No Dishes to Wash

My husband and I have been in love with Portland City Grill for a long time.  And now that he gets off work earlier, we can catch the early Happy Hour at this popular place.  In the US Bancorp tower, on the 30th floor, where Atwaters used to be. If you can snag a window seat, it’s great.  We usually head up early, (about 4:15, for the 4:30 HH) or really late (11 or so for the later one) to get a window seat.  In fact, the HH is totally slammed and hard to get a seat unless you go early or late.  The piano man is playing, your waiter is in a tux jackets, the yuppie crowd is in, talk about ambiance.  And the food can be truly sensational.  Don’t expect big portions, because they don’t exist here.  Just like if you were coming here for a meal, it is all about fancy-shmancy pants artsy food.  But that doesn’t mean the food is not delicious!  I love the Thai Lemongrass beef tenderloin satay (think skewers),  with coleslaw, and the Ginger Hoisen Chicken satay.  Caleb almost always gets the cheeseburger.  The drinks are pro-fessional here.  They even have the number one cocktail waitress in Oregon working for them.  If you go after a Blazer game, don’t be surprised to see a few Blazers, and or coaches to show up - I think the time before last, we saw Patrick Ewing.  Or maybe the time before the time before last.  Anyhow, this is where the IN crowd hang out.  So, expect it to get a little noisy with young 20-somethings giggling over the guy getting his mac on with them.  I do swear, I have heard THE funniest conversations here.  It is a veritable meat market towards the weekend.  If you have anyone visiting Portland, the view of downtown, the river, and Mt. Hood is spectacular, you must take them, they will be very impressed.  (Unless they are the type that hate on the rich and famous, or wannabe rich and famous, in that case, definitely don’t take them here.)  There is a dress code, although I don’t think it’s very strictly enforced, I believe that ripped jeans, shorts, baseball hats and bikini tops are no-no’s.  Besides, if you show up in anything remotely like that, you will feel slightly out of place, unless you are totally oblivious to that kinda stuff.  (Read=most men.)  There is not a late HH on Friday or Saturday, although they do have the early one on both days.  Last year, they had a leeetle problem with health inspector reviews, but not one word has been heard since then, so, (whew) I think it’s safe to enjoy.  Portland City Grill is located at 111 SW 5th Ave, 30th floor.  Open M-Th 11am-midnight, F 11am-1am, Sa 4pm-1am, Su 4pm-11pm.  HH 4:30pm-6:30pm M-Sa, 10pm-midnight M-Th and 4pm-11pm Su.  Props to Operators are Standing By for the picture of the view from the Grill.

Everytime I hear the full name of Sayler’s, I think about the Country Kitchen, one of those chain restaurants.  Let me emphasize, NOT EVEN REMOTELY the same place.  I’ve been frequenting the Happy Hour in the lounge for a long time… long enough to remember when the pepper steak bites were $1.95. (Which actually wasn’t that long ago.)  But I promised myself in this post I wouldn’t complain about HH prices going up.  Sayler’s is a family run business, with 2 locations, one Eastside, the other Westside.  They serve a good steak, but sometimes you feel like you are transported back to the late 70s, early 80s in their dining rooms.  The HH draw has always been their Pepper Steak Bites, which were the trimmings off all their hand cut steaks, marinated in a pepper sauce, and served, as I mentioned before, for $1.95.  Now they are $3.95 each, I believe, and the other HH menu items are $2.95, except for the cheeseburger, which is $4.95 (and not nearly as good as the McCormick and Schmick’s HH cheeseburger!)  They make decent drinks here, too, not too weak (although I have also had stronger.)  This is the type of place where everyone knows everyone, and back when I was a regular, the waitress even knew my name.  I had stopped going for a while, because the HH is only in the lounge, which can get extremely smoky. (Can’t wait for Jan 1st, 2009!!!!)  Also, the small video poker section (which is about 4 machines) can get a little irritating…. if you forget to sit on the other side of the lounge.  Which it seemed I was always doing.  They have a nice fireplace, and the lounge has a true “loungy” feeling to it, with overstuffed chairs that roll about, instead of restaurant tables and chairs.  Our server was Shannon, and these waitresses really know what they are doing, they have all been around for a while at Sayler’s.  I think they are a little too busy sometimes, if it’s a full night they should really have 3 cocktail waitresses, and I think they only do 2, but these girls make sure you have drinks in front of you all the time.  So after Jan 1st 2009, I think this place will be a regular for me again… ok, maybe give it until Feb 1st for all the old smoke to clear out.  Located at 10519 SE Stark St (just look for the huge rotating steak sign). Open M-Th 4pm-10pm, F 4pm-11pm, Sa 3pm-11pm Su 12pm-10pm.  Happy Hour is 3pm-6pm M-F and 9pm-close daily.