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