Stumptown’s Biking Paths

Check out these new and improved maps, which route out all the bike paths throughout the Portland metro area.

Southwest Portland Bike Route

North Portland Bike Route

Southeast Portland Bike Route

Outer Southeast Bike Route

[image by BikePortland.org, flickr]

What’s Going On In February?

Take a look at this “Calendar Of Events” on Portland Online to check out what’s going on in Stumptown’s neighborhoods in the month of February. This is a great way to see what’s going on in each neighborhood, and how you can get involved.

Powell’s Bookstore

Article By Anna Brones, Intercrossings

New York has the Statue of Liberty, Chicago has the Sears Tower, Orlando has Disney World and Portland has Powell’s Books. This impressive bookstore’s 68,000 square feet of retail space has given the Portland Mecca for intellects its full name: Powell’s City of Books. Like any good city, one can spend hours perusing the vast wealth of books that fill the shelves throughout the store.

The store’s nine rooms, all designated by color, are like friendly neighborhoods, each catering to different personalities. Into knitting, gardening or vegetarian cooking? Go to the Orange Room. Need to brush up on your French language skills and plan your next trip to Paris? Make your way immediately to the Red Room. Yes, the more time one spends engrossed in the hundreds of passageways of bookshelves the more one feels that this truly is a city within a city. When visiting Powell’s with friends, I myself even set up meeting points in order not to lose each other.

Don’t think that you need to come to Powell’s on a specific book mission. Come for exactly the opposite – browse and be surprisingly delighted at what you find, be it new or used. And certainly don’t let indecision get in the way of your book buying. Not sure if you really need that new book on Pacific Northwest hikes or the latest New York Times bestseller? Then take it to the coffee room, where leafing through possibly books to add to your personal library is recommended and respected.

Powell’s is so popular that they have five total locations over the Portland metro area, and an online store, giving us absolutely no reason to ever again complain about not having anything good to read.

Main Location:

1005 W Burnside
Portland, OR 97209

Hours:

Open Daily 9am-11pm

[image by Orodreth_99, flickr]

Technology in Real Estate

We love technology and we love Real Estate. In Portland there are several companies working on leading edge technology. The M Car The coolest is the M Realty technology research vehicle. It is probably the most advanced real estate car in the world. It has an intigrated touch screen laptop computer, printer and scanner build into the dashboard, high speed internet connection, GPS tracking unit that send it location to the M realty servers every minute, navagation system, even an intigrated video blogging system, and more.

“My goal is to have every bit of information at my fingertips and never get lost. we have been using the car with clients and it is almost completely sorted out. It works flawlessly and wherever we take clients out with it they love it. it work so well because it is connected to our home office and is running a specialized version of the Homequest system.” M Realty is in the process of building out the second “M Car” based on the success of the original. “I think this type of capability will be the norm for agents in the future” Video Blogs from the M Car

Portland’s Rose Gardens in Washington Park

[image by bkatcher, flickr]

Located in Northwest Portland, the famous Rose Gardens holds over 6800 rose bushes with 557 varieties. It is quite a site to see when the roses are in bloom in early summer. Since the gardens are located in the West Hills of Washington Park, on a clear day one can see the entire skyline, with Mt. Hood hanging in the background. The whole idea to start the rose gardens came from a rose hobbyist, Jesse A. Currey, in 1915. It was during World War I, that word had spread all around the world that Currey was starting a safe haven for roses during this time of turmoil. Rose enthusiasts from all around sent roses to be planted there. Currey was the very first curator of the Rose Gardens. The Portland Rose Society plays a key role today in maintaining the beauty of these gardens. Going for a stroll there on a sunny day can feel as if you’re stepping back in time, and catching a glimpse of historical Portland, Oregon.

Portland Neighborhood Real Estate Trends

A new system is now available built by a local Portland company to track market trends for all area neighborhood. It goes far beyond previous available tools for buyers, sellers and Real estate agents. Stumptown info is proud to be adding a section of our site dedicated to Portland neighborhood statistics starting with real estate sales activity. The reports for each neighborhood and area are provided by M Realty utilizing RMLS data. All reports are powered by Homequest.

