Portland’s numerous karaoke options include singing with a live band at Tiger Bar. (Suzy Buckley Woodward)
Enjoy the view — and stay the night — at the Nines. (
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The Independent Film Channel (IFC) recently announced the renewal of its cult comedy series “Portlandia” for two more seasons, certain to fuel Portland-mania for years to come. What better time to find out what all the fuss is about?
Sure, you’ll see the expected glut of bicycle-riding, hot pink-haired, tatted-out folks roasting their own coffee beans and/or brewing their own beer (or teaching classes on it), but authentic, eccentric PDX is evolving too rapidly to pigeonhole.
Beyond all the great cultural trappings of a cosmopolitan small town (the International Rose Test Garden and Pittock Mansion are among many sights worth a visit), there’s a bustling community of what can best be described as “ampersand entrepreneurs.” Multiple business concepts are housed in one-stop shops: Order a custom motorcycle and a latte at See See Coffee Motor Co. (seeseemotorcycles.com), or sing karaoke while strippers pole dance alongside you at Devils Point (devilspoint.net).
And those with day jobs often moonlight as small-batch purveyors of whatever strikes their fancy: Within 10 minutes of chatting up a bartender at Huber’s (hubers.com) — established in 1879 and famous for its turkey dinners — he’d gifted me a jar of the all-natural peanut butter (blissnutbutters.com) he and his partner produce at home on the side. It was the best I’ve ever had.
STAY
The fashionable, well-positioned Nines (from $229, thenines.com) feels far more Beverly Hills than PDX, with 331 plush rooms bedecked in bright jewel tones, silver and deep mahogany. A partnership with local legend Powell’s Books (powells.com) stocks the property’s on-site library with 3,000 tomes, while those homesick for New York will love slick, futuristic Departures, a sexy, sprawling Asian restaurant and lounge on the penthouse floor.
EAT
There’s only one way to start a proper Portland morning: fried dough. Sophisticates might prefer the refined deliciousness of Blue Star Donuts (bluestardonuts.com), while experience-seekers will get a kick out of 24-hour Voodoo Doughnut (voodoodoughnut.com), where they can get married (really) and/or order whacked-out confections with ingredients like Tang and bubble gum and names such as Cock-N-Balls and Old Dirty Bastard. Lunch on smoked and cured meats within a restored industrial building at salumeria-cum-eatery Olympic Provisions (olympicprovisions.com), or weekend brunch at Sunshine Tavern (sunshinepdx.com), home to sumptuous fried chicken atop yeasted semolina waffles, as well as Ms. Pac-Man and Donkey Kong machines. Chef Courtney Sproule once moved her din din (dindinportland.com) supper clubs to different venues around town, but she recently set up a permanent bricks-and-mortar location in the Lower Burnside neighborhood. On Friday and Saturday nights, she hosts what she calls “dinner parties for strangers,” with creative prix fixe menus: Courses at a recent Alpine-themed din din paired pheasant pate and Dolin Rouge-braised rabbit with Jura wines and Chartreuse. New to the scene is 4-month-old Levant (levantpdx.com), where the French-Arabesque fare (try the lamb and halloumi) is cooked in a 6-foot-wide open hearth.
DRINK
It would likely take years (and many sleepless nights) to sample Joe from every coffee roaster in PDX, but Coava (coavacoffee.com) — with its intense, single origin brews from all over the world — was among the best we found. And, since it shares its space with a wood shop, you can plan a bamboo installation project while you sip. Beer is equally omnipresent: Stop into Migration Brewing Company (migrationbrewing.com), one of myriad outstanding corner brew-pubs, which expertly hand crafts nearly a dozen ales. All that caffeine and alcohol apparently puts a body in prime shape for karaoke, which happens absolutely everywhere, every way and at all times of day in this city. You can do it alongside the aforementioned strippers, with a live band (Karaoke from Hell at Tiger Bar , karaokefromhell.com), in a Polynesian tiki restaurant (The Alibi, alibiportland.com) and even at a state-of-the-art, three-room emporium (Trio Club, 503-234-5003) that opened this past June, replete with vapor smoke, waterfalls and laser lights.
SHOP
Shopping is tax-free in Oregon, making it more enticing to browse antiques shops on SE Milwaukie Avenue, the gorgeous, well-preserved vintage dresses and wedding gowns at Xtabay (xtabayvintage.blogspot.com) and all the handmade, artisan finds at true gem Beam & Anchor (beamandanchor.com) — a labor of love for all involved: Soap-crafters work alongside furniture builders and painters to produce their wares in a huge workshop upstairs. Don’t miss the interesting mishmash of businesses housed within the Ford Building (fordbuildingpdx.com) — built in 1914 as an assembly plant for the Model-T — where you can buy spicy pickles at Moonbrine (moonbrine.com), pick up a roller-derby helmet at Nutcase (nutcasehelmets.com), shop for dresses and jewelry by Pacific Northwest-based designers at Rhapsody (rhapsodyboutique.com), then go next door to make a family tree at the Genealogical Forum of Oregon (gfo.org).
Follow Suzy Buckley Woodward on Instagram: @vicarious_videos.