Bijou Cafe
503.222.3187
132 SW 3rd Ave
Portland, 97204

The least enjoyed visit of the year.

First it appeared to be a long wait with at leaf 10 others ahead of us so we put our name on the list and walked over to Blue Star for a appetizer donut but in the 30 minutes we were gone they blew through all those waiting and we ended up having to sign back in (okay our fault for wandering off). Even after signing back up it was another 30 minutes with only 4 others ahead of us so we lingered out front and talked about dogs & balloons. When we were finally seated we had already had plenty of time to look over the menu and make out selections so when our waitress arrived to take our drink orders we were more than ready to also give us our meal selections. It seemed to throw her off that we wanted to order our meal immediately and she had to ask twice what we had originally requested for our drinks. 5 minutes after walking away from our table she came back and asked a third time what we had requested to drink. Okay I figured we interrupted her flow and it was pretty busy but she was writing things down or at least holding a pad that she could have written down what we wanted. 10 minutes came and went and two other tables that sat down after us started having their meals arrive. I figured ours would be out any minute but another 10 minutes elapsed before our two plates finally came along and this was only a few minutes after our latte & cider showed up. Fine I thought a little slow on the service but a decent meal can easily cancel out “laggy” delivery. Well the biscuits and gravy I ordered were not horrible but they really didn’t help me forget just how long it took to get them. And the highly regarded muffins that foursquare said we should not miss really were only so/so. Carly’s roast beef hash had all the pieces to make it a meal but it was really rather bland and I found myself dreaming of the biscuit breakfast from James John Cafe or Tasty & Alder which still rank among the best tasting I’ve had. Slow service and an only “okay” meal made this one of the lesser of our 48 visits this year.

GALLERY