Travel

Review #19- The Bellwether Bar

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WHERE: 6031 SE Stark St.

By all accounts, Caldera Public House should have been my preferred local bar.

It was walking distance from my house in a historic building, had an eccentric vibe, a beautiful back patio, decent food, and hosted live Celtic music? I have even have an amusing memory about the place. Before we got married, I came home from work one day and heard Emily in the bedroom. I said “hello,” and she called out “Oh… you’re home already? Um… I’m trying on the wedding dress.”

“Ah… gotcha.” I promptly walked down to the Caldera and got a seat because, before our marriage even began, I’d been kicked out of the house and sent down to the pub for an hour.

All the same, I rarely went to Caldera Public House, and chose other bars that were closer to work or run by friends. The food at Caldera was good, but never very good. The beer list was underwhelming, and I’m rarely a “fancy cocktails” guy. Above all else, the place was just not comfortable for very long. The live bands were good, but loud. You couldn’t sit at the actual bar because there were tables in the middle of the main room, and a small reading nook in the middle of the building had the most comfortable seats, but it was frustrating to read, eat, and drink there at the same time.

When Caldera closed up even before the pandemic, I was sad but not surprised. Then, when a new sign was hung outside the door about a month ago, I wondered if someone was trying to be the neighborhood bar Caldera struggled to be.

They were, and they are.

The exterior of the Bellwether Bar
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What’s Another Eulogy? My Non-Review of Roadrunner

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Until about 5AM this morning, this week’s blog post was going to be about something completely different. I was going to write about taste, snobbishness, and keeping it in check.

But last night, Em and I decided to go to our first movie in a theater in over a year. It was a toss-up between Black Widow and Roadrunner, and Em decided she could see Black Widow another time. She wanted to see Roadrunner with me. We were both glad for that because in the back of the Laurelhurst Theater, over pizza, popcorn, and spilled beer, we both cried our eyes out.

I came home with mixed emotions and tried to write that blog post about snobbishness… but as of 5 am, aware of the discourse and controversies surrounding the movie, I knew I need to write this all out while it was still fresh in my mind. One of the problems with being a writer is that words vanish from your mind faster than feelings in your heart, so here we go.

One last story from my beloved doomed bastard of a hero, Uncle Tony.

Glad for the hat brim and lighting here- you cant see how red my eyes are.
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My Portland

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If anyone was to ask me where I’m from, I’m immediately proud to say “New Jersey.” Several times in my life, when people first meet me and ask where I’m from, they tend to assume England for some reason. I’ve never been able to explain why except for the joke response that when I was little my parents let me watch a lot of Monty Python and that I tend to be very polite. Dropping a few F-Bombs seems to clear it up though:

“Oh, I thought you were from England or something.”
“The fuck made you think that?”
“Okay, THERE’S the New Jersey, I hear it now.”
… Thanks, Sopranos.

Of course, I don’t live in Jersey right now. For the last six years, I’ve been happy to live in Portland, Oregon. Maybe you’ve seen it on TV or heard about it from your hipster friends. You might even have some ideas about what life here is like from the news of the last few years. Words like “war zone” and “anarchist jurisdiction” were thrown around a lot. For the rest of my life, I will remember riding in a bus around Walt Disney World in March of 2019. Sitting across from Emily and I was an elderly couple, and we started talking about what every tourist at Disney does after the heat, food, and bugs:

“So where are you visiting from?”
“Portland Oregon! Yourselves?”
The old man visibly bristled and scoffed- “Oh yeah, I hear that’s a great place to live.”
“Oh it is! Beautiful nature, amazing food and beer- you should visit sometime!”

I have never seen a man deflate so fast. Pro-tip: if someone’s looking for an argument, the easiest way to win is not to play. That said, when my little sister and her partner came to visit a few weeks ago, they expressed interest in seeing my Portland. Not the hellscape creatively described on Fox News or the goofy version on Portlandia. They wanted the Portland that a local loves/hates. A few years ago, I wrote a little post for people that wanted to move out here. Consider this a more-experienced addendum, and a helpful guide for anyone who wants to visit but is afraid of running afoul of roving bands of Nazis and/or anarchists.

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Why I Write in Restaurants

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It’s possible for a space to feel too comfortable.

Looking at my own “workspace” at home, it absolutely looks like I spend a lot of time sitting there. There’s an art print on the wall behind my comfortable high-backed chair from IKEA. There is a minimalist desk lamp (also from IKEA) that illuminates the space directly between my laptop’s keyboard, the coaster for my tea mug, and the stand where my iPad or phone controls my Pomodoro timer and music selection.

It is my preferred space for book work. It is my preferred space for editing and tweaking my own work. Beyond that little ring of light and cheap wood, though, the rest of the desk is chaos. It is too comfortable. One of my culinary teachers warned us that our workspace reflects our minds- if you have a messy workspace, you have a messy mind. Beyond my laptop, thar be dragons.

When it comes to this weekly blog, I feel like I have to go mobile. The wanderlust of the “nomadic entrepreneur” seizes on me, and I need to pack everything in a satchel and “find a place to write.”

Today, my “office” of the moment is My Vice. It has cocktails and a really good beef sandwich. The table is empty except for my typing machine and a late lunch. Arguably, I could save money and do this myself by cleaning my friggin’ desk up- but what’s the fun in that?

My name is Matt Strenger, and I do a lot of writing in bars.

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Why I Don’t Write Negative Restaurant Reviews

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It takes some serious cajones to open up a new restaurant in thee middle of a pandemic. Even more so doing it in a city positively lousy with ramen shops.

When I saw the new storefront open up and a couple faces returning time and time again, I figured it was time to take them for a spin. I hadn’t written about ramen on the blog yet, and it’s the perfect weather for a bowl of hot noodles.

After two visits, trying their most popular bowl and a bowl of what they specialize in, I walked away feeling like I had wasted my money. If I am spending money on ramen and “I could have had a better dinner with a pack of Top Ramen and fixings from my fridge” floats through my mind, that’s a bad sign.

Tossing out half of the second disappointing bowl, I decided that the place did not merit a review. Not a bad review, or a complaint on Yelp- that’s not my way.

I don’t give bad reviews, anywhere, ever- and I have good reasons why.

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