Por Que No?

I recently got a chance to eat at Por Que No with my friend Sierra. I have been wanting to eat here for a while, as it is a very popular establishment on Hawthorne St. However, every time I've been in the vicinity, it's been in the evening or on a weekend, or both, and the place was packed. I went on a weekday at lunchtime, so it wasn't as busy. Por Que No has a huge variety of tacos and then various other Mexican dishes. I would say their tacos are the most popular item. They average 3 bucks a piece, and I would suggest choosing 3 of them for a fulfilling meal meal, packed with a variety of flavors. They also have a great selection of alcohol and non-alcohol beverages, but we both stuck with water (it's a more wallet friendly option). Its a casual restaurant, where one grabs a menu upon entering and gets in line to order, and finds a place to sit with a number while waiting for food to be brought out.  They have a really great outdoor patio, but it was too windy and chilly on the day that we went, so we stayed inside. The food was excellent (we each got 3 different tacos), but I would have like to left feeling a little more full. (authentic taquerias and taco trucks charge about half the price for tacos, although you wont find as much variety, or as high of quality of ingredients).

Portland People

This week it's my pleasure to introduce you to the delightful Ellen Dorsey! Thanks for taking the time out of your day to share with us, Ellen!  (also, Ellen is my first married Portland Person:)

1) How long have you lived in Portland?
I've lived in Portland for about 3 years now. Which, in Portland Years is equivalent to my whole life. I moved here from Southern California because I was tired of riding my bike to the beach everyday. Ok, not quite...I was at a fork in the road in my life and decided a big change would help clear my mind and it did.  I live in the southeast area of Portland, in the Westmoreland neighborhood. It's great because everything from my work to favorite grocery store is within a 2 mile radius. I don't leave SE if I don't have to!

2) What fills up your days (or nights) in Portland?
I work 4 days a week at St. Jack (in...you guessed it, SE Portland) baking pastries and making desserts. I'm an assistant pastry chef (or assistant TO the pastry chef, if you will) and my shifts are pretty early in the morning so I have most evenings free to do as I wish. Most of the time I bake some more. I'd like to say it's to perfect my craft but honestly, I have a pretty big sweet tooth and like to impress my friends and husband.

3) Where are some of your favorite place to go and things to do in Portland?                            On my days off, I like to go to dance classes (mostly hip hop, but I like most classes at my studio), ride my bike, try a new coffeeshop or bakery, or dig through a vintage or antique store for good finds. Since we live so close to Sellwood, we tend to go there for antique shopping and the Ugly Mug has the best iced mocha on this side of town. My husband and I like to find records but rarely pay more than a buck for one. We like the bargain bins at Everyday Music on E. Burnside. I'm telling you, there's very few reasons to leave the east side!

4) What are some different things about Portland that make it Portland? Lately what has been fascinating me about Portlanders is the rush to sit outside and eat. Today, in true Portland fashion, it was sunny and raining, but there were still people using the sidewalk seating. I don't get the appeal. At all.                                                                                                  

5) Do you plan on staying in Portland for a while?I would love to stay in Portland for as long as I can. I love my gig at St. Jack, so I'll keep working there as long as they'll have me or until my husband and I are ready to make a family. As "Weird" as Portland is, it's also a great place to raise kids.

This week I got to learn some fun new things about my friend Everett Patterson.  Everett is a very talented comic writer/drawer (i dont know what you call that!haha) who shared some really interesting bits from his life story in Portland. Thanks Everett! 

