Please donate to Metblogs to keep things afloat.

To keep with the penny-pinching theme, here is a short list of happy hours to keep you busy during the Memorial Day weekend.

Farm Café
10 SE 7th Ave
Notes: Offers fresh, local organic food and beers. $2 Hand-cut fries with house-made ketchup

Iron Horse
6034 SE Milwaukie
Notes: 3 mini tacos or 5 jalapeno poppers for $3

Moloko Plus
3967 N Mississippi
Notes: free Atari and $5 sandwich menu

Siam Society Soi Cowboy Lounge
2703 NE Alberta
Notes: Happy hour is all day. $1.95 deep fried Thai shrimp chips.

Concordia Ale House
3276 NE Killingsworth
Notes: All food items $3.75, including 2 mini burgers with chips or fries, mac & cheese, and chili cheese fries.

Cider Mill
6712 SW Capitol Hwy
Notes: $1 PBR pints. $2.95 food menu, including Leo’s homemade hot wings, fully loaded backed potato and sweet peppered onion rings.

Tanuki
413 NW 21st Ave
Notes: Food specials $1-5. $4 sake shot n’ a beer

Country Cat
7937 SE Stark
Notes: Food and drink combos $10-12. For example, on Tuesday, pork sandwich, bbq baked beans and a jigger of jack for $10.

There are a few “kid” places I enjoy going to sans kids. For example, OMSI After Dark offers adults (21 and over) the opportunity to parade the museum kids free. Personally, I enjoy thinking about the miracle of life in the Life Science Hall, without the miracle of life obnoxiously bumping into me and screaming at every turn.

By the way, I love kids. There are just times I prefer not to interact with children not related to me.

The fourth annual Zoo Brew is around the corner. One can enjoy booze from the brew gods, enjoy the wilds of the Oregon Zoo, and listen to the local ska-rock music of the Crazy 8s.

On Friday, June 4, from 5pm until 10pm, join the animals and partipating breweries: Alameda Brewhouse, Blue Mountain Cider, BridgePort Brewing Co., Cascade Brewing, Crater Lake Root Beer, Deschutes Brewery, Double Mountain Brewery, Fish Brewing Co., Full Sail Brewing, Hopworks Urban Brewing, Klamath Basin Brewing Co., Kona Brewing Co., Lompoc Brewing Co., Oakshire Brewing, Pale Horse Brewing Co., Redhook Ale Brewery, Seven Brides Brewing, Spire Mountain Cider, Trumer Pils, and Widmer Brothers Brewing Co.

If you really want to get sloshed, take the MAX, red or blue line. Get off at Washington Park and take the elevator up.

Tickets to Zoo Brew are $25 now or $30 at the door. Tickets include a commemorative tasting glass and 10 tokens. Proceeds this year will benefit the Zoo To You education program. Tickets can be purchased online. No kids allowed.

Times are tough. And when the wallet is tight, people search for cheap food. Food carts are rapidly filling Portlanders’ stomachs with cheap, delicious food. Even Frugal Traveler from the NY Times agrees!

I know the ambiance isn’t for everyone, but I love food carts. I love greedily devouring the food on the sidewalk or running indoors to enjoy my food in peace. I always feel like Gollum from Lord of the Rings, creepily screeching, “My precious…” whilst protecting my fresh, hot edibles from rain, wind, and sleet.

I wanted to share some of my favorites with you, hoping you would share some of your favorites with me. I can’t list them all, but with your help, maybe I can. You may argue that some of them are not food carts, but merely food served outdoors. To me, it’s potato, potahto.

My Quick Delicious Five

Built To Grill
SW 3rd and Washington
(no website) (twitter)

No Fish Go Fish
SW 5th and Yamhill
(website) (twitter)

Grilled Cheese Grill
NE Alberta & 11th
(website) (twitter)

Brunchbox
SW 5th Ave & Stark
(website) (twitter)

Nong’s Khao Man Gai
SW 10th & Alder St.
(website) (twitter)

Great Sites Or Articles To Get Your Visual Fix

• A Guide to Food Carts in Portland Oregon
• Portland Pod People – A Food Cart Revolution
• Sunset: Top 10 Portland food carts
• Oregonian: Portland’s top 10 food carts
• Gourmet: Eight Great Street-Food Vendors in Portland, OR

