Restaurant Review: Christie's

How many words are there to describe disaster? The residents of North Portland only need one word to describe it: Christie's.

This place is a sad blight on the entirety of North Portland's burgeoning gentrification. When we came here for breakfast about a month ago, we were duly impressed by the diner-like decor. We were not surprised to see old blue-hairs having their brunch. The decor, in fact, seems to be the only nice thing about Christie's. A basic breakfast dish goes for something like $6 (that's for a bottom of the barrel, basic two-egg breakfast). If you want something more substantial, you'll need to shell out $12 a dish. I don't know what happened to the food in the $7-11 dollar range. It seems to have made a speedy exit, which is what we should have done.

I don't know if we were forgotten, but it took nearly 30-40 minutes for us to get our food. And the restaurant wasn't even close to full! They must have burned it. Twice. Fortunately, we weren't in a hurry.

When we finally got our plates, we were unimpressed. Any wannabe cook should be able to make an adequate breakfast. Sadly, I've had better at Denny's. The hash browns were depressing, and partially burnt, and even the toast was messed up! Imagine, a slice of toast (pre-buttered, mind you) with so much butter on it that you could easily butter four other pieces! She had biscuits and gravy and said: "The gravy was good; the biscuits were dry." Even our glass of lemonade tasted like some pre-bottled, cheap, Winco juice drink.

<--- note: This is NOT what you'll be having for breakfast at Christie's.

Speaking of Winco, why isn't there one in North Portland? There are plenty of working class people here who would benefit greatly from one. Why do we need to go half way to Gresham or clear out to Beaverton to get a good deal on powdered instant potatoes from a bin? Clearly, it's a conspiracy that requires further investigation and a bold blogging campaign.

What was I talking about? Oh, that's right--Christie's. Yeah, it's that forgettable and that overpriced. If you want good breakfast, bypass the disaster and go to Cup & Saucer in downtown Kenton Park neighborhood (on Denver). It's good, and not as expensive, with much better variety.

In all fairness, I haven't been to Christies for dinner yet. Maybe I'll have to try it out, next time I've got $30, a bottle of Pepto Bismol, and a couple of hours to waste. Something tells me I'll need all three.