1) How long have you lived in Portland?
I'm originally from New Orleans, LA. In the spring of 2009 migrated to the Pacific Northwest because I really wanted to get into organic farming. I interviewed at a bunch of farms throughout Washington, Oregon and NoCal, and finally faked my way into an internship at Local Roots Farm in the Seattle area. But it was February and I still had two and a half months to kill before growing season really began. Even if I had wanted to wait out that time back in New Orleans, I couldn't have, because my craigslist rideshare had totaled my car on the way up here. So I used the insurance money to "camp out" in Portland, a city whose too-good-to-be-true reputation I had derived almost entirely from zines. (I used to work in a socialist/anarchist bookstore in Brooklyn, and all the zines we sold were bursting with praises for Portland. In fact a lot of them were published in Portland, through the Independent Publishing Resource Center.) By the end of April, I was completely smitten with the city and vowed to return.
Farming in Washington was terrific and unforgettable, but towards the end of the season rural life was making me stir crazy. It was dark from 4:30pm until like 9 in the morning, and all I was doing was sitting in my cold trailer drawing comics. I had to get back to Portland somehow! So I applied to be an intern at Periscope Studio, a workspace downtown shared by freelance comic-book professionals. By some miracle I was accepted yet again into an internship for which I was really unqualified and for three months in the spring of '10 I fetched coffee and made photocopies for "the grandest collective of comic book professionals in the western hemisphere." In return they critiqued my art, improving it immeasurably. Really, if I'm any sort of artist today, I have them to thank.
After my second spring in Portland, I knew I couldn't go anywhere else. Katy Ellis O'Brien, one of the editors of Stumptown Underground, an anthology zine to which I had been submitting comics, told me about an opening in her huge house in the NE Portland's Hollywood District. For almost two years now I've lived in that house with five other people, including Katy, and two cats, Aki and Javier.

2) What fills up your days (or nights) in Portland?
It happened so gradually I didn't notice until it was too late: my entire life has come to be centered around imaginary people drawn inside of rectangular boxes, a.k.a. comics, a.k.a. baby stories for illiterate morons. By day I work as an assistant editor at Dark Horse Comics, the third largest comics publisher in the country, headquartered just upriver in Milwaukie, OR. On the nights and weekends I draw my own comics. I published my first "graphic novel" last October. It's a punk-rock UFO-conspiracy adventure called Savage Nobles in the Land of Enchantment and you can read it here: www.savagenobles.com. Cartoonists and zinesters, who make up probably 25% of my friends, are always dropping in and out of our house. We host an "Artists Anonymous" support group for depressed cartoonists on alternate Tuesdays.
I do actually do many things outside of comics. I sing tenor in Cantores in Ecclesia, a choir that performs Gregorian chant and sacred music from the Renaissance - choral polyphonic works of the 16th century are both brilliant and beautiful! We sing Latin mass almost every Saturday evening at St. Stephen's Catholic Church, on SE 41st just offa Hawthorne. I'm also quite involved with my own church, Door of Hope, which is similarly just offa Hawthorne, but whose musical repertoire is decidedly more contemporary.

3) Where are some of your favorite place to go and things to do in Portland?                              Due to an aforementioned craigslist rideshare incident, I have not had a car for years, so I bicycle everywhere. Biking counts as going somewhere, even if you're just biking to work. Portland is a city that benefits from being viewed at the ground level, either walking or biking. All the little surface details, the communal gardens with chicken coops and compost bins, the porches decorated with bonzai trees and welded sculpture for Burning Man, the murals and mosaics, the ghost bikes... if you're just whizzing by in a car, you'll miss them. Seattle, by way of counterexample, looks better from far away. It's a city with many sweeping vistas of lakes and mountains and skyscrapers, but from up close its all stucco and aluminum windows. You want to have a car so you can drive past all that crap and round the corner for the next sweeping vista.

I like to play hackey-sack in Laurelhurst Park or Colonel Summers Park, or on the PSU campus, or sometimes on the bricks in Pioneer Courthouse square. You will meet a lot of cool people that way, though you will also meet a lot of stoned people that way. I like to hang out at Three Friends Coffeehouse on SE 12th - so comfortable, I could never leave.

