Welcome to the first edition of Portland Men’s Journal. We've teamed with HairM to capture the best that Portland has to offer from the perspective of savvy men who appreciate the finer things in life and in their city. We’ll continually strive to bring you the newest and most incisive suggestions in the way of eating, drinking and fashion. You’ll see seasonal and topical suggestions on some great gear as well as a monthly calendar of hot events, sales and discounts for our readers. From fashion and grooming, to financial and beyond, we’ll try to round out the pages with tips from the experts in our “Advice Column”. We hope you’ll enjoy reading and we encourage you to provide us with suggestions on what you’d like to see less and/or more of. Help us kick things off by forwarding this issue to ten friends and cc’ing us at PortlandMensJournal@gmail.com for a chance to win an Emperor’s Cut at HairM.

Circa 33

“Do not worship false idols”, our (Catholic-guilt induced) inner monologue keeps repeating as we stare at the library-style bar at Southeast’s newest haunt, Circa 33. It’s no wonder, either, because it looks like an altar to the gods of distillation. Beautiful and decadent, it’s what we imagine would be in the Vatican if they ever installed a bar in the rectory.

We’ve come to expect nothing less from the gents that gave us North 45 and who’ve revamped downtown mainstay, Paddy’s. Named for the year prohibition ended, this gem on 33rd & Belmont keeps its focus squarely on cocktails. Dialing in the old world recipes and mixing up new concoctions, they truly fire on all cylinders.

They nail both the ambiance and food as well (Salisbury steak and a brunch menu, anyone?). With this skill level in the cocktail department and an atmosphere that is really tough to replicate in this quadrant of Portland, you can bet that we’ll be pitching this as a pre-dinner drink destination with absolute confidence that we’ll be staying on well after the intended round.

Gruner

We have always marveled at the lack of German cuisine in Portland. For having such an extensive population of folks who trace their roots to the Fatherland, the choices have always seemed pretty staid; sausage and kraut and not too many options for even that. So we were both excited and intrigued to try purveyors of “Alpine Cuisine”, Gruner. We pretty much spent the week online looking at the menu (impressive on its own merits) in anticipation. We weren’t disappointed. Their salads exceeded our expectations by leaps and bounds. The rest of our party picked entrées we knew we’d be able to try, which freed us up to go ahead and order (wait for it) the sausage platter. After all, we needed something standard to better judge it against other restaurants.

Let’s just say that in absolutely every category, they transcended their competition. The environs are date-night worthy, the food inventive and delicious and our understanding of anything approaching “German” fare was transformed forever.

 Little Big Burger

If you don’t know who Micah Camden is, you’re probably not a foodie. The force behind nationally recognized Portland favorites like Beast, DOC and Yakuza, the man single-handedly reinvented NE 30th & Killingsworth while influencing the food scene in this town in profound ways. So when we heard his latest endeavor was to be opened in the Pearl, we wondered what kind of exotic cuisine he would tackle this time. The unexpected answer? Burgers & Fries.

Every burger at Little Big Burger is made with Cascade Natural beef, brioche buns, local cheeses, organic veggies and Camden’s own catsup. They round out the very limited menu with floats (root beer or Guiness). The results? Literally everything we put in our mouth (and we basically sampled the entire menu) sang to us.

Of course, with all these top-notch ingredients and its location being squarely in the Pearl District, we were prepared to pay a hefty sum only to be pleasantly surprised (nay, blown away) that nothing on the menu exceeds $3.75. Look for a Northeast location in the new year.

Cold Weather Essentials

If you’re anything like us, you won’t get past January without needing a little warm weather fix/golf getaway to Scottsdale or Vegas. It never ceases to amaze us, however, the depths of awful our game sinks to in the few months of not getting to the course. That’s why we highly recommend an indoor trainer to keep your game sharp until you can get away for the real thing.

The salad days of summer are over...rendering that warm-weather playlist on your ipod obsolete until June. The upshot? You have plenty of indoor time to rediscover the unbeatable, linear sound quality of vinyl. The other upshot? Rainy days spent in record stores finding that perfect LP. There are great options out there nowadays, from the aesthetically pleasing units, to ones that’ll allow you to record from album to iPod.

Two things we love about hanging with the boys? Getting out and trying new bars and staying in to play poker. We’ve managed to find an item that combines the two. Originally available in Chicago, Drink Deck for Portland is a full deck of playing cards with a $10 coupon to a different bar attached to each one. This genius product is available for preorder now. For PMJ readers, enter “journal” for $5 off.