A priest, a rabbi, and a monk walk into a bar. The priest orders a a beer and a burger (it’s Friday), the rabbi orders a pickled sausage, and the monk gets a non-Belgian beer. Maybe I’ll come up with a punchline later, but that’s a good illustration of just how bizarre this post gets. We (three omnivores) went to Nutshell, a completely vegan restaurant. They were fairly busy. We could’ve sat at a table, but opted to wait on the couches in the back gallery section for a booth.

Mississippi is sporting a shiny new Mexican restaurant, with Oaxacan regional cuisine. Actually, I think it’s up where the street is actually Albina, just south of N Alberta. Trebol has a decent little patio, it’s painted a nice shade of green, and overall looks tastefully done. Though, I actually never set foot inside the actual restaurant. We sat outside, it was a gorgeous day. We drank margaritas and mojitos. They were pretty tasty, and somewhat reasonably priced, though the well tequila is pancho.

Just wanted to callout this tasty little Vietnamese deli located at 6846 NE Sandy. Their menu is pretty small, mostly serving up a varety of meat sandwiches, but there is a vegetarian option as well. Their sandwiches are $2.75-3.00, and the perfect size for a light meal. Just think, even if you ordered four sandwiches, a hum bao (sp?), and a drink, your meal would still still be a Cheap Eat by WW’s standard (what a disappointment that issue was!

Two recent projects of mine came together recently, with pretty nice results! I’ve been making sourdough bread for a couple months now, and it has been working well. In addition, I visited New York recently. As we all know, bread+NY=pizza. Except in alternate axiom sets where bread+NY=bagels, but we’re in my reality. Plus, while bagels were all over New York, most of them were nothing special. Not that I didn’t find some grub ones, it’s just that most were delivered from somewhere, and really not that great.

Went with some friends to Bend this weekend for some sweet skiing and casual times. We stayed at the Holiday Inn (express?) Thursday night, checked into our place at the 7th Mountain Friday morning, and hit the slopes for an absolutely gorgeous day. The snow was pleasant but well-worn. The day was gorgeous, I started off with a sweatshirt, T-shirt, and windbreaker, but dumped the sweatshirt after sweating down two runs.

There’s a new Mexican restaurant in town, and it’s pretty much what I’ve been waiting for. While there’s not really a shortage of decent taquerias in Portland, there is a dearth of what I call chips and salsa sit-down restaurants. Los Baez is the Portland location of a classic Salem restaurant located just above SE 24th on Burnside. Walking in, the first thing you’ll notice is that this place is huge.

I didn’t discover Por Que No. I read the review in the Mercury, and as it is my duty to check out all new taquerias, I made it down today. Located on burgeoning N Mississippi, it is across from the rebuilding center, a bit north of Fremont. Good spot. Well, good news first. They are friendly, they care about the food, the location rocks for rockers, and they cater to beer drinkers.

I totally dig Fire on the Mountain. It’s a smallish hotwings joint down on Interstate just south of Skidmore (and a bit north of the Alibi on the other side of the street) that serves up some honest friggin food. Honest because it’s good. Honest because it’s fried. And honest because it’s hot. Sara and Jordan deliver some 12 plus flavors of wings, ranging for sweet BBQ to jerk to El Jefe, with spicy peanut, mild and medium, and raspberry habanero in between.

My buddy Mark brought this fantastic taqueria experience to my attention. Nestled in the back of the Tortilleria Y Tienda De Leon’s are a few tables and a lunch counter displaying a wonderful selection of Mexican specialties. I stopped by there (not the first time by any means) the other day after hitting some balls at the driving range with my German buddy and his small child. One of the things that he wanted to do while visiting was hit up some good Mexican food, and the Taco Del Mar experience from the day before simply didn’t cut it in my book.

The lady and I went to Taqueria Nueve last night. It was excellent. We had maybe a bit more food than necessary, but the variety was fantastic. We opened it up with the ceviche and a salad with buffalo, avacado, stuff, and not too much lettuce. Both were fantastic, especially the ceviche. The they brought us out some tacos. I had the pork and chicken tacos, while the lady had a fish taco, both again were fantastic.

This little restaurant at 3226 N Lombard is easy to miss, but worth a stop. I’d noticed it before one night driving home from the St. Johns area, but it was closed and eventually slipped my mind until we stumbled upon it this afternoon looking for a lunch spot. Always looking for a new place for tacos and burritos, there was no hesitation about changing from our previous destination. And our spontaneity was well-served.

A new taqueria opened recently near 56th and SE Woodstock, Super Torta. I stopped there after coaching the kiddies the other evening and had a red chile burrito. I must say that it was dissapointing. The shredded beef was not shredded enough, lending a toughness inappropriate for this burrito, and the red chile, which looked to be added only as an afterthought was lacking in flavor, quantity, and spice. The salsas served with the burrito were alright, but still lacking in any true depth of flavor.

La Cruda is located in SE Portland, near the hipster node 26th and Clinton. It does hold up the credo of the neighborhood with its tasty margaritas (not as cheap as they seem like they are) and late night menu. They serve food till midnite on Thurs-Sat (and maybe the others too). The food is pretty tasty. Good quality ingredients, marinated and grilled meats, and a salsa bar with a decent range of salsas but far too small of cups (the kind that a friggin chip doesn’t fit into) to carry it in, make this a marginal recommendation.

Located out on deep Killingsworth, near where it runs into Lombard or Portland Blvd, this taco truck is one of the finest. The tacos are fantastic, and that is what I most highly recommend. These succulent morsels of meat-stuffed corn tortilla are superb, served classically with lime and radish. In particular, I enjoy the pastor, but I am a bit of a pastor freak. The chicken is great too. I’ve enjoyed the asada and lengua as well.

Nestled in at the edge of the shopping distrinct of upper NE Fremont is the quaint Cool Runnings Cafe, owned and operated by Cal Ferris and his wife. The character and food of the place, while inspired by the Islands, is varied and lends itself nicely to flavors from many regions, particularly those of the American South. Cool Runnings Cafe has been open since August of 2002, but has been serving dinner only since early 2003, which I feel is their true calling.

The Pearl District is finally coming into its own. It has gotten a fantastic Mexican Restaurant. The environment is casual, nicer than a taqueria, but hardly larger. The colors are a subdued fall. You order at the counter when you come in, which is fine. The menu, which is no longer a large board hanging aboce the front counter is succinct. Most of the standards are there, pastor, pollo, asada, lengua, burritos, tortas, tacos and so on.