Andrew C.'s Profile

Absolutely.

N Williams and Shaver has a new cocktail bar. The Box Social. Their website bills them as a "cozy, warm, romantic neighborhood bar with well made, artisanal cocktails, a sophisticated wine list, a sampling of beers and nice little tasty bites. We have a friendly approachable staff that keeps the vibe mellow and relaxed. The Box Social is open every night of the week from 4pm - 2am and we have both early and late Happy Hours (see menu for details). With our logo being "a drinking parlour" we strive to keep our guests feeling comfortable and at home, while they relax with an amazing drink and/or a perfect little snack. Except for minors under 21, we welcome all. Look forward to seeing you here..."

That nails it. On a recent visit, Thursday night at 6:00pm, we arrived to find just a few tables left. By 8pm it was hopping with almost every seat claimed. The four of us started in on the cocktail list. I'm fairly sure we had just about everything, or at least a sip of just about everything.

Here's what I had specifically:

"The Cooler" (Bourbon, applejack, orange liqueur, lime, apple drinking vinegar and orange bitters). This would be the prefect drink on a hot day and drinking it on yet another winter night in Portland reminded me just how much I'm waiting on July. Real smooth taste, great finish.

Then it was on to the "Old Old Fashioned." This one is based off of an Old Fashioned, as you would have guessed, but it has some extra magic going on that their online menu currently does not list and that I didn't commit to memory.

Lastly the "Stone Cold Fox" (goslings black seal rum, habanero ginger honey, mango and lime) which was probably my favorite of the night. Served in a martini glass, every sip was a perfect balance of sweet and spicy.

You may take a look at this menu like one of our friend's did and feel like all these drinks have two too many ingredients. For instance, we know nothing of drinking vinegar and when you see a drink with something like that listed you might begin to wonder which of these many ingredients is going to be the most steeped in flavor. Good flavor or bad yet to be determined. If that's where your mind is, let me put it at ease. These drinks are -extremely- well balanced and I would put this place on par with nearby Interurban and Central downtown regarding taste and craft.

To some extent, the bartenders are the servers here. While that makes things a little slower, it also means that they connect with you at the table to determine your opinion on the drinks and to take more orders. Though it's awesome, don't feel glued to the menu. Twice last night two in our party decided they loved a certain drink but didn't like one part of it or they were interested in something that fused two different drinks together. The bartenders encouraged this, taking the time to ask questions about preferred tastes before heading back to the bar to build something custom. They returned with the finished drinks, waited around for the first sips to be taken and then asked more questions about it. If there was any point in the evening where I knew this place was destined for 5 stars, it was right there.

On the food side they have some funny offerings. Goldfish crackers are listed on the menu for a whopping $1 and serve to remind you that, no matter how good these drinks are, you're still in Portland.

I ordered the open face pastrami sandwich (creamed horseradish, caramelized onion and white cheddar. mista greens on the side). It was incredible. Least greasy, most flavorful pastrami sandwich I've had in awhile.

I was also able to steal some bites of the Special Panino (fig compote, creamed horseradish, caramelized onion, green apple and bleu cheese). Yeah. That's what's up.

They've done a great job both filling up the high ceiling modern space and connecting with the ambiance of the particular evening. Floor to ceiling windows enable a view of the evening commute back to N Portland while on the back wall is a massive mural of downtown from this vantage point, minus the fisheye: http://bit.ly/zqmzuE Intentional or not, I love how they chose to feature the Steel Bridge, which I think is one of the most overlooked bridges and definitely "the pride" of the NE/N quadrants (St. John's bridge is too far away). Regarding ambiance, when we first walked in the mood was calm, there were people eating and talking and the music was the perfect level to continue that. As more people trickled in and conversations got louder, they brought the music up to an acceptable level to again. It's clear they pay as much attention serving and ensuring the environment is right for the situation as they do behind the bar.

$62 later before tip for six drinks and two sandwiches (on just our side of the table) we got up to leave making sure to let the bar staff know this place rules and that we hope they'll be here "forever." They said they'll try their best.

I hadn't realized how long it had been since I'd been in a Costco. And then I found myself in one looking for a specific toy for a coworker's kid. I was just along for the ride, he was on the hunt. Seems that the Costco card is worth it solely for electronics. But jump on the deals when you see them. Chances are that if you sleep on these items for even a week there's a good chance you'll come back to a totally different display upon your return visit. Things move quick.

This particular location has a gas station in the parking lot that is surprisingly uncrowded.

