Salad
When I was little, we used to feed the family goats a strict diet of grass, failed cooking experiments, and fresh greens and vegetables. So, when Mom tried to give me a bowl of fresh greens and vegetables, I felt suspicious. Was I girl, or goat?! Since my mom was very fond of making salads, I spent a considerable amount of my childhood smuggling my roughage out to the goat pen in my napkin/pockets/shoes, but these days, now that I’m more mature, I see salad in a different light–taste sensation and savior of my thighs. Here are a few spots where you can find a salad so good you won’t even want to share it with your dining companions, much less your goats.
50 Plates
I am fond of 50 Plates, mostly because I was once invited to a food press junket there and drank so many free cocktails that I had to call it a night at 4:30 pm. But press junket or no press junket (what is a junket anyway? sounds painful!), you should think of 50 Plates the next time you’re lusting after a salad, because their Turducken salad takes the coconut cake, not only for being a tasty blend of citrus chicken,duck confit, grilled turkey, blue cheese, radicchio, romaine, filberts & apples, but for having the word “Turducken” in it, a claim to fame which not many salads can boast of. If you’re more of a salad traditionalist, try the Old School Iceberg–creamy blue cheese, warm bacon, cherry tomatoes, or if you’re feeling contrary, get the Not a Cobb Salad–shrimp, hard boiled egg, avocado, cherry tomatoes & green goddess dressing with or without crumbled bacon. Just make sure to stick with iced tea for your beverage.
- Location: 503.228.5050 Map it!
- Hours: Mon-Thu 11:30am-11pm, Fri-Sat 11:30am-12am, Closed Sun * Happy Hour Mon-Sat 3-6pm, Mon-Thu 9pm-close, Fri-Sat 10pm-close
Bluehour
Sometimes, we all want to feel like a Lady Who Lunches. You know–oozing old money, the kind of skinny only achieved with the help of a live-in personal trainer, dressed to the nines, and tucked under a white linen napkin come noon on a weekday. When such an urge strikes, I put on my best Chanel suit (the one I found at the downtown Goodwill), walk up into the West Hills and stand in front of my favorite mansion, and call a cab to take me to ever stylish Bluehour, where I order a dry martini and one of Bluehour’s excellent salads, usually the Cobb–freshly chopped hearts of romaine, tender slabs of poached chicken, sweet cherry tomatoes, mashed avocado, and bacon topped with a tangle of expertly salted, paper thin onion rings. At $16, it’s an indulgence to be sure, but a lady who lunches never looks at prices, and besides, Visa bills are so much more fun when they aren’t opened. I’m sure the always-gracious staff sees right through me, as a real lady who lunches probably wouldn’t spill avocado on her Chanel suit, and she probably wouldn’t order two desserts and drink three martinis and then check her phone in a panic, mumble something about being fired for taking another two-hour lunch break, and dash out the door, but they never let on.
- Location: 250 NW 13th Ave, Portland, OR Map it!
- Phone Number: 503.226.3394
- Hours: Sun-Thu 11:30am-10pm, Fri-Sat 11:30am-10:30pm
Blueplate
Salad, or sandwich. Salad, or Sandwich. Salad? Or Sandwich? It’s a debate quite a few of us struggle with come lunchtime, especially people who still believe in the Great Carb Conspiracy. But Blueplate–one of the finest lunch spots in downtown Portland, hands down–solves the dilemma for you with the BLT Salad–a salad that combines all the tasty goodness of a classic Bacon Lettuce and Tomato sandwich with the healthy crispness of spanking fresh romaine lettuce, red ripe tomatoes, crunchy croutons and a creamy housemade basil dressing ($8), creating the beautiful illusion of having your bacon sandwich salad and eating it too. If you aren’t in the bacon mood (what?? how is this possible?), order the Classic Caesar salad with juicy roast chicken ($9), and since you’re making such smart lunch choices and all, you’ll feel fully justified in ordering a chocolate peanut butter shake. You deserve it.
- Location: 308 SW Washington St. Portland Map it!