My favorite place to go at the moment is the Willamette River. There's a place in Milwaukie, right near Dark Horse, where I can just shinny down some rocks and sit right by the river to eat my sandwich, watch the boats and the geese, read, or pray. I was baptized in the Willamette last August, so that questionable brown water holds a lot of significance for me. The lapping on the shore is so peaceful, and it always reminds me of my baptism, and of John baptizing in the Jordan thousands of years ago.

4) What are some different things about Portland that make it Portland?                                                               For whatever reason, Portland has the most beautiful women anywhere! Now I'm a 27-year-old straight male, so my opinion on these matters is probably worthless. But I've lived in other cities too, and they simply do not compare! A random gal bombing it down Belmont outclasses the beauty queen of any other state, no question. Portland women are just so independent and fiery, I love it. Also, maybe it's all the bookstores, but Portland women are all smart as hell. Sometimes just making eye-contact with them feels like getting beaten in Scrabble. In a sexy way. Of course this is wonderful, but it's also kind of annoying. It means there's literally nowhere I can go where I can just relax and not worry about some gorgeous lady sneaking up on me while I've got spinach in my teeth. I remember once, when I first moved to the Hollywood district and was working as a junk-mail distributor for Domino's, I was coming home dirty and sweaty and limping from having walked for five hours carrying all this junk-mail. Because I'd been looking at advertisements for pizza all day, I really wanted some pizza, so I stopped in the Hollywood Whole Foods to buy a frozen vegan pizza. The cashier was this beautiful dreadlocked girl and I felt like such an ogre with all my cutaneous grime. But whatever, I said, that's Portland. Immediately after that I went to the bank next door to register my change of address. And the banker was a beautiful girl! Then I went to the Dept. of Health and Human Services to sign up for food stamps, and not only was the waiting room full of babes, but the social workers were babes too! It was like some trippy dream sequence, or like a Hollywood movie where even the extras are aspiring actresses! Maybe that's why I go down to the river: to get away from the babes. Knowing Portland though, there will probably be really smart, sarcastic mermaids with tattoos and black-framed glasses waiting there, silently judging my choice of literature.

 5) Do you plan on staying in Portland for a while? 
I think I'll stay in Portland for a loooong time, maybe forever. For the first time in my "professional" life, I'm in a job where there's some hope for advancement. After five years or so at Dark Horse, I could theoretically be an associate editor, then later on an editor, and eventually I could get promoted to being an actual superhero. I've never really thought in such long terms before, content to hop from barista gig to barista gig, and so the phrase "five years" actually terrifies me.
But even without the job, I'd still want to stay in Portland. I've got such a great community here - more friends than I've ever had in my life. Plus I feel like Portland is a place where things could really happen. Yes, we're really laid back and we do a lot of pointless bohemian stunts like biking around naked or whatever, but there's a true, furious potential here too. I'm not just talking about last year's Occupy protest, though that was huge. What I mean is, you get all these educated, idealistic, artistic young people into one place, and then make sure that half of them don't have jobs... it's like the environment is pulsing with nervous electiricty, and something is bound to emerge from that. My church Door of Hope is right in the thick of it too, as more and more kids start to ask tough questions, to challenge the worldview they've been presented with since the 90s (I'm one of those kids). So I'll stay here, if only because I'd feel really stupid if the Revolution starts in Portland and I miss it because I moved back to Louisiana to play video games.

Sushiville

For this week's post I didn't go to any strange or quirky Portland place, but I went to a favorite place. Megan and I had been craving Sushi and decided only a trip to Sushiville would do. I myself am no a sushi connoisseur. I don't get too brave in the sushi rolls that I choose, and (like most foods), I appreciate flavor, but not enough to spend the extra money on it. Sushville is perfect then, because its a conveyor belt style sushi restaurant. It's cheap, but still pretty tastey, and I can see everything before I decide weather or not I want to choose it. Megan is pretty sushi intelligent, so she is able to tell me what each item is as it comes around on the conveyor belt. In my opinion, ALL food should come on a conveyor belt. The price of the food is based on what color of plate it comes on, and at the end of the meal, all of your plates are tallied up. EASY PEASY!!?




















