Sooooooo... okay. This corner in Beaverton... Allen and Lombard... this corner is a hint at what is happening to Portland. It's gone largely unnoticed by us native/long-time residents of this once beautiful and quirky city. While we were bitching about people that we didn't recognize standing in lines on 46 degree rainy days for some stupid ice cream made with salted cow sperm and yiddish oregano... while people, drawn here for tech jobs and green spaces stood in line for a meh donut shaped like a penis in a pink box as though a 12 year brother and sister team had found their way into an excess of dough and carboard... while our rents were tripling and the price of our coffee went from $.35 at Quality Pie to $4.25 everywhere... there was something good happening and I think we just didn't notice. People that we want to move here were moving here. People that could bring us more than vegetarian pizza and hippy sandwiches with tea leaves and sunflowers in them were streaming into the area. While our best restaurants were being ripped down to promote progress and the rest of them were being bought by restaurant conglomerates who would perfect a process that was best for their bottom line but not their chef's creations, there were people moving here from all over the world. They settled in and drove all the californians around or cut their damn shrubs or mowed their lawns or served them burgers or whatever they had to do... and some of those people saved their money and they opened up stores and restaurants that serve the people that would never stand in those stupid ass lines for some $6 cup of ice cream. Those people eat at Red Robin and Olive Garden and that disgusting cheesecake place that has pooped up all over the world. Instead they opened up restaurants that would serve the people that we actually want here. On three corners of this intersection, there is a Peruvian restaurant, an Iraqi bakery, a Mexican super mercado with a bakery and "deli" inside, a real cantina around the corner. There it is.... the barter that has been executed on us for the growth we have endured. On this day I am headed to Lima... the Peruvian restaurant on the SW corner of this junction. I am greeted by a lovely woman who brings me two sauces - one very green and one beautifully orange. She brings nothing else... just sauces. I order a Peruvian beer and ask, "what am I supposed to do with these sauces?". She looks at me as though I had just asked how to drink a glass of water and responded with "you put it on bread, on rice... you put it on everything!" And then she brought me bread... she pointed to her favorite dishes on the extensive menu and taking her advice, I ordered the Arroz Con Mariscos (Peruvian Paella). Holy Balls of Satan!! It was beautiful in every way. The seafood was fresh. The shrimp, the squid, the mussels, the clams, the octopus, everything was cooked perfectly. I will definitely be here again and again. I want to eat every single thing they make. I want to go to every one of these establishments on this corner and spend every penny I make thanking them for moving to our city... I want to apologize that they had to move to Beaverton because the 23 year old trust fund kids and the 28 year old San Francisco start up jerks drove the price of homes up so high that our city center is becoming the burbs and our burbs are becoming the cultural center of our city. That's what's happening. I am going to try to stop fighting it and I am going to embrace it. I will eat at the restaurants on the outskirts of town.. .where the food is good and well-deserved profit from making good food goes to families and not corporations! Thank you Lima! read more