Three Edibles

Portland, at this point, has the great opportunity to pride itself on appealing to me at three culinary levels. First, we've got Cup and Saucer, a relaxed, breakfast-lunch-n-dinner diner on SE Hawthorne. They serve breakfast all day and have the best challah French toast I have ever tasted in my entire life. Also I saw the Chop Tops having brunch there once, and I totally fangirled.



Cup and Saucer has an awesome menu for a diner, but I usually end up getting the same thing - a grilled chicken sandwich that comes with cheese and green chilis. See, the best part about this sandwich is that it is the perfect vehicle for my favorite little-known hot sauce, Secret Aardvark. Apparently you can't buy it anywhere except at two random grocery stores in Portland, and even that's unreliable. You can imagine that this makes me exceedingly sad, seeing as I'm stuck down here in Berkeley. And there may be many excellent culinary experiences to be had here, but no hot sauce can hold a candle to Secret Aardvark.



And last, but most certainly not least, Stumptown Coffeeroasters. I spent last summer in Portland cultivating a caffeine addiction (as every good college student does) with the assistance of Stumptown. So when I went back to Berkeley in the fall, of course I missed it. And I've endured the last semester and a half without my best friend and study aid. Recently, I started to worry that I had built Stumptown up in my head, that maybe there just wasn't something serious between us. But on my recent trip up north, I discovered that my memory simply wasn't comparable to the joy that is Stumptown. The Bay Area may have Blue Bottle and Ritual, which are both excellent, but I have a special place in my heart for the Portland beans. I only brought a half pound back with me (because that stuff is expensive), and the entire plane smelled like coffee!