Breakfast for the Morning After

 
By David Hanson and Kathy Watson, with sidekick and social commentator, Stu Watson
 ​

​Going to the Red Carpet Tavern for breakfast is like returning to the scene of the crime. 
 
Or so we've been told. We aren't heavy drinkers ourselves, and Kathy will admit to only one hangover, and at that, an accidental one. She visited a bar in Salem 40 years ago, and asked innocently enough, "What's a B-52?" Turns out, it's delicious, so she had a couple more. She fixed breakfast for six the next morning while holding onto the stove. 
 
But thank heavens, you won't have to cook your relief breakfast yourself, because we've found four places that can feed that queasy stomach and aching head on the morning after you've accidentally gone a bit overboard. Just a reminder: Driving under the influence is a bad idea. All bars will call you a taxi, so please don't get behind the wheel. We've also heard breakfast in jail is not worth the risk, unless you like bologna sandwiches with your day-old coffee.
 

Red Carpet Tavern, Hood River
 
The Red Carpet is for drinking, no one is arguing that. It rests next to Hood River’s westernmost I-84 exit like a hitchhiker who took up residence decades ago. There are video gaming machines, a few TVs, a pool table, and a meandering outdoor patio shaded by fir trees. The point here, like any good dive bar, is to drink with fellow drinkers.
 
But breakfast? We arrived at 8:30 a.m. and sure enough, as Google maps insisted, it was open. The bartender was prepping the bar and sort of said hello. Her dog hardly lifted his head from his below-bar perch.
 
“Hi! We’re here for breakfast,” we said, shoe-ins for the Captain Obvious award.
 
She pointed to a slender chalkboard menu on the back wall. Below the four listings for lunch-dinner was the breakfast: two eggs, bacon or sausage, toast OR biscuits and gravy: $5 each. We ordered eggs-toast-bacon x2, coffees, and, out of sport, a Bloody Mary, and took the booth of our choosing. The TVs were off but the bar music was loud and aggressive. I looked up one song with the Shazam app: “Cadillac” by Pangea. We had the place to ourselves.
 

 

Bloody Mary from the Red Carpet

​The bartender/cook/manager disappeared into the kitchen to cook our eggs, bacon, and toast. Between songs, we could hear the bacon fat popping as she returned with coffee served in a cocktail rocks glass, engineered from a tiny espresso machine beside the kitchen door. Then the Bloody Mary arrived with two olives, a salt rim, pickled asparagus, and not much kick.
 
The eggs were cooked just as I like: fried over medium. (By the way, she only cooks fried eggs.) She had slapped a healthy knife-full of butter across the toast’s face. The bacon was thicker than expected and skillet-cooked with perfect crispy edges. It all went down in roughly two minutes, but left me satisfied. There’s an enjoyable novelty to breakfast in a bar, and it can be nice to avoid the hustle and bustle of normal breakfast joints and start the day in an unexpected, but familiar place. Were I properly hungover and in need of more grease, I could have just ordered another round, cheap as it is. By the end of two breakfasts it might be time to move out to the patio for a beer.
 
Ambiance: As disorienting (and oddly comforting) as one would expect in a proper dive bar illuminated by daylight.
Hours: Monday-Thursday 8am-1am; Fri 8am-2:30am; Sat 10am-2:30am; Sun 10am-12am 
Bonus: The price, the contrarian appeal of a dive-bar breakfast, and the knowledge that if you happen to end up sleeping in your car after a late night at Hood River’s best bar, there’s a scratch-made breakfast waiting in the morning for the price of a tip at a fancy bar.
Bottom line: $25 for two breakfasts, a Bloody Mary, and two coffees.
-- David Hanson

Breakfast Sign at the Red Carpet

​Baseline Biscuits, Hood River
 
On spring mornings, Parkdale's Baseline Biscuits is above the lid of gray doom that often hangs over Hood River. 
 
When you drive up, though, you can bring your hang over with you, because if your head is throbbing, what you really need is a biscuit the size of a pork pie hat. And perhaps a little hair of the dog to go with it, such as a Morning Mule: Ketel One Vodka, Fentimans ginger beer and orange juice in a copper mug, for $10. Which raises a question for me: Why is morning drinking cheaper than night drinking? 
 
Baseline Biscuits is a newish spot to many, owned and operated by Leila Coe and Justin White, who bring us Apple Valley BBQ, just west on Parkdale's main street, Baseline Drive. 
 
The vibe, says Leila, is meant to be just a touch Southern, with shrimp and grits to round-out to the daily handmade biscuits and gravy. You can get your gravy three ways, too: white pepper, sausage or chorizo. There's huevos rancheros and thick French toast. For a crunch that will sound like thunder in your gin-soaked brain, order the French toast with a cornflakes and hazelnut crust. If you are ho-hum boring, you can just get the Farmhouse Breakfast with 2 eggs, breakfast potatoes, choice of bacon, sausage, ham or chorizo, and another one of those ... biscuits. Why not? 
 
What's a good biscuit joint without a biscuit sandwich, something David, who used to co-own a biscuit truck in Seattle, was quick to order. The sammie is one of those giant biscuits with two fried eggs, and your choice of meat and cheese. However, David's crucial discovery in his biscuit truck odyssey was that a biscuit sammy must be slathered with a big ol' spoonful of homemade jam. Baseline has those little matchbox size jams, so you may be scooping through three or four of them. That should keep you busy until, well, Noon, when Solera Brewing opens across the street. 
 
