Last Breaths of Portland

It's 4:30 pm and I'm queen of the unpacked boxes a moat of shite and I'm hungry. Gallant internet to the rescue; a search of "old school burgers Portland" yielding in a rejoicing chant of "Stanich's, Stanich's!"  20 minutes and a bike ride later.

Sometime you know.  You walk into a place and you just know.  I knew.
"PBR, cheeseburger with a side of fries, please"
Then this:
 
Good Lord.
Hands down, one of the best burgers ever.  No brioche, Kobe-milk-fed-hand-massaged, carmelized nonsense— just one carefully crafted burger.  Toasted top and bottom, even shmear of ballpark mustard and house-made sauce, oozy cheese, lettuce, tomato and onion.  That's it.  So impressed I introduced a friend 2 days later just to have seconds.  He ordered "The Special" an excessive contender topped with an egg, ham, and bacon weighing in at a reasonable $6.  So if you happen to find yourself in the ol' hood:

Stanich's
4915 NE Fremont Street
Portland, OR 97213
(503) 281-2322

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Caffeine Inspired Simple Sandwich

We stopped into little t american baker, a bakery/cafe in the Southeast today for a drip of caffeine and sweet treat. 

A cappuccino for Eddy

an espresso for me and a sweetly wrapped baguette for later.

Speaking of sweet, how could we resist this charming fellow.  He's a baked cinnamon doughnut, hole included.  We ate him to a Temper Trap serenade:


We picked up some housemade prosciutto at nearby Laurelhurst Market.  At home, we added a leaf of lettuce a few grinds of pepper and had an exquisitely simple lunch.

An Urban Iditarod Drive-by

As we headed east on Burnside on Saturday we caught a glimpse of the 9th annual Portland Urban Iditarod, where 100 teams of mushers pushed shopping cart/sleds on a 4-mile pub crawl through town. A couple of mushers in action:

Team Ghostbusters complete with proton packs and a bespectacled Spengler.

Blurry nuns, gilded shopping carts, fish nets and knee pads

Team Centurion

Aw shucks, but shooting from a moving vehicle makes for poor picture taking so that's about all I have of this year's Iditarod.

Earlier in the day we had lunch a Kenny and Zuke's a Jewish deli place downtown. Dee-lish-us.

On the left, I had classic pastrami on rye and Edo had a P.L.T as evidenced by crumbs and a tangy shmear of potato salad. This place had the loveliest burnished blue-black pumpernickel bagels. Problem is, I don't remember ever liking pumper. Maybe next time.