Pretty much every Jack In The Box review you'll ever read from me will note how strange it is that the employees always seem like they're the happiest in the game. What in the hell is JITB doing differently that makes their employees so damn chipper? Add a small town element into that and you'll have a drive through attendant taking a genuine interest in where you're traveling to and talking about their experiences in the place if they've been. Far cry from the normal take-your-money-then-hand-back-a-bag routine.

Unfortunately the breakfast sandwiches they served up weren't on par with other locations. Crushed, slightly burnt, a let down of breakfast proportions compared to what I've seen JITB put forth in other locations. I'm not claiming JITB breakfast is breaking any culinary boundaries but in my opinion, it's the best widely available fast food that can be bought at any time of the day. Oh, and their breakfasts on average still whoop Burgerville calorie counts by roughly 400. I'll take it.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I've shot photos here, not played. If you're doing that, you'd better bring the best lens you have. The fluorescent lights are surprisingly dark and don't do much for apertures above 4.0.

Indoor Soccer is a racket any way you slice it. Team fees run nearly $500 and then every individual player has to buy a player's card for $20 which is good for 11 months so when that fourth season comes around it's time to get paying again. But, it rains here, so... there's not many other options for most of the year.

As for the facilities, it's one big turf field where the games are played next to one much smaller warm up field. They have a snack bar with beer and bleachers for viewing games "home or away." The field is essentially a hockey rink with turf in it. If you can call it turf. It's more like carpet on top of concrete. Be careful, indoor soccer is littered with injuries unlike the outdoor version.

Subs pay $10 and of course they need to have the $20 Soccerplex membership. Ref fees are $9 per game, payable directly to the ref.

As is the case with nearly all indoor, games are 44 minutes long. 22 minutes halves and a 1 minute halftime. Soccerplex offers lunchtime pick up games on weekdays from 12-2pm for $5. Decent deal for anyone nearby who wants to build up a sweat mid-workday.

I see why there's a large disparity between these reviews. I could be anywhere between 1 and 5 stars on this place on any given day.

The Homestead Inn is better known as Chick and Nello's to the local crowd. They of course are the owners and they seem to be in the dining room lingering and enjoying the company of friends on any given evening. Sometimes they'll even check on you when you're eating or introduce themselves. They're nice people.

When you pull in on a dark and rainy night, you'll either feel as if you're about to walk into a mafia run restaurant or see the ghost of a former president. The old house this place occupies gives both effects simultaneously. Upon entry you'll find that the space is surprisingly warm. Decor wise, if they hung up some boots and country swag this place could just as easily be a down home steakhouse.

I suppose it's part of the charm, but for me it was part of the frustration - There are no menus. All menu options, and there are quite a few, are given orally. You'll be asked if you're like to hear about the pastas, the salads, the specials, the entrees. And then you'll be presented with a list of about 6-8 options in each category. As you decide what you want your waiter will commit your dish to memory while doing the mental dance of information storage and information regurgitation. It's a trip to watch but it's a bummer if you're not ready for it. There's a lot of asking for things to be repeated and obviously no mention of prices unless you specifically ask. I can appreciate the showmanship, but I'd really prefer a piece of paper instead.

The staff in here is family. There's really no other way to put it. They will treat you as if this is the long overdue family dinner that you've just walked in on and short of asking you to catch them up on the recent goings on of your life, they'll bring the charm and genuine service that's truly missing from 95% of restaurants in this country. I dined alone on a work trip and during my wait the staff came by numerous times just to BS with me and make sure that I was alright. I was even brought a newspaper to pass the time while my porterhouse was in the works. This of course is when I met the owners who came over one at a time to welcome me to their restaurant before heading off to the dining table in the kitchen where they continued their conversations.

My visit included an order of the needlepoint pasta which was dropped at my table with mention that this was the best sauce I'd ever have in my life. I wish they hadn't said that, because it wasn't. It was good, don't get me wrong, but the hints of the meat grease they include in the sauce had such a subtle flavor that even a small swig of my Birra Moretti wiped them out instantly. That and this pasta dish was a rather small plate of pasta with a rather small bit of sauce and cost $7. Another victim of no prices on the menu.. ouch. A few tables over from me one of the four diners looked a little agitated that this pasta was billed as a meat pasta and instead came out with a more soupy red sauce. "I thought there was meat on this" he said. "The meat is in the sauce, sir. The meat juices are strained into the sauce." I smiled, thinking to myself how this is another example of how a printed menu would do wonders. Whenever you're speaking to someone in a manner that makes them memorize what dish they want, you're almost guaranteed that something will get lost in the translation even when you're speaking the same language.