Below are a few examples of neighborhoods or groups of neighborhoods. The report shows number of available homes, number of sold homes and the rate of turnover.

Alberta Arts - Portland Neighborhood

For the Month of December 2007 there were total of 53 homes that were actively for sale. A total of 8 sales closed for the month resulting in a ratio of total active to Solds of 15.8%. This compares very well against December of 2006 with a turnover rate of 14.3%. This area has remained relatively strong as compared with other Portland neighborhoods.

Cooper Mountain - Portland Metro area neighborhood

For the Month of December 2007 there were total of 182 homes that were actively for sale. A total of 2 sales closed for the month resulting in a ratio of total active to Solds of 1.1%. December of 2006 his neighborhood was very robust with 29 sales against 116 homes for sales a turnover rate of 25%. This may be the most drastic change for any Portland area neighborhood. This is a very weak market for sellers and a very strong market condition or buyers.

From The Famous Words of Abba “Mamma Mia”!

From the chef that brought us the luscious mac and cheese, chicken and dumplings and other such comfort food at Mother’s Bistro (www.mothersbistro.com), we have the Italian version of down home cooking at Mama Mia Trattoria on the other side of the block at 439 SW Second Ave.

The garlic bread, small pieces, just glazed over with butter and garlic, melted in my mouth and tickled my tongue just enough to want another piece. And another. And another. The first basket of garlic bread is free, and then you can order additional baskets if you want. Which you will want.

In spears like pickles, but without the tang and covered in crispy batter, the plain-ness of the pure vegetable flavor of the fried zucchini was a blank palette for the sweet, tomato dipping sauce. Finger licking, though strongly desired, was suppressed.

The Chicken Milanese was crispy chicken with an arugula salad topping it – crisp meeting crisp, warm meeting cold. Served with pasta aglio e olio (pasta with garlic and olive oil) it was a lovely, filling, and healthy feeling meal, though I can’t vouch for the authenticity of that healthy feeling.

Whatever healthy feeling I did have was decimated when I ate the Tartufo for dessert, which was chocolate truffle ice cream filled with candied hazelnuts, dipped in chocolate ganache and served with a Frangelico crème anglaise. I think the description is enough, don’t you?

Great service – prompt and friendly, and warm, homey, good old Italian food. Go home to Mama Mia.

Sunday - Monday 5pm – 9pm, Tuesday – Thursday 5pm – 10pm, Friday – Saturday 5pm – 11pm

Article by Elizabeth Fuss, Lizzy Dishes Portland

[image by Sashertootie's, flickr]

A Store Just For Salt?

Pink or black, flaky or chunky. Your prom date? No! Salt. Bunches of it. From Maine, France, the Himalayas, and even New Zealand. The Meadow (www.atthemeadow.com) (3731 N. Mississippi Ave) carries the largest selection of salts in Portland and probably pretty much anywhere.

Like little jars of crystals, the artisan salts shine, in all different colors, textures and density. For cooking, brining, curing or just for some olive oil and bread, these salts shout genius gourmet to any guest you might have.

Beautiful translucent Himalayan salt blocks, laying in chunks on a table in the store, can be used to serve or cook food on. How cool!

Owner Mark Bitterman, whose love of food inspired his collection of salt, penned an introduction to finishing salts, listing each salt and their corresponding uses. Brilliant! You can’t go wrong. Salt can grab flavor, wrap it in intensity and deliver it to your waiting palette. The guide inspires gutsiness in the kitchen and I can’t wait to let loose with my starter set that I bought.

On the other side of the store, the wall is covered in hundreds of chocolate bars, drinking chocolate and baking chocolate. Portland chocolate, chocolate from Madagascar, chocolate from Venezuela – it’s all there. Chocolate covered chili-spiced pecans, white chocolate with olives – really any combination you could want. Perhaps an idea for the craving mom-to-be?

My favorite things that I bought were the salted chocolate caramels by Xocolatl de Davíd. Crazy delicious combination. Equally as crazy delicious was the chunk of chocolate with Mexican exploding corn. Addictive. That’s all I can say.

