LA sucks, wish you were here.

Last night I had a dream that I wore a silver sequin dress to a party. Arnold Schwarzenegger was there and upon seeing my glittery assets on display, he proposed to me. He had a lot of complicated rules about what our marriage would entail (mostly around the fact that he wanted to have sex with other people, a lot of other people) but I decided to go with it because I was curious about the idea of domestic adventure.

I think this is the lasting impact of my recent trip to Los Angeles on my subconscious.

I know it's a cliche to hate LA. There is nothing new to dryly observe or wittily complain about, plus you know, Joan Didion liked it well enough so what the fuck is my problem? But seriously, that place is a humid snakepit and every moment I spent breathing in its smoggy air and the undeserved self-importance of angry, anorexic bottom-feeders I could feel my soul being forever tarred.

It's not all Los Angeles's fault, I know. It was a work trip, work was going lousy (lousily?) and I knew I wouldn't get a chance to see any of my friends who live there (who all enjoy it and probably could've taught me a thing or two). When upon my return (the increasingly blog-shy) Nancy asked "are you going to move to Los Angeles now?" I felt like projectile vomit was not a strong enough response.

So when we ran into an old friend, a very talented artist from OlyWA (hi Kanako!) and her girlfriend (hi Emily!) who were also visiting, my work-wife and I found a free hour to go to The Griddle Cafe and talk about the miserable time we were all having. The final game of the World Cup was on and the place was packed with merriment and carb eaters (whoa!) We all admired whatever intrepid sense of invention came to create the "Black Magic" pancake dish (Oreos cooked inside of two giant flapjacks) but I'm not much a sugar-eater so I stuck with a chop salad and cheering for the Netherlands (le sigh). Kanako had some kind of apple-explosion pancakes that were gigantic and amazing.

According to their official site, MEGAN FOX is a fan, even though sometimes she wears a BIKINI (being a ho for the SEO!)

Having chatted up our lovely waitress whose girlfriend's film had just screened with Kanako's, she arrived at our table with a french press pot (nice) and two Bloody Marys (what!) announcing that there was some kind of special going on. I'm used to being the one at any given breakfast table who has the most vices, but this morning the divergence was pretty absurd. Between the four of us I'm the only one who drinks alcohol or caffeine..! Needless to say by the time I drank two Bloodys and a french pot of coffee I was in no shape for this:

Oh and did I mention it came with a block of cornbread that could've been used to cordon off an 8-lane freeway?

So thanks, Griddle, yours is, as Depeche Mode would say, a pain that I'm used to -- and a welcome relief from a city I find little to agree with.

UPDATE:
Sorry, forgot the reason why we're all here:
Yeah, those are romaine lettuce leafs in my SoCali Bloodys, wtf?

I'm gonna take you home to meet my mom.

Milo's City Cafe

Aw, Milo's.... you're the bloody my mom wants me to date. My mom does, in fact, love a good bloody mary- I'm certain I inherited my taste for the tomato & vodka drinkable breakfast salad from her. (Just don't tell her church ladies as much.) Erin and I found ourselves at Milo's after we ended things with Katie's, in an effort to try the other side- a clean, well-lit place with incredibly hot wait-staff, spot-on service, legendary benedicts and talk-of-the-town bloodys. All of what we'd heard came true at Milo's. Hot wait staff, fast service, perfect lemony-yellow hollandaise smothering my smoked salmon benny, and pretty delicious bloodys, even if they were on the weaker side.

But.... there's always a but. Perhaps it was the drinking I had done the night before. Perhaps it was the impromptu lesbian relationship counseling we (Erin and I- the two straight girls, mind you) administered to the friend we'd brought along on our Milo's speed date, maybe it was the throngs of breeding Portlanders and their criminally beautiful children inside the diner... but the fact of it is that Milo's is never going to be our weekly spot. You can't linger in a place where there is a line-up at the front door stretching around the block, all the hungry beady eyes of Portland's urban professionals attempting to stare me out of slowly savoring my tumbler of tomato-vodka goodness. The coffee refills, brought by an eager, overly cute waiter were fantastic, but you can only ask for so many refills before you have to admit to yourself, and cute barely-legal Jeff, that you are, in fact, not going to order anything else and you promise to promptly vacate the table for the Joneses standing in the doorway, glaring at us. And, Milo's, I can't afford you. Si quieres azul celeste, que te cueste ('if you desire the blue heavens, it comes with a price tag'), so the saying goes.

