What I Love, Hate, Like, Dislike about Portland Oregon (Beaverton: contractor, to live in)

[carlos6466]

hello everyone. i'm moving to the portland area next week to continue teaching scuba diving... would love to get to meet some new people, too. i'll be working in portland, but since i'm a full-time rv'er, i found a place outside of the city that is rural and quiet. i'm a big microbrew beer fan, so will have to experience lots of those. love really good red wines, too. willamette valley has some super pinot noir's...!!! i've read a lot of the posts here and i think it's give and take. i've had my share of feeling sorry for myself, and when i quit my job at washington mutual in las vegas back in 2006, i discovered there was a lot bigger world out there... i fit in with different groups depending on what's happening. love to travel, dive, go off-roading, camping, and cooking... cheers, --carlos

[khyron]

I was just reading the new "Finder" from Willamette Week, and found that the forward by the editor really summed up nicely a lot of things I think about Portland. I'm gonna quote it here with attribution, but I encourage folks to go to the Willamette Week web site (if you're out of town) or to pick up a copy (if you're around here) as well. The whole issue/booklet is a wonderful celebration of uniquely Portland...everything.

The Portland of 2011 is an
unprecedented phenomenon:
It is a curated city.

More than any other major metropolitan area in the U.S.,
Portland is a city composed of handpicked ingredients. Even
as Stumptown grows nationally remarkable for the things
we make—beer, indie rock and green development spring to
mind—we are even more distinctive for the refinement and
panache with which we cull the things other places make.

Dodge the puddles down any street in the city. Look in the
windows. A coffee microroaster serves El Salvadorian and
Sumatran blends, filling each mug with a pour-over ritual
that turns brewing a cup of joe into performance art. Next
door, a restaurant lists the name of every partner farm on a
blackboard that stretches to the ceiling. Around the corner, a
record store sells only vinyl, the shopping experience blurred
and sharpened by three microbrew taps. In an empty lot
nearby, a dozen food carts have planted themselves on the
pavement, each specializing in a single dish, from chicken
and rice to PB&J.

These activities (excepting the street food, naturally) take
place in bright, jewel-like rooms of white paint and polished
wood, often carved out of buildings erected well over a century
ago. This Portland has been cut and polished in the past
five years, and it sometimes looks like a living history museum
of cool. The city you live in has been chosen for you.

Ironically, this was probably
an accident.

To some degree, Portland’s curatorial ambition is the result
of creative energy outpacing the means of production in a
relatively isolated enclave: We are a long way from anywhere,
and we got used to the idea that collecting objects
from other places could become its own art form. In part, we
are just following the examples of entrepreneurial godfathers
Phil Knight (who made sneakers) and Dan Wieden (who
made the ads that sold the sneakers), men who now use
their money to show off the art they like.

But mostly this culture is a consequence of a migration
wave: the Great Flood of Creatives. Beguiled by Portland’s
notorious liberalism and relaxed expectations—really, the
impossibility of rejection or failure—college-educated young
people elevated the city into a lifestyle destination in the
mid-aughts, and haven’t stopped even though the talent pool
has lapped the job market. It doesn’t matter why new people
come here. It matters that they come here by choice. And
they bring with them the things they like.

We know what you’re thinking. Go ahead and say it.

Hipster. Hipster. Hipster.
Hipster. Hipster.

Best to get the dirty pejorative out of your system; it will do
you no good here. It is essentially a pre-emptive defense
against hurt, against the possibility you might be left out. At
least you’ll have company: There are a lot of people in Portland
who feel left out.

The current burst of design and style runs counter to the
city’s recent history as a haven for “fugitives and refugees,”
to use Chuck Palahniuk’s memorable walking-tour phrase.
Flophouse grunge is still very much in evidence, but “Keep
Portland Weird”—a slogan stolen from Austin—has been
eclipsed by Make Portland Utopia. Beneath this tug-of-war,
Portland is still recovering from its past as a raw, strung-out
outpost for the Northwest’s racists, pervos and cranks. If you
want to find these people, just shout how much you love
being gay on your bicycle. Then duck.

