For Want of Salt & Straw

PDX spring rain. Water falls from the sky even when the sun is shining. Folks complain about the weather this time of year. I find it refreshing to be able to be indoors and concentrate.

Work has kept me busy the last few weeks, since coming back from the Bay Area (bumpy flight from OAK in a Bombardier Q400 on Alaska/Horizon). Last week Red and I made it over to the East side for dinner at a three-year-old place just off Hawthorne---super-hip Hawthorne as of the year 2014.

Bierbrasserie Bazi--dining there we felt overwhelmed by the hipness. We realized almost immediately that the slow speed of the West Hills (a.k.a. Greater Beaverton) had left us hopelessly on the side track of the contemporary Portland experience.

Here the Euro theme, stylish decor, and the articulated luscious "look" of the waitress down to the seamless lipstick color, made it feel like being on a movie set. But that's part of the Portland vibe. Restaurants in Portland are a form of a performance art, as I say.

The waitress, without my prompting, told me the darkest beer they offered was a stout, then proceeded to talk me out of it. When I came back by ordering a serrano-infused vodka cocktail (the one at the top of their menu), she warned me that it was quite spicy (it wasn't, but Red's mojito felt like it had been doused with a bottle of Tabasco sauce).

We both ordered burgers, and also a side of Brussel sprouts, all of which was solidly satisfying.

As we finished dinner, Uncle Wayson showed up---Red's gay housemate from Laurelhurst, who still lives on the east side and who is the same program as Red.

We had a couple more cocktails together, ones that came at uneven intervals, leaving Wayson without a drink for most of the last part of the meal. So be it. It's a movie set, after all.

Then we all hightailed it over to nearby Division, where we parked and stood in line outside Salt & Straw twenty minutes in the lingering winter cold. Inside we ordered two scoops each of their addictive ice cream (after sampling other super-hip postmodern-combo flavors by spoon, of course). We ate the ice cream sitting on outside benches, across the street from a pair of new loft buildings going up. It felt like good old east side times.

At the end of the evening, back on the west side, as Red and I drove back down Capitol Hwy through the strip malls of Hillsdale, we bemoaned how hopelessly unhip it felt here.

"And there's our Salt & Straw," lamented Red, pointing at the little shack building at the corner of Bertha---the neighborhood Baskin-Robbins.