The Bipartisan Café

When I asked for help in locating good Portland cafés, one of the first suggestions to come in was the Bipartisan Café in Southeast. The other day I had wandered to the top of Mount Tabor, so it was just a short jaunt down the mountain and over to the café. I stopped in to check it out.

Arriving at the café at 2pm, I was surprised to find it full of people. There was only one open table. Hmm. Obviously a popular place. The wooden tables and chairs showed signs of heavy usage, as did the couches sitting immediately to the right of the door. The hardwood floor was worn through all the varnish and down to splinters in some places. It was clear that the café was a popular meeting place for the neighborhood. The front window was covered with posters advertising local  bands and other events. Every Friday evening from 7-9pm, the Bipartisan has live music (no cover charge).

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Wandering about Southeast PDX

It was a brisk and somewhat damp morning in Portland when I set out walking. The sun was trying to burn through the light clouds, but with rain forecasted for the afternoon, I was not optimistic that it would win. Like my last wandering, I headed eastward again, crossing the Hawthorne (green) bridge over the tranquil Willamette River. It was just before 9am when I crossed, and there was a constant stream of bicycles zipping towards me as commuters made their way into downtown. Portland is a bike-friendly city (another sustainability thing) and the mayor, Sam Adams has a reputation for advocating for bike commuting. He recently (and controversially) designated some of the city’s water and sewer funds to improving bike lanes and bike safety.

As I crossed the river, I realized that my toes were cold. That may sound like a strange observation, but since my trip to Beijing this summer, I have hardly worn any shoes other than my open-toed Chaco sandals. When I first got them, I was a little skeptical about their suitability for walking. In addition, wearing sandals seemed a little too Portlandish for me. However, after spending five weeks in Beijing, I admit I really like them. They keep your feet cool and are good for wandering for miles, especially once your feet get used to them. However, as the rainy season approaches, I don’t know if I will put the sandals away in favor of shoes or not. Might be a little too cool to keep wearing them (the weather, not me).

On the other side of the bridge I followed Clay street until it veered right and turned into Ladd Street. Ladd took me through a neighborhood of large older houses and there were massive elm trees on either side of the street, forming a tunnel overhead. At the end of the tunnel was Ladd Circle, a wide traffic circle with a small park in the center. On the opposite side of the circle I spotted Palio Dessert and Espresso House (review here). It looked like a great place to make my first stop of the day.

After a longer than expected stop at Palio, my wandering began anew. I left the café and walked up Harrison Street, which I would follow for the next few miles. Harrison, as it turns out, is one of the streets that Portland has modified to encourage bicycle commuting. There are bike symbols all along the street, and medians had been placed at major cross streets (leaving a gap for bikes) to discourage cars from traveling down it. As far as I could tell, the changes seemed to be effective. I saw many more bikes than cars or pedestrians.

Being bike-friendly

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Palio Dessert and Espresso House

At the center of the historic Ladd’s addition, in Southeast Portland, Palio Dessert and Espresso House strives for an Old World (European) feel. When I walked in, the café was quiet, with classical music playing softly in the background. There were a couple people in the back room staring at their laptops. I asked the barista two questions: First, what kind of espresso did Palio’s serve? and 2) What was Palio’s best drink? His answers: Stumptown espresso; and a “Mexican mocha”, with cinnamon, nutmeg and ground up chilies. I wasn’t in the mood for straight Stumptown espresso and the mocha sounded a little rich for first thing in the morning, so I opted for a latte instead.

Palio

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Café Cello

Café Cello, located downtown across Yamhill Street from the Central Library, shares a Victorian-style house with the Pulse Salon. The café is fairly intimate, with five tables plus a row of seats along the front window. You can sit at tables on the front sidewalk if you prefer to watch the Max trains pass by. Inside, the deep red walls give the space enough character to be interesting, but are not so outlandish that they are distracting. The café has a couple stuffed chairs that are good for sitting and reading.

