Why 82nd is the coolest part of Portland (Gresham, Clackamas: neighborhoods, movie theater)

[PHead]

Yeah yeah prostitution, meth, car dealers...I know. But 82nd has become the thriving center of Asian restaurants, malls and shopping centers. People don't go to ChinaTown for their DimSum anymore...they come to 82nd. 82nd is also a mixing pot of hispanic, Russian, Vietnamese, Chinese, Laotian and Cambodian cultures along with working class white folks. If you want to escape the idea that Portland is a whitebread town, spend some time strolling the stores and shops on 82nd.

Some of my favorite haunts:

Fubonn: Wonderful Asian mall and grocery store between Division and Powell with an incredible array of hard to find Asian foods at cheap prices.

Pho Van: Great Vietnamese restuarant with beautiful interior decor between Stark and Division.

Ha and VL: Perhaps the best noodle shop in Portland. Its a hole in the wall just up from FuBonn. They make limited amounts of soup and sell out pretty quick on weekends.

WingMing: Best Asian herbal store in Portland if you are interested in that sort of thing.

Best Baguette: What's not to love about a drive thru restaurant where you can spend 2.50 for awesome banh mi? Just east of 82nd on Powell.

Stark Street Shops: Located as a strip of stores, restaurants and Farmers market between 76th and 82nd. INcludes best 2nd run movie theater in Portland (The Academy), as well as Flying Pie Pizza, killer Lebanese (Ya Hala), great coffee shop (Bipartisan Cafe), and two fabulous Americana restaurants (Country Cat and The Observatory). Great Sushi at Miyamoto as well.

Tanukis: This is hands sown my favorite asian restaurant and it is also located on that Stark Street strip. This place is like an old school Japanese dive bar with posters, crappy boombox sound system and bad Japanese soap operas on the overhead TV. But the food? Man. Just order omakase- meaning "I leave it to you" and name your price, anywhere from 10-30 dollars a person. Then wait to be served some of the most incredible and delicious Japanese food you've eaten. They don't do sushi and they don't like attitude. So if you have food sensitivities, or want to be pampered or be comfortable in your seat, then don't come here. Go here for the food...and the sake.

IN any event, 82nd is way underrated. If you want safe, comfortable tree lined streets, live and shop in Sellwood or over on 23rd NW. But if you want culture, great food cheap food and housing, living and eating near 82nd is where its at.

[pdxMIKEpdx]

Interesting place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there.

[danwilsonbsee]

Detroit also has a lot of neat things that immigrants brought with them.

[hamellr]

Sorry, I have to disagree. 82nd is under rated these days, no doubt about that. But coolest part of Portland is subjective. If you're working just off the food angle, Division, Alberta and Mississippi have more variety and good (great even,) choices then 82nd.

The other thing to keep in mind is that 82nd is a VERY long street passing though two cities and eleven neighborhoods. Too much of it is still car dealerships and generic strip malls. To call one little section of what, ten or twelve blocks "cool" is giving people the wrong impression of the rest of the street.

Since you're adding Stark into the mix, I think what you should be saying is that the Montavilla Neighborhood is getting pretty cool. Stark street between 75th and 82nd has gotten a lot better in the past decade. When I lived there, few reasons to stop along that street.

Most of the rest of 82nd is effectively the same place it was a decade or even two decades ago.

[scottinpdx]

82nd is way to long for me to define as a whole. The only time I really am ever on it is when I go to the Fubonn shopping center. The seqment that most people think of when you mention 82nd has improved a lot over the years, but then again I have never been there after dark.

Originally Posted by hamellr

Since you're adding Stark into the mix, I think what you should be saying is that the Montavilla Neighborhood is getting pretty cool.

My brother lives in the Montavilla area and turned me on to "Hanoi Kitchen" Very good Vietnamese Food!

[tablemtn]

It also has the city's only Wal-Mart, doesn't it?

And I don't mean that in a sarcastic way, what I mean is that 82nd does indeed have a different mix of businesses and retail spaces than other parts of the city. Rents are not as high; businesses can get more space for less money than in other trendier areas. And in any given stretch of that street, there usually are more than a few pedestrians, even though it's not always the greatest place for a stroll, with loud traffic swishing past next to the sidewalk. It kind of reminds me of Mill Plain Boulevard in Vancouver, but not as wide.

But as mentioned by others, you'd have to break it down into segments. From the Clackamas complex to the Holiday Inn by the airport, 82nd St. is about 9.5 miles long. If you started at Powell's books and went east down Burnside for 9.5 miles, you'd end up slightly past 172nd Ave. in Gresham.

[pdxMIKEpdx]

It also has the city's only Wal-Mart, doesn't it?

There is another Walmart (smaller) at 82nd and Otty road.

[Minervah]

So OP, is your neighborhood anywhere around 82nd? If so, where would that be?

[PHead]

Originally Posted by hamellr

Sorry, I have to disagree. 82nd is under rated these days, no doubt about that. But coolest part of Portland is subjective. If you're working just off the food angle, Division, Alberta and Mississippi have more variety and good (great even,) choices then 82nd.

The other thing to keep in mind is that 82nd is a VERY long street passing though two cities and eleven neighborhoods. Too much of it is still car dealerships and generic strip malls. To call one little section of what, ten or twelve blocks "cool" is giving people the wrong impression of the rest of the street.

Since you're adding Stark into the mix, I think what you should be saying is that the Montavilla Neighborhood is getting pretty cool. Stark street between 75th and 82nd has gotten a lot better in the past decade. When I lived there, few reasons to stop along that street.

Most of the rest of 82nd is effectively the same place it was a decade or even two decades ago.

Yes Montavilla is rocking but that extends only down to Division and actually most of the Asian places I mention are south of Division. Is that neighborhood Powelhurst? Or Lents? And yes, some of them are not right on 82nd, but located just off of it.

So lets actually say the section of 82nd between Halsey and Foster. And even further, more interesting things have been happening such as Cartlandia.

I agree that there are amazing restaurants wher you mentioned. But I am describing the best place in Portland for a mix of good food, diversity and cheaper living. Its more culturally interesting and much less homogenous than those areas.

What I would love to see is that area of 82nd developing an Asian Night Market like they have in San Francisco and Vancouver BC.

[PHead]

Originally Posted by tablemtn

It also has the city's only Wal-Mart, doesn't it?

And I don't mean that in a sarcastic way, what I mean is that 82nd does indeed have a different mix of businesses and retail spaces than other parts of the city. Rents are not as high; businesses can get more space for less money than in other trendier areas. And in any given stretch of that street, there usually are more than a few pedestrians, even though it's not always the greatest place for a stroll, with loud traffic swishing past next to the sidewalk. It kind of reminds me of Mill Plain Boulevard in Vancouver, but not as wide.

But as mentioned by others, you'd have to break it down into segments. From the Clackamas complex to the Holiday Inn by the airport, 82nd St. is about 9.5 miles long. If you started at Powell's books and went east down Burnside for 9.5 miles, you'd end up slightly past 172nd Ave. in Gresham.

Yeah I should clarify- by 82nd I am mainly focused on where a lot of the Asian businesses have popped up. It is truly replacing downtown's Chinatown. So that would be between Halsey and Foster.

I wish they hadn't named it Avenue of Roses though. They should have named it something Asian.