Portland

Review of the Week #2- LIKEWISE

/ The Black Hat Baker
UPDATE (8/19/2018)- Likewise has since closed its doors. I wait to see what Adam and Nancy intend to do next. In the meantime, I’m keeping this up as a memoriam to a great concept and bar.
Full disclosure: While I am a “member” of this establishment, I have no stake in it, financial or otherwise. Similarly, this review is entirely unsolicited by the establishment, and all opinions are inviolably my own. The nature of my membership will be expanded upon further in the review. – BHB

Where: LIKEWISE, 3564 SE Hawthorne Blvd., SE Portland.

When you’re mostly-unemployed, you find yourself pounding pavement a lot.
Sidewalks meld together, the curbs all start to look alike, and your eyes only really respond to flashes of neon, streetlights, and window displays of things you’d love to be able to afford one day.

The only things that stir you up are potential places to look for work- or places to make you feel a little better about not having it.
In short, it’s a wonderful excuse to go exploring- and I was in exactly such a state clomping down Hawthorne Boulevard a year or so ago.

Hawthorne Boulevard is a local strip comprised of bars, restaurants dedicated to various cuisines and budgets, and intriguing shops varying from the mundane stationery to exotica. The street is rife with nightlife venues- a barcade (Quarterworld), a kitschy sci-fi bar from the 50s (the Space Room), and a number of restaurants, food carts and stands ready to offer delicious boozemops for when you just need SOMETHING to get you home.

This considered, the presence of LIKEWISE is not remarkable.

It’s really the ONLY thing about LIKEWISE that is not remarkable.

Serenity- Close to Home?

/ The Black Hat Baker / 1 Comment

Good evening, friends and neighbors.​

It had been a rough week. Between a long work week, tax season, car problems and more, Emily and I have been failing miserably at our resolution to just have boring lives for a few months.

Last Sunday, Emily decided that we both needed a day to relax and just mosey around- me especially. After thinking about what kind of things would help me relax, we decided the first order of business was a hot bowl of ramen for lunch, and then maybe an afternoon at Lan Su Garden.

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One Year Out

/ The Black Hat Baker

Good evening, friends and neighbors!

​ The hint of fall is in the air as I sit under the blacked-out stars on the patio of the Space Room on Hawthorne.

Usually it’s a lot wilder, with hipsters celebrating the coming of Friday like the weekend was starting Thursday- “Thirsty Thursday” I think some people still call it. I always really liked this kind of weather, where you packed a light hoodie for the morning and evening, but crammed it in your bag during the hot sunlit hours. It certainly seems more pronounced in Oregon than it ever did in New Jersey. I suppose that’s because most of my autumns in New Jersey were home by the sea, not out in the Pinelands or anywhere especially wooded. Even in super-hip and compulsively urban Portland, you can’t forget there are woodlands out there. The trees are starting to change, littering the streets with scarlet and ochre leaves. It’s turning into the time of year that demands light music, whiskey, and warmth.

 

Well, I’m having a martini. Cucumber dill-infused vodka, a refreshing little twist. It’s my Friday. After coming home, stripping off the remains of my work of the last week and zonking out for about an hour, I decided that was break enough, and time to get out among people and back to work.

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“Voos Mahkt A Yid?”- Yiddish in Portland, and a Recipe for Hamantaschen!

/ The Black Hat Baker / Leave a comment
     Good evening, friends and neighbors!​     Hope your Labor Day was fun and restful, and that all the kids are excited to be back in school.

     What? Weirder things have happened.     Case in point was MY Labor Day, spent in the kitchen of Crema Cafe + Bakery, my current employers.

As you might expect, business was VERY swift that day, and I was double-timing it around the kitchen. As the only pastry guy on duty that day, I had to make sure the front was stocked. Pastries, pies, cakes, pudding- whatever I could whip up with what was available that the customers would like.

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Genres of Bars in Portland- Where To Plant Your A** and Raise Your Glass

/ The Black Hat Baker / Leave a comment
Good evening, friends and neighbors!I tend to do my best thinking when I’m outside. I’ve heard that it’s something to do with endorphins, or the activity of the body matching the activity of the mind. It might also be the mirepoix of light, fresh air, and action that stirs the imagination to open doors it might have sullenly slogged by- even if the body itself seems to be slogging it’s way through the rainy, suddenly sleet-in-May-filled streets of Portland.

I tend to do my best THINKING when I’m moving around outside.

​My best WRITING, however, tends to happen in pubs and restaurants.

Picture

Good enough for the Inklings, it’s good enough for me. Photo by Tom Murphy

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