So last Saturday I kissed my sweet home of Missoula goodbye and traveled over mountains, plains and every goddamn kind of weather with a crabby cat to arrive in Portland. God help me, I’ve moved here without a job or much of a plan other than to find adventure and beer.
I’m not cooking much right now–my living situation is one of those things that will be a great story someday, I’ll explain more some other time–but since I’m unemployed, when I’m not searching for jobs I’m exploring the city with what’s remaining of my tax refunds. Thank you, American Government, for this bounteous goof-off time. (But fuck you very much to the Oregon unemployment office. Christ, what a convoluted and unhelpful system. They sent me THREE repeated letters to tell me I had to wait a week to start getting payments.)
Anyway, I’m writing this while I drink a Simpler Times lager, unofficial beer of the unemployed, and wait for a dear friend to arrive in town so we can go out and get dinner. Thank God the Willamette Week just printed their 2012 guide to cheap eats.
Tasty Things I Had This Week in Portland:
Seven-Grain Survival Stout and Pint o’ Pretzels at Hopworks Urban Brewery: Ate this before going out to see bands, which was a mistake, because I wanted nothing more than to go to bed promptly afterwards. Hopworks serves their pretzels with a sauce just like my mom’s homemade macaroni and cheese sauce.
Biscuits and gravy with shiitake mushrooms at Pine State Biscuits: such marvelous, greasy richness and fluffy biscuits.
Foot-long $3 banh mi sandwich at Best Baguette on SE Powell, with taro boba tea: Truly, a wonderful, spicy, meaty, carbohydratey fuel for long days of job searching.
Banana Cream Cake: For free at the sample counter at New Seasons. Love that grocery store so much.
Brazilian jalapeno soup at Detour Cafe on SE Division: A rich tomato soup with peppers, served with a warm baguette and butter. So perfect.
Dhal curry: A spicy red lentil dish, eaten at an Indian restaurant on Hawthorne. I couldn’t understand the servers’ Indian accents very well, so I’m not sure what else I ate, but it was all really tasty. Also, servers treat you kind of funny when you’re a woman eating dinner by herself. Also I’d maybe had four beers before walking in, so that could explain it.
So…here’s to more adventures!
Poor, Drunk and Hungry 