Todd "Digital Megaforce" P.'s Profile

The Equation:
Recycling + Craft Supplies + Community + Nonprofit + PDX = WINSAUCE

Ran out of creativity? Can't decide which craft project to do next? Visit Scrap, the materials themselves will inspire you to new heights.

EL CART DE CRAPRY - Long black hair in my buddy's food, random screaming kids + dogs, the food did not look like pictures, and sleezy cart dude trying to pick up chicks. Fact not fiction. This has been by far my worst food cart experience in Portland so far. Read on if you dare...

The Setup:
So my friend + I needed to duck out to get food, and take a break from working. We decided to head over to the food carts and try something new  (perfect storm brewing)

The Crapry Storm Brews (overall ambiance):
We walked the cart rows and decided on El Masry because there was no line at the time and the pictures of the food looked pretty good. We order and sit down. There is an obnoxious blond yammering on a cell phone, sitting next to us (probably drunk from happy hour). She keeps dropping her smart phone, bobbing her rump in my face every time she has to bend over, it is to the point where she has to turn and apologize. A random mom shows up to order some food from the cart with two kids who are pretty much "The Misbehavers" from the movie "Four Rooms." A random dog comes too close to them while walking by on the side walk they start screaming, whining, complaining, pretending to be hurt, putting their shoes on their mom and generally being little pretentious bastards, making everyone in proximity to the cart feel how much lower the floor of this bucket called humanity goes. The mother tries to shut them up by uttering things through her teeth that no mother should say to children, making me wish I had CPS on my speed dial. Meanwhile, I try to talk to my friend, and simply enjoy the food, which is basically impossible.

I know, I know - you are going to say this has nothing to do with the actual food or the cart, it is just a random experience created by consumers that happen to be there....one word. Ambiance.

The Crapry Storm Makes Landfall (food):
The food comes pretty quickly. My buddy opens his box...to our horror the first thing we see is a LONG BLACK HAIR laced into his food. My friend goes "NICE!!!" pulls it out and throws it on the ground, profusely shaking his head. I say out loud "Just wait until I write the Yelp Review on this place." I look at my box, I ordered a platter that is $2 more expensive cause it is supposed to come with more stuff. Same size box as my friends, and mine is missing the grape leaves...so wait, I pay more but get less?

Onto the meat, I ordered lamb and it was completely mediocre. If you this meat was a brand you could buy at a store it would be called "EH! Mediocre" it was bland and totally forgettable. The cook asked me if I wanted hot sauce...I said "No" so of course my plate comes with hot sauce all over the entire thing. My friend asks me "Didn't you tell him NO hot sauce?" I just glare at him and nodded. At this point the cart cook asked if we wanted free pita, which was cool. But it is too little, too late and after too many failures across the board. The food did not have the same components as the pictures on the cart, and it did not look the same. Disconnect between ads & products, was misleading IMHO.

What is this a Tart Cart? (professionalism):
Back to the annoying blond who keeps dropping her mobile and swooshing her unwanted private regions towards my table and the open cart window. At the end of the "meal" my friend and I are in disbelief as the cart dude starts dropping pickup lines on Bimbolina and asking about her Fiancée in an effort to find out if she is single and how old she is. I never imagined a food cart experience would make me question humanity on multiple levels...

Advice for EL CART DE CRAPRY:
Keep your shalangis in your pants while you are working, the title of your food cart is NOT "The Tart Cart" or "The Pickup Truck!" Get the hair out of your food (it's called a HAIRNET man)! Use better ingredients, learn to cook better and start recycling.

FIN

The Metaphor:
It's like someone stole all of the money out of your wallet and left five to fifteen healthy treats in your shopping cart that you couldn't find anywhere else.

Solid Stumptown mochas, fresh art, new local music, community oriented vibe and generally cool space to lounge out. The staff have been nice and friendly every time I have been in there. It is one of the few spaces in Portland that has stayed an all ages music venue and it is a vehicle for keeping great PDX music accessible to the youth. Back Space gets bonus points for the classic arcade games in the back, just got to keep em running cause they never get old!

The Full Monty on CA:

Collective Agency is an awesomely cozy & affordable Portland co-working space in Old Town PDX, really close to the Pearl District with easy to access public transit and the greater downtown area.

Alex and the Collective Agency organizing team are really nice, professional and good communicators. They bring a unique vibe to the 4,000 square foot loft space that contributes to fostering a collaborative + friendly atmosphere.

A few adjectives I would use to describe the Collective Agency space:
Collaborative, Open, Functional, Clean, Amiable, Luminescent, Communal.

Coworking Details:
Non-Memebers can drop by and chill during normal business hours of 9-5PM and cowork for free. Paying members get 24 hour access, business address, storage in the form of a locker or file cabinet and a reserved work space and chair. It is affordable ($157.50 per month per paying member) and cost effective if you are a freelancer, small business or startup team trying to get off the ground.

