Books It’s not exactly a paradox, but still. The sports that offer the least to the uninitiated spectator often inspire the best writing. This is true of baseball, and it is also true of boxing. For a ...   More

Books Scientists have become the deus ex machina of TV dramas. Today’s specialized fields have become so inaccessible to even the interested layman that the forensic scientists of CSI or the mathemati ...   More

Food Reviews & Stories No fusion-y adventurism, and no Pok-Pok-style japes at authenticity—it’s Thai food like you’re used to getting in America, but better. The beef is slow-cooked and juicy as any steakhouse steak—at its best in pad khing sod ($7 on the lunch menu). The viciously spicy yum nuor b   More

Food Reviews & Stories Look, I like your chi-chi avocado and pesto aioli and capicola sandwiches as much as the next guy, but sometimes you just want some old-school, East Coast, blue-collar seared beefsteak and cheese ($7.50), delivered on a roll by some dude who’s been at it for like 20 years. The kind of place wh   More

Food Reviews & Stories The surrogate mother of all sandwich places, run with warmth by Gretchen, the sort of idealized hausfräulein who’d launch a thousand children’s eating disorders by making them tragically, smilingly, equate food with love. The sandwiches are intimidatingly generous, especially the Fl   More

Food Reviews & Stories Forget namby-pamby tea rooms-—Java Man is exactly what Russian restaurants in the U.S. are supposed to be: incongruous, slightly forbidding and sudden in its comforts. From behind the counter of a chain coffee-shop franchise downtown, cabbage rolls ($6.75), borscht ($5.25) and pierogi ($1.85)    More

Food Reviews & Stories With its seriously tiny dimensions, Victorian-wallpapered hominess and trashy gold vinyl seats, Junior’s is like stumbling into your grandma’s kitchen after the all-night disco in Jersey. Vegans can find their own solace in the tofu scrambles and somewhat dry potato hashes, but the truth   More

Food Reviews & Stories At $8 to $15 a plate on its rotating menu, this domestic, friendly and nigh on invisible Sellwood cafe strains our definition of “cheap” eats, but given the succulence of the food, it remains a bargain. Lili hews to the simple, well-made and Continental for dinner dishes—including    More

Food Reviews & Stories Oh, I know, it’s tiny and everybody’s so gosh-darn emolicious in there that you don’t know what to do except bury your head in one of the many zines lining the back wall. But the coffee’s strong and freshly brewed, and the sandwiches, in particular the “decadent”    More

Food Reviews & Stories For a Sellwood counter spot, Mekong boasts some crazy modern-eclectic design taste, with an inset wall panel consisting of floor-to-ceiling pebbles restrained only by chicken wire, behind deco bamboo pillars and a giant butcher-block table. The food suits the graphic-design palette, as well—a    More