One day special at Kenny and Zuke’s. It’s called the DDD reuben and it may cause a self induced cardiac arrest. This triple-decker is described by them:

In the middle is the standard reuben with 9-10 ozs of house-made pastrami, two slices of swiss, russian, and kraut. On top and bottom is another reuben, each with about 4 ozs of pastrami, and two slices of swiss cheese. That’s over a pound of pastrami, 1/4 lb of swiss cheese, and a whole bunch of creamy russian all grilled together into a delicious mess. And as if that wasn’t a cholesterol bomb waiting to explode in your heart, we went ahead and battered and deep-fried it.

Not sure if my little heart can handle it, but it’s only here for one day so maybe it should.

I have an email as old as November 2004, from Sean Bonner, about updating this blog. Mama always told me to be fashionably late to the party, so here I am.

A brief introduction is due. I have lived in the Portland metro area since 1993, except during a brief foray in Corvallis while completing my bachelor’s degree. I took a daily picture of my life in 2007 and 2009. You will often find me roaming SW Portland, between my web internship at Portland Monthly Magazine (where I study gastronomy and content management systems) and Portland State University (where I write for The Vanguard and am working on my Master’s).  The views expressed on this blog do not reflect the views of anyone but myself.

Not to leave you uninformed, below are restaurants where I like to indulge in higher priced pizza when I have money to blow.

Lovely’s Fifty-Fifty
4039 N Mississippi Ave.

The owners previously sported seasonal drinks and food at Lovely Hula Hands. Once that closed shop, they opened up this new wood fired pizza restaurant next door. Obviously, save stomach space for homemade organic ice cream.

Apizza Scholls
4741 SE Hawthorne Blvd.

I love to hate this place, or more like, I hate that I love this place. Each time I go, I wait half an hour outside waiting for them to open, and then sometimes up to an hour inside waiting to sit down. Their pizza dough is all mixed by hand –you know that doesn’t happen anymore right?!– and when they run out of dough for the night, they close. That’s what I wait before they open. I’m not going to be the sucker that waits all night and leaves with an empty stomach. And, yes, that happens.

Ken’s Artisan Pizza
304 SE 28th Ave.

Pro tip: Who knew pizza needed a seasonal menu? Ken’s has a Spring, Winter and shared Summer/Fall menu. The dough is artisan perfection and expansive wine list has bottles ranging from $27 to $150.

Bella Gioia
1134 NW Everett St.

I have never been to Italy, but I think this is what Italian pizza should taste like. I would recommend not partaking in the mixed drinks, as they are not strong enough for the $9 price tag. Of course, wine is a great and fitting alternative. If you don’t prefer pizza, homemade pasta is available as well.

Burgerville, the Pacific Northwest’s environmentally-conscious quick serve restaurant company, today announced it will allow bicyclists to order and pick up food through its 39 drive-thru lanes, making it the company’s latest sustainability innovation.  The company will announce a formal bicycle drive-thru program within the next two weeks.

Burgerville is creating a chain-wide formalized bike-friendly policy, which was galvanized yesterday in part due to an experience chronicled by Sarah Gilbert, an avid Portland cyclist. Ms. Gilbert attempted to order cheeseburgers at Burgerville’s Southeast 25^th Avenue and Powell Boulevard drive-thru and was rebuffed.  The company previously had an ad hoc approach to serving bicyclists at drive-thru windows, leaving the decision up to its individual general managers. Due to the Company’s ad hoc approach to serving cyclists, the Burgerville team member staffing the drive-thru window was uninformed about that location’s willingness to serve two-wheeled vehicles.  Burgerville has since issued an apology to Ms. Gilbert for the inconvenience.

“We’ve been handling bikes in the drive-thrus on an ad hoc basis and Ms. Gilbert’s experience helped accelerate our decision to develop a formal bike-friendly program. Her experience highlighted inconsistencies in our bike policy,” said Jack Graves, Burgerville’s chief cultural officer.  “Opening up our drive-thrus to the large cycling community in our area is a natural for us and is very much in line with our overall values. While we are sorry that Ms. Gilbert was inconvenienced, we appreciate the passion she brought to the issue and her commitment to the environment and our food.  We are excited about the positive impact we will be able to make through our new bike policy.”