My porterhouse was pretty damn good but with every bite I wondered how much this was going to set me back. I couldn't make it through the whole thing but made a valiant effort. Couldn't take it home in a doggy bag either as I was flying home the next day.

The handwriting was almost illegible on my bill but my meal came out like something like this:

$62 total divided over a porterhouse that was in the $42-46 range, two Moretti bottles for $9.50 and the pasta dish around $7-9. After tip this was the mid $70's range for one person. Definitely a splurge but not as incredible as I'd hoped it would be. Unfortunately I think even Ruth Chris makes a more enticing meal for a similar price.

I recommend coming here under the following circumstances:
1. You're on a date with a sugar momma/daddy.
2. You have a large expense account
4. Someone else is footing the bill entirely.

I like to say I helped out a local family and a staple of the Trenton, NJ dining scene for 40+ years, but instead when I think back on my visit I just feel like I kind of got politely hustled.

It's no surprise that Ross is essentially the Nordstrom Rack of the lower end department store world. This location is no different than any other Ross you've been in aside from that fact that its downtown location means you'll need to pay for street parking in order to browse through the countless aisles of clothing on the verge of falling apart and one size off.

I suppose if you dig hard enough you'll find something worth taking home but it seems to me that most of the items that have made it to this fashion graveyard are enough to make you feel like you could potentially be the best clothing designer the world has ever seen. That, or make you wonder how these designers got (and if they kept) their jobs.

All I knew about Las Primas before entering was that it was on N Williams, they play soccer on their TVs and they have sandwiches.

It's my fault for hoping that this would be Peruvian version of Seattle's famous Paseo. I dreamt of mouth watering meats, simple and highly flavorful condiments and bread made from the plucked dreams of small children sleeping peacefully in their beds. Even if it wasn't going to live up to my dreams, I was hoping it would be awesome in its own rite. After a first visit with a decent run through the menu, I'm not convinced.

We (2 people) ordered the following:

1 order of Yaquitas = $5.00
1 Butifarra sandwich = $8.50
1 Pollo A La Brasa sandwich = $8.50
1 Beer (Amnesia Porter) = $4.50 (This was an extremely poor choice. We'll revisit.)
1 Juice (Passion Fruit) - I cannot drink this as it turns my gutz into a tizzy. = $2.00

Total: $28.50.

Three menus hang overhead. If you're new to Peruvian food (like I am) you may find yourself spending extra time looking at the separate chalk board that shows definitions of exactly what these Peruvian words are. I was a little put off by the usability of this menu. If there was a long wait in here, this would be a great way to continue it.

All ordering occurs at the counter despite the space resembling an oversize modern cafeteria. If you want your dish served spicy, you slide a few steps to the left to let the ladies cooking it know that you wish for your meal to come 'picante.'

There's a station to the left where you get forks, napkins and can even squirt a few house made condiments into little cups. You'll be back here to drop off dirty dishes later.

There's plenty of seating. Maybe too much seating. I wish the business owners all the best but I have a hard time believing that this big space is going to be wall to wall full anytime soon.

And the reasons for this stance are:

When our food came out we were both completely underwhelmed with the flavors. Yaquitas is just fried dough served with a cheese sauce. It was exactly what we expected. As for everything else, there's a disconnect going on somewhere in here. What you read on the board when ordering is what's on your sandwich, but your sandwich doesn't taste like what's written on the board. My Polla A La Braso was also ordered picante and if that sandwich was hot, Taco Bell hot sauce will scald the next human to drip some on a nasty taco. I liked the bread, I'll give them that, but the rest of the sandwich just melted into one big average taste. I had a few bites of the Butifarra which had more flavor but in a different way. It was heavy on a sauce the rest of the sandwich just couldn't stand up to. Her side was a salad, which was any old garden salad, and I went with shoestring fries. The fries were fries. I dipped them in the house made sauces from the station but unfortunately even those were lacking heavily on flavor. I don't know jack about authentic Peruvian cuisine or if that's a culture where food is meant to have extremely subtle flavors, but in here that's what I'm lead to believe. What I could barely taste in sandwich was completely knocked out with even the tiniest swig of beer.