- Phone Number: 503.295.2583
- Hours: Mon-Fri, 11am-5pm
Cafe Voila
You’re in a hurry, and need lunch on the go, and that vending machine Snickers bar is looking mighty fine, but you know eating it would be wrong, and that what you really should be eating is a salad, and by the way, does anybody get those Snickers billboard ads? This dilemma can be resolved easily enough by visiting downtown’s Cafe Voila. Beautiful pre-made salads line the cold case, and you can buy a salad in a clamshell to go, and mix it yourself (that never goes well for me), or the staff will kindly remove your salad from its shell, mix it for you, return it to its protective plastic capsule, and hand it back to you. Or, if you opt to eat in, they’ll mix it for you and plate it, with a few slices of bread and butter. You can also opt for the three salad special–a mix and match combo of three any of their deli or green salads, which include French Lentil, Chickpea and Roasted Red Pepper, Classic Cobb, Garlic Chicken Caesar, Caribbean Chicken Pepita, Tuna Salad Nicoise, and different daily seasonal specials like fresh Oregon Peach with Chevre and Candied Pecans. Admit it, that’s so much better than a vending machine Snickers bar for lunch, and now you aren’t funding that nonsensical billboard campaign either.
- Location: 901 SW Washington St. Portland Map it!
- Phone Number: 503.595.5606
- Hours: Mon-Fri 7:30am-6pm
Chez Machin
Chez Machin most commonly comes to mind when one thinks of “SE Hawthorne” and “crepes” in the same mental sentence, but this sweet little French restaurant has plenty of other good things to eat, including some very substantial salads. Being a bacon and poached egg lover myself, I generally choose the Salade Lyonnaise-mixed greens tossed in homemade Dijon vinaigrette with bacon and topped with a poached egg ($10.95, half $7.85), but there are several other tres bonne salades to choose from, like the Salade Nicoise–with yellowfin tuna steak served rare on mixed greens with green beans, roasted red pepper, red potatoes, hard-boiled egg, tomatoes, kalamata olives, and the kitchen sink ($13.85), or the Salade de Poires–greens topped with white wine-poached pears, candied walnuts and crumbled chevre and tossed with an apple-ginger vinaigrette ($11.65, half $8.55). Chez Machin is so cute that I never get my salade to go, I eat it there with a friend, or a newspaper, or just my thoughts, which are mostly about why Chez Machin has such funny prices.
Laurelhurst Market
You might be puzzled to find a steakhouse listed in the Salad section, but Laurelhurst Market offers up some of the finest salads in town—the duck confit and pickled strawberry salad was a revelation, the side of beets with pistachios and rhubarb gastrique was the best $5 I ever spent, and the Viridian Farms raspberries with blue cheese and mint almost made me wish the moon was made out of salad.
Meat Cheese Bread
Meat Cheese Bread is probably already one of your favorite spots to get a sandwich, but it should also be on your list of salad destinations too. Not just because the of their crisply delicious Blue Green salad–green leaf lettuce with big fat lardons of bacon, slivered apples, and creamy blue cheese dressing, or their Flank Steak salad with roasted beets and buttermilk-chive dressing, but because you can ask for any one of their hot or cold sandwiches to be transformed into a salad. Think tarragon-fennel chicken salad with lettuce and avocado, farm fresh green beans with soft boiled egg and parmesan, and roasted mushrooms with goat cheese, sherry onions and frisee. As sacrilegious as this sounds, you’ll never miss the bread.
- Location: 1406 SE Stark St. Portland Map it!
- Phone Number: 503.234.1700
- Hours: Mon-Sat 7am-7pm
Mother’s Bistro
There are a few lunch spots on this earth where you can count on someone to give you a big smile, a cookie when you clean your plate, and of course–a great big hearty salad, and Mother’s Bistro is one of them. This elegant downtown institution is best known as a bastion of comfort food, but sometimes comfort means being able to leave the table without having to furtively unzip your pants after an unfortunate meatloaf overdose. When I’m craving healthy and hearty, I order the Caesar salad with grilled salmon (price varies), or the Greek Salad and hummus combo ($8.95), or perhaps the perky Mexican Chop salad with grilled marinated chicken breast, avocado, and cotija cheese in a honey-lime vinaigrette ($10.95). I’m able to finish my lunch without impromptu trouser alterations, I get my cookie, everyone is smiling, all is good.
- Location: 409 SW 2nd Ave. Portland Map it!
