ok, well what about Portland, Oregon?

Powells is for sure on the list.

The Portland Japanese Garden is worth a couple of hours.

Is that the reservoir where they spotted a kid peeing in the water on security footage, so they drained the entire thing? Such overkill for a bladder of pee

LOL yep, same community that won't allow fluoride in the drinking water because something something

Another fun Mt. Tabor activity to consider if you are in town on August 20th is the annual go kart races. People all around Portland build wacky vehicles and race them down the park. Lot of fun to watch. Video of past event below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_96exSrJ2c8

There’s an nice coffeehouse called the Pied Cow with a big patio where you can get coffee, desserts, beer, kid-friendly drinks late into the evening.

^^ Yes, definitely recommendations for places with outdoor seating for good food and kid friendly with beer would be appreciated as well.

The Saturday morning farmers market has tons of good food and has lots of open space. I think it would be pretty easy to pick a neighborhood or street to wander down - Belmont, Alberta, Division, etc - and find things for everyone to enjoy and probably somewhere to sit outside and get a drink and good food.

They’re less of an experience but I find Belmont Books and Mother Foucault’s much more satisfying than Powell’s.

what's that old elementary school that now has live five taprooms in it? I liked that place when I was there a few years back

Kennedy School ^^ Fun place, good outdoor courtyard, really good for brunch too.

recommendations for places with outdoor seating for good food and kid friendly with beer would be appreciated as well.

Baerlic Brewing's 11th Street location also has Ranch Pizza, which is one of the best pizzas I've had in a long time (Detroit-style). The beer is really good too, and it has outdoor seating and is definitely kid-friendly before 9 p.m.

There's also a Baerlic Taproom and outdoor tables at The Barleypod (6035 NE Halsey), which has a great range of food trucks too.

Grand Central is a bakery chain, really good for breakfast sandwiches, coffee, etc.

I think it would be pretty easy to pick a neighborhood or street to wander down - Belmont, Alberta, Division, etc - and find things for everyone to enjoy and probably somewhere to sit outside and get a drink and good food.

^^ good advice!

(er, maybe that's Kennedy School, maybe something else, but Kennedy School is good for a nice outdoor place)

Agreed that Belmont Books and Mother Foucault’s are better bookshop experiences

<q>i just drove this way a couple weeks ago heading down to bend to see Haim</q>

dude, how good was Sasami? did you see her?

<q>while it's all very pretty i'm not sure there's anything worth stopping for? it's barely an hour if that between hood and the city anyways</q>

agreed nothing worth stopping before between Portland and Bend, really.

<q>crossing the Burnside bridge was surreal, there are half a dozen tall buildings on the east side none of which I remember being there in 2017</q>

i visited Portland last weekend for the first time since late 2019 and this caught my eye, too. used to be all the tall buildings were on the west side and inner east was just low-rise warehouses and stuff. massive change over the past couple of years (no big surprise, of course).

and holy wow has the graffiti multiplied.

i love portland, still.

ah crap. ignore that ^

i just drove this way a couple weeks ago heading down to bend to see Haim

dude, how good was Sasami? did you see her?

while it's all very pretty i'm not sure there's anything worth stopping for? it's barely an hour if that between hood and the city anyways

agreed nothing worth stopping before between Portland and Bend, really.

crossing the Burnside bridge was surreal, there are half a dozen tall buildings on the east side none of which I remember being there in 2017

i visited Portland last weekend for the first time since late 2019 and this caught my eye, too. used to be all the tall buildings were on the west side and inner east was just low-rise warehouses and stuff. massive change over the past couple of years (no big surprise, of course).

and holy wow has the graffiti multiplied.

i love portland, still.

dude, how good was Sasami? did you see her?

we were late! walked onto the lawn and grabbed some space about 5 minutes before the sisters took the stage

^^ Yes, definitely recommendations for places with outdoor seating for good food and kid friendly with beer would be appreciated as well.