I will, however, bring my mom over to meet you. Maybe she'll treat, and after, she can forever voice loosely disguised directives like "honey, Milo's seems like such a nice place. I like that place. Why don't you just go there for bloodys instead of wasting your time on places where the waitresses have more tattoos than your brother and the rest of the patrons are drinking PBR at 9am in the morning?". And I will tell her she has a point, but you can't force attraction. If the chemistry isn't there, it just isn't there. It was a great one-morning stand, though.

Thanks, Milo's.

(Image by how_long_it_takes: http://www.flickr.com/photos/29311691@N05/4496229319/)

Scenes from the Space Room

"This tastes watered down.. it also burns!"

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how we discovered the heaviest pour in Portland's bloody mary coterie. Though as much as I love to wake up to three shots of vodka and can appreciate such bold additions to the breakfast menu pantheon as "Taco Omelette" (I ate this), I was super-bummed by the lack of vegetable decoration in our drinks. A celery stalk and a piece of lime.

When Nancy, Christina (henceforth Nancetina) & I got into this little experiment we knew we couldn't go around comparing every bloody mary to the one that broke our hearts. It's not fair to new bloodys nor is it healthy for us. Still, my thoughts linger on the veritable salad appetizer we had come to expect with our morning cocktails. A pepperoncini, a pearl onion and a disgusting olive to share. Oh fired Katie O'Brien's waitress, I wonder if you feel how much you are missed?

No, instead we must focus on the Space Room's own quirks, pleasures and comforts. The decoupaged Star Trek-themed tables, the varied and easy-going clientele reflecting a place that makes all feel welcome and perhaps, my personal favorite.. a location that allows for maximum people watching. Situated in upper/outer (I still don't understand how distance is measured in Portland) of the increasingly gentrified Hawthorne district, the Space Room allows for endless "is that dude gay?" postulation.

Male sexuality and the expression therein, being kind of a moving target in this modern age but especially in the Rose City -- where gay dudes have bushy beards and straight dudes wear skinny jeans. Most folks will find that traditional markers relied upon for accurate gaydar are skewed and confused here. It's progressive (I guess), but a difficult transition for all of us.

Which is why it brings me great delight to share with you, dear reader, Nancetina's and my final call on a topic of great import to all slightly sauced ladies who brunch. After hours of heated debate (and multiple squeeze bags of Sysco's finest vodka), we have determined that in fact, no, gay dudes do not wear orange t-shirts. You're welcome, America!


Photo courtesy of Nate B.

It's Just Breakfast

By "perfect bloody mary" we mean perfect to us. Shamelessly subjective criteria in this here blog but I'd like to think that you'll still find it useful and entertaining. We drink, we rate, we write.

Bloody marys are easy to come by in Portland. It's a brunch town, and a good stiff tomato juice and vodka mixture is a pretty logical component of the breakfast of champions, or at least the breakfast of the hungover. It's pretty rad. What is not easy to come by is that elusive harmony of a good mary and a solidly decent breakfast, at basement prices, in a joint that sits squarely in the middle of a continuum ranging from smelling of vomit on the one hand, and being overly precious and self-aware on the other. I am a classy lady, but I am definitely NOT too cool for school.

There is a backstory. This whole project is the product of a breakup. After some months of blissful courtship (all through a long, dreary Portland winter in fact), we broke up wth Katie O'Briens. The three of us girls love Katie's. The strong, cheap bloodys in pint glasses-- spicy and alcoholic, with plenty of veg-- kind of a dive but not in a scary way, never a wait on weekend mornings, and surprisingly delicious coffee. I always left with that pleasant alcoholic high resulting from the endless coffee refills and the gratuitous shots of Monopolowa in my bloody. But they fired our waitress, and things went south between Katie's and I (and E and N). I've been back a few weekend mornings since she's been gone, only to find Katie's a ship without a captain. The bloodys lack the booze, the service lacks the spark, and the whole thing makes me sad. We remain on good terms, especially since I live a block away and you can't turn your back on the bar at your doorstep... but it just wasn't meant to be. So, that brings me here- E and I are speed-dating bloody mary joints in Portland. We're playing the field a little, seeing as we're both determined not to settle. Plenty of fish in the sea, as E says. We're holding out for the One. So we're drinking, rating and writing. And blogging about it to infuse the process with that necessary touch of narcissistic voyeurism.

-c

We're on a mission!

To find the finest bloody marys in Portland.