The formalized bike-friendly drive-thru lanes are the latest sustainability innovation by the company which has previously instituted wind power for every location and is recycling its vegetable oil for biodiesel fuel production.  Burgerville also sources its many fresh ingredients from local providers.

Burgerville expects that all 39 of its locations will be able to accommodate cycle-thru orders within the next two weeks as the company finalizes operational and safety aspects of the program.

I’m a huge fan of Belmont Station. Their tap line up is consistently the most enjoyable in Portland.

Tonight they’re doing a tasting of a huge variety of Rouge Beers.

Here are the details:

6-8PM ROGUE TASTING. Taste the brand new Yellow Snow IPA & 2008 Santa’s Private Reserve, plus Juniper Pale Ale, Independence Fresh Hop Ale, Chocolate Stout, Hazelnut Brown Nectar, Morimoto Soba Ale, Brutal Bitter, Dry Hopped St Rogue Red, Track Town 200 Meter IPA, Track Town Triple Jump Pale Ale, & XS Imperial IPA.
Rogue Independence Fresh Hop Ale on draught.

To me the Hazelnut Brown Nectar sounds like a little slice of heaven!

Belmont Station is at 4500 SE Stark, it’s both a beer store and a ‘Beircafe’.

The Amazing Potato Champion

Despite our often wet weather, Portland has a phenomenal selection of food carts. Some of my more memorable Portland meals have been at carts.

Now there’s an online resource totally dedicated to the Portland Food Cart phenomenon:  Food Carts Portland.

The site breaks down cart reviews by cuisine and neighborhood, each with a handy map to help you find the sometimes elusive carts.

Some of my personal favorite carts: Sip Portland, Potato Champion, India Chaat House, Taqueria Los Gorditos (which Food Carts of Portland needs to review) and Flavour Spot!!

Food Carts Portland also enables comments and some of the best info comes from reader submissions and updates.

Local Wiki company About Us continues to enhance it’s local relevance with a new section devoted entirely to Portland Cofffe Shops. (Created by Bram Pitoyo)

The list, which is constantly growing and updating is a fantastic resource to quickly get info on the coffee shops in an area.  Since all Coffee shops aren’t created equal, this new resource breaks each one down by:

• Atmosphere
• Amenities
• Ideal For
• Wifi Rating

As with any Wiki,  readers are encouraged to contribute their knowledge and help make this resource as comprehensive as possible.

Another great resource on the About Us site is the Portland Tech Twitter Page, an invaluable resource if you want to connect with Portland’s tech community.

With the presidential election looming most people are myopically focused on voting for president, but the second most important vote you can make right now is with your dollars. Times are tough and not all businesses are going to survive this recession. Already this month several notable Portland restaurants have announced that they are shuttering their doors (Rocket, Mercado, Banh Cuon Tan Dinh and Kalga Kafe)  and more are soon to follow.

The dollar may be down on the world market, but it’s never been stronger here at home. With each dollar you spend you are making a vote, you’re voting for the business that you give your money to and perhaps voting against the places you aren’t. During tough economic times people often default to the lowest cost option out there. Companies like McDonald’s and Wal-Mart thrive because people think they get more for less there – something in tough times sounds appealing. If this current economic mess has taught us anything it’s there’s absolutely no such thing as a free lunch and today’s low low deal might have some unintended consequences tomorrow.

So I encourage you to think about the long haul. Want a beer? Skip Rock Bottom Brewery and pick your beer up at Belmont Station. Want a movie? Rather than Netflixing it ensure the future of independent cinema and local art houses and catch a movie at the Hollywood Theater or Cinema 21.  Want some food? Support local farmers at your local farmer’s market or visit the People’s Food Coop Farmer’s Market.  Chose Voodoo Doughnuts over Krispie Kreme,  Laughing Planet or Los Gorditos over Taco Bell, Pad Thai Kitchen over TGIFridays…. and yes Stumptown, Cellar Door and Z Beans over Starbucks.

There’s never been a time in your life where what you spend and where you spend has mattered more. So pick the places you love and give them your business, odds are they’ll be around to thank you when this whole economic mess is all over.

What local business are you rooting for to survive?