Ok, so this is kind of a long time coming. Shannon and I have been on a tour of portland breakfast/brunch these last few weeks- months?- every monday morning we hit up a new spot. It all started with Broder......
Broder- An amazing concept, executed perfectly. Scandinavian, of sorts, this tiny little cafe is one of Peter Bro's restaurants, the same guy who owns Savoy. It's next door, we share a basement, among other things. The first time, I think I had the apple fritters- like apple pancakes kind of, came with a sausage and "baked eggs"- that's their thing, shannon had something and a potato pancake as the side. That pancake turned out to be the highlight of the whole trip- quite possibly the world's best food. Needless to say, we've shared at least one every time we've been back. We've also had a granola parfait with real blueberries and yogurt that doesn't suck, Danish pancakes which are round little dough balls, served with lemon curd and jam, all sorts of egg scrambles, and other things i'm leaving out i'm sure. We love Broder. Not that we got bored but somehow we moved on...
http://www.broderpdx.com/
Tasty and Son's- This spot won new restaurant of the year this year, it is a brunch place from the chef of Toro Bravo, one of the best restaurants in Portland. I'd been hearing a lot about it so it was our first stop when monday rolled around again. Big, kind of industrial feeling to the inside, one long string of tables side by side, and an open kitchen. Excellent tea, Shannon preferred the coffee at Broder, but mostly because they heat up the cream, which is awesome. It was more like a tapas, small plates type deal, although there were large plates available. We opted for several small ones to share. Let's see, we had sweet potatoes, cooked in butter with cumin, sweet biscuits with homemade blueberry jam, dates stuffed with crunchy almonds and wrapped in bacon doused in maple syrup- a highlight- and a dijon truffle cheese omelet with sausage. Pretty epic meal, it was a lot like having dinner for breakfast, except with breakfast food. Does that make sense? Adam stayed at home and was going to help me out by putting my laundry in the dryer ( our dryer broke, long story) so we decided to get him a treat to go. We ordered a chocolate potato doughnut, it came out in abox, we opened it and laughed and laughed. It was so tiny! Of course, this should have been exactly what we were expecting after our fancy meal but still, the thought of taking this tiny little guy back to adam was freaking hilarious. I'm sure it was fantastic, I think he ate it in one bite.
http://www.tastynsons.com/
The Country Cat- Whitney, the new cook at Savoy, came to us straight from the Country Cat, she cooked dinner but said breakfast was awesome. Monday is industry day, so we got half off! It was almost empty when we sat down, I think I had coffee- bad girl- and we shared a couple of plates. First, gingerbread pancakes. Awesome, giant,and not too sweet, they came with some baked apples and a molasses syrup that was really good. We also had the special, which was pastrami hash. The potatoes were large chunks, no doubt deep fried before being sauteed with everything else, big chunks of pastrami too. They do all of their own butchery here, they have a resident butcher, so they get whole animals and break them down. I like the idea of getting a whole animal and using every part somehow in the restaurant, oh, i'm getting side tracked. Potatoes, pastrami, oh ya, some peppers or something, egg, and a dijon mustard sauce that really made the dish. The place was still empty when we left, Monday is not their busiest day, I guess. I really need to find out if the industry discount applies to dinner, I want a steak! Or fried chicken!
http://www.thecountrycat.net/
Pine State Biscuits- If there was ever a time to have pictures, this is it. Oh, man...fried chicken for breakfast! I had not properly warned Shannon ahead of time, so she was a little apprehensive looking at the strange menu, plus you had to stand and order before sitting, so there was not a chance to sit in a comfy booth with a cup of coffee and a menu, and ease into the fact that we were having fried chicken for breakfast. I pretty much picked and ordered, my tea came in a to go cup, not my favorite thing, but the coffee was self service with refills, that's kinda nice. We shared two plates, first up- the pine state fried club, no idea why they call it this. Three fried grit cakes, each topped with something different- oh maybe that's why, cause clubs have three different things, anyway... first one had an egg and house made pimento cheese, this melted, luckily, all over everything and we were able to dip lots of things in it- so good! The middle one was topped with fried chicken, a nice white piece, no bones involved, I love fried chicken. There, I said it, it's just so freaking good. Third one had, interestingly, a piece of ham, parma ham possibly? Could have been serrano, wrapped around a piece of cheese. Seeing that we started from the other end of the plate, this was the last bit that got dug into, if we had started with it, it possibly would have gotten the attention it deserved. Highlight of the whole trip- a sandwich called, i think the chesterfield or something, I can't remember. Awesome biscuit, as you can imagine, with apple butter, fried chicken, bacon, and cheddar cheese. Indescribably fantastic. Side of collard greens, good, remarkably like the ones we make at Savoy, except with no bacon. I was full until almost six that evening, and then I was craving that sandwich again. Craving it right now, actually.
http://pinestatebiscuits.com/
So, my grand tour de Portland I described in the opening paragraph was apparently only three weeks long. So far, and there were several Broder trips, so, it's been longer than that. Anyway, I will stay current from now on, hopefully even get brave enough to take some pictures!
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