Sunshine Tavern – Portland, OR

On our trip out to Portland, WCL wanted to go to Sunshine Tavern. Apparently, it’s been reviewed well in a number of places, and since she’s a food-conscious person, we took her recommendation seriously…. Especially after I looked at the menu online.

The inside is a small but nice bar feel. There’s some regular tables and some tall tables. They proudly boast their old school video games (Donkey Kong/PacMan/Galaga) in one corner of the restaurant and there’s a large bar shuffleboard table in the center of the dining area. The lighting is HIGH, since the front and sides are entirely windows with just a simple shade drawn on them. In fact, a few people at our table and some nearby tables were pretty well blind by the time the dinner was over. Worth it, though…

The menu has a lot of things I like, or would like if I had time to try them all. Really delicious sounding burgers, sandwiches, pizzas, appetizers, entrees, and salads. All sort of really appealing combinations of ingredients like monte cristos, duck egg sandwiches, berries/walnuts, corndogs with slaw, and sooo many more. It was a tough decision (as usual) and I waited until the end to figure out what everyone else was having. That sometimes helps me decide, especially if people will let me borrow some bites from their plates so I can try things.

I couldn’t decide between the roasted pork belly sandwich and the chicken and waffle. I eventually went with the Chicken and Waffle. It’s two fried chicken breasts on a semolina waffle and covered with clover honey. THAT sounded phenomenal. Fortunately, it was. But first we ordered poutine for our table. And I got a Lemon Shandy (Weihenstephaner Pilsner and lemonade) to make sure I didn’t get dehydrated.

The poutine came out and looked great. This poutine had Italian sausage gravy with slices of cheese on it. The sausage gravy was really good and not like any other poutine I’ve had before. The cheese was some sort of tangy melty cheese that had good fry coverage, which was nice. Really a good way to start this entire meal. We passed these around, but I’m pretty sure I got about 60% of these for myself. Hahahaha.

The chicken and waffle arrived and I was really happy with it. The chicken was fried extra super crispy. It was really juicy without any grease taste at all. It was perfectly fried. The crunchy outside would break off when you cut into the chicken and got caught in the honey-filled waffle holes. This was the best chicken and waffles I’ve ever had. I wasn’t sure it would be as good without maple syrup, but it was. Top notch, all the way.

I’m really happy with this entire experience. I got sooooooo full I could only eat one of the chicken breasts on my waffle. Sad showing from the big eater! But I would highly recommend getting this. I’m really bummed I forgot to ask about the patented ricotta doughnut holes they’re known for as well. I wanted to get those until I got distracted by everything else on the menu.

Go here.

Top 5 things about Sunshine Tavern
1. Chicken and Waffles
2. Poutine
3. Lemon Shandy
4. Really creative menu
5. Good atmosphere

Bottom 5 things
1. If you time the sunlight wrong, you will be blind, but I guess the name of the place is “Sunshine” for a reason
2. I want to eat everything
3. None of us had stomach capacity for magic shell on our ice cream for dessert
4. I forgot about the donut holes!!!
5. Nothing else was even remotely bad

www.sunshinepdx.com