  Last time I was at Sushiville, I was struggling so much with my chopsticks that one of the chefs brought me the little plastic clips that they put on the chopsticks for little kids. Apparently it was painful for him to watch me struggle. I think I'm getting a little better with the chopsticks though. Anyways, we each ate four plates for a total of less than $10.00 each. (pretty cheap and satisfying lunch if you ask me!). Our future plans for Sushiville include making foam fish hats to wear, as the walls are painted in an "under the sea" theme...so why not go all out and really get into it?!?!?!

Portland People

Today's Portland Person is my friend Sarah Collins. Sarah is an AMAZING photographer (not like every other person in Portland who thinks they are a photographer. Sarah is actually REALLY REALLY good) and you should check out her website! http://sarahlucille.com/index2.php#/home/

1) How long have you lived in Portland?  I have been in Portland for 5.5 years. I moved here out of a little mountain town in Colorado to pursue a richer design culture, as I was studying graphic arts in college. Also, like many Christians in their 20's seem to have done upon the publishing of Blue Like Jazz, I was inspired by and followed Donald Miller's footsteps out here to the "bohemian city" to drink gallons of delicious coffee and to get to know people who had no faith, or a faith different than mine. Ultimately, moving to Portland was my test of my identity, my spirituality, and my passions...to see how they would hold up without the comforts of the place I had called home for the last 20 years. 

2) What fills up your days (or nights) in Portland?
 Because I am a pedestrian/cyclist/mass transit commuter, I would say a largo amount of my time is spent in the rain, appreciating the trees that shield me from the downpour, and ducking into coffee shops to avoid the rain / to work (edit photos + design) / to read. 28.57% of my week's evenings are taken up by Door of Hope church services. Other night times are often consumed by cheap shows, happy hours, or staying in, goofing around with my roommates.

3) Where are some of your favorite place to go and things to do in Portland?

Sellwood is my favorite Portland neighborhood to escape to. It's like a secret, close-by vacation spot where manageable amounts of serendipity happen to me. It's also such a good place for food, antique shopping, park lounging, jogging, and people/dog observing! Favorite coffee shop to work in: Ford Food + Drink. Favorite coffee shop to chat in: Tea Chai Té. Its actually a tea shop, in Sellwood. Did I say I love Sellwood? Because I love Sellwood.

4) What are some different things about Portland that make it Portland? 
For three years I worked with a team delivering socks and other necessities to the homeless downtown. I also had a good friend who worked as a valet at the Nines and so we had our stories about the regular crazies we'd see around. Most of them got nicknames, for example, The Emperor, who walked around the city with a blanket tied around his neck and dragging behind him. Rain or shine. Then there's the man who walks around town with his Bengal Cat on his shoulder. Has for years. My most recent favorite character has been the "F*ck Geico" guy. He drives around with the innards of his driver-side door exposed and if anyone comments, he peels out while ranting about how Geico screwed him over. I took a photo of him a while back, and lately have been noticing more of him floating around the net. (that's Sarah's photo of him, below!)

5) Do you plan on staying in Portland for a while?                                                                     I have no idea how long Portland will be home to me, maybe one more year, maybe forever! I love living here but my heart will always be divided by Colorado. We will see where the wind (and the job market) will take me! For now, Portland is home where I work as a freelance photographer and designer.

Kenndey School

Last night Megan and I went to Kennedy School to watch the movie Wanderlust. Kennedy School is a McMenamins establishment. McMenamins is a chain of bars, theaters, restaurants, hotels, concert halls, etc...basically, they do entertainment. The Kennedy School is a an elementary school, built in 1915, used as an elementary school until 1975, and remodeled into a hotel in  1997. Classrooms, gymnasiums, cafeterias, etc, have all been turned into hotel rooms, bars, restaurants, a movie theater, and a gathering hall for music shows and various events. The hotel also features a saltwater soaking pool. Although this is a hotel, many people use the Kennedy School as a reasonably priced place to spend an afternoon or evening to grab a drink at one of the 4 bars (including a whiskey and cigar room) and watch a cheap $3.00 movie in the theater.

