Last night was another one of those “Only in Portland” Saturday evenings, and while it aligned with Portland’s overwhelming “Keep it Weird” theme, it was pretty entertaining. Let me tell you about it…
Dinner in a Haunted Victorian House …
I knew I was headed out for the evening to see a special Pink Floyd cover band concert that is in its fourth year in Portland, and I was looking for a place to eat before the show. As I was perusing some of my many newsletters, blogs, emails and data feeds about all the things to do here, when I ran across an article in PDX Monthly about a cafe and bar serving up Spanish tapas on the Southeast side of town about halfway between home and the Alberta Rose Theater.
This newcomer to the Belmont district, Foxtrot (no link to a website because they don’t have one), sits in a historic 130-year-old Victorian home that previously had been home to the Pied Cow, a well-loved coffeeshop that was also apparently haunted.
This part of town has pretty tight street parking and I ended up parking about 2 blocks away and started heading up Belmont St. Once I saw the Korean H-Mart supermarket I knew I was in the area, and I kept walking, almost strolling right by the restaurant before looking up and realizing that the bright red and blue OPEN sign in the window of the green Victorian Home was my destination.
Following the sign to head around back to the courtyard to order, I made my way alongside the house to a fun little courtyard with an Airstream trailer bar and cashier on one side and another two sides surrounded by little alcove seating areas.
I ordered up their $13 Morunos Pork sandwich (The name derived from the pork used to make Spanish Pinchos Morunos, or Spanish pork skewers / Moorish kebabs) which was made from Morunos pork shoulder, guajillo chili, garlic, cilantro, orange zest, and fernet branca salsa verde, along with a side salad for an extra $3 (that part is important) and a draft porter to wash it all down. After paying the cashier I headed inside the home and found a spot.
It wasn’t hard, as I was the only patron and the place was empty. I imagine though later in the evening and on any day in the summer, this place must be hopping. And what a place it was. I saw a quote online where someone said it’s as if a roadside attraction was visiting Grandma’s house. It was dark, moody and the walls were covered in weird nicknacks. I had never seen anything like it in a restaurant. Sure, maybe the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland, but not an eating establishment.
After taking it all in I slowly consumed my porter while waiting about 6-8 minutes for my meal. When it finally did come out, just at first look it was impressive given the very minimal prices paid.
Being responsible, I dug into the salad first. Now, when I ordered it, I noticed that they had a full salad as a meal on the menu and I told the cashier that I simply wanted the $3 add on, not a full meal. He said, “Oh, I kinda figured. I got you”. So I was thinking that this would be some measly head lettuce salad with maybe some cucumber and tomato if I was lucky. No, this was a very healthy portion of the dinner salad that contained Stoneboat Farms seasonal lettuce, toasted hazelnuts and pistachios, balsamic soaked and candied dates, with an aged sherry vinaigrette. In a word, it was outstanding. The absolute best $3 salad I’ve ever had in my life.
Having consumed most of my salad and seeing what remained on my plate I was thinking to myself, “This is going to be incredible”. When I bit into the lightly toasted crunchy bread from Ken’s Artisan Bakery and the fatty juices from the Spanish pulled pork started dripping down my wrist, I knew I was in for a world class experience and was it ever. For those readers that have been with me for a while you know that in the past I’ve openly stated that I really get tired of using well-earned superlatives “best ever” etc. when talking about my experiences with food here in Portland, but I have to say, this was the best pulled pork sandwich I have ever had. It was incredibly tasty, it had a combination of sweet, heat, salt, savory, creamy and crunchy. And to top it off it was served up in a place unlike anything I had ever experienced, and it only cost $13 bucks. This plate of food is a destination dish - although, I have to say they also had a veal meatball sandwich with marinara on Ken’s toasted bread on the menu that is probably going to get my attention on my next visit.
At this point I was in heaven, and I still had some time to kill before the concert, so I went back out to the cashier and asked about their housemade pies. Unfortunately, that night they were out of that signature dish, so I ordered up a housemade pistachio ice cream affogato and settled into one of the outdoor heated seating areas to enjoy it while doing a little people watching, as things were starting to pick up at this point.
… And a Show in an 80-year-old Theater
Even though I had preferred seating, it’s first-come-first-served, so generally I like to arrive at the Alberta Rose Theater around 6:30 before the doors open at 7 p.m. for the concert at 8 o’clock. I did the same this evening and was about 5th in line (By the time the doors opened at 7pm there were several hundred people in line. The theater holds around 300 guests, and as with nearly every show here, it was sold out.
Once the doors opened, I made my way to the front and picked out what I thought would be the absolute best seat in the house for the show. It turned out to be a great seat for watching the band. However, I got a little closer view than I bargained for in the 2nd video below.
The show began a few minutes late at around 8:05 p.m. with an opening that initially told me this was going to be another one of those “Portland original” shows that can only be seen here, and the oddities only continued from there.
The band played a medley of Pink Floyd songs from various albums, accompanied onstage by a local acrobatic and dance troop called B Movement (Described as “A new movement project”). The audience seemed to love them, but I personally found them to mostly distract from the music and could have just as easily done without them.
This is Portland though, and the one thing I’ve learned in the one and a half years or so that I’ve lived here is that the best way to get along is to go along. There are 101 things on a daily basis that will make those that are not tolerant or very opinionated simply unable to coexist in this city in any meaningful way without having a daily stroke.
While not everything here may be my cup of tea, I’ve learned to see the beauty and simply look past those things that aren’t part of my daily existence or that I may not necessarily agree with. For me it all comes down to “if what you are doing isn’t harming my family, myself, my livelihood or home in any way, you do you”.
Enough with the soapbox and back to the show. After about a 20-minute intermission the band came back onstage and proceeded to play Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon album in its entirety, without commercial interruption (Well, I take that back, there was a bit of ceremony when they started playing songs off the backside of the album…and speaking of backside, this is where being in the front row didn’t necessarily pay off. Woah.).
The concert was entertaining and Love Gigantic did a great job of playing their best Pink Floyd. For the first three years they played this show one night only, but this year it went for two nights, and if they keep going it will likely be three nights next year. I’m still not sure about all the accompanying dance, but maybe there’s a place for it.
Overall though, as I said, this was an evening likely only possible in Portland.