I should have ordered Inca Cola if only for the novelty of not having seen it in awhile. I like that Las Primas is offering local beers but from a pairing aspect I doubt there's anything on the entire menu that a hoppy ass Amnesia porter would go well with. Which leads me to wonder if the plan for having beer is for food pairing or if it's in hopes people will come in, order a beer and hang out. If it's the latter, I don't see how the wide open cafeteria style atmosphere is going to shepard that along. You can't keep an open tab (that I saw) so you'd be going back and forth ordering more beers in a bright room. Again, points awarded for sourcing local beers but perhaps they could source local beers that don't completely blow the already subtle flavors of their food into oblivion.

Entertainment wise they have a foosball table and another activity in the corner that I didn't know the name of. It involves throwing small chips, or maybe balls, toward some open cubbies.

I left a little irritated. This is Portland. There's some high culinary standards even into the $5 street food range. So when I drop $28.50 (a few days worth of groceries) on a meal I expect it to be awesome. I don't have any issue with their pricing - all sandwiches are roughly $8-9 in this town, but I have an issue with their quality. If they could step up their flavor game immensely I'd be all over this place. I'm optimistic but I'll definitely be waiting until the average rating is closer to 4.5 before I ever think about a return visit.

Seems that no matter your frequent rental status, they will give away your car if your flight is over an hour late. Of course getting this fixed takes a little time in line and a few keystrokes but the principal of it is maddening. This is Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. Delays are inevitable into this place and the garage is full of perfectly capable cars. So why do they give your chariot away and make you wait in line while they figure out which other one to give you? I may never know. Just know that if your name isn't showing up on the Gold Board, you are a victim of a little travel switcheroo...

What I think holds this store back from being 5 star is that you can go a long, long time in here without any employee acknowledgment. That is, if you even see one walking around to begin with. Huge store, few people on staff.

Aside from that, yes, things in here are expensive. You need to be smart about what you're buying. If you're coming in here on a normal-person's budget looking for things like ribbons and other decorations for your house (especially around major holidays) you're going to pay probably 10x more than you would if you went to Dollar Tree for similar items. That's no joke.

But if you're here for cooking items, more often than not you can expect to have the item's quality match up pretty close with the prices they're asking. I recognize that if you're browsing the displays of Williams Sonoma with intent to buy that you can probably count yourself fortunate when it comes available finances but I look at it this way... You can buy the same throw away pot or pan a million times at IKEA or you can buy it once here, take care of it and it will last you forever. It's unfortunate that for anything to last in America these days means paying top dollar but that's where outsourced manufacturing has brought us.

If you can swing the prices of some of this stuff, you'll be giving it to your grand kids so long as you take care of it. I find it pretty comforting that Williams Sonoma does its best to avoid peddling wares meant to obsolete themselves or self-destruct through painfully normal use. The kitchen items in this store cost what they do because they're worth it in the long run. Build your collection slowly and it won't hurt as bad. All Clad, Le Crusset, Wusthof... it's all here.

As for the pillows and what not home items upstairs, I dunno. My house doesn't resemble their store so I can't even picture some of that stuff within it. I recommend staying on the ground floor. Pick up an item or two as a gift for the foodie in your life then sit back and enjoy their culinary efforts. Gift giving never tasted so good.

When a business closes and/or reopens under a different name you're really supposed to mark it closed and make a new listing. One Thai is no longer One Thai but aside from the sign you'd never know the difference.

The new name is New Thai Blues but the lady in the kitchen is the same lady who's always been there. The food tastes exactly the same. The layout and decor is exactly the same. What's changed is the website address and the sign above the front door.

I never thought One Thai was all that mind blowing, but they get the job done. Especially when certain restaurants next door decide that they're no longer going to do lunch and not tell anyone. Well, you're already here...so...

It's an alright spot. I do not recommend the pad kee mao as it's pretty low on the flavor scale. They do bring out extra spices in case you want to pump up the heat a bit but let's face it, spices added outside of the pan are just lumps of chili powder on your food. If it's not mixed in, cooked in, it's hardly going to work out. This isn't hot sauce, it's powder.

They feature a full bar and a lunch menu that's comperable to pretty much every Thai restaurant in the city as far as price. I think there's something a little more dry about their dishes, however.  dishes than other places, in my opinion, Different name now. New Thai Blues. Despite the name change, it's the same lady doing the cooking. She's been there forever. Full bar. The quality here is pretty decent, exactly the same as One Thai what it was before. It's always empty on every visit I've made. It's decent enough but by no means a destination for me.