John
Street Cafe, 8338 N Lombard St. 247-1066
Open 7-2:30 pm Wednesday-Sunday, breakfast and lunch
(breakfast only on Sunday). Moderate.
Picks: burgers, B.L.T., fettuccine and chicken
Nice touch: Makes St. Johns proud
Rodney Dangerfield should've lived in St. Johns. The neighborhood
can't get no respect, either. For decades it took Portland's
garbage at the now-closed landfill; the city's sewage still
ends up here, at the wastewater treatment plant on Columbia
Boulevard. Except for Cathedral Park under the St. Johns Bridge
and remote Kelley Point Park at the Willamette's confluence
with the Columbia, the riverbank through the neighborhood
is a poster child for riparian neglect. The Port's acres of
asphalt and abandoned industrial sites polluted it all with
toxic wastes.
Despite the efforts of local boosters and the arrival of
Starbucks, "downtown" St. Johns looks more like a community
stranded in the past than another of Portland's rapidly
gentrifying neighborhoods. While still-affordable real estate
is beginning to draw younger families and other first-time
homeowners, the area has yet to gain the cachet of neighborhoods
like Sellwood or Multnomah, places with similar histories
but the advantage of geographic proximity to the city center.
But there are a lot of reasons to venture out to North Portland.
One is the John Street Cafe, tucked in among the used-car
lots, thrift shops and vacant storefronts.
Jamie and Marie Noehren, original owners of the Tabor Hill
Cafe on Hawthorne, offer the best breakfast and lunch available
on the peninsula since the little town was founded by James
John in 1865. If you're spending a cold, wet day outside,
a steaming bowl of oatmeal topped with fresh fruit might
be the way to get started. The straightforward buttermilk
pancakes are good, but even better is a version laced with
filberts and currants, barely crisped around the edges and
so big it flops off the plate. Corned beef hash combines
big chunks of shredded meat--not the finely ground mush
that comes from a can--with julienned spuds and sweet red
pepper; a pair of poached eggs sits on top. If you like
big, stuffed omelettes, you can name your own fillings.
Lunch provides even more possibilities. One-third of a pound
of ground chuck is hand-formed into a great burger, even
better when you ignore the warnings of the food police and
order it medium-rare and topped with melted cheese. Served
with lettuce, tomato and grilled red onions, this is one
of those juicy burgers that, once in hand, can't go back
on the plate without falling apart. Other sandwich options
include marinated chicken breast, a classic Reuben, and
a B.L.T. enhanced with sliced turkey breast, avocado and
cream cheese and renamed the T.A.B.
Judging from the mounded platters of pasta that appear
on nearly every table, the folks in St. Johns believe that
there's more to lunch than the sandwich. Fettuccine comes
with chicken, mushrooms, basil, walnuts and blue cheese,
while thinner linguine is tossed with artichoke hearts,
chicken breast, black olives, capers and white wine. Black
beans, zucchini, yellow summer squash and black olives are
blended into a garlicky tomato sauce and served over farfalle
(bow-tie-shaped pasta). With the astringent flavor of cilantro,
it's not exactly Italian, but it does taste good. A recent
pasta special took advantage of the fall rains by combining
fresh chanterelle mushrooms with tender breast meat and
house-dried apricots in a rosemary-spiked wine sauce over
fettuccine. The earthy funghi, tart-sweet fruit and perfumy
herb made for an unexpected mingling of flavors but blended
nicely. Greens aren't neglected, either. The garden bowl
tosses together leafy greens with tomato, sweet peppers,
cucumber, mushrooms and black olives. An entire blackened
snapper filet atop Romaine lettuce and jasmine rice makes
a substantial meal, and salad specials might include sweet
rock shrimp, black beans or fresh corn cut from the cob.
The space is bright and open, minimally decorated with
a couple of very nice paintings and an ornate old mirror.
It's a comfortable place to linger over the paper, and even
if there are people waiting, the staff won't hurry you.
From the good-natured banter between customers and servers,
it's clear that many of the patrons are regulars, people
who live or work in the neighborhood. These are the people
who say hello over a beer at the local tavern, catch up
on what the kids are doing when they run into each other
at the supermarket, compare notes on home improvement projects
at the hardware store. While the rest of Portland may not
give St. Johns much credit, these folks are satisfied for
the moment. They have a good place to eat.
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Willamette Week | originally
published November 23,
1999
|
