Portage Bay Cafe
4130 Roosevelt Way Northeast

This place has been on my list for a long time. My friend, Matthew, works across the street and, always raves about it. He and I have opposite opinions about most foods but, even so, often love the same restaurants so I was hopeful.

My hopes have been trampled, smashed, shredded. But the fact that they can't even keep their sign operational should have been a clue.

I if I was listing restaurants by overall preference, and most favorite was on the top, I can't think of one I would put under this one on the list.

Food:  The menu is really the very definition of pretentious.  Especially when combined with the place's ambiance.

I had Phil's Breakfast.  The bacon was delicious and the toast wasn't bad.  The eggs were watery and the potatoes were tragic.  I prefer my breakfast potatoes to be crisp and these were not close.  These were chucks of potatoes rolled in old vegetable oil and paprika and heated a little.

But the worst offense was butter in foil sitting on top of my eggs.   The bottom of the pat had melted entirely and the top was too cold to spread.

Really, your paper wrapped butter was offensive enough but on my eggs?????

Service:  I had to beg for my second cup of coffee and wait forever.  The check looked like it was not going to get there any time soon so I put my credit card out in hopes of attracting it.  It worked except...  She plopped down the check and muttered without looking at me 'whenever you are ready' and left without taking the card!  So... I waited some more until she finally came back to collect the card.

Yeah, I tipped accordingly.

Everything else:  To recap:  the food was underwhelming, the service sucked.  Anything else?  Oh yeah.  I had to pay for parking before I went in so I did not realize until too late that the place was jammed.  I did score what would have been a comfortable spot at the counter looking out to the street except everyone who walked by me bummed my chair.  It was like sitting on a plane with a bored 5 year old behind you.  And the place smelled funny.  And it was loud.  And the last time my part of the counter appeared to have been wiped down was when one of the Bush's were in the White House.

On the up side, my list of places to try or go back to is now tidier since I can sure take this place off of it!