reviews

Since I have a lot more local people reading my blog these days, and reviews seem to be all the rage, here a few whirlwind reviews:

• First, just a recommendation to get some of the Tanzanian Peaberry at Portland Brew. They were out last time I was there, but get some if you can. It’s good.
• We ate at La Luna on Friday night. I thought it was really good, although I think I liked it more than Amanda. The atmosphere is cozy, and the food was all very fresh and well-spiced (a lot of times you go to a place that serves kebabs and they forget that it’s not just meat on a stick). It was also oddly abandoned for a beautiful Friday night. It’s BYOB, evidently with a $5 corking fee.
• I will admit that I slammed on Cafe O2 pretty hard when it first opened (It is directly under our old office). Mostly because I thought it would immediately go out of business. But it hasn’t, and I admit the place is growing on me a bit. If for nothing else, we are starting to like it just because it’s a place downtown that isn’t a pulsating danceclub with the menace of getting dry-humped or shot. I haven’t tried the actual O2 yet, but last night we just stopped in, I had a beer, Amanda bought some earrings, and I sat on a comfortable couch and perused Frida Kahlo’s diary. It was nice. I don’t know that it can last, though – particularly because what I like about it would probably disappear in a linear correlation with its popularity. But, who knows? Rumor has it she might open a pub down there, but I’ll believe it when I see it.
• On a whim, we stopped in to some “lounge”, downstairs below BB King’s. We were just wandering by, and I asked what it was. He said “sortof a martini lounge”. It was basically a dance club that happened to have very large couches. The music was so loud there was no talking to be done, so we finished our drinks and skedaddled (to Cafe O2, which was why it was so welcome by comparison). As we were leaving, the bartender told me apologetically that if we came back later there might be more people there, as if that was why we were leaving. It didn’t seem like much of a lounge – Amanda speculated that he probably told obvious yuppie-fuck couples like us that it’s a “martini lounge” and then groups of single guys that it’s a dance club, etc., just to get them in the door. Anyways, that sucked.
• CentreSource relocated its office to Foster Ave, and there’s some barbecue place right down the street. I can’t remember the name, so I’ll have to find that later. But, it was terrible. It was expensive, as far as barbecue joints go. You basically grab a tray and make a pass through a cafeteria-style thing, and the guy dishes you your choice of 3 meats. The meats they had were: a big slab of very dry beef of some sort, some sort of kielbasa-like sausage, and .. no joke .. barbecued bologna. Bologna? I paid $8 for bologna ?! Where’s the pulled pork? The portions of the very mediocre meat you get were very small, and the sides were not good enough to make up the difference. I am depressed, because having a good barbecue place within walking distance of our office would have kicked ass, but alas, I won’t be going back.