Finally getting the hang of Portland restaurants
I started to think we had bad food luck in Portland. There was the "legendary" riverside spot with mediocre $35 salmon platters. The "authentic" longtime Chinese place off 82nd that, for what it lacked in flavor and freshness, rocked a lively karaoke and lounge scene. A three-hour wait for a table at a tiki bar. The inedible greasy burgers and fries at a much-lauded dive bar. The Indian restaurant that refused to let us order off the menu and instead demanded we eat from the buffet, where oil seeped and pooled from each dish and the stale, acrid odor of layers of fried food in the alcove should have been the first flag to deter us. The chicken and rice place that, just as we stepped up to order, ran out of...chicken and rice. And there were more! So. Many. More. Until there weren't. For months Scott and I slogged through some bad choices, purposely avoiding the cool new spots for what we'd heard were local mainstays or hidden gems.