The theater has a great little bar so you can get drinks and order food (from any of the on site restaurants) to enjoy during the film. The theater is filled with rows of old (but clean:) couches and little end tables. Its a very fun and cozy movie experience. We like to think that it's cheap, since the movies are only $3.00, but once you add a pitcher of beer (we chose the delicious RUBY, a raspberry beer) and a meal, its not as cheap. If you go to an earlier film, you can get in on happy hour deals though.  http://www.mcmenamins.com/427-kennedy-school-home

The Boiler Room (bar)

waiting for the movie to start

in the basement of the Boiler Room

Portland People

Today's Portland Person is my friend Duke Kimball. I really enjoyed reading over Duke's VERY entertaining responses. He's definitely embodies the true spirit of a Portland Person. Thanks Duke!

1) How long have you lived in Portland?
I've lived in Rip City for about a year and a half-ish. I was living in Michigan, where I was on the better-late-than-never plan at Michigan State University. After I barely scraped by and got my worthless liberal arts degree in Religious Studies, I was convinced by a few of my old Michigan friends to join them out in Portland. (I didn't have anywhere else better in mind, figured what the hell.) So I packed up all my belongings in my station wagon and drove across the country to a city I'd never set foot in, and I lived in their basement for over a year. I've been in Southeast my whole tenure in PDX... my basement dwelling was in a house by Colonel Summer's Park in the Hawthorne area, and now I live off Belmont. I dig southeast. It's weird for the sake of weird, and super laid back, which I would say reflects my personality fairly well.

2) What fills up your days (or nights) in Portland?
I work at Starbucks, which is pretty much the quintessential Portland starter job. It's been a decent 'pay the bills' sort of gig, even if it wakes me at ungodly hours of the morning. I also have been known to write words in my spare time, in the afternoons when most of my friends are either working or sleeping. I like to do this in weird places sometimes... take my journal and my pipe and hit up one of the many parks, camp out in coffee houses or go to bars in the early afternoon when no one else is there. People watching never fails in Portland, and it's proven to be immensely helpful in writing fiction. I've based several short stories on random stuff I've encountered here... from a young lady's odd expression on a packed Trimet bus to a grocery bag with three abandoned baby shoes on Taylor street. Of course, I also kill waaay too much time on Netflix.

3) Where are some of your favorite place to go and things to do in Portland?

I love the beer and coffee culture here in Portland. I come from a place where you had to hunt for a good microbrew, and where Starbucks was the best cup of java around. In Portland, great beer and coffee are EVERYWHERE. Barbershops have beer, bike shops have extensive espresso bars. So I love bouncing around, trying to find eclectic places. (Roadside Attraction, the Doug Fir, and Central are some of my personal favorites, places with character.) There's always a good show going on too... I'm really into the indie music scene here. And the existence of Powell's books and the copious amount of record stores keep me from saving too much money. 

4) What are some different things about Portland that make it Portland?                                                          I'll answer your question with an anecdote. In April of 2011, I was walking down SE 20th street on the way to 7-11 on Hawthorne. I was promptly passed by a man in a handlebar mustache and suspenders, riding a double-decker bicycle, with a dead Christmas tree slung over one shoulder.
I decided to myself that this was my kind of town.                                                              5) Do you plan on staying in Portland for a while?                                                               Well, I dig Portland. I don't really have a reason to leave. Made some great friends, go to a great church, (doorofhopepdx.org) and I find that people here think outside the box. Which is cool. I'm also applying for Seminaries, of which there are several great ones in the area. But in general, I enjoy living in a town where I can walk down the street and not get funny looks. It's pretty rad.

Also, I like seeing mountains. Mountains, Gandalf!!!