Portland’s detractors—at least three of whom are arguing in
good faith—will say the city has become inexhaustibly smug,
that it doesn’t function nearly as well as it postures, that its
artisanal dabbling is a symptom of aimlessness, and (most
damningly) that it is a petri dish of unexamined privilege.
There is no response to these arguments. Except this:

People in Portland are seeking
beauty, and the search for beauty
is always a gesture of hope.

It is for these people we have made this magazine. It is the
seventh edition of Finder, but in many ways it is a new kind
of guidebook for a new kind of city. In the pages that follow,
we have created galleries of the finest items Portland has to
offer in transportation, dining, nightlife, arts and recreation.
We’ve made you mixtapes, clothing ensembles, a liquor
cabinet, even a living room. We’ve asked some of Portland’s
most creative and accomplished residents to give us tours of
what makes their neighborhoods special. And we’ve picked
our very favorite restaurants, bars, stores and activities.
Finder has curated a city of curators.

We hope you find it beautiful. But if you don’t—if you want
this city to look different—it’s up to you to select a different
culture to dominate. Portland isn’t going to happen by accident
anymore. We need individual voices to change our direction;
in many ways, we are more sensitive to such shifts
than anywhere else, still young and self-conscious. The city
has not ossified. The paint has not dried on our self-portrait.
There is more to curate.

Choose the city you want to live in.

Aaron Mesh, Finder Editor 2011

[turquoise1]

That is a quite eloquent passage. Thanks for posting it.

[Yankeemama]

Thanks Khyron!

[Dual Citizen CA-OR]

pdxMIKEpdx’s cedar plank salmon recipe in another thread reminded me about a restaurant that I’ve been meaning to mention. Salmon is one of my all time favorites and I finally found a great local restaurant that serves some of the best teriyaki salmon that I’ve found anywhere.

It’s a small place in the south waterfront area called Soho. They call it a fusion of Japanese and Korean food, but it seems to be mostly Japanese to me.

They have this amazing deal at least until the end of the year. If you buy one drink, even at the reduced rate during happy hour, you can order one of their normally priced $17 to $23 entrees for half price.

The portions are huge and they come with rice, asparagus and a salad. It’s one of the very best deals I’ve found anywhere downtown. Plus they’ve got great sushi; www.sohopdx.com/

[pdxMIKEpdx]

Try Yoshida's Gourmet (teriyaki) Sauce on grilled Salmon. The best!
It's also really good used as a marinade/brine when making a batch of smoked salmon.
Yoshida's is a local company.

[Skippy Weaselpants]

Originally Posted by pdxMIKEpdx

Try Yoshida's Gourmet (teriyaki) Sauce on grilled Salmon. The best!
It's also really good used as a marinade/brine when making a batch of smoked salmon.
Yoshida's is a local company.

I haven't tried it but it sounds really good. I'll try it. BTW - there's a new commercial on TV for Yamasa Soy Sauce. It shows a bunch of women running around dressed as soy sauce bottles. It also says they've been making soy sauce since 1645! I gotta admit - that's a long time.

[hamellr]

You can buy big bottles of Yoshida's at Costco BTW.

[turquoise1]

Yum, that sounds great, Dual Citizen! I love me some salmon and am looking forward to eating the real wild fish over there. A lot of the salmon here is that flabby orange farmed stuff.

[khyron]

Originally Posted by Skippy Weaselpants

I haven't tried it but it sounds really good. I'll try it. BTW - there's a new commercial on TV for Yamasa Soy Sauce. It shows a bunch of women running around dressed as soy sauce bottles. It also says they've been making soy sauce since 1645! I gotta admit - that's a long time.

There's a huge difference between real soy sauce and "corn syrup plus water, salt and caramel coloring," and it sounds like they know it.

Originally Posted by hamellr

You can buy big bottles of Yoshida's at Costco BTW.

Just remember, soy sauce (the real stuff) is a fermented product and once opened it has a limited lifespan even in a refrigerator. Like a lot of things, it will lose it's flavor long before it's considered "unsafe" to eat. Therefore, like olive oil and a lot of other things, huge bottles for home use might not make a lot of sense (unless of course you cook large meals very frequently, like when you have a ton of kids).