NIGHT ON EARTH

[January 9th, 2008]

I gotta admit, I thought I was really slumming it by visiting The Orient (1025 NE Broadway, 282-5811), that faded landmark of old, pre-condo Portland. I’d seen a few questionable-looking characters coming and going on weekday afternoons, I’d seen the seldom-updated dry-erase specials board from the sidewalk, and I inherently knew that a scummy fishtank lay just beyond the front door (true). I figured the bar itself would be pretty Jim Jarmusch: fat rolls, chain-smoking and bad tattoos. I wouldn’t call the real thing a disappointment, exactly: There were some reassuringly classless elements—drink prices written directly on liquor bottles with a Sharpie, taped leather bar lining, boxes of restaurant supplies stacked in a corner. But the Orient is huge on character; comfortable like an old college couch that you can’t throw out. And the rich and spicy pan-fried orange chicken was so good I almost cried. The bartender shared early-’90s TV memories over the new American Gladiators and didn’t skip a beat on refilling drinks. Granted, this was a Sunday night, but I didn’t witness one schizophrenic diatribe, either. My fortune cookie read: “You will find your horizons suddenly broadened.” True.