Mock Crest, Redux

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention, that part of our brunch team has a hard time spending time at Mock Crest. According to his credit card receipts, it was one of the last places our friend Kipp Crawford visited on November 9th 2009, the night he was killed. Police have speculated Kipp was attacked, robbed and left helpless in the street then killed when he was run over by a car.

Justice for Kipp would go a long way to healing the tremendous loss his death has caused for his loving family and numerous friends. Any tips can be shared anonymously at 503-823-HELP (4357).

Mock Crest Tavern, the Great Odyssey

When I tell people I’ve recently moved to the St. Johns district it elicits a near universal impulse to reassure me. “I heard it’s getting really cool.. up there” “I heard they’ve got some good.. uh.. restaurants?” “I went there once, it was.. nice! No really.. it’s great!” These are small, polite gestures of comfort with a subtext that scream, “You poor unfortunate soul, I hope you find some scrap of light or happiness living on that ice floe. I will hold your memory in my heart !”

Neighborhood agoraphobia is a pain anywhere you go, people hate riding to the subway from one part of New York to another, people hate riding the bus to a nether region of San Francisco and god help you if you ask someone in in the suburbs to venture further than a mile from their house. Despite the huge amount of time we spend commuting to work and errands, we’re all convinced commuting for fun, adventure or hangouts is a waste of time, life and resources. People in Portland are no exception, and what’s even more shocking about it here is that half the people here ride bikes -- it’s the flattest city I’ve ever seen. You can ride 10 miles and barely break a sweat all while having zoomed by hundreds of our fair city’s nooks, clubs and bars worth checking out.

So in the spirit of confronting one’s fears, whenever people make the offer to trek up out to my new ‘hood I’ll always take them up on it and try to make sure they have a good time. And one of my favorite places I’ve found since the great move north is the Mock Crest Tavern.

The first time I came here it was for a late night meeting with a (apparently!) lying liar who told me that in addition to having great drink specials, a gorgeous patio and a banging basket’o’tots, they also treated their AM crowd to a $1 breakfast special when you ordered a Bloody Mary. Ordering Bloody Marys? That’s where I’m a Viking!

I quickly notified my brunch partners that they better gas up their vehicles and chart a course north. Imagine my embarrassment to learn the legend of the $1 was a total myth. But despite the lack of uber-thrift, the Mock Crest’s breakfast is still an amazing fare. Their kitchen, built into the far side of the bar, is smaller than the desk I’m typing this from but they manage to churn out tasty, classic breakfast items. There are even some playful updates like a “MockMuffin” sandwich and a Pigs in a Blanket breakfast special that carried Christina and I back to fuzzy childhood memories.

That fuzziness might also be due to the libations. Served in a pint glass, heavy on the pour, totally spicy and served with celery, a pepperoncini (my favorite!) and an olive (gross! goes straight to Christina), Mock Crest has one of the best Bloodys we’ve found on this long, strange trip.

We also adored the mixed clientele of rowdy gentlemen on-hand for the golf tournament viewing (eager to help some distressed damsels with an uncooperative patio umbrella) to the hearty bike punx still holed up from the night before. But with every geographic-specific niche comes cliquishness. Most of us who travel by two wheels are closer to 30 than to high school but the old habit of forming a community out of snobbery never waned for some folks. Witness: the scowls and contempt evoked by the (fabulous) sparkly Huffy that I tool around town in. Now don’t get me wrong, my bike is totally a piece of shit by any standard. It’s heavy as a cow and over the years has cost more to maintain and repair than my car. But I bought it for $50, assembled it myself, have moved it cross country thus have grown very fond of it over the years. Not to mention, I’m certainly not going to take lessons on how to be cool from anyone who spends several hours a day with their butt-crack publicly exposed.

And since I was born ornery (and only ever got taller), I love to get a little confrontational with the haters. Not enough to cause an actual altercation (though with their little T-Rex arms that hardly seems menacing) but just enough to let them know their $2,000 bike and ONE LESS CAR t-shirt is not impressing anybody.

So when Christina and I, high on fluffy pancakes and punchy from cheap vodka, saw a dude futzing with his Schwinn near the same spot where I’d locked up my bike it was too much for me to resist, “Hey dude, don’t even try to bogart that Huffy. I’m watching you!” And then something really weird happened.. The Bike Punk laughed at my joke! NO, FOR REALS! CHRISTINA WAS THERE! Not only that, he totally chatted us up and was super-cute and sweet. OMG, righteousness FAIL! I give all credit to the awesome sense of community and redemption that can only be inspired by a solid neighborhood bar.

Thy drinkdom come.

Clearly, Portlanders worship the god of brunch. The devotees attending Sunday morning worship at Tin Shed this past weekend must have been so blissed out on the god of hot morning sunshine and endless coffee refills that they failed to care that they would be waiting up to an hour and a half for a table, and then another 45 minutes for food. Or, maybe like church, the devotees accept the long and boring bits in exchange for spiritual enlightenment, here in the form of bloody marys and sausage-gravy-soaked-biscuits. Fair enough, I'm willing to consider it.

Bloody Mary vs Virgin Mary, otherwise known as Tin Shed vs Church. The low-down.

TIN SHED: The bloody mary came in a pint glass, with tons of pickled veg. Spicy. Alcoholic. Served to me in my own glass, and NOT from a communal church chalice which will later result in a sore throat and mild flu-like symptoms because of the sniffling child ahead of me in the communion line-up.
CHURCH: I was raised Methodist, so we were served Safeway brand grape juice from concentrate. No wine. Although, I suspect that wine used for communion generally tends toward the economy version, with less attention paid to whether there are subtle notes of vanilla, cherry, and unicorn breath.

TIN SHED: Dogs are apparently allowed-- no, scratch that, ENCOURAGED at Tin Shed Sunday morning worship, as evidenced by the all the dogs lounging, sniffing, begging, and snarling underfoot.
CHURCH: Children seem to be the accessory of choice at most churches, rather than dogs. Sniffling children, especially.

TIN SHED: Eggs benedict (very, very good), crazy huge breakfast burritos (also very good), biscuits and gravy (the biscuits were light and doughy, the gravy was thick and meaty), and more. At reasonable prices.
CHURCH: Salads made from jello, whipped cream, and pistachios. Casseroles with tuna, some sort of unmemorable and/or unidentifiable cheese. Free if you stay for the evening program afterwards.

TIN SHED: You, sharing your table with your friends and/or family, and some delightful old guy in rainbow suspenders who came out to brunch alone.
CHURCH: You, sharing your pew with your family, and lots of old guys (the likelihood of rainbow suspenders is low). And more sniffling children.

TIN SHED: Delicious coffee. Served before, during, and after the worship service (by which I'm referring to your plate of food).
CHURCH: Coffee only if you stick around until the end of the service, and only after you shake hands with the pastor on your way out of the chapel. The quality of the coffee depends on whose turn it was to buy the beans that week.

TIN SHED: Facebook message circulating detailing the night manager's predilection for confusing all black patrons with gangbangers, then offering cookies as a reparations.

CHURCH: Institution-wide cover-ups to protect pedophiles whilst calling homosexuality "deviant behavior".

TIN SHED: Little in the way of soul salvation, but big in the way of soul food.
CHURCH: Possible grace, redemption, mercy, everlasting peace and other related states of being.

Um, so I think Tin Shed wins it for me this time, but I can't say I'm going to be a weekly follower of this particular Alberta street religion. I'm more of a once-a-year believer, like our polite neighbors to the north (Hi, Canada! Keep up the good work on maintaining your actual separation of church and state! We haven't been so good at that down here lately.) I'm just not good at organized religion, I guess.