Frank "10,000 Marbles" L.'s Profile

Booze, cigars and beer.

Hells yes! This store has everything I need. Way too many choices of fine spirits, though. I found myself wandering from shelf to shelf in a catatonic daze of indecision. My wife finally got fed up and went outside to wait. She came back when I was at the cash register and I knew what she was thinking from the look on her face, "You were in here for an HOUR and that's all you're buying?" Good thing she was with me, or I'd probably still be there.

Very nice liquor store. The OLCC shop in my neighborhood has every bottle behind the counter and the clerks there are not very patient if you take more than a nanosecond to tell them what you want. That's the best thing about Pearl Specialty Market--you can take your own sweet time.

My favorite liquor store in Portland.

I love this junky store! I challenge you to browse through the aisles of this place and NOT find at least one item that makes you say "What the F**K is this?"

Do you need a "Solar Queen"? (A dashboard figurine of the QOE with a solar-powered waving hand.) Are you perhaps in the market for a Communist Chinese fur cap? How about an abundance of Japanese ephemera from old store receipts to post WWII magazine ads? You'll find all of that crap here--AND MORE. Colorful foreign paper signs! Scary Indonesian puppets! Dangerously sharp Indian tin toys! Acre upon acre of plastic flowers and greenery!

They also have some crazily expensive antique furniture that looks like the stuff my wife makes me pick up and tote home from street corners.

This really is a fun store to wander around in. If you're out for a stroll in the Pearl, Cargo is a must.

The first thing you notice when you walk inside Pad Thai Kitchen is that you have to go past the prep station to get to the dining room. That's kind of weird. The dining room is kind of dingy and not the cleanest I've ever seen. Gang graffiti in the restroom--that always bugs me. Nevertheless, the service was prompt and very friendly.

We ordered Spring Rolls, Pad Kee Mao and a Thai Beef Salad. The rolls were pretty standard. However, the two main dishes were excellent. The beef salad was loaded with goodies. The meat was tender and a perfect medium rare. I was also quite pleased with the Drunken Noodles. Again, lots of goodies and the chicken tasted very fresh. We asked for our dishes "hot" and they came that way.

All-in-all, we had a good experience at Pad Thai Kitchen and I would definitely go back again.

I've heard that the burgers here are some of the best around. The place is way outside the parameters of my regular travels but we decided to take a country drive this past weekend and ended up in the area. I'm glad we stopped in.

The dining room was filled with old-timers. It's definitely not a fancy joint. They have some big communal tables, a few smaller ones and about a million baseball caps thumb-tacked to the ceiling. (Things like that send me into OCD overdrive--I kept thinking a tack would pop loose and land in my burger, or my eye.) The only small tables available were butt-up against the restroom doors, so we opted for one of the gigantic ones.

The menu in minimalist--mostly burgers and fries. I also saw chicken sandwiches and fish and chips. I ordered a Jumbo Cheeseburger with the works and onion rings. I got a Black Butte Porter to wash it down. My wife got a regular cheeseburger and fries.

That looked like one helluva monster burger when the server plunked it down in front of me. The onion rings were piled high on top of it and the whole platter was big enough to feed a family of four--or one of me.

That was a tasty burger. Absolutely not a fancy gastro-pub type burger. This is a real, old-fashioned beef patty on a sesame seed bun type burger--but on steroids. The onion rings were perfect. Hot, crispy and crunchy. I got bacon on my burger, of course, and it was thick Applewood bacon. Nice.

If you want a delicious burger and an ice cold brewski in a quaint country setting, this is the place to go.

Not bad for a quick, inexpensive, different kind of lunch. I took a group of eight business colleagues to Chang's the other day. Everyone enjoyed it tremendously and the price tag was less than 80 bucks with tip. That's hard to beat.

While I was waiting and watching the Mongolian Grillmaster cook up my self-selected goodies, I couldn't stop thinking that massive iron griddle would make a great center piece for a James Bond-esque fight scene. The hero's face almost getting smelted against the smoldering 575 degree surface by a gigantic Mongol assassin. How cool would that be, huh?

Anyway, I went back for seconds. You can mix and match the meats, veggies and sauces to your heart's desire. Not fancy, but if you enjoy stir fry, this place will likely be right up your alley.

My wife was craving Hawaiian food and a friend visiting from the Big Island told her awhile back that this place is the real deal.

We started off with some Spam musubi and lomi lomi salmon. Tasty. (I could eat a whole plate of the Spam musubi and be completely satisfied--oinker that I am.) My wife is nursing a terrible cold and was sad that they didn't have any saimin on the menu. They did have chicken long rice soup, however, and they had no problem making it for her with some extra ginger.

I got the Mililani plate: beef teriyaki and BBQ chicken. I got macaroni salad and rice as my sides.  I heard some other folks order green salads instead. Wha? That's just not right. Those two rounded scoops of carbs are the best part of a Hawaiian plate, in my opinion. In any case, everything was delicious--including that ol' reliable macaroni salad.

The service was very, very friendly. The man who waited on us was so nice. I always enjoy listening to my wife's very proper schoolteacher diction lapse into pidgin. It's also nice when we go out somewhere and people know how to pronounce her Hawaiian name correctly.

I like this place. Clean, casual decor. Lots of great items on the menu. I'll have to go back to try their loco moco.

5 minutes.

It only adds 5 minutes to my commute time--and that's walking time--to grab a venti latte from this Starbucks before or after work. That deserves 3 stars, doesn't it?

I hate to ding a neighborhood spot, but my last few experiences at Vita have been less than spectacular, so I'm updating my review and taking my rating down a star. The quality of the food just isn't cutting it lately. I used to love the Super Grain Salad because it came loaded with goodies, but the last one I got was mostly greens and just wasn't the same.Twice we've gotten take-out orders and discovered they were screwed up when we opened the boxes at home.

This really could be our go-to cafe, but the lack of consistency is going to keep me away. Too bad.

Since my office moved a few months ago, I haven't been able to make it over to I Love Sushi, where I used to be quite a regular regular. (There's a check-in "Duke" designation above my review as I'm updating this.) I had a doctor's appointment the other day and decided to stop by for lunch. Boy, I wish I hadn't.

The quality of the sushi has gone down the tubes! Terrible, just terrible. Everything that rolled by on the conveyor belt looked worse than the last sad plate that went by. The rolls looked like they were squished together by a five year old and the slices of fish on the nigiri were paper thin and not at all fresh. To add insult to injury, they upped the price of their $1.25 a plate lunch deal to $1.75 on some of the plates. The sign out on the street does not advertise the increase and is now misleading. **cough** rip-off **cough**

A couple seated next to me took one look at the sushi trundling by and immediately left without ordering. I wish I had done the same.

Ack. I'll never go back.

Wah? I've been to a couple of other Five Guys and the burger was pretty decent. The one I got today at this joint was crappy. Really crappy. It made me sad.

The bun was soggy and looked like somebody wadded it up and tossed it on the floor before they slapped it on top of the burger. That burger? It was completely tasteless and formless. Seriously, the "patty" was more like a sloppy joe. WTF? I got bacon and it was basically burnt bacon crumbs. Burnt bacon blows chunks.

The fries were good. They fry them in peanut oil and I really like the flavor. Thank God they tossed half a million fries in the bag because that was all that was edible.

It only takes one bad experience to turn me off a chain for good. I spent over $11 for a sh*tty meal when I could have just driven though Mickey D's across the street for half the price. I bet that Big Mac would have at least had an intact bun. Lost me, Five Guys. Later, SUCKAS!