Café Cello

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Coava Coffee Roasters

I wasn’t sure where I was going yesterday when I left the house, so I pointed myself eastward and started walking. It was a beautiful day, warmer than I realized when I left the apartment. I walked down to the riverfront and turned north. It was nearing lunchtime, and when I got down to the river, lots of people were out walking and running along one of Portland’s most beautiful spaces. There were more people out running than usual—it appears that  people are gearing up for next month’s Portland Marathon and getting in some extra miles during their lunch breaks.

I considered continuing north along the river and then turning back into the Pearl District, but the East Side was calling me, so I crossed over Naito Parkway and climbed up on to the Morrison Bridge. As I crossed, I realized that the bridge is a good place to look at downtown and take pictures. I took a few before crossing over the bridge and into the Central Eastside Industrial district. I like this part of town: it’s a part of Portland that works. The neighborhood isn’t as concerned as some neighborhoods about looking pretty, and the array of wholesale and distribution centers is more diverse than I thought. You don’t realize the amount of business going on in this city until you see all of the office supply stores, wall covering stores, lumber stores, industrial bakeries, etc. that are found in this area.

A beautiful day on the waterfront

Continuing eastward, I crossed Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard (MLK) and walked one more block to Grand Ave. I turned right on Grand and walked southward. As I crossed Main Street I  noticed a sign to my left that said Bamboo Revolution. Very Portland, I thought. One of the city’s claims is to be the most sustainable city in the US, and a store that sells bamboo flooring and counters fits that mould (Sustainability is a theme that will show up frequently as I write more about Portland.)

A few steps later, I noticed an A-frame sign on the sidewalk that said Coava (koh-vuh) Coffee Roasters. I did a double-take because I thought I was passing a bamboo flooring shop. Apparently, I was right on both counts. Inside I saw a coffee bar, and I couldn’t resist the temptation to stop in and check it out.

Coava/Bamboo Revolution

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Exploring Portland

Portland is a unique place (just ask anyone who lives here—they’ll tell you) and I’m going to spend the next few months learning all I can about the city and  bringing it to you through this blog. For those who live here, maybe I can find some hidden treasures that you didn’t know about. For those of you who don’t, I hope to give you a reason to come visit or at least help you understand why Portland is not just ‘Seattle Lite.’ I want to find the places and stories that make Portland interesting.

One of my goals for Caffeinated PDX is to have it be an important source of information on the coffee shops and cafés of Portland (and wherever else my adventures take me). Over the next several months, I will be writing about Portland’s coffee culture and the people and places that make it unique. I hope to visit cafés, roasters and anyone else who has an interest in coffee in order to find the best that Portland has to offer.

As I visit the cafés, I want to give you a sense of each place’s offerings—the atmosphere, the amenities, foods, etc.—things you might want to know before you go. More importantly, I hope to catch up with the owners, managers and  regulars, to find out what they love about their café. There must be some good stories out there, and I plan to find them and share them with you. So if you know of any places in PDX (or around the Northwest) that are just can’t-miss, please tell me about  them. I want to check them out. Thanks!

Two Observations about PDX

After a 24-hour voyage, I made it back in Portland on Friday evening. I have a few more stories about China to share with you over the next couple days, but I will also be looking for other adventures around the Pacific Northwest. More on that in the future. For now, these are my first two impressions about Portland: it has better air and is much more polite than Beijing.

The best thing about arriving back in Portland, other than seeing friends and family, is that I can breathe easily again. You cannot see the air in Portland, and that is a wonderful thing. I enjoyed my run yesterday morning because when I took a deep breath, my lungs did not feel like they were under siege. If you breathe the air here all the time, you might not realize that Portland air has a smooth, velvety finish, similar to a fine whisky. Beijing air is more like a cheap bottle of convenience-store gut-rot. It makes you cough and sputter if you try to breathe too deeply.

A common sight, until the rainy season. . .

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