreed that the bread and potatoes were outstanding, as were the service and the setting. We also liked the French toast, though it was nothing out of the ordinary. I just feel that if the bread, potatoes and service were the agreed-upon highlights, that doesn’t say much about the food.
It really is a charming little place, calling itself authentic Italian with a Midwestern sensibility. And to their credit, they are very upfront about letting the ingredients speak for themselves. So it’s not like they claim to be something they aren’t. Also, they only do brunch on weekends, and I assume the rest of their food is better — only because they’ve been open a while, and people say nice things about them. And it really is a sweet spot, right at the corner of 26th and Clinton, with a cozy, friendly feel.
My bottom line is this: everybody likes the setting, the place, the neighborhood, and the staff. And everybody agrees that the food is straightforward and fairly simple. If it tickles your fancy, you are gonna love Sub Rosa. It didn’t tickle many fancies this morning, but I can totally see going back for dinner. And I’d even send somebody there for brunch, if they were in the neighborhood and wanted to avoid lines and check it out for themselves.
Sub Rosa (website)
2601 SE Clinton
503-233-1955
Brunch
Saturday 8:30 – 1 & Sunday 8:30 – 2
Main dish, coffee, shared French Toast, $13 each with tip
So I have this regular group of fellas that I eat breakfast with, maybe once a month. We talk politics and crack jokes and occasionally share misfortunes — like this morning we found out that one guy gets real sleepy during the day and got prescribed some meds for it. We only made minimal jokes about this.
Anyway, we usually eat in Southwest, because one guy has to work in Tigard at like 8. You can read more about these fellas, if you have the book, in the chapters about Fat City and Marco’s. Well, for some reason, this morning we ate at Milo’s City Cafe, only we had to be there at 6 freaking 30 a.m. so Mr. Tigard could get to work.
At one point, I looked around and realized that there was us (five guys), then two tables over was four guys, across the way was seven guys, and at another table was three guys. It was the All Guy Breakfast Hour! I guess all the ladies were at Cadillac? Seriously, there wasn’t a woman in the place. This led to a lot of jokes about breakfast gang turf wars, and the Multnomah Village Boys rollin’ up north to take on the Northeast Broadway Losers.
Not an important update, but it goes to show, you should get a regular breakfast crew if you don’t have one. Also, the service suffered under this guyness, and it seemed like the food was one small notch below normal quality. Smoked Salmon Omelet was good, if a smidge heavy on cream cheese.
The Breakfast Crew had a great outing the other day. For one thing, there were eight of us. For another, it was me, Rich, and six women. Okay, not so much fun for the ladies, perhaps.
Mainly, though, we found a really good place: Sckavone’s, 4100 SE Division. It’s new to me, anyway, and I am now somewhat embarrassed by this. The place has been open since 2006! Should have been in the book, and I’ll certainly correct that for the second edition.
So, Old Man Sckavone opened a drugstore there in the 30s, and since then it’s been a couple different restaurants, and now the Old Man’s grandson (not named Sckavone) runs it as a restaurant. It still has every bit the look and feel of a neighborhood place, including the complete absence of a wait on a Saturday at 10 a.m. We left close to 11, and there was still no line. There’s even a counter to sit and talk, and in fact I would like to live in this neighborhood so Sckavone’s can be my local place.
There are a couple of pictures here, and the official website is here. They do brunch on weekends only; menu is here.
We tried the corned beef hash (crispy and excellent, eggs poached just right), the smoked salmon benedict (good sauce and fish, muffin still crispy), and the French Toast, which really was more like apple pie, with cream cheese icing and cinnamon and chunks of apple. It wasn’t french toast, as far as I’m concerned, and it was too big to eat the whole, and too intense to have solo, but it was good. If you have a group of four or more, everybody get something savory and get one order of it as the “table sweet.” I think if you ate the whole thing you’d have to run about the block to burn off the energy … and then take a nap.
Other folks had omelets, including a veggie with a big chunk of avocado on it, and I can’t remember what else. Portions were large, coffee was good, we all agreed the food was excellent, and we got out of there for about $85 with tip. Actually, I think one person didn’t order, so it was the usual $12 or so with coffee and tip.
I really had no idea about this place, and I should have. But if you’re looking for a combination of comfort, chilledness (I just made that word up), and quality, check out Sckavone’s. You just might see me there.