A member of the upscale B Brooks (www.bbrooks.com) wire service, The Meadow also creates beautiful bouquets of flowers. They are just getting their selection of dried edible flowers out as well.

Really, you have everything you need right here. Salt. Chocolate. Flowers. Oh. And Wine. A big selection of wine. Perfect.

The Meadow has occasional salt tastings in their tasting room – go to their website www.atthemeadow.com to sign up for their mailing list.

Store Hours:

Sunday - Monday - 11 to 6

Tuesday - CLOSED

Wednesday - Saturday - 11 to 7

*Note: The exploded corn and chocolate is called Palomitapapá and is made by Sahagun, another of the four premier chocolatiers from Portland featured at The Meadow.

Article by Elizabeth Fuss, Lizzy Dishes Portland

Classic Portland Bar The New Old Lompoc

The Knob Hill district of Northwest Portland is home to trendy shopping, world class restaurants and grand, historic Victorian homes. But just a few blocks removed from the chic boutiques and haute cuisine sits a little brewpub that is quintessentially ‘Portland’. Not unlike your average Portlander, the New Old Lompoc (1616 NW 23^rd, www.newoldlompoc.com) is a little bit quirky, a little bit grimy and exceptionally friendly. By comparing your average Portlander to a quirky, grimy, friendly little pub, I don’t mean to say that we Portlanders don’t like to bathe. We just like to get out on the street and interact with other hygienically conscious citizens. All that interacting can cause one to break a sweat. And to develop a hearty thirst. That’s where New Old Lompoc comes into play.

The New Old Lompoc (N.O.L.) brewers have put together a nice assortment of year-round offerings. The Fool’s Golden Ale and Condor Pale Ale are decent, typical examples of their respective styles. The Centennial IPA and Proletariat Red are both nicely balanced and exceptionally drinkable. But it’s the bigger, more adventurous beers that are the stars of this show.

LSD, short for Lompoc Special Draft, is a big, delicious ale that probably would have made Timothy Leary proud. This brew is tasty enough to have made its way onto a number of beer lists in the Portland area. The rich, dark amber color is the first indication that a big mouthful of malt will accompany the first sip. And that first sip does not disappoint. Like a fat man minding his own business on a park bench, LSD is full bodied without being unnecessarily sweet. The hops rolls in strongly, but doesn’t overpower the lingering maltiness. Very tasty indeed.

The one brew that really stands out on the N.O.L. menu is the C-Note Imperial Ale. Brewers in the Pacific Northwest are notorious for their willingness to push the limits of hoppiness. While many of the Portland’s hoppiest IPAs rate somewhere around 60 IBUs (International Bitterness Units – the scale brewers use to rate hoppiness) C-Note checks in at 100 IBUs. That, my friends, is excess at its best. Cascade, Centennial, Challenger, Chinook, Cluster, Columbus and Crystal hops varieties all make their way into this deliciously bitter nectar. Plus they are all in the same volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

N.O.L.’s seasonal offerings are also quite enjoyable. Holiday Cheer is a winter porter that drinks like a nice, spicy winter ale. Monster Mash is a big, malty and sweet strong ale that feels almost like a barleywine. Give this brew a chance, as the sweetness mellows when its temperature starts to rise. Next up on the N.O.L. seasonal menu is a batch of the Proletariat Red with a Belgian twist. A cask conditioned ale and one or two brews on nitro are usually available as well.

Next time you find yourself all shopped out in Knob Hill, head a few blocks north to the New Old Lompoc. The beer is tasty, the service is friendly and the company is thirsty. And maybe even a little bit grimy.

Article By Jason Miller, Hophead

Fleet Bikes, Free & Fun

Downtown Portland businesses are jumping on the “I live in Portland and ride a bike” bandwagon. We are finding out that many businesses downtown have bikes available for their employees to borrow for free. These are called “Fleet Bikes”. Whether it’s commuting around downtown or cruising along the Tom McCall Waterfront Park, you can’t beat it, because it’s free. Make sure to wear your helmet! Stumptown says YAY to PDX businesses.

[image by zwanzig's, flickr]

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