― a superficial sheeb of intelligence (jon /via/ chi 2.0)

pretty much everyplace has outdoor seating since covid

the graffiti really started picking up around the time of the 2020 anti-racism protests, pdx has kind of a real bad cop problem and our mayor refuses to do anything about it. also there are a lot lot lot more homeless people but gee go figure our landlord mayor isn't doing anything to help ease _that_ issue either. and all anybody talks about is whether we should _tolerate_ homeless folks, like y'all my friends don't want to be _tolerated_ they want places where they can _live_

anyway re: suggestions, y'all pretty much have it handled. the graffiti is ok except when you can't read the road signs because of it. i saw a penis girl tag for the first time last night, penis girl was viral last year or something but i'd never actually seen any of their (they're non-binary) tags before now

the one thing i will say is that downstairs at powell's has a really good children's section, it's huge and can be overwhelming (which i kinda didn't think about before inviting an autistic friend from out of town to visit) but it's definitely kid-friendly

i was gonna say last night, but didn't cuz i felt like my post was already getting too long: there are places to eat outside with decent or better beer or every block in Portland. and they're all kid-friendly enough if you put your mind to it, as a family did the other night when i ate at Killingsworth Station and their three little kids chased each other in circles around me while their parents largely ignored them. (it's fine, i have kids, i get it.)

Thanks, appreciate all of the tips and suggestions!

Oh, one more: The Beer Mongers is a small space with tables outside that has lots of interesting/obscure ones (and just a block or two from Baerlic/Ranch). I think they had one of the Pliny-s on tap when I was there.

one of the Pliny-s on tap

sold!

If you're looking for outdoor seating with beer options, there are food cart pods everywhere. Everyone in the family can have something from different carts and many of the pods have a beer/cocktail cart.

While there is indeed not much between PDX and Bend, if you do find yourself heading out to Hood or back and get hungry, you can't go wrong with Skyway Bar and Grill in Zig Zag. Decent BBQ (Not Matt's BBQ level), lots of outdoor seating and appropriate libations. Another option is a few miles away, in Welches, is Koya Kitchen.

Enjoy your time in Oregon. August can be a top-tier time to visit!

skyway bar was nice, i get a little nervous leaving the city but it was... ok, so they just relabelled their women's room to "women and non-binary people", i mean, you could do _worse_, haha

it's just a normal part of my life now, worrying if anybody is gonna freak out if i need to pee, lol

I had a bathroom freakout awhile ago in Oakland, at a new park near Brooklyn Basin.. I walked in and there were several women in there, and I just turned around and fled in fear that I had done something wrong

My girlfriend came out and said that they all had a laugh at my reaction. I guess it was my first experience with a truly mixed public bathroom (ala Ally McBeal) rather than "all gender" private rooms - and I didn't handle it well, I was kinda embarrassed

ahhh, i think there's nothing to be embarrassed or ashamed about, particularly given all the hubbub about how awful and terrible a violation it is to have "men" (meaning women) in women's restrooms. you walk into a restroom and see a bunch of women there when you're not expecting it, it's natural to feel like you've made a mistake. i avoided using women's restrooms for a long, long time because i was worried about it. in portland i guess it was maybe an issue at _some_ point - a women's restroom my ex went in while i was still "questioning" had a sign there telling cis women to not be fucking karens about trans women needing to use the loo in no uncertain terms - but by the time i transitioned in '19 it seemed to be a dead issue. fortunately for me nowadays anybody ignorant to raise a stink about me needing to pee is probably too ignorant to figure out i'm trans, but the few people who are weird about trans shit are _really_ fucking weird about it...

Seconding na, Portland was great and the family had a great time. Thanks for all the tips and recs! We didn't hit up everything, having a 10 year-old and an Airbnb with a pool meant we had to be fairly flexible with things.

I think it would be pretty easy to pick a neighborhood or street to wander down - Belmont, Alberta, Division, etc - and find things for everyone to enjoy and probably somewhere to sit outside and get a drink and good food.

^^ this is pretty much what we ended up doing

Very much enjoyed Powell's, Music Millennium, so many food trucks, Hawthorne District, too many donuts and lots of good local beer. The 10 year-old absolutely loved Salt and Straw and Fifty Licks ice cream and cannot stop talking about how good the Motley Cue burger was at Killer Burgers.

Took a day trip up to Seattle to do the Space Needle, MoPop, Pike Place Market tourist thing and another to Cannon Beach to see the ocean and Haystack Rock (another absolute highlight for the Goonies loving kid).

where's the no-shit best thai place here? the city seems laden with thai food but a lot of places have been underwhelming. now, i'm spoiled by the best thai place in the US in my former hometown (on's thai kitchen, saint paul MN, better thai food than when i was literally in thailand) but there has to be something here with that fierce, give-you-hurtburn-just-by-looking-at-it cooking style. sick of the thrillist-recommended overly fried places with cutesy decor

My brother in law took me to a place on the east side that was in a house basically and I’m not sure if it was the food or the overall evening but I thought it was really good and some of the things were extremely spicy.