Ambiance: Mountain cafe with lots of reminders that the big white dome is just out the front door. 
Hours: 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thursday - Monday, closed Tuesday and Wednesday. 
Bonus: There's also a lunch menu, and they serve hand-made ice cream in the summer.
Bottom line: $90 for three big breakfasts, coffee, juice and tip
-- Kathy Watson

Sandwich from Baseline Biscuits

Zim's Sports Bar and Grill, The Dalles
 
When friends told us that Zim's, that well-loved sports bar in downtown The Dalles, serves breakfast, we thought, OK, another $5 toss-off like the Red Carpet.  
 
Wrong. This is a righteous breakfast joint. The kind of place that dusts their pudgy French toast with powdered sugar, and serves a steak knife with their super thick side of ham. Poached eggs come neat in a small bowl, the rye toast is a hefty marbled slice, and the coffee is $1. Their French toast, pancakes and waffles come with strawberries and whip cream, if you like that sort of thing, and you might, since those strawberries are the only fresh thing on the menu. Don't go looking for yogurt and granola, either. But you're in luck if you want an omelet groaning with German sausage, mushrooms and peppers. The service from Laloni is excessively cheerful for so early in the morning. Wear sunglasses if the glare from a bright, white smile is too much when you have the whirlies.
 
Make no mistake: it's a bar, first and foremost. There's the table of six old guys, all regulars, having their morning coffee, ringed by ten TV screens, most of which were mercifully muted the morning we were there. Another regular came in at 8 a.m. for a Bud tall boy, just slowly working his way up to solid food, playing the video poker machines. 
 
But it is very, very clean and has a baby changing pull-down in the women's immaculate bathroom, proving you can show up with the kiddies for some nourishment. They'll be missing you anyhow, since you were out sooo late last night. 
 
Ambiance: Total sports bar, circa 1980
Hours: Opens at 7:30 a.m. Monday - Saturday, and Sunday at 9 a.m. Open late. 
Bonus: People watching, and you could win the lottery
Bottom line: $36 for two breakfasts, coffee and tip
-- Kathy Watson
 ​

Zim's French Toast

La Pasadita
 
Menudo, a brothy Mexican soup, is traditionally reserved for weekend brunch, either due to the arduous prep time or its alleged ability to combat hangovers. In Odell, at La Pasadita, the giant, steaming menudo pot sits at the back of the kitchen. Kathy and Stu Watson and I have come here on a Saturday morning, early and grossly under-hungover for menudo. In fact, I went on a run this morning, which, if we’re being objective, makes me a lazy menudo reporter. We are chipper, caffeinated, and, speaking for Kathy and myself, a little apprehensive about eating hot stomach lining. Stu, however, is our Captain Menudo, having eaten the traditional Mexican soup for years, even preparing it at home. He orders the bowl after Kathy and I determine that sampling the breakfast burritos offers the most well-rounded perspective on Pasadita’s offerings.
 
“Quieres pata en el menudo?” the cook asks Stu.
 
Pata…? I dredge my brain for any remnant Spanish and ask her if she means “foot.” 
 
“Sí, de vaca,” she says.
 
Sure, bring on the cow’s foot.
 
It is believed that menudo originated during pre-revolutionary times in Mexico as a resourceful way to sap the nutrients and flavor out of every possible animal part, in menudo’s case, the cow stomach (tripe), bones, and foot. But the dish took its modern turn as a popular, urban street food in 1930s cities such as San Antonio and Los Angeles where immigrants from all over Mexico started becoming neighbors, gathering for community meals, and swapping recipes. 
 
It takes hours to allow the bones and foot to break down into the gelatin that gives the soup its savory, rich broth and to soften the otherwise rubbery stomach lining. Dried red chiles give the soup its bright crimson color and hominy adds a hearty starch.
 
Stu’s bowl of menudo arrives, corners of the tripe barely visible, like sunken ships in a lava crater. He applies the full arsenal of accouterments—lime, chopped white onion, dried oregano, chile de árbol, torn corn tortilla—and takes a bite. His face lights up. Kathy and I dip our spoons, chasing a chunk of stomach. The honeycomb-patterned tissue is light and smooth, not nearly as chewy as I imagined. The broth has a kick, but the richness of the marrow with the tart lime juice and oregano cushion any excess heat. 
 
We alternate bites of menudo with our breakfast burritos—scrambled egg, a light dusting of chorizo, cheese, and hash brown potatoes, dipped in the house-made spicy green, creamy salsa. The burritos are fine, something to grab on the go. 
 
It’s a cheery place for breakfast with brightly painted walls and vivid, roadside-stand art that includes a pretty woman serenaded by a man with a guitar, a large plastic fork and spoon, and a painted portrait of a snowman. At one point the cook hustles through the front door with a bag of shredded cheese and a dozen eggs bought from the grocery store across the street. 
 
As Stu eats, the menudo line recedes, revealing the pata, a short, knobbed bone with meat and fat barely hanging on. We marvel at it, then encourage it back below the surface, while appreciating the nourishing, potion-like menudo, something to be nursed on a slow weekend morning, hungover or not.
 
Ambiance: Like you time-traveled to a roadside food stand in non-tourist Mexico.
Hours: Monday-Friday 6am-2pm; Sat-Sun 6am-12pm. Menudo only on Saturday-Sunday
Bonus: They advertise 25 tacos for $50, so worth remembering for the next semi-impromptu party.
Bottom line: Under $30 for breakfast for three.
-- David Hanson
 ​

Menudo at La Pasadita