Meeting Spaces:
There are several private conference rooms that are located off of the main loft area that are available for rent for $35 per hour or $1,000 a week  for both member types. CA has 5 private conference rooms that hold up to 16 people and 3 other areas that hold up to 30 people. These spaces are good for off-site meetings, board meetings, workshops, community chats and team building events.

The PDX Tech & Creative community are active in the space and working here is a good excuse to network with other people who are making things happen in Portland. CA hosts many active tech, film and geeky workgroups including - 52/Mobile Apps / Mentorship Speed-Dating, Stumptown Syndicate, BookCyclePDX, Ground Floor/Reality Check, PDX Browncoats, First Hand Philosophy to name a few. I am sure as CA grows there will be more. Feel free to check out the community calendar and see what is happening - http://collectiveagenc...

Area:
Collective agency is close to a bunch of cool PDX eats, dives, digs and carts. Backspace is a hop and a skip away if you are a coffee connoisseur into local music & art. Gilt Club is around the corner, literally and has great eats and vibes till 2AM if you are up working late. CA is a few blocks from to Ground Kontrol Barcade if you want to empty a fist full of quarters while downing craft brews. Additionally, the 3rd & 5th street food cart rows are within walking distance if you want a variety of food truck eats.

Proof:
I liked Collective Agency so much I became a paying member. Feel free to come by and check out the space. :)

The Sapphire Hotel is red, dark & hot. The place has character a unique charm, is good for late night excursions or dinners.

They had a classical / spanish acoustic guitarist / musician who was was really amazing the night I met up with a group of friends.

The seared Ahi w/ sticky rice was to die for, the french onion soup was good & the beer was divine.

Some of the servers are chatty others seemed a bit grumpy...either way they were sassy. Fine by me.

SH is good for small groups or dates. If you are planning on hitting a bunch of bars start at the Sapphire Hotel, then work your way down the hill. After trying it out I want to take my girl there.

Sushi Hana is not a 5 star sushi place, but here is exactly what it is:

It is family friendly, inexpensive & fast kaiten (conveyer belt sushi). You get exactly what you pay for, the sushi meat is always fresh. It tastes petty good, but as other reviewers have noted, it is not the best sushi I have ever had.

The reason shy kaiten sushi is fun is because you can try small samplings of different sushi you have never had, without having to pay a lot for entire rolls. If you don't like it, try something else. The conveyor belt format kind of encourages you to try different things you probably never would have ordered, so you discover new things that you like!

Sushi Hana is in a good location off of 2 major highways near Washington Mall in SW Portland. The servers are very nice & personable. The chefs are nice & easy to talk to even though they are always busy.

They are kid friendly & have clean booths. One of the chefs is always nice to my daughter when we come in (sometimes he makes her a little treat). She loves the blueberries & raspberries, fresh fruit and miso soup.

Another "tell" that this is indeed a good sushi place is that I see a lot of locals eating there all the time. There is a consistent flow of people coming through, many returning customers.

Check out the Monday night happy hours, or find out when they have other happy hour specials, then everything is like one or two dollars.

I will have to agree with Samantha 0. on this one & say that the Blanca Mocha / White Mocha was very delicious, one of the best that I have had in PDX so far...I would go back for another.

Stumptown Expresso makes it even better. They had a bunch of Vegan / Gluten Free tasteries & baked goods which is also a plus. The servers / baristas were nice enough. The Coffee Plant had really "cute" (my wife said so) brown robot tee-shirts at reasonable prices made from environmentally friendly cotton.

As for the atmosphere I actually liked the fact that it was a bit unusual / unconventional / quirky & disagree with some of the other yelp reviews. We were not quite sure if it would be kid friendly but were delighted that they had a little area with carpet / toys / pillows where kids could sit & play. I would rate it more kid friendly then most coffee shops. I like that the coffee shop was pretty chill & quiet.

Only minus was it was kind of difficult to tell if they were open from the street. A neon sign in the front window might help a bit.

The food, coffee and pastries are really excellent at AVA. I am a sucker for delicious white chocolate mochas so this place has hooked me and become my new coffee-hole. :)

Open 24 hours and free wireless...just the way things should be! I had to give AVA only 4 stars cause sometimes it can be crowded, but that is because the place is nice and popular. Lots of college students and digital nomads (laptop geeks) frequent the joint.

The staff has always been helpful, courteous. My wife loved the giant fruit tart I brought her home from AVA (I got brownie points for that). The place is family friendly enough for me to bring the kids thru occasionally, though it is more difficult at peak times.

As other reviewers have stated, the atmosphere is good inside plus it has a very pretty waterfall out front! The music they play on the stereo inside is generally good, not too loud or annoying.

I would recommend this place to my friends.