Searching makes me think it was called Lemongrass, it could be totally run of the mill as this was over a decade ago.

Yui is my favorite (been splitting time between Portland and Chicago the past two years). It's pretty much a two-person kitchen (the proprietor and her mother), and I've had things on the hot side there.

And Paadee was great the time I've been there.

Yat Hai is also very good, two locations on the east side iirc

visiting until monday, my friends who live here took me to a vegan thai place earlier tonight. it was called kati thai, it was pretty good. we’ve been out a few times, the food is all good but damn ppl here seem to like their decadent nouveau comfort food! between french toast at a breakfast spot friday and jambalaya & hush puppies at a bar last night i’ve almost died of heartburn twice

I think the place in the house is Khun Pic's Bahn Thai, you have to show up a little bit before it opens because the couple that runs it and cooks all the food can only accommodate a few groups per evening. i don't remember how spicy it was but it was a wonderful meal, took about two hours to get the food but worth the wait.

damn this must be a sign i’m old, i can’t even imagine waiting two hours for food

speaking as some who once waited two hours in line for a bagel & poached egg sandwich in los angeles

Egg Slut?

damn dude! i mean, i like eggs as much as the next american, but … oh you mean the restaurant, yeah it was that place

Ha Ha, I was in GCM once and wanted to try it but the line was like 30-40 people so I noped out.

jambalaya & hush puppies at a bar last night i’ve almost died of heartburn twice

Roscoe's or Tiny Bubble Room?

the former

LOL. I think those are the only two bars in town where you can get jambalaya and hush puppies.

Next time you're in town and wind up at Roscoes, ask for the sushi menu. They have some shared space with a decent sushi restaurant around the corner and you can order sushi if you're not in the mood for Southern. Vice versa you can order any of the many beers on tap at Roscoe's at the sushi place.

so I was in portland last summer for three days and found it really depressing. I think this was down to where we stayed (right at the edge of Chinatown); most of downtown seemed to have gone completely out of business and there was a huge amount of people shooting up heroin right at the entrance to the hotel. Going over the river to visit our friend was better, but I was left with an overwhelming feeling of "well I already live in the bay area so I'm not sure why any of this is better'. . . we did go up partially as reconnaissance to determine whether it would make sense to just sell our house and relocate to somewhere we wouldn't have much of a mortgage, and I guess that's still on the table. But other than some very great waffles, I was underwhelmed by almost everything. But I'm sure I'll be back up there again in the next year.

my friends had sushi, one thing i am definitely not short on at home is sushi / karaage etc. plus no sushi on a weekend etc. but it def looked like a better long term decision, in retrospect!

home = southern california

i am definitely here to see my friends vs see the town. it’s a cool town, makes me think of our own midtown / alternative lifestyle / gentrifier neighborhoods expanded to the size of a small city. or maybe oakland without the rest of the bay + extra pnw flavor. i ultimately get the same sort of claustrophobia here from lots of tall trees + lack of blue sky that i get in oakland, so glad my friends are cool

i try not to rank cities like restaurants on yelp if i can though, i’ll always be feeling like i live in the wrong place

Correct place to live is probably Jersey City or maybe Pittsburgh

my sister just left pittsburgh, it seemed very “oakland early 90s” in that lots of cool people were moving there who had been priced out of nyc (and idk where else, maybe chicago?). the only downside i could see to it was eastern ohio, west virginia and western pa

they lived walking distance uphill from the warhol museum, though walking up and down those hills seemed like certain death

I’ve walked up and down some of the steepest blocks in Seattle and I haven’t died so far

well clearly, if you’re here to post about it! you are
probably made of sterner stuff than me

anyone have anything they could say about salem, eugene or corvalis? general character / worthwhile or blah?

eugene and corvallis are college towns, eugene a large liberal arts school (increasingly sports-oriented over the last 20-25 years) and corvallis more science/agri-oriented, and the towns reflect that. I did undergrad in eugene so my memories are blurry and pretty much rooted in the 2000-2003 music scenes etc. corvallis i don't know much about, never had much reason to stop there when passing by or through. dated a woman from salem a few years back and it kinda has, like, old rust-belt city qualities? seems like a lot of sprawl, too, from stayton to independence. the main street/downtown area seemed to be going through a revitalization back then (2017ish?), and it's just as dreary as anywhere in the willamette valley (good thing imo)