- Phone Number: 503.464.1122
- Hours: Tue-Thu 7am-2:30pm, 5:30-9pm * Fri 7am-2:30pm, 5-10pm * Sat 9am-2:30pm, 5-10pm * Sun 9am-2:30pm, closed Monday
Red Onion Thai
I’m not prone to periods of silence by nature, so when I’m in one, I’m usually either quite ill or very interested in what I’m eating. And anytime a salad from Red Onion Thai is placed before me, the table becomes as quiet as a nunnery at midnight, and not because I’m ill, either. Red Onion offers up 8 or so absolutely fantastic salads–incredibly fresh, intoxicatingly flavorful, filled with exotic mixtures of herbs and vegetables, salads unlike any others. The Beef Salad is one of my favorites–strips of tender grilled rib eye tossed with tomato, cucumber, shallots, lemon grass, kaffir lime leaf, mint, ground roasted rice, fresh lettuce, and spicy lime juice, a heaping plate of steak salad wonder for only $10. Equally tantalizing are the lemon grass chicken salad ($10), the steamed squid salad ($12) and the glass noodle salad with ground chicken and shrimp ($10). So the next time you’re craving a slightly exotic salad experience, skip up to Red Onion and prepare to be rendered speechless, in a good way.
The Original
I have mixed feelings about weird hybrid names–like Labradoodle, or Thaitalian, or Hebberoy–so I wasn’t too sure what to think of The Original’s dubbing itself a “Dinerant.” Strange hybrid name or not, The Original is a perfectly acceptable place to get a good old-fashioned salad. For people who like salad structure, the menu offers a half dozen classic salads like the Waldorf, Cobb, or Green Goddess, and you can opt for a full version for $12 or a half-size for $9. If you want to make your own hybrid salad, go for the Make a Salad menu–pick small or large and your choice of romaine, spinach or field greens, then add all the fixin’s you want–like tomatoes, cucumber, pepita seeds, beets, marcona almonds, blue cheese, tofu, or grilled flat iron steak (prices vary from $1-$5 per fixin), and top it off with one of nine salad dressings. Presto, your very own hybrid salad, which might even be better than a Puggle.
- Location: 300 Sw 6th Ave, Portland, OR Map it!
- Phone Number: 503.546.2666
- Hours: Mon-Thu 7am-10pm, Fri-Sat 7am-midnight, Sun 7am-9pm
Whole Foods
You may think of Whole Foods as that big black fiscal hole known to some as Whole Paycheck (weird, that’s what I call the M Bar on a particularly unsensible evening), but it’s chock full of fresh affordable lunch options, most notably, the salad bar. Grab a bowl, create your ideal salad from the myriad of choices on hand–????–then grab a Mystic Mango Kombucha or a split of champagne, depending on your office’s drinking-at-lunch policy, and either haul your lunch to Jamison or Tanner Park for an impromptu picnic or claim one of Whole Food’s outdoor tables.
- Location: 1210 NW Couch St. Portland * 3535 NE 15th Ave. Portland * 2825 East Burnside St. Portland Map it!
- Phone Number: NW 503.525.4343 * NE 503.288.3414 * Burnside 503.232.6601
- Hours: NW Daily 7am-10pm * NE Daily 8am-10pm * Burnside 8am-10pm
Wildwood
When only the freshest and most painstakingly seasonal salad will do, take a field trip to NW 21st Avenue and request a booth or patio table at venerable Wildwood restaurant, where you’ll feast on pedigreed greens-fests like the Creative Growers Baby Romaine Salad–garden beets, fennel, peaches, goat cheese, and pine nuts in champagne vinaigrette, the Sauvie Island Organics Corn and Arugula Salad– crispy prosciutto, torpedo onions, cilantro, cherry tomatoes, and grana padano in a zingy lemon vinaigrette, or the simple but somehow slightly sinful Chicken Romaine Salad, with creamy garlic dressing, balsamic roasted red onion, capers and grana padano. And since you’ve eaten so healthfully for lunch, you won’t feel at all guilty about ordering a few of Wildwood’s superb desserts, like the warm huckleberry pie or caramel pine nut tart with roasted Ayers Creek Farm plums.
- Location: 1221 NW 21st Ave. Portland Map it!
- Phone Number: 503.248.9663
- Hours: Mon – Thu 11:30am-2:30pm, 5:30pm-9pm; Fri – Sat 11:30am-2:30pm, 5:30pm - 10pm; Sun 5:30pm-8:30pm
